Turdbo Neon

With the car running well, I’ve been working on some incremental improvements lately.

First off, I went to the junkyard in search of the rear window guides so that I can easily roll the windows up and down.  I wasn’t able to find those, but I did find a ’95 2dr with a rear swaybar.  $20 and some nasty, rusty bolts later, and I walked out of there with a rear sway and all the mounting hardware.  The frame bracket bolts came out a bit deformed, so I got new bolts from Ace.  Previously, I had dropped $50 to someone on neons.org to get a set of mounting brackets, endlinks, frame brackets, and Prothane bushings, so my plan is to use that hardware to mount up the swaybar and then sell the leftover hardware.

I couldn’t bear to bolt that nasty, rusty swaybar to the car, however, so I hit it with a whizz-wheel and some sandpaper to take the surface rust off and then painted it with some leftover SEM gloss black rust-covering paint that a friend had given me a while back.  I did the same to the mounting hardware I got from the .org and now all I need to do is bolt it up.

Some hunting around on eBay Motors paid off in a big way when I found an auction for a matched pair of Schroth Rallye 4 harness belts.  I wound up getting them for $125.50 after shipping plus another 7 bucks or so for some bolts to mount them up to the OEM seatbelt attachment points.  Interestingly enough, the bolts that used to be in those holes are long gone, and it took me some doing to find replacements since they’re SAE not metric!  The seat-back bolts are 1/2″, fine thread and about 1 3/8″ while the rest are 7/16″ fine thread.  I picked up 1 1/2″ long bolts for all the positions and those worked okay on the sides, but the seat-back bolts were just a hair too long — had I pushed them all the way through they would have started to dig in to the plastic gas tank which is probably not a good thing.  I threw two washers in there to prevent the bolts from going too deep and it seems to be okay.  I haven’t had a chance to drive the car with the harness belts yet, but just from sitting in the garage, I can tell that I’m going to be pretty well planted in there.  Maybe some “Neon” shoulder pads to lessen the bruising are in order.

The eBay-special short shifter that I got in the box with the boost gauge, MSD coil, catch can, and other stuff is now installed.  It was a bit easier than I expected, actually, and it seems a lot nicer.  The throws could definitely be shorter, though, so I don’t know how long I’ll keep this before I move to something of a little higher quality.

I still haven’t hooked up the oil pressure sender.  I really need to do that.  I also need to do something about street tires — these have a ton of vibration in them at highway speeds and it’s downright tiring to drive.

I’m starting to think about my next steps, too:

• There’s still a little bit of an oil leak that I’d like to track down
• Replacing the oil lines with steel braided ones would be nice, as would adding a right angle to the oil pan inlet
• A mount for the laptop would be great for having TunerStudio provide a nice gauge console for me
• I’d like to hook up the other cooling fan to enhance the car’s chill-a-bility
• Fixing up the turbo piping would be nice.  I’d like to take out the rubber couplers and replace them with silicon.  Additionally, fixing that rear pipe would be nice, weather that means running to the front of the engine or re-engineering the pipe that runs around the back.
• Some sort of LSD would be very helpful, given the amount of power I’m putting down.  I could get in to a phantom grip pretty cheap, but I think an OBX or Quaife would be a better choice.  I just don’t know if I feel like tearing apart my transmission.
• I still want to get a couple seats to put in the car.  I think a set of Corbeaus is what I want, but I’m probably in to that for about 700-800 bucks if I get them brand new with the appropriate brackets.

I may try to go out tonight and get that swaybar installed to see what that’s like.  I’ve heard it will really tighten up the car and I’m anxious to see how much it will help me rotate the back end when I’m in the dirt.

Completed so far:

• Gauge backlights installed
• CKP sensor signal wire repaired
• Unnecessary wiring removed from engine harness
• Unnecessary wiring removed from dash harness
• Fan switch and relay installed
• 6-wire bundle installed from center console to engine compartment

To shake the car down a bit before the first WOR points event, Tim and I took the car up to  the Indy region’s PE#2.  First in MF and fourth overall on a dry track with no serious tire advantage.

In no uncertain terms, this car is a weapon to which you strap yourself and try to hang on and it is a broad sword, not a scalpel.  The course was designed with a very tight right-hand turn out of the start which fed immediately into a left-hand sweeper.  First gear and a very light throttle touch got the car off the start and around the first bend, but once I entered the left-hand sweeper, I put it into second gear and the car basically exploded down the track, and I think it was basically spinning the wheels the whole time I was on the throttle.  As I mentioned to someone else, you can’t think of that as a car — it’s more like a boat that cuts through dirt instead of water.

The day left me with only one problem with the car:  The clutch cable came disconnected from the clutch pedal and required a quick fix.  I have an allen wrench jammed in there now, held steady with some duct tape.  I need to find a new cotter pin, and perhaps a washer, to make that a more permanent fix.

According to Tim, I’m getting thrown all over the inside of the car, so instead of trying to run down some coilovers, my next purchase will be a harness.  More details as they become available.  I also need to drain the oil so that I can install the oil filter sandwich adapter with the oil pressure sender attached.

The engine compartment portion of the wiring is almost complete.  All of the sensors and such are connected and the car will start and idle.  All that’s left to do (electrically) forward of the firewall is:

• Wrap and secure the lighting wires that cross the core support
• Shorten, route, wrap, and secure the horn wires
• Replace the side marker light as the bulb holder got ripped off the car at some point
• Wire a switch from the dashboard to the new fan control relay
• Wire the second cooling fan to the first cooling fan so both will run
• Run a series of wires from the dash to the engine compartment — these will be for future use so I don’t have to take things apart.  One of them will be for the oil pressure sender and the rest could be for anything.  These should be long enough to go anywhere under the hood and I can trim them to fit when I have a use for them.

Those tasks should be completed in very little time, as there isn’t really much to them.  Since I have some “behind the dash” work to do, I began the process of replacing the heater core last night and most of the dash is out of the car.

Interesting fact:  When removing things that I don’t need, one of the bits that I took off the car was the battery temperature sensor.  I figured that since the battery is in the back of the car, I didn’t need that anymore.  As it turns out, the PCM depends on that signal being within some range and if that sensor is bad or missing, it will reduce the amount by which the alternator will charge the battery and turn on the battery light on the gauge cluster.  I had to unwrap the wires, add that back in, and re-wrap.

As I replace the heater core, I also want to try to change the way the water flow moves from the block to the core and to the turbo.  There is a lot of heater hose floating around that’s clogging up the engine bay and I want to get that under control.  I’m thinking about relocating the CLT sensor and its housing and changing what the ground wire looks like, and then making sure that the water flows from the block to the core and then from the core to the turbo and then back to the block.  I’ll probably want to shorten up the water hardlines a bit on the turbo to keep the kinks out of the water lines and also keep the water lines out of the way.

The 2012 season was an unqualified success for the Turdbo Neon.  I finished the year 2nd place in MF, picked up an MF win at an event in Indy, took the fastest overall time at one event, second-fastest at another, a handful of MF class wins, drove to Florida and back without needing a tow truck, and managed a 17th place finish at the GRM $2012 Challenge.  Better yet, out of the 7 events I competed in, I had only two mechanical issues (and one of those wasn’t really the car breaking, but me leaving a loose bolt in the bell housing).

My second mechanical problem occurred at the last event of the WOR season and took the form of the car just dying out right after the start.  Judging by the way the car was acting — It would turn over, but Megasquirt’s “squirt” lights weren’t flashing at all — I suspected that my crank position sensor signal wasn’t reaching Megasquirt.  I attempted to fix it in the field, but I didn’t have any luck.  Once I got it back home, I traced the wire and found that the CKP sensor signal wire had broken way way back in the original wiring harness.

That broken wire presented me with an opportunity, so I decided to pull apart the existing wiring harness as much as I could and start pulling out all of the wires that I no longer use and then fully document and re-wrap and re-route the remaining wires.  My goal with this is to make the car easier to troubleshoot and to make it a little less affected by the rough terrain and weather.

At this point, I’ve compiled a binder with all of the various connectors and relevant wiring diagrams so I can trace out pretty much anything under the hood and I’ve clipped out the wires for some of the sensors that I don’t need, and for things like the A/C, airbags, and other such.  I also was finally able to remove the rear section of a stock battery tray and bolt it to the inner frame rail so that the power distribution center can be mounted solid to the car, and I’ve re-routed all the wiring so that it goes from the PCM/Megasquirt/instrument cluster to the engine in one simple bundle.  There are still a few things that need to be soldered up and taped together, but the job is nearing completion.

Other things on my list to get completed in the short term:

• Wire up a switch for the radiator fans.  This should go from the cabin to a relay and then on to both fans and should also be equipped with an indicator light.  I haven’t decided if I want the switch to be powered with the ignition off, but I’m leaning towards that.
• Replace the heater core.  I sort of threw out the one that came with the car, and the one that was in the donor car was leaky and the patch isn’t holding.  Obviously I need to take the dash apart to do that, and while I have that out, I will probably touch up a couple things behind the dash such as…
• Hook up the instrument lights to the oil and boost gauges so I can see them at night
• Add some sort of auxiliary lighting to the cabin for use as map lights
• Examine the feasibility of re-routing the turbo water connection.  I suspect that the way I have the coolant connected, there may be a bit of a flow restriction that could cause problems.  I already know that I’m not getting real strong heat in the car.  If I can change the way the plumbing goes, I could have a nicer looking engine compartment with less rubbing and more room for the air intake.
• Change up the air intake tube.  I might try to replace the metal pipe with a plastic one that doesn’t weigh as much, and I would like to secure it so that it doesn’t bang around.
• Attempt to build some securing brackets for the charge pipes.  These are also banging around a bit.
• Hook up the oil pressure sender.  Being ignorant on oil pressure is not a good long-term prospect.
• And I’d really like to get the windows back in their tracks!

Overall, the Grassroots Motorsports $2012 Challenge was a success!  Skipping to the end, the car finished 17th out of 34 entries and turned in a 14.56 quarter mile ET.

The drive down over Wednesday and Thursday was utterly uneventful.  The car performed flawlessly and was getting over 35mpg while doing 70mph down the interstate.  It’s actually not at all uncomfortable, and with the baffles installed in the Supertrapp, it’s not even that loud on the inside.

Once I arrived in Gainesville, my plan was to do a little more cleaning out of the car, however, the bath I had planned for it was cancelled due to rain, so I wound up having to go into the concours a little dirty from the road.  I was, however, able to solve the oild leak problem, finally, thanks to Bill from the Shelby Dodge Automotive Club.  He pointed out that the turbo is really really sensitive to any slightest upward cant in the oil return line.  I drained out the oil, cut about 6-8 inches out of the drain line, put the oil back in, and suddenly my oil leak problem was solved.  Amazing.

The autocross didn’t go too well, only turning in a time that was in the 44th percentile.  The pro driver actually managed to shred the tires, so I think the first problem was that the rubber was pretty much spent.  The car is also up too high and the rear end needs to be stiffened up.  Adding some negative camber to the front probably would have helped a great deal, too.  In the drag race, I would have been able to do 13s if I could have gotten the front end to stop breaking loose — I was breaking loose in first, second, and third gears.  When I trapped at 100mph, I was also bouncing off the 6500 RPM rev limiter in 4th gear, so that didn’t help either.

So, what do I do now?  Obviously, the car is going to continue as the rallycross beater, and I wouldn’t mind just driving it around town.  I haven’t decided if I will bring it back to the $2013 Challenge, although the more I think about it, the more I think I want to do it.  Most of what I want to do with the car could still be done for Challenge money:

Suspension

Coil-overs are probably the right way to go, and adding a rear sway would be a good idea.  The car is super nose-heavy right now so being able to pre-load the rear suspension will help with launching the car, and getting it a bit stiffer and lower wouldn’t be bad either.  I think that if I could find another front stock front strut, I could get the ebay coilovers on.  That would also get the perches out of my way and open up my tire choices a bit more — especially for rallyx.  I’ll also keep my eye out for a rear bar.

Engine

Things are running pretty well.  I’d like to consider pulling the PCM completely and letting megasquirt just take over.  I might also consider pulling the intake off again and doing some more porting and polishing.  The boost pipes are doing their job just fine, and the oil leaks appear to be taken care of.  Only one fan is currently hooked up, so I’d like to hook both fans up to a switch on the dash.  I’d also like to fix the shutoff switch so that it works properly, and also put a shutoff switch on the dash to comply with autox rules.  An oil pressure gauge should also be added, since I’m flying without a net somewhat.

Transmission

I think that transmission lube is leaking from the top of the transmission, and the speedometer ring is missing.  I’d also like to have an LSD someday.  Getting the transmission where I’d like it will be spendy and might not fit the budget.  I’d consider possibly getting a junkyard clutch and transmission, using that transmission as my “regular one” and then swapping back to the junkyard clutch and the current transmission for the Challenge, which would put about $235 back in the budget for other things.

Appearances

Oddly enough, my concours score didn’t really change from 2006 to 2012.  I’d like to pull the motor out and re-spray the engine bay — maybe in truck bed liner?  I would also take that time to detail the engine and re-paint the valve cover and boost pipes.  Some better brackets for the boost pipes and other such (instead of zip ties and bungee cords) would be nice too.  The interior is okay, but it needs to be cleaned out better.  I’m not really sure how to go about that without using a hose.  The wiring needs to be attached to something with some little brackets, and flocking the dash would be a nice touch.

One thing that they’re always talking about is how black cars don’t photograph well, so if I could either plastidip or otherwise paint the car some more brightish colors on the outside, I’d probably do a bit better.  Maybe even a good amount of vinyl applied in the right way.  It would be pretty cool if I could mimic GRM’s old Neon.

Tomorrow morning, I begin the drive in the Neon to Gainesville, FL for the Grassroots Motorsports $2012 Challenge.  Here’s hoping nothing major blows up.

I’ve never seen that car so clean, though…

I had some serious concerns that all the oil that I was getting out of the oil fill cap was a symptom of failure of the rings, so I performed both a compression test and a leakdown test.  The compression test results were essentially the same as they’ve always been (good) but I was truly surprised by the leakdown test:  between 2% and 7% across the board.  That led me to look for other problems that would cause tons of oil all over the place. I installed the catch can and connected my One-A-Day air filter to one port and a hose that goes to the PVC port and the breather port to the other.  These adjustments didn’t really seem to stop the flow of the oil, however, so I ran the leakdown and compression tests.

Doing a little bit of reading, it looks like there’s supposed to be some sort of gasket or o-ring on the oil fill cap, but I didn’t see one.  I took an old rubber elbow out of the trash and cut a gasket for the oil fill and that seems to have solved the problem for now.

There is another leak that appears to be in the oil return line on the turbo.  My first suspicion is that it’s spraying through the hose clamp keeping the return line attached to the drain tube/flange.  I added a second hose clamp to that and cleaned things off.  A quick drive should point me in the right direction.

For the door panels, I acquired some scrap bits of Formica laminate that I’m going to trim to fit the doors.  That should give the car a slightly better look.  I also used an existing clip as a template to bend up a couple new window handle clips out of some old paperclips we had laying about.  Now the window crank handles are somewhat permanently attached, which should make things a little less dangerous,

Turns out that the reason the surge valves I’ve tried never worked is that the vacuum tee I was using to connect them was totally defective.  The “tee” portion was completely unconnected to the rest of the adapter, so I had a coupler with a spare hose holder attached.  I drilled it out and suddenly I have a surge valve operational.

In other news, I’ve mounted the boost, oil pressure, and EGO gauges in the radio surround using an old triple gauge holder that Tim had laying about.  I zip tied it to a bit of metal strapping that I trimmed to fit between two of the mounting clips on the radio surround.  I drilled a couple holes in the top and put in some old wood screws to keep it from rattling itself apart and so far so good.  I haven’t hooked the gauges up yet (except for the EGO), but I will.

I also ran a hose from the PVC towards the headlight area to see if the oil dripping/spraying pattern changes at all.  After a drive to work this morning, it looks like the oil drippage has changed a bit, but I’ll need to dig in and take a look later tonight.

The MSD coil is attached to the car now, as well, and it seems to work without issue.  Hard to tell if it makes a difference, but at least it looks all pretty up there on top of the valve cover.

Dad’s working on finding me some scrap bits of Formica that I can use to fabricate some door panels.  I’m also going to work on building my coilovers this weekend.

I was able to get the AEM Wideband installed in the car.  The gauge isn’t properly mounted yet, but I am getting good AFR readings which I’m using to work on tuning the fuel map a bit.  In order to enable Tuner Studio to utilize the wideband, I had to change the Project Properties to specify the right wideband sensor and then I had to modify c:\program files\efianalytics\tunerstudioms\inc\lamdasensors.ini to include:

#elif AEM_LINEAR
afr = { 10.0 + (egoADC * 0.0392157) }
lambda = { afr / 14.7 }
TargetAFR = { 10.0 + (afrtarget * 0.0392157 ) }
TargetLambda = { TargetAFR / 14.7 }

Turns out I was running waaaay rich, so VE Analyze Live has been real busy slowing the injectors down a bit.

I also swapped the Forge BOV out and put the stock surge valve back in.  There’s a little bit of a difference, but it still sounds like there’s some compressor surge.

The car had a solid third-in-class finish at the OVR Enduro event and ran very well.  The biggest problem that developed was that the breather was spewing oil, so I think a catch can is going to be necessary.  Otherwise, everything was running really well and the car was actually pretty fast.  I’ve had it out on the road a little bit since getting some newer street tires from the junkyard — I can mount three tires in under and hour with that manual machine, thankyouverymuch — and the performance has been quite good.  I’ve got some parts in and I’ve got a bit of a list of fairly minor things that I need to do to make the car complete:

• Blow off valve / surge valve doesn’t appear to be working.  I’m getting compressor surge noises when I lift the throttle, so something has to be done about that.  I’m thinking that I may uninstall the Forge bov and the injectors and go back to the stock surge valve and the original injectors.  That should put a few bucks back in the budget.  Either way, I need to keep it parked until I work out the surge valve problem.
• I have an AEM UEGO that I bought used.  I want to install it in place of the narrowband to do some tuning and then pull it out for the Challenge (unless I have enough budget room remaining, then I may just leave it in).
• Tim gave me an old oil pressure sensor and gauge that I would like to FMV and install
• I’ve got a big-ole box of parts en-route, in theory, which should include a catch can, boost gauge, MSD coil, and a short shifter.  The catch can needs to be installed for sure, and I would really like to add the boost gauge to the dash.  I’m thinking that where the radio used to be would be a good place to put in a filler panel with holes for the three gauges.
• I bought a set of ebay coilover sleeves and springs to try to stiffen things up without a drop.  The SRT-4 springs are just way too high and don’t give me enough suspension travel right now, and will certainly not be any good for the autocross in Gainesville.  It looks like I’m going to need to grind off the perches from the KYBs, my only concern is that the spring rate is going to be so much higher than stock and that’s going to cause the rebound damping to be more than the struts were likely designed for, so I’ll probably tear through the KYBs pretty fast.  If I can get them to last through the end of September, I’m okay though.
• I need to find something to cover up the door panels.  I’m thinking that some formica just might do the trick.
• There’s way too much heat under the hood.  The first thing I need to try is to increase the amount of induction I can get from the cowl by raising the hood pins in the back a bit to cant the hood forward.  From there, I might look in to cutting some vents.
• I’ve started to try to insulate the hot-side intercooler pipe a bit.  For the Enduro event, I loosely wrapped it in a couple layers of aluminium foil and that seemed to work really well.  I have some fiberglass insulation and some large clamps that I might try to use to cool it further.  I’m trying to get that rubber coupler in the rear to hold up longer.
• It would be nice to have a working fuel gauge, but that’s a pretty much last-minute thing.  I can always carry a gas can on the trip to Florida so I can figure out how many miles I can get on a tank.
• I should fix the driver-side window net