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With all the fresh new clean parts coming in , will you be doing some engine bay cleaning ? Now may be the best time since everything is out .
You betcha I'm going to scrub that engine bay clean while everything is out. I'll be tackling as much as I can during the time the motor/trans/tcase are all being sorted out.
The block, crank, and head have all arrived. The head has passed the initial pressure testing and is cleared for the rest of the machine work necessary. Most of the internals have shown up; I'm mainly waiting on valve keepers and pistons right now. Some of the powdercoating has gotten done, but there's a lot still left to do on that front. The transmission and transfer case are being shipped out tomorrow for a full rebuild on each. Progress is happening! I'm aiming to have the car back on the road by the end of July, assuming everything goes smoothly and there's no hiccups. Which.. knowing my luck, there will be. End of July is just a very optimistic and early estimation. My birthday is in mid-August, so I'm more betting on that timeframe. But we'll see!
Hello out there! Lots of things have been happening with the Evo lately, and I have a lot to update y'all on. Buckle up for the wall of text and photos haha. #notsorry.
The first big undertaking was moving my car to a new garage/shop since the original place I had been working out of was my boyfriend's, and we have since broken up. I got lucky in that the new garage/shop space belongs to a guy who does 24 Hours of Lemons racing, so it's pretty neat to see the racecar and hear all the stories.
The silver E36 tucked in the corner is his Lemons car.
First up, project-wise: the HVAC swap is in full swing. It's a lot more involved than I was thinking wiring-wise, and that is definitely not my forte so it's been quite daunting. But! Thanks to help from a good friend of mine and some wiring diagrams and other sources of info, I think I finally have most of it sorted out. Part of the ordeal was gaining access to the heater box. In order to gain access to that, the dash and the dash cross support bar all had to come out of the car. My cross bar was covered in surface rust, so of COURSE I tackled that and got it all cleaned up.
My current cockpit view. So many changes coming to this, I'm excited!
Getting all of that surface rust taken care of sure felt nice, and it definitely looks a bit better. Not that literally anybody will ever see it haha. Oh well.
Next up was the actual HVAC swap aspect of all of this. I had managed to get the motors and all attached to a new heater box. While I had it out, I had taken it apart and replaced the blend door and made sure everything was greased and could move smoothly. There shouldn't be any issues going forward, assuming I actually managed to sort out the wiring correctly.
The USDM heater box, on the left, next to the JDM heater box, on the right.
Figuring out the pins/connectors/wires for all of this took me a bit longer than I was anticipating, and I can only thank my friend so many times, as I'm sure he got tired of me asking all kinds of dumb questions about what we were doing. I'm electronically/wiring retarded, so this was a HUGE learning curve for me. Fortunately, I now have a much better understanding of what I'm looking at and how it's all going to go, so it was worth it. I don't have all of it done yet, but I'd say about 85% is all done.
While I was all up in this under-dash-mess-ness, I learned that the early Evo 8's didn't come factory with a cabin air filter. I decided to remedy that and cut out the block off plate on the heater blower box (black box on the far right side) and install the new filter.
I've finally gotten everything sorted out enough to where I managed to get the heater box fully reassembled, the cross bar put back in, and the steering wheel remounted to where it goes. For anyone that has to lower the steering wheel off that cross bar for some reason, what a damn headache it was to get it telescoped to the right spot so the bolts would all line back up. Also, I'm not the best painter, as evidenced by runs and fisheyes lol.
One other completely unrelated update, but is still an interior update. I repainted my dome light housing black to match the rest of what the interior is going to be like. Much better than tan, for sure!
Alright! Now on to the fun stuff: the motor updates! This has been an overwhelming decision-making process, and I have lots of thanks to those who had to put up with me and all my questions about literally everything. With that said, I feel like I'm on the right track for a pretty solid build. I decided to go the 2.4LR route with all the internals to go with it. My wallet/bank account are dead and I'm on the ramen noodles diet right now, but I think it'll be worth it haha. The machining for the block is going great, and everything for my shortblock should be assembled by this weekend. The head is still undergoing its own assembly, but I should have updates for that soon.
I had mentioned I had a bunch of stuff sent off to powdercoating. Some of it is done, and I'm still waiting on the rest of it. My manifold, O2 housing, and downpipe all got ceramic coated. You can kind of see my charge pipes and ignition coil mounting plate in the background too, all powdercoated the same color as my fuel rail. I'm still waiting for my valve cover, front strut bar, brakes front and rear, and turbo to all get done as well.
*not my red turbo.
So, I had ALSO mentioned that I'm having the transmission and transfer case rebuilt while everything is out of the car. I'm still waiting for an update on the transfer case, but the shop was kind enough to bring to my attention more neglect from the previous owner. I can only imagine how hard this car was driven before I got my hands on it, as I know there's no way my driving style did this kind of damage in the last 18 months I've owned the car. Basically all of the gears need to be replaced before the transmission can go back in the car.
Anywho, there's my wordvomit for the day. As of right now, I'm still on track for my mid-August goal of having everything back in the car and running. It sure would be a lovely birthday gift to myself!
Hi there, awesome work on the interior dash you're braver than me that's for sure haha! Question what is the benefit of going to the jdm hvac setup vs usdm besides that it's jdm? I too have been uncovering the horrors that is the previous owner on my evo also...keep pushing through great work here!
Man you are going all out and that JDM Hvac does look daunting, i probably won't take that on until end of the year.
@SoSoEVO Benefit i see with the JDM Hvac is it had sensors for inside and outside for temp, so instead of our mechanical one it is electronically. Someone correct me if i am wrong. Plus JDM baby !!
Excellent high level re-build right there. Thanks for sharing & well done
Thanks! It's been a helluva process so far, but it'll be worth it once she's back on the road.
Originally Posted by SoSoEVO
Hi there, awesome work on the interior dash you're braver than me that's for sure haha! Question what is the benefit of going to the jdm hvac setup vs usdm besides that it's jdm? I too have been uncovering the horrors that is the previous owner on my evo also...keep pushing through great work here!
Taking out the dash was the easy part. I did it enough times back when I had my Eclipse that I'm not intimidated by that anymore. With the JDM hvac, it's all electronically controlled, whereas the USDM hvac is all cable driven. Ever get tired of having bound up cables and hard to turn knobs? The JDM hvac won't ever have that issue since the blend door is opened via servo motors. Plus, the control unit looks a lot nicer than the USDM one.
Originally Posted by huzzle101
Man you are going all out and that JDM Hvac does look daunting, i probably won't take that on until end of the year.
@SoSoEVO Benefit i see with the JDM Hvac is it had sensors for inside and outside for temp, so instead of our mechanical one it is electronically. Someone correct me if i am wrong. Plus JDM baby !!
If you have all of the parts, and are wiring savvy, it's really not that bad. A little time consuming, and the correct parts can be tricky to track down, but once you have everything, then it's fairly straightforward. I have a couple of how-to's I've been following for information, and that's been crucial. I also have a lot of info I've discovered along the way I can pass along to anyone who's interested.
Great thread! I am definitely interested in your HVAC conversion. I'm assuming you bought the box+actuators as a single unit? I know that you said it was a jdm unit, but it appears from your picture to be from a LHD car. So was it that you sourced it through a JDM supplier, or did you just mean it was part of the "jdm" hvac swap? You and DEMON both went with the single din radio panel instead of relocating the controls to the lower cubby. Was it because that's what was available?
Great thread! I am definitely interested in your HVAC conversion. I'm assuming you bought the box+actuators as a single unit? I know that you said it was a jdm unit, but it appears from your picture to be from a LHD car. So was it that you sourced it through a JDM supplier, or did you just mean it was part of the "jdm" hvac swap? You and DEMON both went with the single din radio panel instead of relocating the controls to the lower cubby. Was it because that's what was available?
Yes, I bought the box and motors as a single unit that all came out of a LHD car from somewhere in Europe. There were a few makes/models over there that came with them, so.. I got lucky in finding it on ebay as all one big piece. For those who just use their USDM box and manage to find the LHD motors, the USDM box as all the mounting points for the motors already, so you won't need to take it out of your car to do that if you didn't want to. The huge bonus for me finding the box that I did was that everything was already mounted, and a lot of the wiring harness was already there, so that helped me out a LOT. Plus I rebuilt the blend door, so I would have had to take it all out anyways.
I sourced all the parts on my own through ebay, or a local dealership. A lot of the sensors I bought brand new, and sourced a couple connectors from a different website vendor that worked out pretty well. I'm actually following DEMON/Alex's write-up, and he's been instrumental in answering a TON of my really dumb questions over the last year or so lol. I went with the single DIN placement because my radio is already relocated to the lower cubby. I could have (well, technically I did, but that's another story) bought the controls for the lower cubby and put my radio back in the stock location, but I kind of like having my radio in the lower cubby spot. So having the controls in the radio panel like I do makes sense to me, as I'll have the gauges above the hvac controls, with the radio in very easy access to my hand on the shifter.
Super awesome! Especially the HVAC!
On that, anyone ever just ripped the entire ETACS system from JDM car and plunk the works into USDM unit? Get the power folding mirrors and everything? Anyone wanna split getting a front cut from Japan? I take ETACs you take anti-lag and sell the rest for MAD profit!?! I'm only half joking...
Super awesome! Especially the HVAC!
On that, anyone ever just ripped the entire ETACS system from JDM car and plunk the works into USDM unit? Get the power folding mirrors and everything? Anyone wanna split getting a front cut from Japan? I take ETACs you take anti-lag and sell the rest for MAD profit!?! I'm only half joking...
does anybody know exactly what all the usdm vs jdm etacs controls?
Last edited by Selena_2000; Jul 11, 2019 at 07:04 AM.
does anybody know exactly what all the usdn vs jdm etacs controls?
The only super major differences seem to be Power Folding Mirrors and auto climate control. People with more savvy than me might chime in with more detail if we're lucky.
Not that you care now your swap is done. CHAMPION WORK!
The only super major differences seem to be Power Folding Mirrors and auto climate control. People with more savvy than me might chime in with more detail if we're lucky.
Not that you care now your swap is done. CHAMPION WORK!
DEMON was able to complete his hvac swap without messing with etacs, so I dunno if etacs actually manages any part of the auto climate control. I've read about the heated/power folding mirrors though, so that would be neat to figure out if I can.
Jun 6, 2019, 02:57 PM
I am definitely interested in your HVAC conversion. I'm assuming you bought the box+actuators as a single unit? I know that you said it was a jdm unit, but it appears from your picture to be from a LHD car. So was it that you sourced it through a JDM supplier, or did you just mean it was part of the "jdm" hvac swap? You and DEMON both went with the single din radio panel instead of relocating the controls to the lower cubby. Was it because that's what was available?
