The oft-ignored 2.6L g54b, separate but equal?

[strang3majik]

The nitride hardened crank is wayyyy overkill. The stock n/a crank is fine.

But the turbo engine has a different oil pump and the pickup is in a completely different place and the turbo has oil squirters. As far as I know...even the pistons and rods are all the same...

7:1 compression explains their gutlessness.

[Vigo]

Well im not against having better parts but i am against paying for them.. if it aint broke, dont fix it. If im gonna do anything interesting it would be stuff like bolting a turbo to the stock manifold, adapting the 2.5 and 2.6 distributors, building a fuel rail and drilling the stock manifold for injectors, etc.

[Force Fed Mopar]

No offense.... but it sounds like a waste of time to me

[Vigo]

Doing ANOTHER turbo 8v would be a waste of time to me at this point. I still have 5, 3 of which i plan to keep. Ive had a lot of k-cars and id rather do different stuff motor wise with all the ones i get from now on. Im also trying to figure out a carb 8v build for my caged omni rally car. So far all i have for that is some HIGH compression pistons and a 2.5 tall block and stock carb manifolds.. between that and my built VNT setup for the limo and my fairly conventional aries build and my spirit im thinking about putting an upgraded mitsu back on (that will make it mitsu, garrett, mitsu, garrett, mitsu, in that order..), i dont need any more 8v projects and sure as hell not any boring ones. lol

[strang3majik]

Well im not against having better parts but i am against paying for them.. if it aint broke, dont fix it. If im gonna do anything interesting it would be stuff like bolting a turbo to the stock manifold, adapting the 2.5 and 2.6 distributors, building a fuel rail and drilling the stock manifold for injectors, etc.

I meant to say...if a 360 can put out 500-600hp reliably on the stock cast crank...a 2.6 will be just fine on a non-hardened forged cranked.

Also, once a crank is .20 under the hardening is gone anyway.......not many good turbo cranks out there anymore. Most out there boasting about their hardened cranks are running .20 under turbo cranks that the hardening has been compromised on......and no problems that I've heard.

[Vigo]

Yeah, i gotta admit i dont really see the NEED of surface hardening when the bearing material is so much softer anyway. It might keep metal debris your engine shouldnt be making from scratching the crank when it goes across it, but honestly if your engine is working anyway i dont see how it helps.

[RoadWarrior222]

You make an excellent point sir.

(Scurries away to make a babbit hardening formula to sell to the ricer kiddies..... it makes a plumbum telluride nanotech aerogel ceramic monocrystal at a quantum level with enhanced higgs field. )

[Rrider]

it makes a plumbum telluride nanotech aerogel ceramic monocrystal at a quantum level with enhanced higgs field.

Sounds good I'll take one.

[turbovanman²]

So i picked up a RUNNING 2.6L carb car (82 lebaron mark cross convertible) and this is the first time ive actually DRIVEN the old carb 2.6.

Impressions:

SMOOTH. This thing is way smoother and quieter than most of the 2.2s and 2.5s ive had. Im kind of shocked.

Gutless. It feels WAY weaker than a 2.5 tbi, but it could be something as simple as carb tuning, ignition timing, or a combination of such things. It's rated same or better than a 2.5 tbi and ive owned and driven a lot of those. This feels 'off' from that. Ive dropped 1.3 seconds in the 1/4 mile in a 2.5 tbi by adjusting what was already there (not really mods) and the same might be true here.

Anyway, having a running one that doesnt need an engine teardown BEFORE i can even try turbo stuff has rekindled my interest a little bit.

I guess the easy thing to do is grab a starion intake/tb setup and run it with SMEC once i finish the hybrid distributor.

They are smooth but wait until the balance shaft chain breaks or you do the chain delete, they get very rough,

The carbs loved to get messed up and then people who had no clue tried to fix them, arggg, but if working correctly, they moved along quite well. I bought a 2.6 Minivan years ago to flip and drove it for a few months, got stupidly good MPG and moved along nicely after I fixed the lean running carb.

I bought an old Car and Driver at the flea market yesterday with some car tests from the mid 80's, had the GLH in there as well as a mid size car comparo with the 2.6 turbo, I'll post up the specs tonight.

[Vigo]

Yeah, id like to see pics of that.

[RoadWarrior222]

or tell me what month and year, I might have it, got some from that era

[strang3majik]

I've never noticed any loss in smoothness from the balance shaft elimination. They have like a 200rpm point where they shake a tad, but past that, its unoticeable, especially in normal driving.


They can be great engines, but, after all the issues I just had trying to rebuild my last one, I have a bit of hatred. Brand new rebuilt engine, primed oil pump, filter filled with gear oil and backfed to the pump...engine would not build oil pressure or move any oil at all. :/

Because of that I gave up on 2.6s. A lot of money in that engine, sold the thing off to someone who actually cared to tear it back apart.

[turbovanman²]

I've never noticed any loss in smoothness from the balance shaft elimination. They have like a 200rpm point where they shake a tad, but past that, its unoticeable, especially in normal driving.


.

Everybody is different, lol. Look at 2.5's, without BS's, they drive me nuts, I notice everything vibrate and can hear the exhaust or engine drone/boom but others couldn't care less,

[Force Fed Mopar]

I've never noticed any loss in smoothness from the balance shaft elimination. They have like a 200rpm point where they shake a tad, but past that, its unoticeable, especially in normal driving.


They can be great engines, but, after all the issues I just had trying to rebuild my last one, I have a bit of hatred. Brand new rebuilt engine, primed oil pump, filter filled with gear oil and backfed to the pump...engine would not build oil pressure or move any oil at all. :/

Because of that I gave up on 2.6s. A lot of money in that engine, sold the thing off to someone who actually cared to tear it back apart.

Odd, I rebuilt the engine in mine and had no oiling problems, didn't even prime it lol. Runs like a champ.

[tsiconquest88]

Yea its something i heard alot. I never experienced it in the 2.6's i built for myself or others. i do agree bs elimination of the 2.6 doesnt affect it much But if the whole engine assembly is professionally balanced with clutch/pressure plate/flywhel being used helps alot more in an engine that wil seein sein a good amount of power and or being revd out.

[strang3majik]

Odd, I rebuilt the engine in mine and had no oiling problems, didn't even prime it lol. Runs like a champ.

I think the oil pump took a crap on me. Idk. I wasn't about to throw $150 worth of gaskets in the trash to take it apart and look for a problem and go buy them all again :/

[Vigo]

Found my own thread while googling 4g63 stuff.

2 years later my 2.6 Lebaron still runs the same. Some of the chain guide fell apart at some point (maybe before i got the car, its made intermittent chain noise basically since i got it) and i finally had to 'repair' it recently because i wore a small hole through the oil pan and had to take it off to weld it (due to extreme lowering). While i had the pan off i took the #1 main cap off and snaked out a couple chunks of chain tensioner and then put it all back together. I figure i'll fix it for real when i take it out.

Why take it out? Why rub holes in the oil pan? Well, i decided i cant just turbo the 2.6 in my Lebaron because i want to lower the Lebaron even more than it already has been, and unfortunately the 2.6 rubs both the pavement and the hood. It's a tall engine. It's kind of huge on the outside compared to the dodge 2.2/2.5 and it isnt reclined at an angle like the dodge, so it's effectively quite a bit taller from top to bottom when installed in the car.

Rough measurements suggest i can swap in the dodge engine and then raise the whole drivetrain about 2-3" before running into hood issues again. At that point i will put the 2.6 with new timing chain/guides into my executive sedan which has been sitting dormant almost since the day i got it.

I bought an 87 2dr Montero with a 2.6 recently. I want to take it to Colorado and Utah to off-road but it doesn't even have enough power to spin 1 tire on dry pavement at sea level, so i'd like to turbo it. I already had the starion turbo manifold from back when i first started thinking about a turbo 2.6 k-car, but recenlty i also bought a starion intake manifold and throttle body. I still have the disassembled dodge and mitsu distributors and i've been back to thinking about modding the mitsu distributor to run the dodge shutter wheel and HEP and run an SMEC off it (i have a lot of SMECs and cut harnesses sitting around) to drive two injectors in the starion TBI. I just talked to Strax22 about using some equipment at his place of employment to make the necessary precise cuts to line it all up. Maybe it will happen before i die! But that's for the Montero.

A more k-car-related thing i've considered is a 4g63 swap in the lebaron, assuming it is 'shorter' than the 2.6. I got an n/a 4g63 with no compression (and an ecu and important parts of the harness) to do measurements/mock-up with but havent done anything other than put it on the ground and look at it yet and havent figured out whether it's shorter or not. That's really a topic for another thread.