I ended up getting the one off Ebay for $111 shipped. Thanks again, folks.

 

Any more info I think we all want to know how your car is coming along.

 

All I've done is begun the teardown again. It's within a day of being done, but I'm not rushing. I'm waiting on the head still. Long story short, I paid with paypal, seller had never received money with it before, and didn't let me know he intended to wait for it to clear as cash before shipping. I found out a week later. Had I known I'd have overnighted a MO. Kinda pissed about this actually, despite the seller otherwise being a very nice guy. I need it rather badly.

 

And?

 

Good question ;-)
-N

 

Just wanted to say that i had the same thing happen and the valves looked fine to me too. But i pulled them out just to check to make sure. Ended up i had all 4 valves in the cylinder bent and 1 valve in another cylinder. By the looks of them they were fine with no marks or anything but its not until you test them with a gauge that you will know for sure. Anyway hope everything works out!

Chris

 

I have enough parts to build 2 heads. Unfortunately I don't have the time to do that. At any rate, it looks to be in great shape both inside and out, and I will hopefully have it on and try to start it by sometime next week if Odin smiles upon me from Valhala.

 

Good to hear.

 

Woo! So I worked on the car today for the first time in about a month. 7 1/2 hours of straight solo labor with some time taken out for bathroom breaks (I was drinking a lot of water) and checking in on FFXI. Anyway, I finished tearing down the motor, put on the new head, and put pretty much everything back together cept the harnesses. And by now you know with me there's always a catch, right?

The head did have some damage on it. After I got a chance to clean it down a bit I saw that the valves in one cylinder looked like there had been some detonation, and while scraping exhaust/gasket covering off the bottom of the head I found a few nicks that seem to support there having been some detonation in that cylinder. So I'm pissed. The damage was not extensive, and should (at worst) cause a small hot spot on in the combustion chamber. I put the head on anyway because I NEED to get this ****ing car running. I'll take one or both of my other heads and strip them for parts, then get the complete one P&P'd so that I can replace this Ebay one. I am glad I waited till I had a good, thorough chance to clean and reinspect the head before writing feedback however.

So yeah, another chapter written in the book of Andrew's accursed automobile. I don't have much free time this week because of school, but I'm hoping maybe I can try to start her again by Thursday or thereabouts. Basically the only thing I have to do is reconnect the cat-back (I'll try to start it first w/o connecting it because it's just one more thing to unbolt if I have problems again), put the fuel rail back on, reconnect all vac lines (coolant are already on for the most part) and finally reconnect the engine harness in 50billion different places...again.

Wish me luck. You should know by now that I need it.

 

Progress is awesome to hear, dude...
-N

 

man this all soudns so frustrating, hope things get less stressful.

 

It's not stressful so much as soul-crushing. (Is soul-crushing a hyphenated word?) I get so much done only to get **** on and have to do it again. The Lancer is the boulder to my Sisyphus, and I am in Hades.

At any rate, I'm working on the car again now, and I intend to at least get compression checks done by the end of the day. Naturally I'm hoping for and anticipating the best. If I get the car running it's time to let it idle for a long time, break it in again, and tear down the spare heads I have while I order an upgraded valvetrain and cam shaft. That may take a while though as I'm currently broke from buying duplicate parts.

Oh, I almost flipped out about 15 minutes ago. I was putting my fuel rail back on, and one of the rubber o-rings that seat the injector in the intake manifold fell into my engine bay. I couldn't find it. I looked ALL over the floor underthe car, to the side of the car, laid down and looked again, stood up and repeated both steps. I stuck my hands in the far recesses of my engine, along the shafts, found **** I hadn't seen in months, and couldn't find the o-ring. Anyway, turns out I had just missed it because of the poor lighting and shadows. I figured that was a good time to take a break and holla at my homies.

 

go break soemthing, youll feel better. and i hope your boulder and syphillis gets better.

 

Results of the compression test: ~200PSI, ~200PSI, ~190PSI, ~200PSI.
(FYI min is 170PSI, max somewhere around 235. Ideal is 200. The 3rd cylinder, the one that ranked ~10PSI lower than the others, is the one that had minor detonation damage in it.

Results of 20 minutes of connecting vac lines and harnesses: motor is completely back together except the vac line on my BoV and one random harness that I can't figure out (may be MAF because I really just have NO place for it, and I know my sensor replacement leaves me with 1 or two extra harnesses).

Results of 5 seconds of key turning: Car didn't start.

Results of 5 seconds of looking under the hood: Andrew realizes that cars don't start without spark and decides maybe he should connect his coil packs and spark plug wires.

Results of 5 more seconds of key turning: Car turned over and gave me a lumpy idle for some several minutes.

Results of 10 mos worth of bull****: Basically the car runs now. It definitely needs tuning, and my laptop is temporarily out of comission, but I should have it able to communicate with the EMS by tomorrow or therabouts. I drive the car about 3', but I have no headlights, front bumper, updated registration, inspection or insurance so I just moved it off the cardboard I'd inadvertently parked it upon.

Can't wait to break in my car! ...AGAIN! Nothing quite as fun as sealing piston rings when you have a turbocharged car that enjoys being driven hard.

 

It's breaking something that got me into this mess to begin with. I think we gotta get you schooled in Greek Mythology, Mike. Poor, poor, retarded boy.