The Project Pad

Thanks guys, I got the stiffer HPR mounts coming from Marc. But here's a question/issue I've been having since I first picked up this AAN from Force 5, 5 years ago. Pretty much, when I first swapped the motor in the coupe I didn't touch anything since it had a new timing belt and fresh head. But, the timing belt always tracked too far forward and hung off the front edge of the cam pulley. It ran like this forever and it did make me nervous at first but it never came flying off even at 7k rpm. Everyone who saw the car mentioned about me either needing or not needing the washer between the crank pulley and cog gear.
Now that I'm putting the timing belt on I am having a problem. Here is my 7a pulley with the 034 trig wheel that I tac'd back in place then sealed over with jb weld...



and here's the cog gear which I'm thinking I have on correctly



Hopefully I can explain this clearly cuz I'm pretty confused.. That washer on my finger in the first pic does fit nicely inside the cog gear with it installed on the crank. But then the crank pulley doesn't sit flat against the cog gear since the pulley has a step same size as the washer that fits into the cog gear and allows the pulley and gear to be flush. Without that washer in the cog gear, the crank pulley goes on too far and the 034 trig gear touches parts of the oil pump preventing me from putting it on. Sooo, I can't put it back together without the washer, and theres no way I can leave the washer in place because there would be a 2mm gap between the gear and pulley. What am I doing wrong?!

Anybody? I'm gonna find the original 7a pulley that doesn't have the 60-2 wheel attached to see if that fits, which I think it will since the point of contact is the trig wheel on the back of it. I also have a spare AAN pulley I have to compare, so we'll see. It just doesn't make sense that I had the exact same setup running the past 5 years! Only thing different is the billet cog gear, but that looks identical dimensions to the old broken one.

you are probably just pushing that pulley too far back. normally when you installed it before you probably had the cog mounted to the pulley already. wiggle the cog forward some it will then get pushed backwards as an assembly when you go to wind the center bolt in.

Ok I just did wiggle the cog forward and when I bolted the pulley to it via the 4 bolts things were fine. When I put the big center bolt in and tightened it down it pulled the whole assembly too far in and same thing, the trig wheel is touching.

I'm probably not doing something right with the keyway. Marc does that last picture look right to you? Thats with no washer. ^^^

Now I'm wondering if the washer goes on the back with the key reversed like this?

But then theres less of the crankshaft in the cog. Thats with the washer ^^^ and if I bolt it on like that it seems like the whole assembly is sticking off the front too far.

Also looking at that last pictures now it seems my ignition timing will be off and need to be zero'd since the shadow of the old cog gear is not where the new gear sits. Thats another story tho. I think.

Goldenquattro wrote:Also looking at that last pictures now it seems my ignition timing will be off and need to be zero'd since the shadow of the old cog gear is not where the new gear sits. Thats another story tho. I think.

I just recently had exact the same issue! I ended up not installing the cog because I simply couldn't get the cams in time, at least without an adjustable cam gear.

the timing offset thing I've contacted tommis billet about. its minor but annoying. I've timed up a bunch of cars without problems on these gears so its possible some are shifted and some aren't, I'll go through my stock and check.

anyways, regarding your gear placement are you sure that jb weld isn't interfering with the ability for the cog to sit flush?

the washer is definitely supposed to sit behind the bolt, not the cog. its a "diamond coated washer", there to help increase friction holding.

I know its not pretty to look at, but after the weld/JB weld fix, I turned the motor over by hand and it didn't touch, and it fired right back up and ran the rest of last summer. When I took everything back apart is when the factory cog gear broke its key way.
Just now I took the tommis billit gear, no washer, and the original 7a pulley with no trig wheel and everything fit perfect,

The 034 60-2 wheel is a problem. Since I first put that piece on my car I had to clearance the oil pan to make it fit and it was always very close to the front of the oil pump. 034 even told me the reason the 60-2 wheel separated is probably because my out of balance motor might have allowed the trig wheel to touch the front of the oil pump. It was always tight , but now the tommis billit gear sits just a small bit deeper on the crank (which I think will solve my belt running too far forward on the cam gear issue,[and also is good because theres less stress on that keyway])
So to run the 034 pulley with the 60-2 wheel and the tommis gear it looks like I will have to grind a little off parts of the oil pump.
Or I can just run the stock 7a pulley and tommis gear with no trig wheel. So now I'm looking at buying a flywheel with the 60-2 wheel again. Is 034 the only place to buy this? Their site shows several flywheels. One says its for the 01a with 60-2. I thought if it fit in the 01a it'd fit fit my 01E correct?

Was the washer installed on the 7A pulley previously when the belt was tracking forward on the pulleys? You should have no need for the washer when using the 7A pulley. The washer is only used in conjunction with the late revision AAN pulley. http://www.motorgeek.com/viewtopic.php?t=32113

yodasfro wrote:Was the washer installed on the 7A pulley previously when the belt was tracking forward on the pulleys? You should have no need for the washer when using the 7A pulley. The washer is only used in conjunction with the late revision AAN pulley. http://www.motorgeek.com/viewtopic.php?t=32113

Yeah I first put it together with the washer and that made the belt track too far forward. Without it the 60-2 wheel touched the oil pump tho. Last night I made everything work; with the tommis billit gear, no washer, and the original 7a pulley with no trigger wheel. I said feck it and bought a new flywheel with the built in trigger.

Moving forward!

I'm just about ready to drop this back into my car. I'll be measureing up oil and water lines for the turbo today, and also trying to make a brace for the bottom of the SQ header that tightents to the passenger engine mount bracket. Anybody have an idea of what the thread pitch is? I tried several bolts that almost would thread in but were not the correct pitch. Now that the headers bolted on I can' exactly bring the whole motor down to the hardware store. I could but I'm not trying to

Also who else is running one of these SQ replica manifolds? I haven't really found any pictures of other setups.

Nick make 780whp on one, my dad made 465whp + on one. But in a 200 and a urs6 respectively.

chaloux wrote:Nick make 780whp on one, my dad made 465whp + on one. But in a 200 and a urs6 respectively.

I didn't realize both those cars had the SQ header. My turbo definitely looks small on it with the small comp housing. Do you happen to know if they braced it at all? I could probably brace it to the valve cover up top much easier, but I'm curious if anyone supported it from underneath via the mounting boss thats right above the engine mount.

I've been making slow progress lately but am moving in the right direction.. I think. Couple questions tho;
I'm having trouble finding a wastegate inlet gasket (4 bolt). Anybody have a source for one?
Also I'm looking for a plastic AAN timing cover if anybody happens to wanna sell me one.
and a big question. Since I now have a flywheel with the built in 60-2 wheel I'll have to do some configuring on the laptop to get the car running with the IIC and zero the timing. I'm nervous since I am having to break in this motor for the first start. I would like to have the car running good enough on the first start to be able to give it a couple revs to seat the rings but do I actually want to drive the car and make a little boost? Whats the best way to tackle this break in? I have new rings, new bearings, and new turbo. I'm resusing the spec clutch but the new flywheel has replaceable friction surface. Does that require breaking in too?
Also for the record the IIC still has the tune Marc gave me for the 3071 on the stock motor. Same injectors and everything else. That tune should be fine @ wastegate spring pressure for break in right? After the break in I wanna bring the car back to him for some dyno tuning.

Also for the record the new turbo is a GTX3076

Another major task checked off the list!



Somehow at some point I stripped the threads on the captive nut inside the body that holds 1 of the 4 front subframe bolts. I was dreading doing this job but had no other choice. I didn't document it as well as I could have but it was somewhat straight forward.

Step 1: Get out the wiz wheel and cut a triangle shaped window inside the engine bay allowing me to gain access to the captive nut.
Step 2: Tac weld the existing captive nut in place, because I'm an idiot and assumed the nut was spinning freely inside the cage that holds it.
Step 3: Install subframe and go to tighten the bolt, only to find that it wasn't rotating freely, it just had stripped threads.
Step 4: Allow my buddy Lamay to use his favorite sawzall and cut the 'cage' out that holds the captive nut in place.
Step 5: Weld a new nut to a square piece of metal and shape it to the exact size of the old square captive nut thing.
Step 6: Make sure the subframe bolt tightens into the new threads nicely.
Step 7: Weld the square piece I made into its new home via access thru my window.
Step 8: Weld shut my access window.
Step 9: Grind my ugly ass welds down.
Step 10: Shoot some gold paint on it and call it a day.

Ready to drop in the drivetrain this weekend!

there is no gasket in that 4-bolt wastegate location. only on the 3-bolt side.

Marc wrote:there is no gasket in that 4-bolt wastegate location. only on the 3-bolt side.

well that explains why there wasn't one there when I took the wastegate off the factory header

Engine is in.



Clearance on the turbo side of things is maybe a little too close.



I got my beautiful downpipe from Hank.



But I'm having a slight fitment issue.



It will be a tight fit either way, but I think my issue might be my passenger (or both) engine mount sitting a little too low. They are HPR mounts. I have about 2" between the top of the wastegate and the hood.



I'm wondering if I should add a spacer to the passenger side mount to gain clearance. Should I do this just to the passenger side or both sides to maintain the right slant of the engine?

Thoughts on this?

I'd put both mounts to stock height, moving the front of the engine down will slightly mess up all sorts of other things, drives shaft angles and on and on. Hope the dp fits with the mounts shimmed up!

Did you ask for them to be short? The "tacomounts" are normally a little taller than stock.