Thank you sir! I'm glad you're enjoying the build

-pal215

 

Update:

Just got a fresh alignment. My toe was a little off in both the front and rear of the car. I have a friend that works at a Firestone near by with an "In Ground" alignment rack. It lifts the car up after you drive over it. Really nice for the low and slow folks, but I just go there because I can.

The time is getting close for a new set of tires. It's between the RE-11's (what I currently run) and the RE-71R's. I'm getting a lot of recommendations to go with the RE-11's again. They are the same price as the RE-71R's on tire rack and since I am already used to their behavior, I might just stick with them.

My battery and E-brake light started to flicker last night and i'm getting readings below 12 volts on my fuel pump voltage gauge. You know what that means ? Alternator time. I don't need my fuel pump to run slow and lean me out to blow up my engine. I had the battery tested as well and it's not holding a full charge anymore. I'll be replacing the alternator, battery, and starter motor together this week. Why the starter motor you ask? Because earlier this year before my build, I had a fuel pump failure that left me stranded in the middle of a busy 3 lane street.

I disconnected the clutch start cancel harness behind the clutch pedal and decided to ride the starter to the side of the road while the car was in gear. This does work, but you could potentially destroy your starter and drain the battery quickly . Since then I haven't trusted the starter. So with all three of these parts replaced i'm hoping for faster starting and a more reliable commute.

I'll leave you guys with this amusing video of one of my rockers shooting oil over a cam journal. The path the oil travels in the head after the HLA-->Lifters--> Rocker hole--> onto Cam journal. MIVEC gear gets oil pressure from the bottom end of the block and it passes through a special banjo bolt with a built in restrictor and then a small filter element at the end of the hard pipe before traveling through the MIVEC solenoid. Crappy audio warning.



-pal215

 

Update:

Found a coolant leak behind the block. I thought to myself, how and why?

After thinking about all the scenarios I decided to pull the head and inspect the cylinder walls and head gasket. It turned out to be the #4 freeze plug on the rear of the block. What could have been a $1.50 fix, turned into a $120.00 fix and lots of my time. I just couldn't see **** back there haha!

Ordered an oem freeze plug and a new head gasket. Wiped down the L19 head studs and placed them into an oil bath. I also decided to pick up new heater core hoses and clamps just in case. I am very tired of coolant right now.

Anyhow, here are some random pictures of the block after about 2500 miles.
















Thanks guys!

-pal215

 

Put silicone on the sealing surface of the new freeze plug when you go install it. It well help it seal in case you distort it a bit while hitting in place.

 

Thanks man, i'll give that a try. I already got the old one out, but now i'm thinking about what to do to prep the hole for reinstalling the new one. Would lightly sanding with 320 grit be too much?

I don't want to buy a bearing press tool, so i'm just going to hit it with a socket larger than the plug so it contacts the edges and not the middle lol.

At this point I have coolant everywhere...and i'm tired of damn coolant. It's on my garage floor, on my tools, on my trans, on my frame, and gallons of it on top of my transfer case. I shoulda went half filled just for the sake of dealing with less coolant XD.

There's coolant on my shoes, on my cat, in my booze, and in my hat. On my bed, on the bread, on my keyboard and in my shed. There's coolant in the house, on the mouse, in my briefcase, and on my spouse. There's coolant upstairs, downstairs, and even on my timeshares. I'm tired of the bitter taste, the bigger waste, and sticky trace that comes from all over the place!

I might be the reason why Prestone is in business


-pal215

 

LOL


Coolant does suck.


Run your finger around the hole, make sure it doesn't have any edge in the bore that could prevent sealing, and yes, some mild grit sand paper will be fine to make sure there isn't any excessive corrosion build up. And the way you are talking about hitting it in is the correct ay to do it. So you should be good to go.

 

It's always something huh, just looking at the pics I can smell the coolant, weird..

 

So far I have not yet been able to fully enjoy the car. It may have made some power on the dyno, but it's definitely not running right. Hopefully I can sort this out sooner than later so that I can get back to how things were when I had a stock block E85 evo 9..just with more power. I'm almost there I know it!

-pal215

 

Lol that Dr Seuss poem was great thanks for the laugh!

Sucks to hear about the coolant issues. As someone that has had his fair share of coolant issues I feel your pain. Speaking of which I just noticed a couple green spots right by my thermostat housing so looks like Ill be back at it again soon replacing s**t. I friggin hate coolant too; I wish I had a 993 911 so I wouldnt have to deal with it either.

One thing to keep in mind is that unless the original freezeplug was installed improperly they don't tend to just pop out. I mean of course they're designed to pop out but what Im getting at is that they are more of a failsafe so there could be underlying issues which caused your freezeplug to pop. Way way back in the day back when my girl was an itty bitty baby with 14k on her I blew out the freezeplug on the water pump. Turned out I had popped my headgasket as well but I didnt figure that one out until after I replaced the water pump and popped it for real a couple weeks after.

In my case the original tune on my car sucked badly, local shop long story for a different time. But my head was lifting and pressuring the cooling system which forced the freezeplug out.

 

I told you how to fix that "running" issue.

 

haha! Thanks , I felt like it fit the situation. I'm sorry to hear about that shop who butchered your tune. Something tells me that my situation right now is similar to yours...


you sure did. I think it's time that make the change and act on that.

-pal215

 

Their may be a dyno day in Vegas in Feb or March. I'll add you to the FB group and tag you in the thread.

 

You know, it was so long ago now and when I think about how things progressed after the fact it was one of those moments where I realized everything happens for a reason. Because of that incident, I was introduced to a local tuner, formed mod on here MRTurco and I've been great friends with him since. Had their tune been spot on my HG wouldnt have popped and I may have never met him. That's the silver lining in the way I see it at least.

So keep your head up and hope you get to the bottom of it. The good news is that you can do the labor aspect so all youre out is a new gasket freezeplug and maybe some machine shop expense. I'd have your head checked for flatness while you have it off btw.

 

Pal215's freeze plug didn't pop out it, it was just leaking. This is common when they aren't installed properly, or can happen when they are installed without a sealant.


His current tune is good for WOT. Its a drivability concern that the current tuner is unable to fix. Identical to a drivability concern I had with my car with the same tuner. My current tuner was able to fix it with a base map...

 

Yeah fair enough, a leaking plug could just be from being installed wrong like, perhaps somebody using a socket!!! Lol!

However, it is possible that the pressure started the coolant weep and it just so happened that he caught it before it fully blew out. I mean I'd think they go from nothing to blown out fully but maybe he got lucky and it was slowly working its way out, IDK!

In general, I was told that a freezeplug failure could mean something else is going down behind the scenes. But it could be an isolated incident as a result of it being pressed in wrong in the first place.