My Evolution Ralliart
Sep 16, 2016, 12:20 PM
#1
My Evolution Ralliart
Hey guys,
Wanted to post a build that I am just in the beginning stages of. It will be kind of slow as i am still collecting parts and looking for the time to do different mods. But here is the TL;DR version of the story I am about to tell.
My Evo IX is getting the heart of an RA.
So a month ago today I was heading into work. This was my second day at Haltech USA. Luckily I left a bit early that day. I was almost halfway to work when catastrophe struck. The car started spitting, backfiring, rattling and making a god awful sound. I let off the gas and the engine cut off. I coasted down the hill and luckily into my Aunt's driveway. The car wouldnt start. Great. My aunt let me borrow a truck to get to work. And over the course of the next week I tried diagnosing the car to see what had happened.
What I found cause me a lot of heartache, and to top it off it was something I felt should have been addressed last winter when i was rebuilding the head because of a bad valve seat. I noticed back then that for some reason my Evo 9 had Evo 8 pistons in it... Questionable? Totally. Did I do anything about it? No. That may have turned around and bit me in butt.
I searched everything up top that I could. Because I got the car to run but it rattled real bad above 2000rpm. I removed the valve cover and I believe some of the noise was from bad lifters. But I had a bad feeling so I kept searching. Decided to drain the oil.
Oh crap... Thats not good. Time to drop the oil pan.
Great bearing material everywhere... I now spend several hours in neglect, self loathing, deep dark depression, cries for help to my dad, grandpa, and jorge. Finally I pick myself up off the floor and break the news to my wife. She wasnt very happy needless to say.
So at this point I started kicking around ways to get this rebuilt as quickly as possible. Do I rip it apart and rebuild it all? Do I just buy a new engine? Then it dawned on me. I already had an engine setting in the back of my garage almost totally stripped down just waiting to be rebuilt.
Enter my old rusty 4g69 block from the tear down thread I made.
I flip this thing over, rip the cradle and main cap off. Proceed to disconnect all the rods from the crank and pull it out. Then dropped all the pistons out. I sent the empty rust block off to a machine shop to get blasted, cleaned, and honed. And here she is:
So where do I go from here? I spoke with Manley and they are going to work with me and get me a set of rods and pistons for the engine. Then its back to the machine shop to get the crank checked, and have the clearances measured for ACL bearings, then to have the bottom end assembled. After that i will be ordering a ton of factory parts and start transferring parts over from the Evo and onto the Ralliart block.
Im not going too crazy with this build just yet. For now my goal is to build the engine and get it back in the car. Meaning that the car will still be on 670cc injectors, a Walbro 255, and a stock IX turbo. In the long term I plan to install a Haltech ECU, get a more properly sized turbo, bigger injectors, and run the Haltech Flex Fuel system.
And now my very first modification to the car will finally make more sense. From the first day I owned this car I stated how I wanted to put a 4g69 in it. I was planning to pay it off first but fate had other plans. So the Evo Ralliart will be getting done.
PS - Yes I know this is the RA section, not the Evo section. But I started out here, I like the RA guys better, and this car is getting the RA block so :P lol
Wanted to post a build that I am just in the beginning stages of. It will be kind of slow as i am still collecting parts and looking for the time to do different mods. But here is the TL;DR version of the story I am about to tell.
My Evo IX is getting the heart of an RA.
So a month ago today I was heading into work. This was my second day at Haltech USA. Luckily I left a bit early that day. I was almost halfway to work when catastrophe struck. The car started spitting, backfiring, rattling and making a god awful sound. I let off the gas and the engine cut off. I coasted down the hill and luckily into my Aunt's driveway. The car wouldnt start. Great. My aunt let me borrow a truck to get to work. And over the course of the next week I tried diagnosing the car to see what had happened.
What I found cause me a lot of heartache, and to top it off it was something I felt should have been addressed last winter when i was rebuilding the head because of a bad valve seat. I noticed back then that for some reason my Evo 9 had Evo 8 pistons in it... Questionable? Totally. Did I do anything about it? No. That may have turned around and bit me in butt.
I searched everything up top that I could. Because I got the car to run but it rattled real bad above 2000rpm. I removed the valve cover and I believe some of the noise was from bad lifters. But I had a bad feeling so I kept searching. Decided to drain the oil.
Oh crap... Thats not good. Time to drop the oil pan.
Great bearing material everywhere... I now spend several hours in neglect, self loathing, deep dark depression, cries for help to my dad, grandpa, and jorge. Finally I pick myself up off the floor and break the news to my wife. She wasnt very happy needless to say.
So at this point I started kicking around ways to get this rebuilt as quickly as possible. Do I rip it apart and rebuild it all? Do I just buy a new engine? Then it dawned on me. I already had an engine setting in the back of my garage almost totally stripped down just waiting to be rebuilt.
Enter my old rusty 4g69 block from the tear down thread I made.
I flip this thing over, rip the cradle and main cap off. Proceed to disconnect all the rods from the crank and pull it out. Then dropped all the pistons out. I sent the empty rust block off to a machine shop to get blasted, cleaned, and honed. And here she is:
So where do I go from here? I spoke with Manley and they are going to work with me and get me a set of rods and pistons for the engine. Then its back to the machine shop to get the crank checked, and have the clearances measured for ACL bearings, then to have the bottom end assembled. After that i will be ordering a ton of factory parts and start transferring parts over from the Evo and onto the Ralliart block.
Im not going too crazy with this build just yet. For now my goal is to build the engine and get it back in the car. Meaning that the car will still be on 670cc injectors, a Walbro 255, and a stock IX turbo. In the long term I plan to install a Haltech ECU, get a more properly sized turbo, bigger injectors, and run the Haltech Flex Fuel system.
And now my very first modification to the car will finally make more sense. From the first day I owned this car I stated how I wanted to put a 4g69 in it. I was planning to pay it off first but fate had other plans. So the Evo Ralliart will be getting done.
PS - Yes I know this is the RA section, not the Evo section. But I started out here, I like the RA guys better, and this car is getting the RA block so :P lol
Last edited by bakuro117; Sep 16, 2016 at 12:31 PM.
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chowetime (Dec 28, 2016)
Sep 19, 2016, 08:20 AM
#3
Really sorry about the grief you had. Damn, the world is mediocre, eh? Previous owner couldn't do a simple thing right. Well, stuff will be done correctly now 
Strange how the world works. Very glad you're back here sharing this big project with us.
Stay strong my friend
Strange how the world works. Very glad you're back here sharing this big project with us.
Stay strong my friend
Sep 19, 2016, 01:23 PM
#4
Thanks guys.
Ive been shopping around trying to find the best prices on my parts. So far I am down to $1600 for everything I need.
That gets me:
Manley Rods and Pistons
ARP Main studs
GSC zero tick lifters
Gates Racing Belt and Tensioner
EuroExport Cam Alignment Tool
ACL bearings
RRE catch can
OEM gaskets and misc parts
Ive been shopping around trying to find the best prices on my parts. So far I am down to $1600 for everything I need.
That gets me:
Manley Rods and Pistons
ARP Main studs
GSC zero tick lifters
Gates Racing Belt and Tensioner
EuroExport Cam Alignment Tool
ACL bearings
RRE catch can
OEM gaskets and misc parts
Sep 21, 2016, 06:41 AM
#5
Small update.
Cleaned out the Evo yesterday to free it of all my junk. Going to try pulling some stuff from the interior to chase down a leak Ive noticed a few times. Thinking about pulling up part of the carpet to make sure there is no damage/rust. And I need to reinstall the factory shifter. Didnt realize this at the time, but apparently being locked out of gears is a common problem after switching to a short shifter. So I'll be going back to stock with the weighted shift knob.
Also painted the block yesterday!
I heavily considered going like a kawasaki green just for fun.
Cleaned out the Evo yesterday to free it of all my junk. Going to try pulling some stuff from the interior to chase down a leak Ive noticed a few times. Thinking about pulling up part of the carpet to make sure there is no damage/rust. And I need to reinstall the factory shifter. Didnt realize this at the time, but apparently being locked out of gears is a common problem after switching to a short shifter. So I'll be going back to stock with the weighted shift knob.
Also painted the block yesterday!
I heavily considered going like a kawasaki green just for fun.
Sep 26, 2016, 06:30 AM
#7
Thank you very much!
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Small update. Wife and I have been in the process of buying a house. I think we are about to wrap up with the underwriting part. So I should be ordering all the parts for this very soon. As in, hopefully this week. So hopefully I'll have some decent pictures to update with. In the mean time this one will have to do:
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Small update. Wife and I have been in the process of buying a house. I think we are about to wrap up with the underwriting part. So I should be ordering all the parts for this very soon. As in, hopefully this week. So hopefully I'll have some decent pictures to update with. In the mean time this one will have to do:
Trending Topics
Sep 28, 2016, 06:24 AM
#9
LOL I have 3 of those VII's. Yellow, Blue, and Red. Been thinking about paint matching one to my car.
And yea buddy. I was given an IQ3 display dash to put in the Evo. Gunna use my spare RA cluster to make a housing for it. This should be pretty fun!
Also ordered all of my parts yesterday. So hopefully I'll have some pics of all my new bits in a few days.
And yea buddy. I was given an IQ3 display dash to put in the Evo. Gunna use my spare RA cluster to make a housing for it. This should be pretty fun!
Also ordered all of my parts yesterday. So hopefully I'll have some pics of all my new bits in a few days.
Sep 29, 2016, 06:30 AM
#11
Thanks man! Im shopping around as best I can, so hopefully it wont cost me too much. So far everyone I have dealt with has been very helpful.
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Also I am making plans to do a bit of restore on the car as I go along. The paint matched Volks always seemed a bit weird to me. So I am going to take them apart and paint them black, and possibly do the lips in bronze. Hopefully freshen up the faded calipers, and do some modification to the inside of the car. Under the hood I am thinking about going black instead of the white I did before. White was a neat contrast but I just didnt seem to fit. The IQ3 Display above alone will be excellent for redoing my gauge setup. I have to figure out how to keep my ACD lights though. I need to find someone to patch up my Type C spoiler and get it paint matched.
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Also I am making plans to do a bit of restore on the car as I go along. The paint matched Volks always seemed a bit weird to me. So I am going to take them apart and paint them black, and possibly do the lips in bronze. Hopefully freshen up the faded calipers, and do some modification to the inside of the car. Under the hood I am thinking about going black instead of the white I did before. White was a neat contrast but I just didnt seem to fit. The IQ3 Display above alone will be excellent for redoing my gauge setup. I have to figure out how to keep my ACD lights though. I need to find someone to patch up my Type C spoiler and get it paint matched.
Sep 29, 2016, 07:42 AM
#12
Evolving Member
Oct 3, 2016, 06:28 AM
#14
Got a bit of work done this weekend tearing into thing with a friend of mine. Going to pull the manifold and turbo off in the next day or two. Still debating on whether I should pull the whole motor or go ahead and get the head off to the machine shop and worry about dropping the block out later...
Anyway with the parts in, I'll be loading up the 4g69 this week to take it to a shop. I want to make sure the bottom end is done right so I'll be trying to find someone to assemble that for me.
Anyway with the parts in, I'll be loading up the 4g69 this week to take it to a shop. I want to make sure the bottom end is done right so I'll be trying to find someone to assemble that for me.