Did u chk the coolant crossover gaskets

 

yes. all are good.

 

****** drop that tranny homie & check your rear main seal. Have you hit boost at all yet? That damn seal might have pushed on you. With the description above that would be my first guess. I'd hate to see that happen but if you want some help pullin the tranny give me a call & I'll be more than happy to help you out. I know your tired of workin on it. But at least we have a long holiday weekend right now to get some wrench time in if need be.

You dont hate your car man. I know you better than that & thats frusteration speaking. You hate all these damn problem as any normal man would. Like I said, I'll come help you pull the tranny if ya want man. It's always a little funner & easier with a extra set of hand & someone to talk to besides yourself. We can get her fixed up, dont get too discouraged yet.

 

I would say the oil leak is from the rear main seal. What do you have for a PCV system? I boosted applications if your PCV system isn't right then thats when seals get blown out.

 

This engine hasnt seen boost. For one, it hasnt been above 30-40% throttle except ONCE for like one second to see what the timing was. And, even when I did go WOT, the BPV was stuck open, so it couldnt build pressure anyways. I'm not sayin its not the rear main seal, but if it is, its not because of boost.

The PCV system is in place, and the main suction hose is attached to the blower inlet. I also have a catch can right before the PCV valve itself that goes into the intake manifold.

I have one idea how to get this knock sensor out I'm gonna go try right now. Hopefully JB weld pulls thru for me. I'm crossin my fingers it does because I have no idea how else this sucker is gonna come out..

 

Well, the JBweld method didnt work

I did remove the shroud though. If I can ever get this knock sensor out, and this oil leak figured out, maybe I'll be able to start testing things again.

 

Dude, man.... I am Bi-polar and even with meds you are making me depressed. Its like knowing your best friends girl is cheeting on him, but you can't help.

 

Ok, with some help from my dad, I FINALLY got that fv<kin POS knock sensor out! We ended up having to force the valley cover up breaking off the little rubber seal on the bottom with the knock sensor still screwed in. After the valley cover was out of the way, a pair of channel locks did the trick. Also got the BPV fixed last night. I'm gonna go tighten the oil pressure sensor now and inspect to see if the oil leak is coming from there. If not, guess I'll be pulling the trans to get the rear main seal replaced.

All this crap came up just as I was trying to fix the overheating issue. I can't believe my luck!

 

There are always bugs to work out, just take your time and try not to get too pissed off

I had a overheating issue with my turbo that I've installed. I finally got it fixed by putting a oem fan from a box style 3.8l taurus on there. It moves some serious air, and now it doesn't go over 190*

 

Well, for once, more good news than bad news to report..

I was able to tighten the oil pressure sensor a little bit, but I did not see any oil that looked like it had leaked out from there, and there was no oil on the top of the bellhousing at all from what I could see either. So I don't think that the oil pressure sensor was the problem unfortunately.

I checked the dipstick and the oil level was good. I then rechecked the amount of oil on the garage floor, and it wasnt nearly as bad as what I thought it was. There is definitely an oil leak, but it is more of a nuisance at this point than anything critical. I'll still need to figure it out.

So I got the intake manifold back on and decided to continue the ECT testing. I went for a little city driving, and coolant temps stayed in the 205~212 range. Definitely a good improvement. I dunno if it was the water wetter, or the removal of the shroud that was the biggest factor, but I'm betting both helped out. I'd still like to bring the ECT down some more, but at least its going in the right direction now. The temp started rising and got to 230 so I knew something was wrong. I pulled over into a parking lot and discovered the temporary paperclip I had in place of the 40amp fan fuse had melted apart.

I'm just going to hook that fan up on its own relay and wire it to be on at all times. Enough with this complicated factory wiring BS. Maybe later down the road I can troubleshoot it once I get everything else in the setup ironed out. But for now, this will be the solution.

More good news: Apparently the spitting and sputtering that was keeping me to ~40% throttle was due to the fact that the BPV was stuck open, so it was giving it way too much fuel because it was expecting way more air than it was getting. Now that the valve is working, its getting the air its expecting and it runs a LOT smoother. I got up to about 10-12psi and that still wasnt even WOT. But man! what a HUGE difference in the buttometer!

 

I wired up the main 16" fan on its own relay and set it up to be on at all times. This did wonders! On startup just idling it stayed in the 165 range for the longest time. Took her out for a drive and once it warmed up a little bit, it stayed in the 185-195 range driving around the city. For the most part, it was in the 192 range. On the highway, its a constant 184-185. Then I tried as hard as I could to get it to run hot by keeping the RPMs up and doing a bit of peppy driving (not quite "spirited" yet, as it still does need to be tuned). But the absolute highest temp I saw was 204. After a bit of 'normal' driving, it went back down to the 190-194 range. I'm happy with these results for sure.

Next, and LAST issue (crosses fingers while knocking on wood) is to fix that oil leak, and then I should be ready to get the tune scheduled.

 

Congratulations man!!! As pretty as that shroud was and as much time as it took you to do I'm fairly certain it caused the air to stall while underway and caused little to no flow across your radiator. And with it gone I would presume your intercooler will work alot better as well, the stock Sy/Ty's had an I/C that was horizontal as well without fans and it worked well enough so I think you'll get your IAT temps down to where you want them.

 

Yea, IATs werent really a problem before, and on my latest test drive tonight, the IATs were pretty much unchanged from all the other testing I've done so far. IATs arent a huge concern for me though because the meth should help substantially too once I start getting into the spirited and hard driving.

The ECTs really liked the latest changes though for sure. Seems like the biggest impact so far was wiring the 16" fan on its own independent circuit. I wish I would have done that first before everything else, so I still wonder if the shroud was as big of a factor as it appeared to be. Im also wondering if I should fab up some different mounts for my fog lights or if I should just leave them out to help with airflow. I'll worry about that later as well. Right now I need to concentrate on more important things.

 

Next time go to autozone and buy the right socket for the oil sender, why fart around with the knock sensors/valley cover lol.

If the oil sender was leaking it will look just like a rear main, the way the block is made in the back it will leak between the block and trans, not over it. When i bought this car it was covered underneath with oil, I could have swore the rear main was out of it. The clutch was completely soaked with oil too, turns out the oil sender was finger tight - the guy probably would have kept this car if he knew it was a 10 minute fix.

It could be the main seal of course, it will take a while to see.

 

LOL yea, you don't have to tell me twice about that tool now man! ITs the first thing I'm investing in if I ever have to mess around with that pressure sensor again!

I really hope the oil pressure sensor was the culprit. The rear main seal is brand new, so it would be a total kick in the ballz for it to have already gone out. Guess I need to take the trans out anyways because I bet my clutch is covered with oil right now as well from whatever was leaking. The clutch pedal was kind of sticking on my last test drive lastnight. I thought that was kind of weird since I wasnt really beating on it..

 

Great news, glad you stuck with it. All the pain fades so quickly when she's up and running sweet, don't it?!?

Jim

 

Great news man. I'm guessing this is why you never called for help pullin the tranny. Your temps are cooler than my N/A combo. You should be extremely happy with that now. Good to see you getting it all figured out so quickly as well.

 

Thanks guys. Yea, The car showed me a glimpse of hope this weekend. Guess I'll press on and put up with it for a while longer lol.. I'm still gonna have to pull the trans- if for nothing more, than to just clean up the clutch. But at this point, I'm hopeful for now.

 

Well I'm gonna follow gut instinct & completely point my finger at that shroud you removed. I'm sure the water wetter is helping since your temps are so low, but it seems like the shroud removal solved the problem for ya.

 

I honestly think the fan wiring had more of an impact than anything else I've tried to this point.. Like I said, i really wish I had tried the independent wiring first, but the lack of a shroud definitely doesnt seem to be hurting it at all. So I'm definitely not gonna mess with something thats working now!