The Holset he341 3.0L

[Vigo]

but if I would have thought about it for more than 2 seconds I would have noticed all the pics weren't of a Duster at all.

Hah, it never even occurred to me that you were thinking about the Duster. Now i understand Brent's reply.. The whoosh of context clues flying over my head..

[shayne]

what brand or model of rrfpr are you running? i was looking at begi's website and it looks to me like there are two main types, one that adjusts fuel pressure up past what the stock reg will do when boost is applied (while being stuck with the factories fuel pressure setting prior to boost?) and the other model seems to replace the stock regulator altogether so one can set base pressure at idle either lower or ? (for larger injectors i would think) and the second function of it applies more fuel pressure as boost comes in just like the prior example. are we able to reset the fuel pressure on a stock regulator to accomodate bigger injectors, or would the computer just try to reduce the injector pulse width to counteract a overly rich condition?

[Ondonti]

I don't know how but my new front main seal went inside out in one spot, popped the spring out, and failed. When I went to the backyard to start looking for the rattle noise, I saw a trail of tears on the driveway...
I took apart the oil pump thinking it had fragged and pushed out the seal. Oil pump was fine. Put a little washer in the oil pump relief valve to give it more preload and cleaned out the pan. My guess is that either I didn't have the seal deep enough into the oil pump because I know i didn't back it in as far as it will go, or that it folded over when I installed it and started leaking when the spring popped loose.
Since the pan was off I pulled off rod cap #4 to check out the bearings. Looks perfect. Nice to have some good news :P

Nothing was obviously wrong from the rear valve cover, rockers seemed fine.

[Vigo]

So you have had the rear off but not the front?

Crank seal, what a pain. Its annoying when little stuff like that comes up.

[Ondonti]

Found nothing obviously wrong with both front or rear rockers. I did find a mark on my valve cover that lines up with a rocker. I don't know if its from a rocker or if its just a tool mark from when I modified the valve covers for breathers. It had a polished look compared to the cutter tool marks that I can see. I couldnt see any damage on the threaded end of the rocker so that has me uncertain. I just pounded the spot back a bit in case it was hitting.

Now going to have to botton her back up.

Oh a turd note, I cut my downpipe at the point where it goes 3" and then clamped it down on both ends so it would stretch (didn't cut in one spot where I knew I didn't need clearance) into the position it needs to be so the V band will seal properly and managed to run out of C25 shielding gas and after all the chopping and rewelding...and then me being pissed and still welding with no gas....well it sorta seals up lol. I have a 10# roll of flux wire but its in storage and I was too stubborn. Spend 5 hours doing a 1 hour job with the wrong tools. yay!
I guess the good news is that the v band lines up now.
Now I am really wanting that Hobart Handler, and some bigger guage extension cord. My HF welder welds fine when everything is cool, but its poor consistency means its hard for me to figure out what is the problem when its not welding right. I thought it was a poor ground but it ended up being the billion feet of 14 gauge extension cord. Then when i finally got things right, I had already ground and rewelded a billion times and ran out the gas. The warmer weather is also changing how the potentiometer in the wire feed speed is doing. Removing about 25 feet of cord took me from unable to maintain and arc to melting the stupid pipe. Its so hard to know if its your settings or just a bad day for the welder. It would be easier if I checklisted all the potential man made problems but I have not thought of that before :P

[RoadWarrior222]

Yah, I can't run my compressor very far from the socket, and knowing that, I haven't even fired up the stick welder I've got yet. Not wanting to spend $$$ on an extension, I'm thinking of ganging 3 cheapies together.

I wonder if you would have got on better if you could have had the motor running, thinking the exhaust gas would help shield, but then if there was much pressure behind it, burning globs of metal splattered in your face isn't fun.

[Ondonti]

Well with just the purpose of buying a tiny T-6 torx bit for my crappy cell phone, I grabbed two 25ft 12 gauge extention cords ($15 each) and a heavy duty grounding clamp. Now I just need a little more flexible heavy gauge wire to extend my grounding wire a bit. I guess lots of short cords is better then 1 long one because then I don't need to use excess cord when unneeded. I might need more then 50 ft but they only had 2 rolls.

Now I somehow gotta motivate myselt to clean up the timing belt and side of the engine of all that oil and put it back together. yick + boring work.

[Vigo]

Beware ribbon cables in the phone. I tried to fix my last phone and had one part propped up while i worked on the other. It fell over and that was enough force to tear the ribbon cable. Really annoying. I was just trying to get some transmission fluid out of the microphone foam!!

[RoadWarrior222]

Scotch tape + defogger repair paint + infinite patience and scratching with an Xacto..... fixes ripped ribbon cables.

[shayne]

updates?

[Ondonti]

My OEM style Wideband guage and then an OEM boost gauge I have had sitting around forever that came in a box with the duster and its failed t2 swap by previous owner.
Now I know that its not getting enough fuel n/a. 15+:1 AFR. yuck. Going to have to mess with the base fuel pressure. The zero psi wastegate spring seems to work decently according to the boost gauge. Maybe when the fuel correct it might creep and build a little boost in the high rpms since the turbine is much smaller then I am used to.

Then my attempt to seal the v band without having a real Holset clamp. Its leaking like crazy and I think its because the flange on the turbine housing is not quite thick enough for the clamp to completely bring them together. Too late to test it. The exhaust leak is really ruining things for me. I also need to take out the crappy HID lights because the ballasts are pretty much toast now.

[Ondonti]

LOL @ my fail. The harbor frieght welder would NOT weld when I was trying to reangle the downpipe near the V band but when I did weld the V band days before, it did manage to warp the Flange. The welder was working VERY well on that weld, better then I have ever seen it work. Stupid Chinese welder.

Going to take it off and see what I can do to get it flat. Belt sander I hope.
Apparently the right way to weld one is to tack tack tack tack like you are tightening lug nuts.

I started the car with the downpipe disconnected from the exhaust to see if I could get the vband to seal at all. Holy loud. Sounds like the Duster.

[Ondonti]

Belt sander just wasn't working, even with 40 grit. Used a 40 grit rotary sander and just held it there forever. Now its pretty darn flat. It was VERY warped before. It was just contacting at 2 small points before so I had no seal at all. Used some copper gasket maker but I think I am too antsy to wait for it to cure :P

[Ondonti]

Seals a lot better then before but I had to disconnect the downpipe from the exhaust and thats not an okay thing for daily driving or cops or headaches.
I think I am going to take it to the original shop that installed the exhaust in 2002 to have them fix that area. The exhaust is still too short to hook up correctly to the exhaust and not quite the correct angle.

To make the v band seal properly I had to tighten, then push back and forth on the downpipe to make the v band flanges rotate against each other, retighten, and repeat. I really hope this can get quiet.

[RoadWarrior222]

When you're pissed off enough, use aluminum window screen and muffler cement

[Ondonti]

Googled that. I might have to do that. For now I am going to pay someone to fix the gap between my downpipe and the exhaust. Being forced to work 66 hours this week so I don't have time to mess around. The V band deal will be my issue to fix but i need an exhaust that is not constantly tweaking.

I have no flex joints in my exhaust and I have decided I won't install one unless something breaks :P

[bond_bbs]

Do you run a flex joint for the crossover pipe? Not sure how your turbo is ran in this, is it crossover mounted or is it rear mounted?

Edit: I looked through the pics again and noticed its crossover mount. Question still stands if you run a flex joint on the crossover pipe?

[Ondonti]

There are flexes in the manifold but the actual turbo flange is solidly mounted through the trans bolts.

The Exhaust shop is being difficult so I am going to another shop. I had someone else call for me because I am not normally awake during a time when I can call and have to run off to work when I wake up...and the person on the phone was saying something about 2" pipe and catalytic converters. Nothing that is on my car.

[Vigo]

Ive noticed exhaust shops dont like to do things in the engine bay if they can avoid it. Get that hard money job outta the shop and make room for some easy money why dont you..

[Ondonti]

Hah, so they put my car right on the lift and then other employees popped the hood and started taking pictures. I didn't go inside so I just sat there annoyed. I didn't get a call back while at work so I hope it gets done. At least the wastegate spring = zero boost so no fun joyrides.

The car is really a turd with no boost because it can't get enough fuel no matter how much I dial in. Still messing with it but I think I am at a dead end and might have to put a 0.4 bar spring in so it will run decently.
I think the problem is that even at zero psi the turbo is pushing more air then I have fuel at "zero"ish psi and the regulator doesn't want to react until it goes above zero. I am not really sure. That sounds fishy. I am running 42psi base pressure with 30# injectors and can still not get lower then 14:1 AFR unless the turbo creeps up above zero psi at high rpms.

Well, thinking about it, those nasty cams probably move so much more air then the ECU can deal with so "zero" psi is really a whole new ballgame. I never had to deal with this before.
I can see that a huge cam in a 3.0 would perform poorly without a tune since it seems to jack up the tune so much. I need to make sure I change the fuel filter. I have not installed the in tank walbro from the Duster yet (Duster has a fuel cell now). I am worried about those fasteners that hold the tank straps because the ones on the duster broke when I loosened them. I don't want that to happen with the Spirit.