What I did this weekend

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Mon May 05, 2008 12:18 am

I wasn't on much this weekend because I was helping a friend with some work on his SRT-4. He is a member here, but doesn't post. So, I figured I'd do a progress log for him.

Here is the victim..errr...car

The engine as it was...

Discussing our game plan (this weekend was powered by Monster Energy drinks!)...

His plan is to do some nice engine mods for future turbo upgrades in addition to what he has done already. He ordered a new head from me, and sent it to the machine shop to have some Brian Crowler cams, springs and titanium retainers put in, as well as some porting work.

New goodies...

Stock intake ports...

Nicely ported...

Stock exhaust...

After porting...

Just before he got his car home to start the teardown, he had some issues. The car started acting like it had a plugged cat. Which it turns out it did. Here is why...

That is where the wastegate valve should be. It had broken off and fell into his cat, melting it. Not to fear, I had a PT Cruiser turobofold that was replaced under a Mopar parts warranty because the nut came off the exhaust side compressor wheel. The manifold was fine, but not the turbo. So a quick swap of his bad manifold and the good one, and he was back in business.

Turns out, it wasn't just the wastegate valve that was a problem...

The old manifold was full of cracks! That is just some of them.

So, we were ready to swap the head. Good thing he had bought a new head from me instead of working with what he had. This is #5 exhaust cam journal...

And the cap...

#4 was pretty bad too. Every other one looked fine however. Shame that head is only good for scrap now.

We got it put together for the most part, till the timing belt tensioner spring guide broke

Well, better to have it happen now instead of on the road. No TB tension + engine RPM + belt jump = lots-o-money down the drain. I have to go back up later to get the engine up to do the tensioner, and while we are there it's getting a new water pump early (the car only has 68K on it) and the new Gates blue high performance timing belt.

I'll get more pics of how the engine looks as well.

03blackrt · Post by **03blackrt** » Mon May 05, 2008 12:30 am

Oooo... A scraped SRT head?

Danteneon wrote:
Now, I need to see a cross section of a SRT head. If you could jump right on that...

measy27 · Post by **measy27** » Mon May 05, 2008 12:35 am

Damn...

Nutmeg · Post by **Nutmeg** » Mon May 05, 2008 12:47 am

Yay for things falling apart. Oh, and Dante, your pictures are HUGE! It takes like ten minutes for one of your threads to load. I just stay out of your progress log.

But I guess that's just my internet.

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Mon May 05, 2008 12:47 am

03blackrt wrote:Oooo... A scraped SRT head?

Danteneon wrote:
Now, I need to see a cross section of a SRT head. If you could jump right on that...

Oh yeah, good idea! And damn, sweet recall there

Nutmeg wrote:Yay for things falling apart. Oh, and Dante, your pictures are HUGE! It takes like ten minutes for one of your threads to load. I just stay out of your progress log. But I guess that's just my internet.

Ah, sorry about that. I do keep the rez large for detail. I just assumed that everyones internet speed is like mine...it takes about 5 seconds to load my progress log on my machine.

Nutmeg · Post by **Nutmeg** » Mon May 05, 2008 1:17 am

Danteneon wrote:
Nutmeg wrote:Yay for things falling apart. Oh, and Dante, your pictures are HUGE! It takes like ten minutes for one of your threads to load. I just stay out of your progress log. But I guess that's just my internet.
Ah, sorry about that. I do keep the rez large for detail. I just assumed that everyones internet speed is like mine...it takes about 5 seconds to load my progress log on my machine.

No problem. It turns out:

BlackRoseRacing · Post by **BlackRoseRacing** » Mon May 05, 2008 6:27 am

Thats sad for a Business.......

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Mon May 05, 2008 8:10 am

Wow. That is bad. I tested mine just to see...

NiteHawk · Post by **NiteHawk** » Mon May 05, 2008 11:20 am

hehe, i have that exact same set of craftsman tools.........2 of them actually

nice work dante

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Tue May 06, 2008 7:55 am

Thanks! I can't wait to finish it

I really like that tool kit. That one is my second as well. The first set I had was stolen because it was inside my Omni

That poor bottom tray is packed full off stuff

kplaya186 · Post by **kplaya186** » Tue May 06, 2008 9:07 am

Looks like fun work! Sucks that everything cracked!

And just for fun:

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Tue May 06, 2008 9:14 am

It was actually fun. This is the second SRT head job we have done (my other friend's '03 needed work as well) and we are getting good at it

Nice bit rate #'s btw

NiteHawk · Post by **NiteHawk** » Tue May 06, 2008 9:29 am

Dante, lol, that sucks about the first set...

I know what you mean about the cracks, i was going to do the whole stock srt on a 2.0 idea, till i got the turbofold back from getting ported and saw the seat for the flapper was cracked... i think i still have pics of it, brb...

</threadjack>

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Tue May 06, 2008 2:00 pm

No, no thread jack there. I'm glad you posted that. Someone else here was going to pick up a SRT turbofold and posted the pictures of it. It had cracks in it as well in the same places. My friend had his wastegate actuator mis-adjusted for a while, and I'm fairly certain that that was the cause of the problem. There could be many more like this out there.

NiteHawk · Post by **NiteHawk** » Tue May 06, 2008 3:10 pm

its actually a very common problem...

that manifold i showed you had 5k miles on it....

most people just never know that its cracked, because very rarely are the cracks the entire way through the turbofold... only around the wastegate flapper is it common, and nobody ever sees that

more than likely, that new one is going to crack as well...

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Tue May 06, 2008 3:27 pm

Hmmm, good to know. The manifold not only had cracks around the wastegate, but all the way up into the runners.

MoxHair · Post by **MoxHair** » Tue May 06, 2008 3:57 pm

wow..

them some issues..

What type of oil is he using?

Danteneon · Post by **Danteneon** » Tue May 06, 2008 5:09 pm

Mobil 1 with the dual remote K&N system in the second pic. The reason the head has that wear is because his wife drove the car every day for a while. She had a tendency to drive it cold in the morning as well as not let the turbo cool

She won't be allowed to drive it any longer.