1998 Dodge Neon Modified class rallycrosser

Decided not to do much more than I already had done. Ground the JB smooth, cleaned things up with the sanding drums, then added more JB Weld to the outside of the EGR hole, in order to reinforce the stuff that was already there. Tomorrow, I'll clean stuff up, and take my little tent down.

With any luck, I can start working on taking the front of the engine apart on Friday. Got a notification my water pump (along with a bunch of trans parts) shipped today, so should have all the pieces to put the engine together soon.

doing more on my manifold tonight, i realized that i could take a lot more off the injector humps than you did. just go slow. i got a full 1 1/16th at the highest part of every bump. thats minimum port height, using a tape measure. so not exactly machinist accurate, but close enough....

you may want to try getting a little more., worst case, you back fill with the JB weld.

im planning on taking out the hump by the EGR entirely, but leaving the port open so i dont get any CEL's, and the EGR supposedly helps fuel economy. my acr is a daily, so fuel economy counts.

have you done any tweaks to your ATX throttle body? you did get the ATX TB, right?

I ended up cleaning everything yesterday after work, and it took two rounds to get the aluminum flakes and powder out of the upper manifold. I really wish I had a pressure washer(or lived somewhere warmer). As it is, I looked outside this morning, and a bunch of the soap bubbles from when I dumped the bin I was washing this stuff in are frozen in the back yard.

I was pretty sure I could take more off from the injectors, but was playing it as safe as possible, since this car is going to be in for a rough ride, plus I was a little afraid if I messed up, I'd screw up my schedule of trying to get the 2.4 in and running by the end of the year. I've got a 97-99 Mopar ECU in my parts stash, and I think it ignores the EGR signal. If not, I do have the proper resistor to put inline, though I hope I don't have to do it, since it wouldn't surprise me if I go Megasuirt in a year. Word of warning, if you completely remove the hump, you end up exposing one of the screw holes for the EGR tube. You'll probably want to cut down the bolt on that side to keep it from getting into the air flow.

I'm kind of overloaded with throttle bodies (and intake manifolds) at this point. I'll probably use the 52mm ATX one, maybe with the spring from the TB in the car already. I also have two of the 2.4 TBs, which are pretty worthless on their own, but can provide parts for the 99-00 Caravan TB I picked up. I suspect since my build is so mild, there will be little to no difference in power between the ATX and the Caravan throttle bodies, so I'll start with the ATX one, and if I don't like the throttle response, I'll mod the caravan one to work. Probably going to skip half-shafting them, again due to the vibration and abuse the car is going to take.

Life keeps getting in the way. Did manage to strip down a bunch of the front of the replacement engine in the last few days. Went from this (plus the crank pulley and lower timing cover):

To this (also removed the water pump):

Needed multiple trips to the hardware store for bolts/washers/etc, in order to supplement my tools, since I don't feel like spending a fortune on "Special" Mopar tools that only do one thing. I'm just hoping I can get the crankshaft sprocket back on the crank without too much of a fuss. It took my harbor freight puller, some M6X1.0 bolts from the hardware store, and my electric impact to remove it.

With any luck, tomorrow, the oil pan and pump come off, the balance shaft chain will get removed, and I'll get all the new goodies installed. After that (and some garage organizing) is done, the Neon can come into the garage, and I can pull the old 2.0.

Odd thing about the teardown, the camshaft seals and the timing belt look pretty fresh. However, the tensioner was pretty much shot, and the water pump had seen better days. I'd think if you're tearing the engine down enough to do the belt, its not much more effort to replace those.

That reminds me. Do not change the crank seal unless you have the special tool. The special tool sets the seal depth, not the seal or oil pump! You can over-install a new seal easily.

In reply to eastsidemav:

Damn life... If it wasn't for it getting in the way we would all have more garage time :)

Knurled wrote: That reminds me. Do not change the crank seal unless you have the special tool. The special tool sets the seal depth, not the seal or oil pump! You can over-install a new seal easily.

Hmm, guess I'll hope the front main seal is doing fine, then. I do have one, and i think it comes with some sort of part to keep it from going to far, though. I'll have to take another look at it, it might be the rear main seal I'm thinking of.

Odd question: You ever run the Quaife in snow?

Mazda787b wrote: Odd question: You ever run the Quaife in snow?

Not installed yet, so I'm not sure how it'll behave. Actually, despite this being a rallycross car, its so nice underneath, it may not be driven on snow at all, since around here, snow means salt.

eastsidemav wrote: Not installed yet, so I'm not sure how it'll behave. Actually, despite this being a rallycross car, its so nice underneath, it may not be driven on snow at all, since around here, snow means salt.

Ohio: The rallycross car is the "nice car" that you don't drive on the street because you don't want to trash it.

Knurled wrote:

eastsidemav wrote: Not installed yet, so I'm not sure how it'll behave. Actually, despite this being a rallycross car, its so nice underneath, it may not be driven on snow at all, since around here, snow means salt.

Ohio: The rallycross car is the "nice car" that you don't drive on the street because you don't want to trash it.

That belongs in Say What?

Knurled, it looks like the front main seal may already be installed on the new Oil pump. Other than trying not to damage the seal when I install it, any specific advice regarding getting it on there without doing damage or cuasing it to move out of position?

None, really. If it's installed then awesome. Just be careful walking it onto the crank so you don't flip the spring out of it and you should be good.

I like to smear a thin layer of grease on the inside of the seal before installation, keeps the seal from burning up. At work we have a tub of motor oil (bottle drain-out leftovers) and grease (chassis, CV, it all goes in) that we use for stuff like that. Vaseline or regular ol' wheel bearing grease works too.

Crap, just stripped out one of the T-30 torx bolts that holds the cover plate on on the new oil pump. If I'm not supposed to tighten them to more than 105 in-lbs, Melling shouldn't either.

I can use one of the bolts off the old pump to put things back together after I've loaded it up with petroleum jelly, but now I have a the new issue of trying to get the stripped bolt out. Its countersunk into the coverplate, so the usual bolt extractors won't do the trick. I could try to weld something to it, and unbolt it that way, but am uncertain, and afraid I might damage or get a weld stuck to the cover plate. Could try to drill it out, but then I run the risk of damaging the oil pump body, not to mention I'll be throwing steel shreddings all over the oil pump.

I've got a cheap torx bit I'd be willing to sacrifice. I wonder if I could just JB weld it into the remains of the bolt head, then try to loosen it all up tomorrow after things set up. It'll put me a bit further behind, but I'm starting to get beyond caring.

Any ideas?

Messed up the oil pump trying to get the blasted screw out, so I gave in and picked up another one. Its nice having a car where parts are usually in stock somewhere near me.

Started getting the engine back together in the last couple of days, hoping to have as much as possible done before the weekend, I'd like to pull the car in and get ready to yank the old engine, plus a friend could use some help getting his car back together before Sno*Drift at the end of the month.

The timing belt was not as easy to install as on my old Subaru, but it looks like its in correctly. Guess I'll know for sure when I fire it up. Here's where it stands as of now:

Gratuitous shot of my new underdrive pulley that needs to be installed:

The only DOHC Mopar belt I've done was on a Wrangler. They managed to make accessing the belt more difficult than in a transverse engine bay...

That oil filter will clear the subframe?

Knurled, after looking at the 2.0 in the car, if I ever have to do the timing belt on this car again, I'll probably just pull the engine.

The filter should clear the subframe, but I'm not sure it'll clear the skidplate in its current incarnation. Apperently the bigger problem (when using the cloud car engine mount) is the stock 2.0 pulley sometimes hits the subframe, thus the underdrive pulley. Could use a PT Cruiser oil pump assembly to tuck the filter up a bit more, but I'm not too worried. We'll find out in a few months whether this was a bad idea or not.

Oh yeah, went ahead and cut the balance shaft chain while the oil pan was off, so the car will be a bit vibraty at idle, but at least it gets rid of some parasitic drag.

Stratus/Caravan oil pump is fine on a 1gn Kframe its actually nowhere near it. The filter sits just a hair above the Kframe as well. Are you using the SRT tensioner and water pump?

In reply to BoneYard_Racing:

Nope, stock cloud-car mechanical tensioner and water pump. I figure this engine is not going to be too overstressed, so I'm not too worried about them.

i also said the same thing after doiing the timing belt in the bay of my neon. im pulling the fricking motor.....

and it CANT vibrate any worse than the stock dohc motor. just dont see it happening. did you block the poil passage?

Dusterbd13 wrote: and it CANT vibrate any worse than the stock dohc motor. just dont see it happening. did you block the poil passage?

Nope, I decided to be lazy and leave the balance shaft assembly in place. It looks like it'll act a bit like a windage tray in there, and I can deal with the extra 10-20 lbs it weighs, in order to save some cash.

I cut the chain and leave the assembly in place (plug the oil feed with a set screw) it acts as a windage tray and sort of a crank strap. My stock bottom end SRT4 sees 7000rpm almost every weekend during the summer in this configuration and the bedplate remains intact. The SRT people that have issues with them are either making in excess of 900hp or removed the balance shaft assembly completely without adding any main cap support.

You're using the modern style mechanical tensioner I just missed it in your pic that is the one you want. Take a moment with your mirror to check the setting I recently learned Ive been doing it wrong.

In car timing belts are easy once you learn the number to teeth to start back so it sets correct when you pull the belt on. Then again un-engineing isnt that hard.

In reply to BoneYard_Racing:

Hmm, I didn't plug the oil gallery. I'd read that was not needed if you left the complete assembly (including the balance shafts) in place, and just cut the chain. I hope thats okay. I'm actually using the original mechanical style tensioner, its just partially obscured by the mount in the pic above, so no adjustments needed, as far as I know.

Got some more work done tonight. Years ago, I had picked up a toaster oven at a store that was closing on the premise that I could use it for powdercoating small parts. hat never happened, and it sat on the shelves in the garage. Until tonight. The instructions for my underdrive pulley included heating it up so it would slip on the end of the crankshaft, rather than having to press fit it.

My OSHA approved toaster oven setup:

Underdrive pulley, its what's for dinner:

While that was cooking, I went ahead and pulled the original intake manifold, and taped over the intake ports to keep crud out of them. Also, installed the EGR blockoff.

Ding, fries are done (err, pulley is done). Grabbed the pulley with a couple of old welding gloves, and it slid right on. Only managed to get the crank bolt up to 60 ft-lbs, so I should probably tighten it some more when I can get a strap wrench on the pulley. Of course, since its a very tight press fit, might not matter:

Finally, started gathering a few parts for tomorrow's work:

There's not much more I need to accomplish, before I want to get the Neon in the garage and start prepping for the engine swap. However, I'm not in as much of a hurry as I had been. The person who is going to help install the limited slip is trying to get his car back together in time for Sno*Drift, so probably won't be able to help until February. As a matter of fact, I'm likely going to be spending a day over there this coming weekend helping him. Might still try to get my car in the garage within a week, and start pulling it apart.

eastsidemav wrote: Nope, I decided to be lazy and leave the balance shaft assembly in place. It looks like it'll act a bit like a windage tray in there, and I can deal with the extra 10-20 lbs it weighs, in order to save some cash.

Just tell yourself that it's low-mounted ballast to keep from rolling the car :)

You probably will only notice it at higher RPM, but you'd also probably be too concerned with other things (like trying to be faster than a blown Golf) to really care...

Knurled wrote: You probably will only notice it at higher RPM, but you'd also probably be too concerned with other things (like trying to be faster than a blown Golf) to really care...

Pretty sure I won't be faster than him, but I'm hoping for more reliable. At this point, I'm just hoping to catch up with Bill.