1988 Dynamic 4 restoration / VR4 conversion (pictures)

[r4pt0x]

No updates for over a month, so here's a little recap what's been going on...

After de-rusting and painting the housing the rear diff got assembled & dialed in:

All 8 driveshaft boots were replaced, brakes are nearly complete (just missing the mounting brackets for the parking brake). I'm using ASX front rotors which are 297mm as the outlander ones, but have identical thickness at the inner&outer ring and are vented from inside like the EVO4 ones. Difference to evo4: the evo ones have one-piece cooling fins from inside to out, the ASX ones have multiple rows of diversely angled short fins - so weight and cooling should be optimized.

Fenders, side panels and headlamps have been installed & aligned with the doors:

And I added some small details <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

To get decent camber with the Evo struts I found the camber plates from the öhlins rallye-suspensions fit perfectly after drilling out the upper holes a bit:

As the lower hole is also bigger than the bolt, i can use the full 180° range of the upper camber plate, so I have a decent adjustment range. Max camber as shown is around -1° 20" on both sides - On my FWD Galant the Hankook R-S2 worked best at around -1° camber, so i'm perfectly in that range. Ride height is OK, considered there are still ~100-150kgs missing on the car (complete interior, turbo, exhaust, radiator, IC piping... ) so I think it will sit ~2cm lower front &amp; rear at the end.
As I'm planning on replacing the suspension within a year, I also did not bother on derusting/painting the struts but only covered them with ovatrol oil and settled with this camber-adjustment solution. I already have information about a untouched sachs group A suspension lying around in someones cellar - I only have to convince him that he wants to sell it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


Last wekend I completed the driveline:

and have some former group A spare-parts left <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

The transmission shaft is only hung up to be able to paint it - still waiting for the mounting bushings to arrive so i can install it properly. The driveshafts are unfortunately for the group A LSD (plate type). So until I get my hands on one of these (evo 1-3 should also fit, but without the pump drive ring...) i'll stick with the viscous LSD and add the driveshafts to my ever-increasing spare parts collection...

 

[r4pt0x]

Some new parts (finally) arrived last & this week:

The evo3 manifold & o2-housing finally arrived last week, the last missing gasket (the multi-layer-steel between manifold and turbo) also arrived on monday, so today I bolted everything together and put it into the car. All with new studs, nuts, bolts and gaskets of course /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
The evo 3 16g has only seen ~10k kms in my fwd, so it's also as good as new.
The lower heat shield isn't available anymore, so i had to refurbish my old one which once had been cut out for the o2 sensor on a non-standard o2 housing. De-rusted it and sprayed it with aluminium coating, which will hopefully last for a while...


Front & rear brakes were finally installed 2 weeks ago:

Driveshaft is also painted & fully installed:

And last weekend my (t)rusty FWD hatchback was parted out:

 

[bobdole]

Great work again. Love seeing your updates.

 

[r4pt0x]

Finally replaced the ugly white valve cover today:

This valve cover was in real good condition and after ~1h of cleaning and ~2h treatment with abrasive fabric I loved the look of that slightly polished aluminium so much, I decided to keep it that way instead of getting it powder coated. It only got a protective coating with protewax so it won't get grey and ugly.

 

[G]

Looks great! Nice oil cap.

 

[beermebandit]

amazing work the car looks awesome... something Id like to do with my VR4 one day

 

[r4pt0x]

A little preview on whats currently going on...

Inside the engine bay lots of small bits and pieces and detail work have been done - so not so much differences to the earlier pictures...

I also finally found a pre-facelift trunk lid - but in qute bad condition with lots of small dents which have to be filled...

Today i started to tack-welded the downpipe - for my first tig-welds I'm quite happy with how it turned out. The final welding will be done by someone with a little more experience though /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Took me half the day for just this small piece - I wanted to keep it as high as possible and keep good clearance to the engine and stabilizer bar, where i will also add some heat-shielding to keep the heat off the steering rack. I also had to stay above the subframe struts, as thats where the underbody-guard (sandwich-alloy plate) will be bolted on - so the exhaust must have enough clearance so it won't hit the guard.
It was quite tricky to achieve all goals with this 70mm pipe, but now I have ~2-3cm clearance downwards and about the same to the stabilizer bar.

Behind the cat i'll add a small muffler and the one at the back will be a 70mm -> 2x 60mm Y-absorber, but i still have to decide what shape/size i'll use - i want to have it as quiet as possible (70mm will be loud enough anyways...)but i don't want a huge muffler thats hanging out under the rear bumper nearly hitting the road...
The tailpipes are already lying around:

Those are from an ralliart muffler for the carisma (don't think that model was sold outside europe...). Outer diameter is 90mm and they fit perfectly and look great with these lasered ralliart logos /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[r4pt0x]

Finished tack-welding the Exhaust up to the rear diff today:

It's a really tight fit and I had to cut and readjust some connections multiple times to get the perfect angles, but i'm quite pleased with how it turned out so far.

Cat and muffler are both as high as possible and are only slightly lower than the sidemembers:

Lowest part at the front is the left subframe member at ~13cm ground clearance. At the back it's the Exhaust where it crosses underneath the propshaft, with ~15cm ground clearance. I hope the eibach springs don't settle too much...

I first thought about routing the exhaust left of the rear diff and going lateral between the diff and fuel tank, but this would have made it ~30-50cm longer and adding a sharp bend around the diff, so i went for the stock routing underneath the propshaft...

One of the next evenings I'll add the hangers and as soon as the rear muffler arrives the rear section will be added.

I also pre-filled the steering circuit today, so the fluid can slowly seep in over time and filling/bleeding won't be that PITA as it normally is with 4WS. Still waiting for the Oil temp sensor to arrive which goes into the thread at the oil sump, then I can fill in the engine oil and it can be cranked for the first time since ~2 years...

 

[r4pt0x]

After some weekends i couldn't work at the car and 2 weeks holidays the car finally runs and drove its first 1.5km on the lift (to vent the steering system) and 2m back from the lift to get everything out and some things back in the car /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

But first things first. 3 Weeks ago the exhaust was finally completed and got some wrapping...

(i have no idea how the camera got the rear and front of the car sharp end everything else blurry /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif )

It will be removed one last time to add the heat shields above the cat and just behind the oil pan to protect the transfer case and steering rack from excessive heat.

As i'm still looking for the passenger side intercooler pipe i temporarily installed the fugly piping from my FWD which was squeezed tightly near the engine due to the ECS piping underneath the battery and the compressor on top of the transmission... It really hurt installing this mess into that clean engine bay /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/uhh.gif

As soon as i get that pipe i can finish the piping and order all the hoses from samco (all in classic black /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif )

2 weeks ago the car ran for the first time since the beginning of this project, but the ECU i got as replacement for my own Evo 7 ECU was constantly throwing errors about the injector 3 circuit. Changing the injectors didn't help, the wiring wasn't changed and signal at ECU and plug was perfect for ~20sec until the ECU again threw that error and disabled the injector. So i wasted nearly a whole day on that problem and left a bit pissed for holidays...

Meanwhile i got my old ECU back, transfered my maf scalings and maps from the old evo 7 90550001 tephra v5.1 software to the evo 8 96532706 tephra v7 with livemapping, then threw away my old maf scalings because i found during the last 2 years with disassembly of some ROMs that they were made with wrong assumptions on how the values are used. So i spent 2 nights diving back into the code and making some calculations on the maf and injector scalings...
Yesterday i installed my old ecu, flashed the new rom and turned the key several times until i recognized the the resistor pack was still disconnected /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif
With fuel the engine started immediately, settled a bit rich at ~1100rpm and dropped slowly to ~800rpm and ~14.3 AFR as the engine warmed up in open loop. Idle is smooth as silk despite the 1000cc injectors and i only had to readjust the injector latencies a bit to be nearly dead-on at idle. I still think its more an issue with the linearization than latencies - have to play with these values or finally get an answer from precision about that data... For only calculated but not yet properly scaled injectors and maf the AFRs in idle and with no load at mid rpms are really great and nearly dead-on to the maps.

The exhaust sounds great - a bit loud for my taste, but really great. I hope with installed interior it gets a bit quieter inside.

Today i fixed a minor coolant leak i discovered yesterday, pre-assembled the front (bolts and clips arrive on tuesday...) and mounted the rest of the bigger parts on the front end:

I've been waiting to see the car with its full face since i decided on the 2-tone painting and it turned out better than i ever expected /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif
The emblem had some ugly scratches and was more rose than red, so i ordered a new one together with the "MMC" badge for the trunklid /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
The drivers side vent above the spoiler feeds exactly to the engine and steering oil coolers. Together with some decent ventilation to the wheel well they should work really good at that position.
The intercooler also gets enough air - wasnt sure about the position of the RS intercooler behind the dynamic4 bumper, but around 80-85% surface gets direct airflow.

The ugly red paint inside the grille will be removed - the paintshop forgot to paint that black...

I also love how tight the downpipe sits under the engine. Always hated the low hanging one on my FWD... The oil pan got some adhesive heat-shield, so temperatures should be ok - haven't installed the oil temp gauge yet, but the sensor sits in the oil pan.


Someday this week i'll install the drivers seat and get the car to my garage. The Interior and air piping will be done as the parts are here and/or i have the time and i'm up for it. I've been doing nearly nothing else for 2 years now and until next spring i have enough time to get the car ready, so i'll gear down a bit from now. Plus my other cars also need some attention /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[FlyingEagle]

I will go ahead and sit down "for you". Happy to see you have been motivated enough to keep carrying on. This has to be the most in depth restoration we have seen here to date.

We've seen restorations and they have gone as far as the owners felt/wished financially that they could take it, but with a body man at the helm, it seems this is on another level.

A serious dose of respect on behalf of everyone here, as I think the American's are getting a bit shy around you. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif


I don't think, nor would I believe that anyone here would do what you have done any differently with the tools and knowledge you have at your disposal.

Keep those pictures coming, because this I believe is a/the standard that will drive many people here on this forums for many years to come.

With the age and parts scarcities becoming a known reality, this is the motivation people need to keep on truckin'.

 

[bobdole]

Any new updates for this car?

 

[Nebraska]

Oh wow, great job! I love that you strive for cleanliness.

 

[G]

Looking good! I'd just move that battery to the trunk while you have it in the air and everything apart. That will give you so much more room for intake fun.

 

[mitsuturbo]

Quoting r4pt0x:
Rebuilt the rear steering rack today:

Installation with the rear axle already on the car is a major PITA... I test-mounted the steering rack before I installed the rear axle to make sure the slight angle of the mounting brackets won't make problems - back then it was a perfect fit on all 4 bolts. Today it took >1h to get that bastard bolted on the rear axle... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

I also started to install the new fuel lines but forgot to take pictures... I'm using polyetylene lines for fuel and feed/return of the rear steering as they are a charm to work with and ethanol resistant. Brake and steering control will be made from copper/nickel alloy, as the flexible parts of the control lines are all damaged/rusted beyond repair, I will get some lines built at a workshop where they fix hydraulics for construction machinery. Will be much cheaper than from mitsu and I can get them at precisely the lenghts I need.
The rear steel lines to the control cylinder I have ordered, have been cancelled by mitsubishi (no longer available/out of production), so maybe they can also provide me with some good replacement for these...

I have to do suspension measurement and setup on 2 cars tomorrow, but I hope I can finish at least the fuel, brake and the low-pressure steering lines so I can fix the a-pillars on sunday and finish painting the upper part of the firewall and outer crossmembers...



Do you happen to have any more information regarding your rebuild of the rear rack?
Part numbers? What all seals are involved? Any photos that may help?

I have a leak out the rack on the driver side and i need to fix it or rebuild a spare rack and install it.

I've read on the 3k forums that the seals can be fairly easily replaced WITHOUT actually removing the rack. I think their rack is either a bit longer, or a bit larger in diameter. The seals they're saying they used may not work for the Galant.