4g61t.org

The color is the same as my first van, I lovingly called it "burnt toothpaste".



Also, those supra wheels look great on there. They'd be better with a little less wheelgap though so get to it, and get some pics.

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So im a little ocd i guess. I didnt ike the way it was sitting since i put the supra rims on it, even though i was fine with it that way for the last 4 months with different wheels on it. So i went and cut a coil out of the front springs. It doesnt really look it, but its at least an inch lower now. Its about as low as ill go with it.With these wheels, i only have 3.5 inches ground clearance on my crossmember. 4 on my tranny. Thatll go up a lot if i was to put bigger wheels on it, and it would look proper. But it looks just thye way i wanted it, didnt like the front gap being bigger than the rear, and should make her more aerodynamic haha. So im happy with the suspension for now.

Looking good!

When is your first trip to the drag strip for the year?

Track opens in a month. I might take the colt instead though, I ll gtech both cars and that should give me an idea how they both are running. Ill most likely take the van though. Its setup is mostly unchanged from last time i ran 14.0 at 98 I have rebuilt the tranny with dual synchro 2nd gear, It was impossible to hit 2nd back then. It is lower lighter, but thats about it. Still running the exact same engine setup. stock engine ecu 560cc with maft and walbro, 20g turbo because i had it so figured id use it. I might as well see if i can get in the 13s and 100 mph

If i can think of any other little things over the next month ill do them. Im not going dsmlink anytime soon. I am going to purchase that and install it in my colt first.

It got worse i think. I gteched the van yesterday. I took it real easy launching and shifting 15.5 at 92 mph. Im running blind as i have no way to check for knock anymore. It doesnt feel quite as quick as it used to. Its definately retarding the timing a lot because the difference between 10 to 15 psi is barely noticable. Im just going to put stock injectors back in that should fix my timing advance some (maft) and put it back to 10 psi and not bother turning it back up without dsmlink. i did have a mmcd/logger combo to check for knock when i ran 12.9 at 109 in my 90 colt, but iirc i didnt have to do much of anything to get rid of the knock, and i was still getting knock when i ran that time. I might have retarded my base timing now that i think of it haha.

This is why i love the stock computer/ knock sensor. Makes it real hard to blow it up. I melted a piston in one of my motors the one that ran 11.8 at 123 in the 90 colt. Aem ems (for sale by the way cheap haha) The dsm knock sensors, i tried both 1g and 2g, brand new ones, do not really talk to the aem properly, you have to set it up yourself. I dont think i set it sensitive enough, or maybe my alcohol system malfunctioned ill never know. Either way i am done with it and now ill get link.

I always used 2G knock sensor with AEM EMS and it worked fine. Of course with EMS, YOU define what is "knock" and what should be done about it .

Once again your experience can help me. Do you agree with my decision to ditch aem ems in favor of dsmlink? Only reason i bought it was someone in my city had aem for sale and it seemed like a better option at the time. I went against everybodys advice they all said it sucked.

Yes, I totally agree! The only area where I see AEM having an edge is when it comes to controlling automatic tranny, that aside, I would go with V3 ECM Link.

I know the timing was set correctly cause i did it but just for the heck of it i went and checked it. Holy crap its running over 20 degrees retarded base timing!!! So far to the right side of the marks you cant see it! I had to turn the cam sensor just to make the timing marks on the puley visible. When i had the cam sensor maxed out as far as i could advance it, its at zero degrees. (yes i had engine warm idle is 750ish with ground connection made to the set base timing plug)

At this point its looking like the timing belt slipped a tooth sometime over the winter. It has been a ittle picky on the cold starts. Some cold days i had to crank it over and pump the gas to get it to fire up, i just assumed it was the maf-t and lack of air temp sensor. So i removed the cam gear cover and sure enough both cams are retarded exactly a cog. Itd be real hard to blow a motor up tuned like this haha.

Im a little scared now this happened. I replaced both belts all the pulleys and even the tensioner iirc. I spent the extra money to make sure this would be as reliable as possible. The belt still feels properly tensioned. I have done many dsm timing belts i have been on and off with dsms since 2001 done many timing belts, but i suppose i still have much to learn. Now i gotta google timing belt slipped a tooth dsm.

I am happy to have found this though. Itll feel fast again when thois is fixed! And my gas mileage should be sick, start better, etc.

Have you ever turn your engine CCW manually?

I have no idea what a ccw is. I searched and cant figure it out. Do you mean harmonic balancer? like crank counterweight? Thanks for the advice and yes i was going to pull a plug and reference tdc with a screwdriver when i get time, before i tear stuff apart. I searched and most guys report rough idle and practically no power when off a tooth. Only issue ive ever had is cold starts. Engine feels fine otherwise. Its always run smooth.

Sorry, CW= clockwise, CCW=counterclockwise

Turning engine CCW can cause it to skip a few teeth.

I removed no 1 spark plug and verified that tdc on the crank pulley is correct .

Yes i have turned it counterclock probably. Im aware there is a risk but ive never seen one slip. My engine is retarded a tooth. I did my googling and i believe typically when a belt slips it advances the timing. One guy showed a picture of his advanced 2 teeth. Turning it counterclock by hand would advance it as well.

This winter i had one wire from my cps (corroded and just awful condition) fell off and i broke down on the side of the road. Took me awhile to figure out what the problem was. In the process i backfired the engine REAL BAD a couple times. I think this is likely the cause of the belt slippage, as all the hardware is only a year old under there. I will replace both belts cause they are cheap, but nothing else. I have full confidence this wont happen again. If the belt can slip from turning the engine backwaqrds by hand, then it certainly can when it backfires.

I also replaced the entire engine harness and most of the sensors since that incident. The car the engine and harness came out of was in horrible condition. It was the rustiest talon i have ever seen. It was so gross, i dont know why i would use the wiring from it.

Guys all claim their cars run real bad when the timing is off one tooth. Their timing would be advanced 15 degrees more than usual. Where mine has been retarded 15 degrees.

Side note= ive put over 15k on this thing since i 4g63 swapped it! One tow isnt too bad considering that. I guess its been my primary vehicle for the last year.

I also never experienced a slipped belt as a result of cranking my engine CCW (and I did it often...) but my friend had it happen to him a couple of years ago (he actually bent valves), so I haven't done it since .

Well its all fixed. Timing belts replaced timing is now correct. Ignition timig is set 5 degrees btdc with timig plug grounded. Starts up better now, but nothing else has really changed. Doesnt feel any faster at all. Went out for a gtech. ran 94 mph. 2 mph more than last time. Im really surprised what little difference 15 degrees of timing makes on the cams! It starts noticably better but thats about it. It was probably hurting my compression just a little, just enough to make it hard to start, but not enough to make much of a power difference.

Then i turned up the boost to 18 psi and it did 14.6 at 97 mph. Pretty underwhelming for a 20g turbo I would say. I dont really want to turn up the boost any more without monitoring knock but i think if i did it would get faster. These engines seem to hit a sweet spot around 17 psi. My 90 colt was the same way. It would gtech 14.99 at 10 psi 13.99 at 15 psi and 12.99 at 17-18 psi. The difference between 17 and 15 was far far greater than 15 to 13 or 13 to 11 if that makes sense.

I also dont notice any difference whatsoever between the 20g at 18 psi and the 14b at 18 psi. And i switched them back and forth a LOT on my 90 colt. The 20 will hold a 25 psi to 8000 rpm on a stock engine, where a 14b will drop down to 15-17 on same engine. But the 14b is a lot more fun as it spools so fast it makes the car feel faster.