So I just found out that I am going to be going to school in a month so I wont be able to put too much money into my car for the next couple months.
I ended up replacing the leaking power steering line I had, and it and longer hisses at me.
Found out my upper motor mount seems to be garbage and making a rough clicking noise on accel/decel. So I picked up new one of those.
I am highly disappointed on the lack of "full aftermarket motor mount" for this vehicle. Only the RK Sport Insert, so I suppose one of those will have to suffice whenever I get around to picking it up.
Picked up a can of some engine bay paint and decided to dust off the spare valve cover I had hanging around and hit that with a coat of paint.
All Cleaned Up.
I really enjoyed the way this came out. One of my favourite colours is Gun Metal, and this one was a Gun Metal "Metallic" so close enough.
And thats if for now...
Okay,
Well, I got around to replacing my upper motor mount and upon taking it out I noticed this.
It had never been replaced before, hence why it was making an obnoxious clunking sound on accel and decel, after 160,000kms.
And then since I was already in the mood I decided to swap my valve cover over, but upon opening it up I was met with this disgusting mess.
Sludge.....
I honestly cannot stand people who own vehicles and neglect to do oil changes. Put me in a sour mood when I saw it. Uggh. Silly previous owners...
Whatever, I put it all back together and I like the look of it. I also took off the blue wire loom I had in there and I like the look much better.
All is silent under the hood now.
Starting to get cleaner!
Now your motor on the other hand....eww.
Someone didn't do their oil changes on time!
I know. I am perturbed by this. I don't know what choice of action I should use.
Just upgrade to Synthetic Oil and leave it, or somehow deal with it.
I am not happy about it at all... Still pondering what to do.
My pickup looked like this. Old 200k 4.3
I use the "waste" oil from the cav in it which is synthetic and only changed after 2k.
After about 30k of doing this with a good filter (I use wix) it actually looks cleaner.
I was considering using an additive like seafoam but just the synthetic cleaned it up quite nicely.
I imagine the motor would still run (your ln2) forever like that as long as you're on the changes going forward.
Does it make any mechanical noises other than the typical ln2 clatters?
"A car just isn't a car without a little blood, sweat, and beers." -- Shadowfire
Does the motor have any noises other than the lifters on cold start? No.
But I have noticed my gas mileage is no where near where I think it should be considering I am driving a 2200.
My LD9 got better gas mileage then this thing.
But I have other things that make noise that I have to deal with,
Example the 4th Cylinder Spark Plug literally hops around in its spot because it is not seated properly because of a busted thread. (Purchasing a Helicoil kit soon)
And my spark plug wires on Cylinder 1, and 4 don't see, to sit properly on their respectable spark plugs which causes it to arc in between them unless I push them down in.
(Stupid Dealership recommended me Bosch Spark Plug wires, I have some NGK ones ready to put on and a whole new set of spark plugs.)
I can hear the spark plugs arcing from inside the car which is annoying.
Could always try some Rotella diesel oil. It has alot of cleaning agents in it. Subaru guys swear by the stuff.
I've been using marvel mystery oil in my Ecotec with great success.
"big boom big boom"-Adam Savage. "quack damn you"-Jamie Hyneman "mythbusters"
Well I upgraded to Mobil 1 Synthetic Oil for the time being. And I am going to replace the filter at earlier intervals. I'll hopefully check under the valve cover in a year after 27,000kms ish. Hopefully it does something, as this is my first time purchasing synthetic oil I didn't realize the huge difference in price compared to regular oil. $30 for a 4.4L jug versus $45 for a 4.4L jug. (Just over a gallon for you US folks).
I've been using synthetic in my sunfire since i got it. I've used it in other cars as well and never had a problem.
I always see people complaining about using synthetic and how it cause a leak or whatever but it's never happened to me. The reason most people think there car starts leaking after using synthetic is because conventional won't leak as fast so you don't see the leak but synthetic has a different flow rate so it get through the little gaps and seals that are leaking faster so you might actually have a puddle on the ground.
Personally though I've never had an issue with it and I swear by the stuff.
2002 Pontiac Sunfire SE Sedan 2.2l Ecotec 4 Speed Auto.
Yay! No more jumping spark plug!
Got that darn 4th spark plug helicoil'd, compression tested it after and the it went to 154 psi. So that was the result of the low compression in that cylinder after all.
Now I have no more fear of that plug blowing out of its spot.
Also a package came for me today that I failed to pick up as I wasn't at home, but I am very excited about.
Hehe.
Yay! Camber Plates!
I managed to pick up a set of these beauties from someone here on the forums. Mint shape.
These will go great with my aluminum control arm swap I plan on doing sometime down the road.
I also picked up a RK Sport Upper Motor Mount insert. Ill get that bad boy in there hopefully this weekend to see what it can do.
Good stuff man....Keep plugging away at it. Get all the mounts. Upper, lower and trans. Night and day difference.
Yes agreed. I hope to get a front sway bar (which I don't have) before I install my control arms, so that I can hopefully just drop the subframe and do it all at once. (Not looking forward to that). Really want to stiffen up the front as much as I possibly can. I helped install a lower dogbone about a month ago on a friends car. Damn thing took me like 20 minutes pounding away. I figure the trans mounts I'll just source out the actual mounts that bolt to the tranny from a scrapyard and then purchase the solid inserts and press em in so I'll have the least amount of down time/pain free and swap em in.
The trans mounts are easy but a vise or press is key.
If you ever come to Vernon I am more then willing to do it for you. They take maybe a couple hours.
You are in Vernon these days then? 4 and half hours away. You really did get out of the city.
We will be leaving the city for good in a couple weeks..
Got that sucker in, was surprised at how easy it was to put in.
I was even more surprised at how much more the inside of the car vibrates with just one mount.
I was curious as to why I kept blowing brake light bulbs in my 96-99 Toyo taillights. Turns out this was the culprit.
Damn connector decided to go all supernova on me.
I didn't know if these connectors were sold anywhere being I thought they were rare, so I went to the GM stealership a couple blocks up the road and sure enough they had one in stock.
Plopped that bad boy in there and now shes mint.
My last day of work was yesterday so now all I am doing is sitting collecting EI while going to school for the next 2.5 months. Poor Life.
Alrighty. I finished another Level of schooling and excited to head back to work and a pay raise. Yay.
During my downtime, living off of Ei, I managed to only do a little bit of stuff.
Got some cheap gauges wired up. (Never understood how some vehicles don't have stock oil pressure gauges)
While I was at school I noticed my sunroof will no longer go all the way down, so I suspect a faulty motor even though it works.
I finally got annoyed at looking at a dent in my fender from when I purchased the car, so $25 later I installed a replacement one.
Front view of old Fender.
Better view of fender dents and scratches.
Side by side of the two.
New one mounted.
Decided to temporarily take my crappy fiberglass side skirt off and mock up the stock side skirt to see what it would look like. (Crappy iPotato Pictures Sorry)
And last, I managed to pick up a pacesetter header/downpipe for $60 so I figured I couldn't pass that up.
Yes I have the downpipe for it, just not pictured. I will probably end up heat wrapping it so the discoloration of the paint after install is masked.
Annnnnnd
I also got around to finally installing the stock z24 side skirts for good now. I think the car looks much nicer now back to stock.
Last week I heard a sound that made me suspect my wheel bearing. Sure enough my passenger side front hub assembly needed to be replaced.
Got around to doing that this weekend.
New and Old.
And on.
Took me about 45 minutes or so. Came off like a dream. Was expecting a struggle as I have heard others have had troubles, but they weren't seized or anything.
My next task is to install my camber plates whenever I get a chance, but I cannot seem to find out if they sell the 99 style strut mount pieces individually. All I require is the upper spring perch(seat) as the ones I currently have are busted again. But I cannot seem to find just those items. My local auto parts stores only sell the entire package for super expensive ($91 a kit). I am puzzled.
In the last month I have decided to tackle my sunroof problem.
With some help from someone on the Facebook group, I was pointed in the right direction in regards to solving my problem.
Turns out my springs had gotten loose and jumped a gear or something. I had to manual crank the window back down and then re-time the sunroof motor. All back to functioning again.
I also managed to get my hands on a Eibach front sway bar.
Since I don't have a bar myself I went to the dealer and purchased the D brackets and bolts from the same year of my vehicle. Also, I purchased some new endlinks.
I will arrange a day so that I can have a good time period to drop the subframe to get her in.
I also picked up some rear hub spacers with bolts and installed them.
Only one out the eight rear bolts stripped so I had to drill it out.
While I was back there I swapped in a new rear hub assembly and for the first time since I have owned the car, there is no more ABS light on my dash.
And that's it for now. This is how she looks currently.
So, got that sucker of a sway bar in, and man was it annoying to get in there considering I have a LN2.
Damn exhaust almost didn't allow the bar to slide in.
Took me way to long to install. 4 Hours from start to finish.
Since switching to synthetic oil, I had noticed I was loosing oil at a rapid pace. When I was under the car doing the sway bar I noticed the oil pan leak got worse.
This was the oil level the day the oil pan gasket got fixed. (I was going thru around 2 quarts a month)
Got that all fixed up and shes no longer leaking.
In my opinion, the switch to synthetic had no bearing on the leaking oil.
PRND321 Till I DIE
Old Motor: 160whp & 152ft/lbs, 1/4 Mile 15.4 @88.2
M45 + LD9 + 4T40-E, GO GO GO