4G63T into the Colt

So Morten is back.

Morten are you certain that you NEED turbo power with it's in herent ability at breaking everything in the car?

My bet says that the N/A four cylinder mitsu pick-up motor with Mega-Squirt, a header and the trans hanging on the back of it (it will have five ratios or so) will move that light car of yours along just dandy.

Mo Reliable will be mo fun.

Mo simple with non-silly power will finish more events, have parts available off the shelf without having to remember that this is for such and such year, model, trim level that the engineer had his hair parted on the right that day for.

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JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

OK, my first post...

Morten , you Cannucklehead, quit complicating your life ! I've followed your rally stories and I think bad luck would be an improvement...

How about considering the good old Chrysler 2.5 ? It comes in a late model Dakota so is North/South already. 5 speeds are available, I don't have a clue about ratios, but even a terrible ratio is better than a DNF. While not really hi-tech these motors are very durable, easy to fix and pretty available. If you go down to the Senior Center on Bingo day you can 'jack grannies New Yorker and get a turbo. You can exceed 200 hp pretty easily with that.


Gene
PNW Chief Scrutineer

Hey John,

Is there ready-to-go mapping for the MegaSquirt for this app? If not, why send someone down the road of having to program an ECU, pick and fab mounts for injectors, build new wire looms, etc? That is more complex that converting lateral mounted to longitudinal mounted, don't you think? I vote for something that is well known, and can be sourced and installed without new programming.

Good point on the ability break the rest of the drivetrain; I am concnered (a bit) about putting 250+ HP through the 7+" ring&pinion of a the Dana 30 rear. You're a wild and crazy Volvo guy: can it take it?

Regards,
Mark B.

Mark programming Mega-Squirt is easy. 'Mega-Tune' will learn with a wideband O2 sensor.
The motor in that pick-up will already be injected so the harness, sensors (maybe even MAP) and injectors will be there; not reinventing the wheel. That motor will also already have a flywheel, clutch, transmission and driveshaft..... If it comes with a crashed pick-up truck. Crashed pick-up truck should be easy to find considering how I see the Kanucklehead drivers behave here in Whatcom County.

The Volvo rear axle is dandy when the open carrier is welded up and fed a steady diet of <400lb/ft.

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JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

Mark making it injected with an engine that already is injected will mean additional wiring and a fuel pump, supply and return lines to the fuel tank (easy) and done right; perfect drivability.

What Mitsu motor was in the pick-up in the nineties? I recall it going OK, being a 16 valve thing and not needing babysitting like the old junk 2.6.

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JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

JohnLane Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mark programming Mega-Squirt is easy. 'Mega-Tune'
> will learn with a wideband O2 sensor.
> The motor in that pick-up will already be injected
> so the harness, sensors (maybe even MAP) and
> injectors will be there; not reinventing the
> wheel. That motor will also already have a
> flywheel, clutch, transmission and driveshaft.....
> If it comes with a crashed pick-up truck. Crashed
> pick-up truck should be easy to find considering
> how I see the Kanucklehead drivers behave here in
> Whatcom County.
>
> The Volvo rear axle is dandy when the open carrier
> is welded up and fed a steady diet of
> <400lb/ft.
>
> JohnLane
>
> Overkill is consistently more fun

OK on the axle; thoguht that info should be put out there, and you would know the answer. Did not have a clue that the MegaSquirt could self learn. How much does a wiseband o2 sensor cost these days?

Sounds interesting; hope Morten is listening.

Mark B.

heymagic Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> How about considering the good old Chrysler 2.5 ?
> It comes in a late model Dakota so is North/South
> already. 5 speeds are available, I don't have a
> clue about ratios, but even a terrible ratio is
> better than a DNF.

4:1 First, shitty gaps, and it's a weak French piece of shit. No point.

For that matter they put the Neon DOHC engine in Wranglers. Same shit trans though.

Converting a carbureted car to fuel injection is nontrivial even if ready swap parts and plug-n-play ECUs are available. My first thought is, what is the problem that is being addressed, and is there a way to solve it without adding so much complication?

---

Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2007 06:38PM by Pete.

Hi John I believe that was the 4G64 :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Sirius_engine

Also the same engine (according to wikipedia that's in the stratus / sebring, with different hp/lbs.ft number mind you.

Thanks to every one who's contributing to this thread, I'm taking it all in and very much appreciating the effort and information you guys are putting fourth.

Thank you !

John... no I don't "need" a turbo, but I remember someone once saying someing about "overkill...). Since I'm going to go through the expense of doing this as opposed to parking it, I want to get a significant more power than I had with the old set up.

Besides PFR has a night stage on pavement on the street in downtown merrit... something about having the power to drift on pavement during a rally event appeals to the teenager in me, or is that midlife something or other crisis ?

Morten the thing weighs soooo much less then say... My Volvo that 160-180 horses should have you giggling like a schoolgurl as you are being a savage.

Overkill being more fun? You bet. Overkill is a LOT more fun when you are not stuck out in the woods, having broken something that may or may not have been one of the 'End of the world fixes' for something that makes wayyyy more power then the car was ever intended to have.

I dunno how you feel about it, but I'd have no qualms about fitting injection to a formerly carburated car. Done right injection always runs perfectly. It is easier to get them right then you may think.

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JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

what year colt we talking here?

---

~A.M.S.

"Some people are afraid of heights, not me. I'm afraid of widths"

It's a 1974... but not just any 74'... It's a GT !

(I think that means that it had a fancy steering wheel with a horse in the center, adhesive stuck on wood grain dash, an inaccurate tach, and some useless guages...)

Jeeezus H Christ, what a bunch of work.
4 92.5 pistons and a camshaft with some lift and duration and that car should go well enough.
It did before.

There is nothing wrong that a fresh bore and a fresh performance cam won't solve in the engine department.

That is all I am going to say.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I agree with you in principle. That would have been my first choice. The car was making good power with the last rebuild and the new performance cam.

Then during the recce... the rear tranny seal went. During trying to source it, i found 2 in Western Canada. I was able to get a guy drive one up to Merrit from Vancouver at a moments notice. When we got the seal in, we noticed the yoke was fucked and not true. I couldn't get one anywhere, nor from my tranny source in the lower mainland. I ran it anyway, and kept adding tranny fluid, grease over the rear tranny seal, etc...

During the MASSIVE vibration we busted the altenator strap and couldn't match the altenator at Napa, the guys from Rocket helped me fab a new strap to the most similar altenator I could get. Then after the shifter rattle loose and we did a 20KM transit back to town in 2nd gear (we though the tranny packed it in).

Finally during the 2nd last stage, one of the valve guides rattle lose and BANG... hole in the piston and a fucked head.

So I need a new non jet valve head, porting, resleeved block, new pistons... and still I have a problem sourcing driveline parts.

Which is why I'm at a cross roads of wanting a change where parts are more readily available. Remember... Mitsubishi has only been in Canada since the 1990's so I don't have the parts available that are necessary.

The engine from the last build with the new cam... was great ! If I could get the parts I'd leave it and save the expense, but there comes a time where one has to cut his losses and move on.

Hey Morten,

BTW, you're spot on about the GT model designation!

What you are talking about in fixing what you have is a TON less work IMO than a transverse to longitudinal conversion, espcially on top of a conversion to injection. Sleeves in block???? Can't you bore up a bit to the next size? Head avialable? Is this a 2.6L head? Do you know that running 18 psi in a turbo engine can lead to holes in pistons and the same amounts of repair headaches? Just running low on fuel and losing fuel pressure for a couple of seconds can do it at those boost pressures.

IMO, one thing that I'll suggest to help with your present driveline is just communicate with folks a bit more. Some guys in north GA have procured a bunch of parts and knowledge for the 70's Colts; pick up the phone and contact Wilson von Kessler and get to know him and Mike Hooper, and Stuart Wood. I may have the right yoke that you need that you can have for free. Once fix it AND make sure nothing else around it is damaaged (like the trannie output shaft splines), it sould be good for long time. There is still a lot of stuff floating about for these cars in Australia. And even if you convert the engine, what are you going to do about steering parts, inner control arm bushings, tie rod ends, lower ball joints, etc? That problem goes with an old car.

Please understnad that I am not trying to lecture at all, but there is a hard way support an old car and then much easier ways. Working on learning who has knowledge and joining into the network of enthusiasts for your car are part of the easy way. Volvo/Saab have large networks; the Colt network is very small, but I'd be taking advantage of it.

BTW, I do 100% understand your motivation to convert, so I'm not just talking out of my hat. We are builidng a '72 Opel Manta into an upgraded rally car, and we have a stash of stock parts that is pretty large. But, in this build, I am using an 8" Toyota 4WD P/U rear axle 'cuz any Opel LSD you can get for that era is about $1000, and has to come from Europe. We're implementing a T5 trannie coversion so we can get a close ratio trannie with easy to source parts. I'm designing and fabbing a custom front suspension for easier parts avialability and to improve on the already excellent Opel suspnsion travel. (E.g., it will use upper '80 Dodge Aspen ball jts for the lower ball jt; these are easy to get.) But here's the diff(-erence, not -erential): I have been working on my own rally cars for 30 years and can bend tubes, weld, design adapter plates with ease, and so on. I've spent MONTHS of spare time just researching and designing, producing detailed drawing where needed, BEFORE starting the fab process! It's been a lot of fun and educational, but with work commitments, I'm over a year in the project and just starting the first fab phases. If I had to pay for all this, it would be horrendous!

If a person not at that level and doesn't have that time or gobs of $$, US or CDN, then you are better off to stick with what is easier, IMO; which is sourcing stock parts, accumulating spares, and doing small conversion upgrades like the alternator that do indeed help part sourcing without creating a massively complex task. It may not be easy to find the parts for a '74 Colt, but it's trivial compared to the fab work we are doing, and what you are proposing too, IMO.

Just my $0.02USD worth.

Regards, and let me know if I can help with some misc Colt parts that are left laying about. All this is written with the best intentions to help!
Mark B.