I really need to sit down and update this thread bc the car is finally back together! For now, here's a pic I took the other night. There is about 7/8 tank of fuel so not too shabby. Was at 3060 prior to winter with old roof seats and no rollbar so clean at 3000# isnt terrible.



Oh I also washed her yesterday for the first time in years!

 

I'm going to hold you to that. Have you been able to get the car out much?

 

Thanks for the bump and reminder. Without going into a ton of detail since I'm not armed with pictures lets just say it has been a very frustrating season for me as I continue to iron out the kinks with the new build. In no particular order since getting back together I've had failure after failure after failure. As we speak, the head of off again and in Curt Brown's hands. This is the 2nd time the head has been off since the rebuild.

The first challenge I dealt with and think is now sorted out was in regards to cooling or lack thereof. I was pushing coolant to the spillover at an alarming rate such that it would push out out the top and dump right onto my front right tire. When it happened I thought I had an ABS failure as in snagged a wheel speed sensor line but quickly realized what was actually happening. I check the head stud torque and found that they had all loosened up around 1/4 turn. Silly me I opted to not retorque these studs after the build. Ive done many headgaskets on this car over the years and friend's cars and never had them loosen up so figured it was fine. Well, now I know to check the torque and retorque after a heat cycle and check again after a few heat cycles.

I still am not exactly sure if the head was lifting some due to the studs loosening up or if I simply didnt have enough cooling. A big issue that i noticed was the car was heat soaking as I came into the pits. Coolant temps would spike from 208 coming in and get as high as 250 after a couple minutes with no airflow where it would then boil. In fairness I had 2 events in a row where it was 97 degrees so not exactly ideal racing conditions. Regardless, I didnt want to have to stress over what temp Im racing so decided to make some changes. The biggest thing I did was added a 13" SPAL fan mounted as a pusher wired up to a relay and toggle switch. I made some badass brackets for it and think it came out pretty sweet. No pics sadly bc I suck at taking pics but maybe Ill grab some later! I also changed to 100% distilled water with a bottle of water wetter and went to a higher pressure rad cap, 1.3bar over the OEM 1.1bar. What else...oh changed the fan control settings for my other fan controlled by the ECU to come on sooner. I also replaced the spillover turndown line with something longer and routed it under the middle of the car so if I ever push coolant again it wont dump in front of my tire for obvious reasons, lol. Also if my head was lifting from the studs loosening up my coolant temps could have spiked simply due to the heat from combustion entering the coolant passages. Just a thought but I think the biggest thing was lack of airflow which watching water temps before and after fan confirmed helped tremendously.

What else...hmmm oh I've had my fair share of fasteners loosening up. Huge PITA but revs no BS and stiffer engine mounts is recipe for disaster. I've slowly gone through and started loctiting problematic bolts. Couple noteworthy failure there, my ABS pump motor fell off. Stupid me removed it during my rebuild to clean up the rust. Thats not got loctite on it. My PS pump fell off which threw my ACC belt. That was fun Those bolts are now loctited in place as well. I noticed that my CHRA bolts to my EFR are starting to back out and are showing signs of carbon. Those came drilled for safety wire so I'm going to safety wire those tonight after work since I have the turbo kit back off the car.

My head is currently off my car again because something is wrong with it. Leakdown test revealed cylinder 1 was leaking pretty bad out of both sides and 2-4 also had more leakage than it should for a relatively fresh head. Since the rebuild the valves showed signs of oil on the back of the valves and I could figure out where it's coming from. Last time the head was off I had my local machine shop check it pressure test etc and found no issues. I did a backyard test last weekend by flipping the head over and poured alcohol into the chambers and sprayed compressed air into the ports. Sure enough literally every single valve showed air bubbles sooo yeah head is no bueno. Also, Ive now thrown 3 rockers which has destroyed 3 lifters. Im not exactly sure why the car is throwing rockers but needless to say Im going back to OEM lifters as there is a chance that is part of my problem.

Im sure im missing a lot of stuff and essentially just typed an essay and all people want to see is pictures. So here are a couple pics and a video. Ive done 6 events in the car and had a failure 5 out of 6! I will say when the car is running the setup is amazing. 2.2 +EFR7670 is kicking ***. If I can get it to stay together I'll be a happy man. But until then I continue to chase my tail. I have an event this Saturday and in typical fashion car is nowhere close to being ready. Hopefully I'll get tracking on my head tomorrow and can throw it back together Thurs/Fri and load up on the trailer and maybe just maybe she'll hold together on Saturday

Video from a few months back as Im paranoid of coolant temps

Natural resting place


Current status

 

damn sucks to hear man

 

These cars have a strong cooling system from the factory .Hopefully you can get the issues ironed out.
Car was moving well. Are you still on the stock FD?

 

This latest update speaks to me. Sorry to hear all this but also been through this and more the last two years. Selling the evo as soon as possible.

 

Thanks guys. I really think my cooling issues are a thing in the past now with the addition of another fan. It really appeared to be as simple as lack of airflow so the car would heatsoak. I think if I were to take a cooldown lap it would be fine but thats not exactly practical in autox. 208 while running which then spiked to 250 once sitting there to me screams lack of airflow and again, after putting in the fan it doesnt do that anymore and actually start dropping temps. Victory, I think! Ill grab some pics bc the fan is quite large and certainly moves some air as it pulls something like 22amps.

The car is still on the stock FD. That was my intent all along with this build was to make the motor support the revs. Obviously the car is out of compressor up top so I know power is falling off but its not to make power up top but simply gain MPH. I can hit 79 in 2nd which is epic. However, while the head can support 10.5 in theory seems its not able to in current form. A little over a month ago I tossed a rocker which took out a lifter as well. I replaced the rocker and lifter and this last failure took out 2 rockers and 2 lifters except this time one of the lifters was basically eaten. See below:



One change I'm making this time is going back to OEM lifters. I had GSC lifters in there but supposedly their failure rate is higher than OEM. I did some testing last week and found something interesting. I pumped up two lifters an OEM and a GSC and noticed that the GSC unit is slightly shorter. I'm not sure if this even matters but found it interesting.

OEM Lifter


GSC Lifter


Last night I successfully tightened up the CHRA bolts to my turbo and finally safety wired them. Safe to say those will not back out again.

I also dropped my oil pan so I can clean out the crap that ended up in there from the lifter carnage. Thankfully the pickup looks to be clean so I dont think much crap was run through the motor but there is still a chance something got f'ed bc of it but I dont want to pop off rod caps so I'm just going to send it. There was also a chance my oil pan was leaking so this gives me an opp to reseal it. Im going to use Permatex The Right Stuff this time around vs normal Permatex RTV Grey that I used last time. I'll need to work fast bc it only has a 5 minute setup time but supposedly holds much stronger so Ill make it happen and hopefully not have to pull the pan again anytime soon bc I hate prying it off!

 

These are the reasons I chose against going the high rev route and instead went the torque route. 10% more torque and 10% more gear instead of 10% more rpm (I stick to 8000 now). Just so many things in our motors that arent meant to live at and over 9000 rpms. Oiling, shifting, stroke, etcs... All really pointed me to just be happy with 8000rpm and gear it to the speed I want.

Now I have thought about doing the 3.31 to get back a little low end torque and adding ~200 rpm since Im on super tall tires (25.6") but running up 10k? Whoa, That just scares me.

 

Exactly. I'd say even a 2.2LR should have a max around 9500rpm (if even that) for longevity.

Oiling: Having to replace HLA because of high revs flooding the head with oil, OEM oil pump getting overspun with oem gear, having to go dry sump.
Shifting: Many clutches locking you out at higher RPMs amoung other issues.
Stroke: Rod ratio concerns and rod bolts stretching become a problem.
Serpentine Accessories: Water Pump, Alternator, AC pump become concerns

Then there is the extra heat and harmonics. Engine balancing tolerances become more strict.

RPM is fun and noisy, but it comes with a price. For 800hp or lower, you don't need that much RPM.

 

I've tried convincing him of that. Doesn't want to hear it...lol. His setup prob makes peak power around 7500. Not doing any good revving as high as he is anyways. And it def makes over 500wtq so a 4.11 or 4.31 final drive would be fine.

 

I'd have to drive a similar setup with the taller FD's to see how it feels but isnt it a fact that it will accelerate slower? Sure you could say that if the car is now more in the meat of the powerband then it'll make up for the slower acceleration but I still feel like if I can get the revs to work then its the better option.

For the record, my limiter is set to 9200. The bottom end is good to 9400 and the top end supposed to be good to 10,500. The issues I've had were with the valvetrain which should have good cushion. I'm not the first person to rev an evo over 9 grand so I guess I just dont get why she wont stay together. It could be as simple as a lifter swap. Of course if it happens again with OEM lifters then we know that's not the culprit.

I really really really do not want to swap final drive. Mostly bc I still think more revs if there is reliability to go along with it, is the better approach but also bc I just had my trans redone and have about zero interest sending it back out again.

But on that note and speaking of not wanting to send back out my head will be back tomorrow and there was nothing found wrong with it. The valves were't sealing due to too much carbon essentially. So where is my oil coming from? Im going to get the motor back together and do another leakdown test but I'm starting to fear the worst that I have issues in the bottom end. But who knows bc the oil could jsut be as simple as HG again. I'll know more later.

 

I'd say most cars that actually rev past 9 are mostly used for drag racing type stuff, not for autocross or road course.

You can keep on the track of the rev's. But like, literally everyone is pointing to changing the gearing and getting rpm's lower and more into the powerband.

The short time I got to drive my car on the 4.31 final drive, I didn't even notice it. The stroker motor makes plenty of torque.

 

If I were to do it the 4.31 seems like a good compromise. And fwiw im not saying that you or anyone else is wrong in regards to going to taller FD. I genuinely do not know what is considered the better setup. Of course if mine keeps falling apart then I'll know it doesn't work. I just don't want to give up yet bc I went in initially with that goal thinking it would be the best of both worlds. Its like literally the reason I went with a 2.2.

Again, I'd love the opportunity to drive an evo on the 4.31 and see how it feels. What I do know is as I mentioned when the car is working I'm extremely happy with the powerband and speed that I'm able to achieve.