The Lawn Dart

[Deceus]

Day 3



Still on track surprisingly. The starter didn't give me too much trouble and neither did the shifter cable. They're both still a huge pain in the ass to deal with but I didn't run into anything out of ordinary, just the usual headache of dealing with really tight spaces.

From there I got the steering column back on and centered. Got the power steering lines reconnected, the pump filled back up and the air bled out of the steering box. From there I went down a list of torque specs and hit everything I could. Got to slide the torsion bars in before calling it a night.

I need to torque down the motor mounts before I forget and then it's time to deal with setting my ride height. After that I'll measure my camber and dial that in and then set my toe. My sway bar came in today and I may throw that on before aligning everything since it should be a lot easier since this one doesn't thread through the k-member like the old one.

So yeah, at this point my money is on a shit ton of snow Saturday because it looks like I actually stand a chance at having this thing road ready tomorrow with time for shake down runs on Friday.

[Deceus]

Day 4



Had a few more things to torque down but got all 4 wheels back on the ground for the first time since I started this mess with the k-member/EFI swap. It sits a little higher in the front than I was hoping but it's not bad. I'm close to the bottom of the torsion bar adjusters so I'll have to go with drop spindles to get it to sit any lower. It's definitely fine for now. Decided to throw on the sway bar before dealing with the alignment and it didn't cooperate very well. There was no way in hell I was going to get the bolts they supplied to work for the end links. There was hardly room for the nut with it off the car. Add in a 1" wide bar and 1/4" plate for the mount and there was no way in hell that was getting on. I doubted home depot carried anything over 7" but the gf proved me wrong and I got roped into a baking goods shopping spree.



The 8" bolts did the trick but it was pretty late once I readjusted the ride height and took some camber measurements for the alignment. I got 0 degress on one side and +1.5 on the other so I am going to have to mess with my camber bolts. Toe is ... well it's fucked at the moment. I was struggling to get one side lined up with the wheels on. The toe plates aren't much help until I can at least get them close to straight.

With the car show postponed I'm half tempted to just take the damn Ralliart to the Sunday autocross. Especially since it has a new set of Pilot Sports but man was that car disappointing the last time I had it out. Gotta make the call pretty soon because I will need a u-haul trailer. Kinda knew I'd managed to get this ready when I saw the weather forecast at the beginning of the week. Oh well, always forward.

[Deceus]

Oh the good news is that car actually sits level now. So it seems the old k-member was the source of the issues and I didn't manage to bend my front subframe. The passenger tire still hits the frame rail but I think that's because the tie rods are still pretty uneven. I'm hoping once everything is dialed in that won't be a problem.

[Deceus]

Day 5

Yeah I'm posting 2 days late but I decided to hop in the car with the gf to pickup the kid from grandma's. Spent 13 hours in a car instead of racing and finally showing off the car, thanks Virginia.







Wrong car I know. This thing has had a tiny boost leak for a while now. It hasn't gotten nearly enough love from me as it deserves lately. I got as far as building a boost leak tester and narrowing it down to the intercooler before giving up last time. I was considering the possibility of taking this thing out for the MBCA autocross on Sunday since everything else was cancelled this weekend. It does have a fresh set of Pilot Sport A/S all around so I decided to tackle this thing on Friday instead of fighting with my alignment and getting my exhaust back together. MBCA wasn't making the call until noon Saturday so that means I couldn't book a u-haul trailer without gambling so I just finally admitted defeat. It's just not the weekend. It may not seem like it from this thread, but believe it or not I have learned the value of throwing in the towel a long time ago. Now back to the grocery-getter with boost.

It was a bitch getting the bumper off but at least now I know how it's done. Just like 50% plastic being held together by plastic rivets so that was new and fun. It started with me completely stripping one of the few 10mm bolts with the mini impact. It looked a little rusty but not THAT bad honestly. The corners of the bolt basically just disintegrated though. Fortunately this is just another day for me at this point. I busted out the 1/4" drill bit and drilled out the head. The other 11 bolts holding down the hood will just have to do but it was out without much issue. Once I stopped trying to pop things off with a flat-tip screwdriver and made the trip to get actual trim removal tools it went pretty smooth ... UNTIL I got to the leak itself.

I replace the shitty clamps with some leftover t-bolt clamps I had laying around. I stopped the leak on one side but the other side started leaking and just wouldn't stop. I put my hand on the coupler and it looked like I dunked it in used motor oil when I took it off. It seems this rubber hose is halfway through it's transition to rubber powder. I slapped it all back together for now and ordered a new coupler. It's still screeching but not as bad. Decided to just spend the rest of the weekend being fat and lazy. THE END.

[Deceus]

Sooo I took a bit of a break from this thing last week. Got the alignment knocked out today and started fighting with the GM A body X pipe kit. It was a good bit wider than my headers so I got to work cutting down the front 2 pipes to make them narrow enough. Hit the mark after the second cut but they still wouldn't slide on because the angle wasn't quite right. Throwing in the towel on this one a likely driving it up to an exhaust shop sometime next week to see if they can make it work. Got the mufflers on a set 12" straight pipes. They're close to dragging on the ground because of course the collectors just HAVE to be pointing inward and down towards the ground to make my life harder than it needs to be. Should be able to get to the shop though.

And now for the ugly part: there's a loud ticking on my drive side. After consulting the hive-mind we've decided it's a header leak. Not something I would have guessed but the lifters all look fine. I'm not sure if it's not torque down properly or an issue with the gasket. I also don't have park ... and haven't been in park all day apparently or since I hooked the shifter back up. I though it was rolling around a little freely today but usually it can rock a bit even in park but it's definitely been in neutral the whole time I've been working on it today. Oops. I usually have a chock block down at all times because of stuff like this but I didn't today. Stay safe friends. Just gonna have to adjust the cable, probably just needs to be moved back just a tad because every other gear seems to work. Fortunately I don't think the bracket needs to come apart for that but it's still a pain to deal with now that everything is back in.

So yeah she's back and weather seems to be looking up. I guess I can't really be mad (but of course, I still am because it's the only thing sustaining me at this point)

[Deceus]

Annnndddddd now the fan is making contact with the water pump pulley. Super low profile fan is on the way. I might be able to throw the shroud back on with this one since it's a good 1.5" narrower. We'll see.

I guess I should be glad these are all quick fixes and not show-stoppers but at some point this shit has to come to an end.

[Deceus]

New gaskets went in without much hassle. Didn't even fight with the bolts that much now that I've done it twice. Had to cut up the gasket because I couldn't get the header off the studs. Removing the studs was my next option but they go into water jackets and I didn't have a real good way clamping on to them anyways. After a lot of though I came up with this solution. I cut the gasket up into the 3 sections and created a loop for each stud. It seemed to seal fine. I heard a tiny faint ticking but I'm sure if I get in there and give the bolts a bit more love it should totally seal. These soft aluminum gaskets are supposedly the last gasket you'll ever need to buy. We'll see.



Wasn't able to use the fan shroud after all. It's a real shame because I cleaned it up and painted it to match the radiator while I waited for the package to arrive. If I take the cover off the water pulley I may have enough space to run it if I do run into cooling issues down the road. Buuuut the new fan is in and centered this time because I have the room for it.



Crawled under the car and moved the shifter cable back a bit. I hoped that this had solved my issue with not hiving park but it didn't. I removed the chock block and the car tried to run away from me. I had to yell for help because of course I tossed the damn block just out of arms reach. I should've just let it roll away.

I removed the straight pipes and just have my mufflers on the back of my collectors now. It sounds so good but it's definitely not staying like that. Not sure I'll have the time to take it to a muffler shop on Friday. Can't say I'm willing to try either since there will be no one around to rescue me if something happens. Probably gonna have to try if I want to race on Sunday. I guess we'll see how tomorrow goes. Once I have park again, it should be ready for some shakedown runs.

[Deceus]

SOooo I give up ... on racing this thing on Sunday. I got the ratchet shifter dialed back in and everything works perfect except for 1st to 2nd. I don't know what the fuck is going on. Sometimes I get neutral, sometimes it seems to halfway go into gear, sometimes it seems to skip to 3rd. Pulling the shifter into 3rd seems to put it in 3rd about 90% of the time. Sometimes I have to shift it back up into first and then back down into 3rd to get it back. If I pop the the throttle with it in second it seems to shift. Idk it's a fucking mess. It was 2 quarts low but it still had around 8 quarts of fluid in it. At first I thought it was just halfway shifting to second and then going into second instead of 3rd and needed to be adjusted but now I just don't know.

I do know that I'm never putting an automatic in anything I build ever again. Gonna take this thing into a transmission shop next week hopefully but for the show I'll deal with just having 1st and 3rd. Long term I think a manual swap just got to the top of the wishlist. It's a shame the easy way is close to $6,000 just for the parts.

[Sijray21]

Ugh, that's frustrating about the transmission...

They're black boxes for me since I've never torn into one. That's also a shame about the fan shroud, but I agree with the function aspect of leaving it off.

[Deceus]

yeah i've doing some digging it's likely just a band that's out of adjustment or completely broken off sitting in my pan. Easy fix for a transmission shop with a lift especially if it's just a band adjustment. It's running fine now that I know to just skip 2nd. It's a little awkward pulling up a red light and having to drop it from 3rd to 1st but it does alright. Gonna give the shop in town a call Monday morning and hope they can get me in and out sometime next week.

[Deceus]

So I made it to the show and back without incident. It was a hard fought victory. Couldn't stay for the cruise because I had to get back and start working on the Ralliart.



I pulled the intercooler completely out to remove any trace of corrosion on the outlet. There was a good bit there so I was hoping that was the source of the sealing issues. There was a lot of pitting in the metal so I didn't have high hopes. I thought I had finally got it but it was still whistling on the test drive. I'm thinking a tiny bit of air is sneaking past the coupler through some of the pitting. I'm thinking of making a last ditch effort with some RTV. I would have tried it by now but it's not the best idea. It can get sucked into the throttle body if you're not careful and glob it on. Another problem for another day. Got the rear rotors replaced and brought an end to the brake job from hell. Turns out 4-5 Chicago winters can do a number on a set of rotors. Nothing some penetrating oil and mini sledge couldn't eventually handle. I just took it to the Verona event still squealing like a pig.





To add insult to injury the damn thing failed the VA state inspection. Driver side tie rod end supposedly had some play and the wipers were toast. They couldn't fit the car in that day so I just told them to slap a rejection sticker on it. Replaced both sides and did find that the driver side one was getting sloppy. Looks like the previous owner just replaced the passenger side at one point because I bought one for both sides just to be safe.

Jumping back to the real car I dialed in my idle air control (IAC) because I was having some issues coasting and it was stumbling real bad after it was revved over 2k. It's behaving a lot better now now that it's within the range it should. I was idling with the IAC position at 20% when it should've been between 2-10%. Still no idea what's up with the missing second gear but I did double check the band adjuster and it's not loose. I suppose that's a battle for another day.

[ScottyB]

you might want to give a shot at a thin bead of butyl tape around that intercooler pipe neck, and then put the coupler over that. that stuff is impervious to temp changes (its used to seal panels and trim on RVs) and malleable but not really as goopy as a putty. sticky too. i think you can pick up a roll pretty cheap, may be worth a shot to fill the gaps.

[Deceus]

you might want to give a shot at a thin bead of butyl tape around that intercooler pipe neck, and then put the coupler over that.  that stuff is impervious to temp changes (its used to seal panels and trim on RVs) and malleable but not really as goopy as a putty.  sticky too.  i think you can pick up a roll pretty cheap, may be worth a shot to fill the gaps.

If it wasn't close to $1000 I'd just replace all the piping and get a real intercooler on this thing. Apparently they're good for up to 20whp gains because the stock one sucks so bad. Not a huge fan of all the rubber hose on it anyways but damn that's pricey for a few silicone couplers and some piping.

[Deceus]

So looks like I may be dropping my transmission myself. I called Danny's in Harrisonburg and he wasn't really interested in touching the car. He pointed me to Blue Ridge Trans but he's backed up at least a month and couldn't recommend anyone else in the area that could do it. My guess is that when I drop the car off I probably won't see it for a least a week or 2 considering his waitlist is only like 5 cars. I would be bugging the original trans builder but he's way out in Illinois. I've already narrowed it down to the front band for the most part and taking the trans out would mean I could figure out if the leak in my bellhousing is coming from the vent or the front seal and save me a lot of money. Worse case scenario it'll be much easier to take somewhere if I get in over my head.

Not too worried about tearing into it but getting it out might be expensive. Probably a good time to invest in a Quickjack system and I'd probably have to get a low profile transmission jack. I'll also need something like a Mityvac since there's no drainplug on the trans anywhere. The only shitty part about actually getting it out is getting to the top 2 bolts and having to remove the starter with the headers in the way ... again.

Throwing in the towel with the Ralliart. I'm not so sure the leak is happening at the intercooler anymore. It's not blowing any bubbles when I leak test it but the sound is still there. It could be the BOV or any of the smaller hoses running everywhere but I'm not seeing anything. Really sucks I can't get the damn thing to make any noise in the driveway because I'd probably find it in 2 seconds as loud as it is. Not sure where I'm taking it but I'm done with it for now.

[JustinG]

Look up a DIY leak tester. About $25-30 spent at Home Depot with an air compressor cranked down to like 10psi and you'll find the leak.

[Deceus]

Look up a DIY leak tester. About $25-30 spent at Home Depot with an air compressor cranked down to like 10psi and you'll find the leak.

Been there, it was holding air pretty well which is why I threw in the towel. I suppose it could be a leak at the turbo itself, maybe the gasket at the outlet? Not gonna try and open that can of worms myself. Idk I was messing with it today and noticed it sounded like it was coming from the same exact area as the BOV. I might have to bench test it or throw on the stock one I have laying around.

[Deceus]

Sooooo yeah, you're looking at my front band adjuster being bottomed out. Took me 2 hours and a trip to home depot to even get a couple turns on this fucking thing so I'm extra salty right now. So my trans is definitely fucked and will need surgery from a shop. The builder is in Lowel, IN so not sure how much help he can be but he does have a good reputation so we'll see.

[Deceus]

What a day, what a day ...

My off-brand Mityvac came in around 4 so I figured I'd get busy. I was really curious as to what I'd find in the trans so I was eager to get started. The evacuator worked good once I stopped trying to go through the dipstick tube and just put it directly in the trans. Was a caught off guard when like a quart of trans fluid came out when I popped the dipstick out. I had managed to siphon about a pint or 2 out so this definitely might be overfilled. That made shit messy for the rest of the job because it got everywhere.



Unhooked the shifter bracket, selector lever and front trans cooler fitting. It was a huge pain in the ass with the header I just installed in the way of EVERYTHING but I prevailed. Got the pan off without any incident using my floor jack to lower it slowly. Got the valvebody most of the way off but couldn't get it to disengage since I left it in park so I just let it dangle. What I saw next was a big surprise ... nothing. Nothing was broken, bent or missing. It seems bottoming out the adjuster is exactly what it took to get the band at least close to snugged up. I called the trans builder and I started rambling because I was pretty worried I was gonna put this thing back together and nothing was going to be fixed. That the band was broke at the top or something. He decided it was a great idea to yell and scream at me to shut up and explain to me how the adjuster was supposed to work and wouldn't listen to the fact I couldn't "snug up" an adjuster that was bottomed the fuck out. He was trying to explain it didn't matter if there was only 3-4 threads left in the adjuster, snug is snug. It seemed to click a bit when I spelled out that there was exactly ZERO fucking threads showing for the third time.



I get it must be frustrating for him trying to fix a mistake from across the country but fuck it, I'm done with him. I'm done with shops in general. I'll buy a MaxJax for the new place and drop this transmission myself before I reach out for help again. The dude provide 0 useful input and hasn't even bothered to apologize yet. I paid him $1700 for a transmission that's worth $150 in it's stock used form. Counting $500 for news bands, clutches and seals that's over a grand just to put the fucking thing together right... I don't think it'll come to needing to be taken out but shittier things have happened. Anyways all that there was left to do was back it off so the band wasn't full engaged all the time and reassemble everything.

Not gonna lie it got ugly getting it back together but I did everything but put the fluid back in it. Hopefully I can test drive it this evening when I get back from DC. The gf is pissed too because apparently "I'm in a bad mood and I need to finish this" is code for please interrupt 5 or 6 times in 2 hours and call me while I'm under car covered in transmission fluid to ask if we have cardboard at the house...

I'm one more major issue away from parting this thing out and taking a vacation to Bora Bora with the money ... seriously. I know a lot more about the inner workings of this trans though so I consider it an overall good day of wrenching. I just need this thing to run a little longer than a week or 2 before it hits me with bullshit again.

[ViPER1313]

JEFF M cant help you out? He has been inside a mopar trans or 2. At least he can get it on a lift for you.

[ScottyB]

JEFF M cant help you out? He has been inside a mopar trans or 2. At least he can get it on a lift for you.

good call.  somebody light the pentastar signal in the clouds.  if he doesn't know how to work on it i bet he know's someone who legitimately does.