omfg - i just dropped something into the engine - i was going to top off some oil and this oil cap had like a white little inner seal thing that stayed on the bottle rather than in the cap and dropped into the engine - i do not see it, what are my options here/

 

The point is good grounding. The way modern cars are constructed you aren't guaranteed good conductivity from the trunk to the engine compartment (and its not straight forward/easy to test for). Electricity is a loop and the alternator (Which makes all the power) is grounded to the engine block. The OEM setup has the engine block grounded to the chassis and directly to the battery. Can you get away with shifting that direct battery connection to the chassis? Its situational, and depends on factors that can change over time. You might add/upgrade pumps, ignition, stereo etc etc and what might have worked initially isn't scalable. Most people, especially builders/tuners/race teams, don't want to deal with any of that noise and just installing a ground prevents a whole bunch of potential gremlins and helps ensure your engine electronics are getting a good ground and sending clean signals.

 

Spend some time trying to get it out with a hook pick or something and if that doesn't work pull the valve cover.

 

i dont see it anywhere, gonna have to pull the valve cover it sounds like.

anything special to know about taking it off or putting it back on?

 

Oh I get it. And by modern cars I assume you mean newer than 2010 or something. But for a unibody steel car that's welded together I don't agree that there isn't good continuity front to back. Most of the electrical grounds on the car ground to the chassis throughout anyway. But none of the block or chassis grounds matter unless the negative on the battery is terminated to some common conductive surface. Which of course is the unibody and is a giant chunk of steal. You can therefore put the battery ground anywhere on the chassis. In fact the factory battery ground goes to the chassis near the driver side strut mount and its puny. Now do people make poor cables and choose poor ground locations? Of course. But its not a difficult task if you take the time.

 

Your car is a 14year old Mitsubishi and you've never pulled the valve cover?

 

If your seals are old you will probably want to look into replacing them. Same with the spark plugs. Other than that I can't think of any other gotchas on that job. Just have a plan to stay organized and read the factory service manual for instructions.

 

i've never done anything except bolt ons.. yea i know, lol

 

instead of a wall of text I'll just let Haltech explain much better than I probably could. At least you're probably more inclined to believe them

 

Time to roll up those sleeves. One serious trap though is RTV, newbies tend to go way overboard (I'm very guilty of this in my early days). The manual calls out some locations that need to have the old rtv removed and new rtv added during R&R and you really want to be on the conservative side of RTV application. Also be sure to follow the torque specs in the manual. Tekton makes pretty good $$$/Value torque wrenches (IMO) if you are in need of one and they are available on Amazon. If you need hand tools Milwaukee has some pretty nice stuff. Craftsman is dead so don't bother with the stuff masquerading as craftsman.

 

watched a couple vids, seems straightforward. per below, you put on the front and back, and then 6 corner spots? noob question - does it go between the valve cover and the gasket or the gasket and the head?

 

RTV into the valve cover. You want those head surfaces nice and clean. Well everything nice and clean. Use what ever chemicals/methods your comfortable with but it cant be too clean. Aside from the outer valve cover gasket there are 4 gaskets for the spark plug wells too, which I would recommend you also replace.

 

Yes and I agree largely with what they are saying. The problem I think they are getting at is people just *****-nilly using too small gauge wire and any convenient threaded location that isnt a good size or have good conductivity. Adding a ground from the battery in the trunk all the way to the block, and then block to the chassis (where most of your electronics are grounded anyway) may in fact ADD resistance due to the increased cable length and path to the battery ground. The point here is that most of your cars electronics are grounded to the chassis to begin with. Why add the extra cable to get to ground when the chassis is properly grounded in the first place, is a shorter path than would be the case with more cable... Obv this is dependent on the car and its construction. But we're on an Evo forum.

And don't get me started on the guys relocating the battery to the trunk and then not having a fusible link nearest the battery. Having a 10' hot wire running through the car without any short protection is a fire waiting to happen.

 

I have seen some things that flat out terrified me.

There isn't any reason you couldn't ground the battery in the trunk and run a ground to the block. I would point you to what he was saying about how copper is a better conductor than steel and how noisy the electricity from the alternator is. It's not just about the battery to chassis ground either. The engine to chassis ground was not designed to carry all that current. So obviously you would need to upgrade those connections. You might also need to change the chassis points the engine grounds to as well. I can't speak specifically about what you can and can't do with the evo because I haven't done a battery relo on one myself. I can only speak in general, best practices terms. The problem is it's hard to test. So you could know that it can or can't work for X amount of load by trial and error but most people don't appreciate paying for that kind of thing. Especially when you find out its not good enough at a very inconvenient time.

 

Biggest gotcha on the valve cover is cracking it from overtightening.