| Decided to tear into my engine last June to fix a cam timing issue. My car had never run right on this new build. Ran like crap when cold. Boost took forever to kick in (4k) and when it did it never kicked. Low on power. Something was just off big time. After checking everything, playing with the ecu maps, etc, I suspected my cam timing was off due to what was done during the build. I'm running higher compression pistons, 9.2:1. The problem came about when I had the spark plug area removed to get better flow with the larger valves. To keep the higher compression I had my heads milled down to compensate for the removed material. This threw off my timing (timing belt) as it put the head closer to the block. Once I had the engine out, I checked the cam timing I found they were 4 degrees advanced and retarded. Not good. I got some Jun adjustable cam gears and modified a set of new style intake gears to be adjustable. Then I started the headache of adjusting the cam timing. I think I spent 2 weeks going over it over and over again. Thanks to AJ in Vegas and Mike Smith for the help here. AJ even mailed me his timing equipment to use. 
Couldn't find a long enough needle to touch the lifter so I had to use a piece of coat hanger as suggested by a few other members. Ignore the pic though. I ended up taking the end screw out of the gauge and sticking the metal extension right into the end. The tape flexed too much. 
So once I got all that fixed, I just kept finding and thinking more things to fix. Around this time Mike Smith/JWT came out with a solution to help people with machined lower plenums. The issue is the lower insulator doesn't have enough side wall support and will split. I had this issue over and over, some splitting after only 2 weeks! So I installed a set of the spacers they came out with to help prevent this. 
So the engine is out, what else can I do? I have the PE1420 turbos and they use the intake clocking adaptor flanges like most turbos now. Well I had been having issues with leaks at this area. I had fixed it once before using some RTV along with the stock gaskets. This held up for awhile, but now it was leaking again. After taking everything apart I found the issue. The adaptors they provide are stamped out of cheap metal. They had flexed and bent out of shape so I no longer had a flat surface. First we bent them back as flat as we could. 
I have a CNC mill in my garage, but it has been down due to some bad seals that are coming someday from Japan. A friend of a friend has a milling shop. So since I had access to a mill, I figured why not groove them for orings. Get rid of the stock gaskets. 
Well while this was a good idea, it didn't work. Once we installed them we could see they bent back out of shape again. We think the metal was too cheap and thin over all. Time for a new solution. So we drew up some new adaptors (both sides are different). This time we used some thicker stainless plate. Calculations said it would hold up fine. Milled in the oring groove on both sides. Good to go. 
More in part 2....
JackB nimble JackB quick JackB can suck my dick =P - james-lee 11/02/01
Arrogance is the #1 weapon against Supra Owners - MikeH 08/06/02
Dallas with a Z: I like the bulge dude 05/02/03
Bezbefootball: Does dick have anything for me? 10/21/03 |
Finally back on the road, part 1. - 
