'04 SRT-4 engine in an '88 Caravan build

[A.J.]

I offered to take you to lunch at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, maybe you didn't hear me offer that. Regardless, that salad you had I'm sure was just as good as the steak and tails! Thanks again for the ride to the airport. The rest of the conversation listed above is AJ mis-remembering. I would never call what he did with the Jeep work. hahaha JUST KIDDING!!

Ruth's Chris?!?! Really?!?! You wanted to stop at a taco stand. I barely got you to agree to Logan's Roadhouse. How can you consider what I did to the Jeep "not work?" You of all people should recognize anything above what you do (which would be any movement at all, especially if a tool is picked up) as work. When your girlfriend picked up her Jeep she thanked me for, and I quote, "Taking care of my Jeep AND (my emphasis) my boyfriend."

Okay, enough with the distractions, back to SRT-4 Caravan awesomeness. I installed a 136 amp alternator on the van today. When I bought my '94 Dakota, I had to put an engine in it. I bought a 5.9L out of a '98 Dodge Ram off of Craig's list. The guy delivered it to my shop and it came with a 136 amp alternator. I took the alternator off and put it on the alternator bracket on my 2.4 N/A Caravan bracket and IT FIT! I tried finding one in a junk yard, plenty of 120's but no 136's. So I finally got around to buying one ($125 NEW no core required) and installed it today. I had a 120 amp on my 2.5 but the 90 amp I was running on the 2.4 couldn't handle my all my accessories without my "check gauges" light flashing. All I had to do was swap the pulley.

[turbovanman²]

You guys need a room, sheesh!

Are you monitoring IAT temps? How about the A/W water temp to see if that unit is actually doing its job?

[A.J.]

You guys need a room, sheesh!

If you were PROMISED steak and lobster and got a chicken salad I'm sure you'd put up a fuss too.

Are you monitoring IAT temps? How about the A/W water temp to see if that unit is actually doing its job?

I have three temperature sensors. One before the throttle body for MegaSquirt and then one before and one after the intercooler for a gauge. When I finally get my van tuned, I'll drive it with and without the AC and monitor my gauge to see if I can get below ambient air temps. The lowest I've gotten my intake air is 15*F above ambient.

[A.J.]

I got my new Tial bov.


Some sexy ---- right there.


So my van was running like crap. I barely made it home and back to work. It was so bad I didn't think I'd be able to make it to Scottsdale and the Pavilions for the car show this Saturday. At idle it would be in the 9's and I pulled all the fuel out I could. By the good graces of God I stumbled across "Barometric Correction" and the gauge was red. Red means bad. I did some reading and two tables are suppose to be at zero and one was at 147 and the other at 5. I set them to zero and the van died. I had to slowly back 10 out of 147 a little at a time so I could add fuel to keep it running. Now everything is running great. I drove it around a little on self tune. I had to pull over to add some fuel in some places because it would have taken too long to get there. I had it up to 10 lbs of boost. It runs sooooo good. Harry is coming by tonight to drive it so I can tune.

[Vigo]

Sweet!

[A.J.]

Ya so it wasn't running as good as I thought. Well it was but it wasn't. It's confusing and some of it I don't even understand so I don't want to try and explain it but one problem as it was "selected," not by me, on fixed timing (basically the timing mode, like unplugging the coolant temp sensor on a typical FWD Chrysler). With that resolved now I have two other problems I currently can't resolve. At this point, if I get my van to the track this winter I'll be very surprised. So that's going to set me back next summer because I wanted to do the 41TE/MegaShift experiment. If I barely get this back on the road I'm not laying it up again right away. I have a couple of friends with a friend down in Tucson that's experienced with MegaSquirt that I've been texting with back and forth. I'm going to see if I load it up on my tow dolly and drag it down there if he's willing to spend some time helping me with it. Right now if someone was to ask me if they should go to MS I'd ask, "Does your car currently run?" If they answer, "Yes" I'd respond, "Leave it the F alone." I'm sure once I get this running right I'll be like, "This is the greatest thing ever" like I was with my AWIC trying to figure out the damn water pump. At first I was ready to set it on fire and now I'd never install an air to air ever again.

On a more positive note I've got some other stuff done.

My voltage regulator for what ever reason needs occasional adjusting and it's a pain to unbolt it because it needs a ground to work so I need to hook up a jumper wire to it while the van is running. So I rigged it up to a hinge so it's easier to adjust.




I also installed an EGT as a warning indicator. I'm not using it to tune, I have a wideband for that. But if I'm doing something wrong I'd like a little warning. AGP says the manifold is thick enough in the runners to mount it there but they don't like to incase it was to break. The diesel shop next to me says they've never had a problem with them in the manifold and have seen a 200*-300* discrepancy between the manifold and the down pipe. So because I'm lazy I put it in the down pipe. I can always move it later if need be. I did manage to two-foot it around the block and it got up to 1100*.




Unfortunately when I was under the van removing the down pipe so I could weld the sensor bung in it, I noticed two cracks in my firewall. So I need to remove the engine and the heater/AC box to weld it up and then weld in braces to keep that from happing again. I also should probably get a strut tower brace too. Will one work from a car and if not who sells them for my mini-van?

[2.216VTurbo]

Strut tower brace? Dude, you know you're just gonna make your own anyway With your set up it should be plenty easy to carry the third point to the firewall

[A.J.]

Strut tower brace? Dude, you know you're just gonna make your own anyway With your set up it should be plenty easy to carry the third point to the firewall

Right now my engine compartment is a work of art that gives me a chubby every time I walk past it when it's parked in my shop with the hood open.....




which makes it even more frustrating that I can't drive it because there are throngs of people out there being denied the opportunity to behold such a masterpiece. So with that being said, I don't want to contaminate my engine bay with a strut tower brace that looks like crap. The reason I say that is because the last one I made wasn't very appealing to look at but that was over ten years ago and my fabricating skills have grown by leaps and bounds sine then. But now that you put the idea in my head about a third attaching point to the fire wall has me reconsidering making my own.

[AzShadow]

Email me your .msq file. Also, if you took any data logs (.msl) files send one over as well.

[A.J.]

Email me your .msq file. Also, if you took any data logs (.msl) files send one over as well.

I need your e-mail. I have an old data log I can send you. When do you want to come out to Mesa and look at this?

One of the things that drives me nuts is that the TunerStudio manual isn't any better than the info/help you get in TS. For example under "Basic/load settings" and "Engine and Sequential Settings" under "Injector Staging" my choices are "Simultaneous" or "Alternating" and if I choose "Simultaneous" I can then choose 1 or 2 squirts per engine cycle but under "Alternating" I can only choose 2 squirts per engine cycle. Under Help in TS for "Injector Staging" it says, "Sets injector staging in non-sequential modes. For sequential set 2 squirts/alternating or 1 squirt for squirt/simultaneous." Well I'm running sequential but I don't understand which is better or why so I look it up in the manual and it says the same F'ing thing! I don't want to get on the MS forum and ask these questions and have someone say, "Read the manual" 'cause at that point I'm liable to choke a b!tch. I want to read and learn but the information isn't there.

[A.J.]

So Alan got me thinking, as if I don't have a hard enough time sleeping at night with my brain going a million miles an hour. Just kicking around ideas:


And if I need more support:


All opinions are welcome because I have no idea where support is needed or not needed and have no information to back up any science behind strut tower braces. The only thing I do know is that I'm limited to where I can attach it to the firewall so I'm kind of suck with that but as far as attaching it to the upper radiator support, I just need to get around my BOV.

[GLHNSLHT2]

Attaching it to the upper rad support isn't going to do you any good, it's there to hold the rad and upper fenders and that's about it. Brace across the strut towers and triangulated into the firewall and that's it.

Now for lower support. Beefing up the lower rad support all the way across the front and back works because it ties into the motor mount and the front frame rails. Also a bar that ties the to front pivots of the kframe helps a lot. Would be nice if Johnny could make up a sway bar type thing that would go across those 2 points from the drivers side with a slight bend down just enough to clear the 520+ diff then back up to go straight across for the passenger side like this if you're looking at the front of the car o------------\__/----o

[Reaper1]

When a friend of mine built a K-frame brace like that years ago I don't remember it needing a clearance bend. It was on a '91 Daytona C/S 5-speed car. It was made of something like 1" black pipe stock.

[A.J.]

So I thought about it and I know how I'm going to build the strut tower brace. Now I need to figure out either to use 3/4"-1" square or round metal tubing. Square would be better as far as construction goes because round tubing I'll have to fit brackets and such to a round contour where with square there's no contour, it's flat. But I think round would look better though.

[contraption22]

I wish I'd updated myself on your project before I ordered my MSIII this morning. Now I am frightened.

[A.J.]

I wish I'd updated myself on your project before I ordered my MSIII this morning. Now I am frightened.

I wouldn't be too worried about it. It's just going to take time. I just thought it would have been quicker to get it up and running. I guess I should have over-budgeted time like I do when financially planning a project. 2-3 times longer/more expensive then planned.

Did you also get MS3X v3.57? Knock module? 4 bar map and baro sensor?

[contraption22]

I did get the ms3x. I did not get the knock module, but did get the 4bar map daddy

[A.J.]

Cool. Let's take this conversation to the thread you started because I have some other questions for you about your plans.

[AzShadow]

I wish I'd updated myself on your project before I ordered my MSIII this morning. Now I am frightened.

ah don't be scared! its just a headache in the beginning....

[A.J.]

I started my strut tower brace. I cut the tops out of a dismantled FWD Chrysler a while ago. That's what I'm using for the the base that'll attach to the strut towers. I ordered some heim joints from Grainger for connecting points and they'll be in on Wednesday.

Cut out.


Trimmed and cleaned up.