Turdbo Neon

I did a somewhat careful teardown tonight to try to find the source of the oil spew. While there is a wee bit dripping from the return bung on the oil pan, there isn’t enough there to worry about. I’ll fix that later with the parts I already bought a couple years ago.

I found a large amount of oil pooling around the turbo-to-intercooler outlet, so I removed the firewall-side intercooler piping to search for oil. There was a tiny bit of slipperyness inside the tube, but not the pool that I expected. With all of the air piping off the scroll, I put a rag along the sides of the pressure-side output and ran the engine a bit. I got plenty of oil from the return pipe flange.

Once I removed that flange from the turbo and took a good look at it, I saw that the flange itself is quote warped. I have no idea how I didn’t notice that before, but there’s just no way that will ever seal.

It’s too late tonight, but tomorrow, I’m going to see about getting a replacement. I might try a Dodge dealer, or I might try to see if someone can weld a little tubing to a flange. I really hope this is finally the real source of all that oil.

I copied someone else’s tune and installed it on my MS box in the Neon. I played with REQ_FUEL a bit to try to get it to idle, but I discovered that there was a bit of a vacuum leak. One of the injectors just wasn’t sealing up right, so I was getting some extra air. After I got that squared away, I went for a very short drive. That’s when it all came apart.

The car ran pretty well, even pulling almost 5 pounds of boost. It needed more tuning work, which I expected, but no stalling! When I pulled back into the driveway, though, I saw the oil. Everywhere. It’s just pouring out of somewhere whenever the car is running. So I closed up shop for now and I’ll have to work up the motivation to get back out there.

First of all, I spoke way too soon: The battery may have been on the charger for a while, but it wouldn’t take a charge. Having the charger attached to the system gave me enough juice to upgrade the firmware on the MS, but nowhere near enough to start. So for the last two days, I used jumper cables to my van. I was able to take the battery back to Bessler’s today to get it swapped out, and I’m planning on testing it out tomorrow.

I tried getting the car started with all the old settings and the older version of firmware. It would start to catch, and if I thumped on the throttle, it would eventually start, but it was barely running and it wouldn’t idle. It sounded a lot like it was only firing on 3 cylinders.

The next day, I went ahead and upgraded the firmware, which erased all the old settings. Working through the Megatune manual, I set up the engine constants, configured the spark output for Neon/420, and fiddled with the cranking pule widths. After some doing, it finally coughed to life and sort of idled, although it would die on its own just about every time. It was getting a bit late, so I had to shut it down to avoid bothering the neighbors too much, but overall, I’m pleased with the progress.

My plan now is to get out there during the day when I can fiddle with the idle more to try to smooth it out. As part of working on the idle, I’m going to take the fuel and spark maps from some existing 2.0 turbocharged Neons and plug the VE and advance tables in. I can’t find any that are exactly the same, so I don’t want to try to just burn the .MSQ file to the ECU, but because the important stuff is basically the same (same turbo, same injectors, same engine), those maps should be very close. Close enough that as long as everything is working mechanically, it should be driveable. We’ll see.

Other than that, there are really only three things outstanding: Tires; Wipers; And a bath. I’ve got the tires from the CRX plus some 700Rs and I can scare up enough Neon rims to make that work. I also have a line on some other used tires that might be a better bet. I’ve been procrastinating on those, however, to try to make sure everything else with the car shapes up, so I may not have time to get those tires before the first event. The wipers are all installed, but I need to get the electrical stuff worked out so that they actually work. And finally, there’s some junk in the car that I’ve been storing there, plus about an inch of dust covering the whole thing. A little hose-down in the driveway should make it more presentable.

I’ll report back after playing with the idle!

A trip to Besslers netted me a used battery & the gas-tank-bank section of the exhaust pipe, complete with hanger. The battery was $26.50 and the tailpipe section was $15.90. I also got an assortment of exhaust hangers and clamps from Pep Boys and a 5.3 quart jug of Mobil 1 from Autozone. Over the last week or so, I managed to get a few thing accomplished.

I drained out the old oil, however, I did re-use the filter after draining it. I topped off with 5-20 Mobil 1 and then put a breaker bar on the crank pulley. The motor turns as freely as you’d expect, with nothing sticking or hanging up, so I don’t think we’ll have a repeat of the CRX.

To get the exhaust put together, I bought a tailpipe expander at Harbor Freight. It didn’t even finish the job before it stripped its threads out, so I returned it and borrowed AutoZone’s. That one did the trick and allowed me to slip the junkyard section over the original straight pipe. I added two hangers to the first section of the exhaust, one near the flex pipe to the turbo and one right after the joint before the bend around the gas tank. The new section attached to the stock hanger, and is pretty solid, overall. I re-attached the Supertrapp muffler so that it takes a straight shot out the back of the car. I don’t have it hanging in just the right place yet, but it is solidly attached for now. I did have to cut a bit out of the bumper cover for the muffler’s exit, but it should be up high enough to prevent hanging on the trailer.

The battery is in place and charged up, and it’s basically ready to start.

Still need to worry about the tires, though.

I think I finally have an understanding of the PVC system and how it works on a turbocharged car. From what I’ve been able to read, there really isn’t a whole lot of difference between forced-induction and N/A as it pertains to crankcase ventilation. The biggest problem that seems to crop up with adding boost to a vacuum motor is that the stock PCV valve isn’t designed to be as strong and provide as tight of a seal. The general recommendation for the Neon seems to be to get the metal-bodied PCV from a late nineties Toyota Supra TT and use it in place of the stock Mopar one. A trip to Pep Boys netted me one of those.

While I was there I also picked up a new set of cheapie wiper blades, a couple 3/8″ NPT to 1/4″ hose barb adpaters, and a vacuum tee assortment. Using the tees, I now have the vacuum line connected from the intake barb to the MAP sensor in MegaSquirt and the blow-off valve. There’s another vacuum line that runs from the nipple on the compressor to the wastegate with a short stop at the boost controller. Both the EGR and the cruise control vacuum ports on the brake booster are plugged. A quick leakdown test indicates that everything is pretty well sealed up, so I’m feeling hopeful about that.

For the PCV system, I have installed the Supra valve and attached some hose to that. I need to use the brass nipples that I bought to construct a catch can and then I’ll connect the PCV to the catch can and the catch can to the intake manifold. The breather tube will get a small filter, but I don’t think I’ll bother with a catch can on that side.

As part of a smaller task, I adjusted the wiper arms to the right positions and added the new wiper blades. I don’t have any power to try to test the wiper controls yet, but hopefully I should be able to get that take care of without too much fuss. I do recall that I was having problems with all of the things off of the multi-switch in the past, but if I focus on it for a while, I should be able to figure it out without too much fuss.

At this point, I’m left with just a few tasks that need to happen before May 1:

• Finish up PCV system
• Exhaust
• Wheels & Tires
• Battery
• Base tune

The exhaust seemed kind of daunting before, but the more I think about it, the easier it seems. If I can get about four of the generic hangers, a couple more of the u-clamps, some flex-pipe, and just a bit more hard pipe, I should be in good shape. Right now, I have flex-pipe connecting the turbofold to the main straight. Nothing is needed on that bit of flex, but I want to put one hanger on each end of the straight pipe. The straight pipe currently has the start of a bend in it, and it’s in the wrong place, so I need to cut that bend out and then add a flex joint to make a turn to the driver’s side right before the gas tank. That will be rapidly followed by a turn back to the rear of the car and we’ll have to go up, over the suspension links, just like the stock system used to. Kind of makes me wonder if I kept any of that piping. I anticipate that I’ll probably make use of a lot fo flex pipe for that part, and at least two hangers in there. Once we’re under the trunk, I’ll put the Supertrapp muffler onto the pipe and use a hanger (or two, depending on how solid it is) to keep that in place. I’m considering putting a hole in the rear fascia and running the output of the muffler through there, but we’ll see.

Last night, I got all the various bits re-attached to the car:

– With 2 feet of 1/4″ fuel hose, I covered the new barb on the intake manny
– Throttle body is re-attached
– Fuel rail is re-attached, however, it may not be totally sealed up
– Injector plugs are wired down
– I used some zipties to tidy up the sensor wiring that ran along the fuel rail
– All of the intake piping is re-attached
– The stock SRT-4 BOV is installed on the turbo

The vacuum system and the PCV/catch-can system both need to be worked on, though. Basically, I need to re-check the wastegate vacuum system (should go from the turbo scroll to the boot controller back to the wastegate), fix the brake booster (there is an open vacuum port on the booster that I need to figure out), and get the MAP sensor & BOV lines connected to the new intake vacuum bung. That last step should involve getting a 1/4″ to (whatever the MAP hose size is) barb adapter and then adding a tee for the BOV connection off the of the MAP hose.

The crankcase ventilation system is also crap right now. I’ve spent some time educating myself and I’m getting closer to knowing what to do. There are two ports on the valve cover: One has the PCV and the other used to go to the stock airbox. The PCV port needs to go from the VC to a catch can that I need to build and then from the catch can to the PCV and from the PCV to the low-pressure intake after the filter. I’m still researching the other port, though, to see if I should cap it or run it back to the intake.

I also cleared all the junk off the top of the car, and just for fun, put the hood back on. It’s really dusty, but at least when you open the garage door, it looks like there’s a car in there instead of a pile of garbage. It may not technically help, but it sure does give me a lot of motivation.

So, it’s been about two years since I’ve done anything with the car…

Last night, I found all the bits of the intake manifold and started to re-assemble it. There was a lot of cleaning up that needed to be done, but basically, I used a dremel brush attachment to get most of the crud off of the lower intake and then hosed down both the lower and upper intake. I was going to complete the task of putting the intake back on and having the car “operable” (in theory, of course), however, when I put the nipple on the manifold, I managed to pick the worst spot in the world. Once the throttle body is back on, I won’t be able to get to it. So, I need to go out and get a right angle adapter for the vacuum line back to the MS MAP sensor. Once that’s complete, I should be able to bolt the rest of the bits on.

Unlike the CRX, however, I will be putting some lube down the plug holes and trying to turn everything manually a bit before I just go and hit the starter.

The car was very close to being tested again. But now it won’t run at all. I took the intake manifold off!

The first BOV that I was looking for didn’t pan out, however, I did manage to find one on eBay for the same price. It should be shipped out any day now and that will solve that part of the problem. I also have a set of stock SRT-4 springs that I’m watching. We’ll see how those turn out, but it should give me a 1″ lift, if the .org can be trusted.

In order to ensure that I am getting a good MAP signal, I decided to put a dedicated vacuum line in. That’s why the manifold is off the car right now. I bought a 1/4″ NPT hose barb, an NPT tap, and a bunch of O-rings at O’Riley today. I pulled the intake off the car, removed all the injectors and sensors, and separated the upper & lower intakes as well as the throttle body. I drilled and tapped a hole for the hose barb and I’m trying to decide how much I’m going to do to the intake before putting it back on the car. At a bare minimum, I’m going to run it through the parts washer to clean it up and make sure there are no rouge aluminum shards running around.

I’ve found a guy who has a stock SRT-4 BOV for sale. He’s working on tracking down some paypal information and will hopefully be ready to sell me the BOV and get it shipped to me pretty quickly. Once I have that, I can connect the vacuum for the BOV, the vacuum for the wastegate, and the MAP sensor and brake booster.

Perhaps I’m showing my total ignorance here, but as it turns out, the original SRT-4 turbo deal did not, in fact, include the BOV. It included a BOP. So, the car has no BOV whatsoever, and the thing that I thought was the BOV’s output is actually, right now, a vacuum leak. It’s tough to be a tard.

So, anyway, here’s what really needs to happen with the whole vacuum situation. I’ve connected the rear-most nipple on the compressor scroll to the manual boost controller which is then connected to the wastegate. The forward-most nipple on the compressor scroll needs to be connected to the BOV, once I find one. Then, somewhere on the intake manifold, after the throttle body, I need to find a vacuum source to feed to the MAP sensor in the MS. Then everything else needs to be plugged.

As far as putting a BOV on, I can either get a stock one that will mount directly to the compressor scroll, or I can get one that sits on the high-pressure tube from the intercooler to the throttle body.

One remaining question, though, is the little nipple that is on the left (driver) side of the cam cover. On a stock 2.0 DOHC motor, that nipple is connected to the post-filter intake tube. I assume it’s a breather. The PCV valve is still in place on the other side of the motor, looping around to the throttle body. So, do I block off that breather tube, leave it open, or route it back to the low-pressure intake tube?