Side Project: A lesser heeb's 1983 245T

engine just about ready to pull. only thing I broke was the wire going to the od solenoid (don't ask). Fluids except ps drained, motor mount nuts pulled, wiring disconnected, intake off and outa the way, yadda yadda. started around 7:45pm and stopped at 10 (with a 20ish minute forced break in there somewhere). Slow going with the cold and a breeze last night, may wear sweatpants tonight if that persists. (shorts and a sweater last night).

anyway, still not off-track yet.




waiting on a couple odds and ends to get dropped off, may do the smoke check later this week with the NA bull****, junkyard trip planned for this weekend to hopefully get some 8 fiddy injectors.

What are you going to do with the b230f? Sell it? To me?

probably going to seal it up and set it off to the side as a spare. what'd you blow up?

Nothing. My grey car has 283+ on its engine that I'm going to plus t. Wren thinks I might be better putting an engine on a stand, doing the thing, and swapping out my old engine.

meh, 6 one half dozen the other. if it runs good and you can afford the down time I'd be inclined to use the one ya got, at least you know what kinda shape it's in

True enough.

brief work last night (like, seriously, 40 minutes or so. ran out of parts)

hauled out the old lump




exhaust is rusted on. suspect northern-ish car at some point (although, no significant rust issues beyond bolts and ****)

new engine, waiting on mounts and stuff (all three were trashed. both motor mounts were broken, and the trans mount was hanging on by a thread)


not sure what the fuss was about regarding pulling the engine and trans together, came out in about 45 seconds without any drama.


scratched up the fire wall a bit when I dropped the trans down early, but that was about it.

after work today I'll go raiding the shed and the other 245 to get an intercooler, piping, and other crap like that. In a holding pattern though until the rest of the mounts get in. May have to sneak up the road a bit and meet my brother to get them from him.

no mounts today, boo. oh well, no biggie. tomorrow it is then (well, really, probably friday and this weekend-think I'm slated to work late tomorrow night)

mounts now in hand. yay. depending on how patching goes this evening, we'll see if I get time to start in on it or if that has to wait til tomorrow (and on into the weekend). ****in' rain saturday may push the jy trip to sunday. No one likes working in the rain, least of all me. This becomes especially problematic with the 940 refusing to play ball now.

I would imagine you would have used something better than ****ty stock 240 mounts that don't even like to go back together as they should.

my end of this deal is handing off a car that's as close to stock as far as components and fitment goes, as possible. where it goes from there is of far less concern.

got brackets and mounts apart, new mounts on brackets, a/c lines off old engine, one line off the turbo engine (other one.. is being a whore. we'll see how that goes today after b-lastering it). Didn't really have much time with work keeping me busy until midnight, but the upswing is I can run to the jy today and hopefully gather weapons and ammo for a saturday push.

oh is this donnies? I think I saw the vid of it running.

no it's not donnie's.

junkyardin' for stock stuff is always fun. one 240 on the yard, got a good seat cushion (and a dirty cover, but at least relatively intact), non-bent door handle, and cruise control. yay cruise control. Also dug up some injectors, so if I can get it all together it oughta run this weekend.

engine in, bolted up and stuff. runs (NA still, but that'll be fixed tomorrow). cranked up immediately, actually. I expected it would require a couple revs. there's a video of it on fb if anyone wants to hear a turbo motor with an open and loose downpipe crank up. sounds like all the others.



gotta make some brackets for the intercooler and radiator (no biggie), shorten the alternator wiring (as attractive as that large 'service loop' is...), figure out where the hell to put that stupid power steering reservoir (I'm leaning towards leaving it by the abs block, but it ain't my car). couple other odds and ends like intercooler piping, maf wire extension, that sort of stuff. should drive tomorrow afternoon without much drama.

200 series cars are amusing little things. Runs, drives, makes bewst (well, some. feels like it makes about 3psi, but that was enough to shed a hose on the test drive, so meh).

does appear to have an oil leak of some kind down low, and the ****in thing turns the oil light on at idle (no, it's not low on oil). Will get the mechanical gauge on that. Whoever worked on the b230ft before I snagged it in the jy did some kind of jerry-rigging on the oil return where it goes in the block, so that's my first suspect given the mess and location.

Got hosed on the crank gear (or noobed, however you wanna phrase it).. I think somewhere in the process of seating everything up I let the belt get a little forward and failed to get it all seated on the nub, and when I snugged it up and then applied the powah, it wasn't 'in the groove'. I should have noticed when it started walking the timing belt off the cam gear, but I didn't and the second time (after plumbing up the intercooler, running wires, etc etc etc etc etc) I cranked the car up, it chucked the pulley off the front after about a minute of run time.

Oh well. fixed all that, got it right right and tight tight, no visible water leaks (yay), didn't see any trans leaks or oil leaks on the carport, but something's making a mess down by the exhaust. May have over-filled the trans a little too.

Anyway, progress I reckon. gotta go-pro video of the slowness (but not NA slowness), will throw that up one day this week.

couple pics. creative re-use of old piping (coupled with a lack of argon and lack of desire to break out the tig)


the maf. need a tight 90, but I've got a filter that'll fit down there behind the headlight & should work reasonably well.


the overall effect.


hood off due to hinge issue (I have hinges), ps reservoir fits nicely over there with the honda battery the p.o. bought for the car. Need to find whatever circuit drains the battery, that'll probably be an exercise for Bill.

those ugly damn brackets like to have killed me. I initially was going to just bend up some mild steel and roll out (as I have countless times in the past), but then thought I'd get cute. The concept was far and away better than the execution, and the welder throwing me the bird halfway through didn't help much either.

a/c stuff in place, but some of the hoses are.. not in good shape (rusted. wtf?), so I just snugged the fittings up for the time being at the dryer and the condenser.

somewhat remarkably, I don't think the power steering leaks. (although, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be happy if that was my oil leak..) This is remarkable due to the circumstances and :ahem: product selection involved in getting all that back on the car.


It does have a CEL, I suspect that's related to the o2 sensor. Oil pressure issue aside, it runs fairly well.

damnit, light on at cold idle as well. it may be worth mentioning that this didn't occur until after the car had gotten up to temp and been "run up" a couple of times, wonder if it's a flaky filter (or just full of junk rinsed out of a jy engine). oil changes are easy, and the oil already looked a little cruddy, may start there and do that at the same time as a mechanical pressure check.

Damnit, no breaks on this one. Hooked up the mechanical gauge, 25psi cold idle pressure initially, went on up to 50 fairly quickly with application of throttle (didn't wind it up high, just, say 2500 3000 it would be at 50). hm. put some chemicals in the oil (paint thinner and kerosene basically) to see if maybe the relief valve is stuck and can be unstuck without application of mechanical processes. No luck there. idle pressure dropped to 15psi as it warmed up.

Changed oil, went to my trusty rotella 15w40, car cranked up, pressure stayed around 15psi (Still goes up to 50 fairly quickly, but.. no bueno). block temp by the time the oil went in was maybe 100 degrees, so it wasn't hot or anything like that.

Oh well, reckon I'll be doing an in-car pan drop. Hate that, but it is easier than yanking and re-installing by a smoach. may take the opportunity to replace the struts up front. Damnit, hate crap like this.

Top two theories:
oil pump o-rings didn't seat (or one got damaged on re-install)
pressure relief valve hung up after I stretched it's legs.

The oh **** light didn't come on until after I'd gotten the car up to temp (I let it sit and idle while checking things for probably 20 minutes before dropping it off the stands for the test drive, oil light stayed off), it didn't come on at all until after I'd tagged the limiter on the test drive (silly aw71's. OD light came on too and it wouldn't go into OD. maybe wire, maybe suspect relay, less of a concern atm), which tends to point towards the pressure relief sticking.

reckon I'll know the truth one way or another over the next few days. hoping it's not bottom end related, but if it is, well, f+t and party on wayne! Nothing that came outa the oil indicated any kinda ongoing bearing issue, and there wasn't anything in the pan either.