144mph's Evo 8 Build
 

Picked up a modded 2004 from a friend last week and pretty much have immediately started to work on the car as it's got a noisey engine, dodgy ignition setup and dead battery. What is it about Evo's that makes them irresistible to stop from tinkering with?

Step one was to get the car home. Borrowed the a newish Suburban from my aunt and a trailer from a Honda buddy and picked up #415 (car needs a new name/handle badly, I know!) to bring it to a garage for the work to begin.

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Congrats on the new addition.

What are your plans for the car?

The plan for this car is simply to get it back to 100%. It's got a GT35R and lots of other mods so things need to be just so before I'm going to be happy with it.

The story with this car when I bought it was that it had a peculiar noise coming from the engine and the previous owner was concerned that something might be awry so he had parked it and not really had the time or ability to investigate much further. Speculations abounded, but the working hypothesis was either a collapsed lifter (car has HKS 282's on stock valvetrain components) or a spun rod bearing (oh noes!). Time to find out for certain what was the matter.

I started by taking things apart in an attempt to diagnose the situation. Off came the valve cover and cams along with the timing belt and oil pan. I needed to find out the condition of this engine for certain.

When the cams were out, we were able to see that the cam journals were not worn and the lifters checked out too. As a matter of prevention and precaution, the stock valve springs were upgraded to Power Division beehive springs and no-tick lifters were dropped in as replacements for the stockers. We used this tool from Euro Export Inc to do the valve springs with the head in the car. Worked great!!!

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I've been working with 4G63's since 1g DSM days and it's funny to see how some things never change as a lifter upgrade has always been one of those things that are a good idea with high lift, long duration cams. When I bought my first Evo in 2003 I was really impressed by how large the passages in the lifters were in comparison to the 1Gs and even the larger 2Gs.

The rod bearing surface checked out A-OK too so the culprit of the alarm was still at large until we popped off the lower timing belt cover. All the ridges on the balance shaft belt had been shorn off. The balance shaft itself was still spinning smoothly so the belt was replaced and will be watched closely for signs of accelerated wear.

So how did you keep the valve from falling down when changing springs while the head was on the car? Did you pressurize the cylinder?

You could just put whatever cylinder your taking the springs off the TDC so the valve doesnt drop too far down...but I prefer doing it with compressed air in the spark plug hole on the cylinder your working on. Works wonders and save time and hassle!

Also 144mph...how much did you purchase this beaut for? Im currently in prowl for my first evo and just getting some figures on what people paid for there evo's.

Keeping the valves up was easy. We took out the spark plugs and fed through a short section of flexible airline tubing with the cylinder down. Then we turned it to TDC for that cylinder or at least until there was some resistance meaning that the tubing was getting compressed. I'm always worried that with the pressurized cylinder method that enough air will leak past the piston rings to allow the valves to fall. Silly I know, but this is the method I always use.

pm sent talontsi

Good idea, Thanks for the info.

I plan to do cams soon so it's nice to hear what others do.

The bottom end on this engine is severely suspect. Although the rod bearing surface checked out with reasonable amount of circumferential grooves (no penetration to deeper bearing layers) the noise in the engine persisted and metal has been spotted in the filtered engine oil. Any theories as to what could be wrong guys? I've heard rod knock before and that's not what this engine sounded like though I admit it was a noisy SOB. I attributed it to the 282 cams, beehive springs and lifters.

The engine is in the process of being removed from the engine and will be sent away (to where, I don't know) for rebuild.

Well overdue for an update on this.

The engine was removed along with the trans and sent over to Jack's Transmissions for some R&R. All said and done, it was a half-ton pallet that was shipped over to them in Colorado.
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I'll have Jack and Tim work their magic and then drop those components into another 2003 vehicle that I purchased at the same time which was missing the complete drivetrain.

For this car, I've sourced a yard engine ($2900) and am currently in need of an evo8 trans.

Thread here: https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sa...l#post10156895

Putting everything else back to stock on the car, which is relatively easy as the previous owner was very careful about preserving all the stock components and they're in pristine condition for the most part.

Plan is to get a trans as quickly as possible, put it all back together and shake it down and maybe list it for sale later this month so I can focus attention on the 2003 vehicle that is coming right behind it.

Oh yeah, I could also use a pigtail for the MAP sensor. Anybody know where to get a hold of one of these little doo-dads?

I have a pigtail from an extra MAP sensor I bought, PM me.

Got back into town last weekend and have put in two solid days working on this car since then. Day one saw the new engine go back in the car with all the accessories. Day 2, we bolted up the trans and transfer case and started taking care of the extras.

A few parts have been noticed as missing so I'm tracking those down here in this WTB thread.
https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sa...l#post10250251

Next steps are the following:
1. finish bolting up trans and transfer case
2. re-connect the wiring harness and electrical components
3. secure the engine via front and rear mounts
4. button up the front suspension
5. fill the transmission, transfer case and engine with fluid
6. fit the radiator and fill/flush
7. connect up the intake system; intercooler pipes and air inlet
8. bleed the clutch system
9. go over everything with a careful eye before calling it done

you will be in great hands, he lives just down the street from me.

i was there and a guy had shipped his trans all the way from japan, appereantly thats a normal thing he is so good lol!

like the setup