[Mk2] [Turbo] WIP HEADGASKET change! **FINISHED** **AWSOME BAY SHOTS**

[jimGTS]

ok another update, were getting close, but unfortunatly not got pics of my block and cleaned up pistons! which have had a major amount of time spent on them....

1mm cometic multi layed steel headgasket



the HEAD i got back from Nathan at Century Motorsport! NOTE the Rev3 inlet camshaft!








sprayed up ATS racing bored out fuel rail, and the injector stay



sparyed up intercooler pipes and TVIS plate...



lovely heatshields and timing belt cover



additional oil pressure adapter to kit an oil pressure gauge (still houses the stock sensor)




oil temp sump plug adapter



gauge sendor with the oil temp adapter



3 of the 4 autogauges from gaugeplace.com
(altho have since realised my old boost gauge was 52mm, not 60mm like my new one is, so i might need a bit of modding to my old piller holder)

[jimGTS]

ok another update.....

considering the awful weather over the last 2 weekends, it made progress a nightmare and very frustrating.....

anyway, i had luke at pacafic works come down on friday to fit my new cambelt (idler bearings also replaced), this obviously ment the head has gone back on along with my 1mm cometic headgasket and ARPs which i later torqued...
alot of work to fit a belt, i never realised!! we certainly had a bit of a job undoing the crank bolt!!!!
pics to follow next weekend.

anyway, sat/sunday, even tho it was raining, used an ingenious idea....pmsl


i managed to fit back the turbo/downpipe, inlet manifold, distributor, fuel rail and coolent matrix and its numerous pipes, and put the main greddy ic unit back it.....pics to follow....

slowly getting there, weather and not much daylight are becoming annoying!

[jimGTS]

OHHHHHHHHH YYYYYEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!


finished the BEAST late sunday evening!!!!!!
and ive now got an engine bay to be so proud off, it looks AWSOME!!!!

just a few thanks.....

be thanks to 3SGTE over all these weeks with various pm's...
thanks to luke at pacafic works for coming over and removing and installing my cambelt!!!!!
thanks to nathan at century motorsport for a few uprated goodies and overhauling my head!!!!
jeffD at flashmetal for the numerous tiny o-rings and gaskets i renewed!

much needed pics!
note i forgot to take pics of the coolent renew and bleeding....


heres the state of the block before the gasket and head went back on








the HUGE homemade breaker bar me and luke needed to undo the crank bolt!


drivers side engine mount off



where the belt caught on the pulleys when it accidentally started a week or to ago with no head/turbo/manifold or anything, doh!!



1mm cometic MLS headgasket on!



ARPS



Head and new cambelt on!!




Cams lined up with TDC in there groves and ARPs torque down 5 times incrementing from 30 to 60lb of torque (30, 38, 45, 52, and 60lb)



inlet manifold, fuel rail and fuel injectors stay installed




Turbo oil to sump pipe! which i only recently found out had split! believe it or not this pipe cost me bloody £30 from toyota!!!



turbo on!



under inlet manifold, now awsomely clean, no TVSV or TVIS in site



blocked tvsv and tvis vaacum lines!



all my sprayed up coolent lines, coolent matrix, distributor!



new greddy ic blanking plate donated by Dan over on mr2oc as i let him have my old aircon unit for nothing! stainless steel thick item, looks great!



overall view and newly sprayed up bov vaacum pipes




newly sprayed up heatshields, ignore the dust!



turbo, coolent lines and intake all connected and installed!



lubbing up the cams, and some sealant in the cam edges to seal the cam cover



i tidied up the camcover by giving it another spray, as some of the edges had chipped off when removing it weeks ago, now totally mint (ignore the pics earlier as you can see chipping, not anymore!!!!)...also note the lovely RED washers under the hex bolts, believe it or not there just cut up bits of old red hosing i had laying around! looks neat!!



throttle body on and tb/camcover stay




then just the turbo hardpipes and greddy intercooler pipes!!
THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!










the overheating has stopped, OH YEHH!!!!
then again i was only running 0.8-0.9bar of boost on a rev3 ecu, so note sure how itll like more boost and apexi FC yet!

NOW I GOT A FEW QUESTIONS..........

i took the car for a drive, drives like an absolute dream, feels so solid!!
was idling fine all this time, until i gave it a bit of boost, got to a roundbout and it died....
it basically doesnt idle at all now!! i looked for any loose pipes (in the dark), but could find any......but once over 1k rpm the car is an animal, doesnt feel like any boost leaks there and pulls very strong indeed....ill prob ask this question on another thread to get more views and answers i think, thats the only downside...oh and i havent checked for error codes yet....NOTE i put on the stock rev3 ecu BTW, not the apexi FC
apart from not idling AT ALL, im a happy man indeed knowing ive done a hell of alot of this work on my own, on the driveway!!!!!

[jimGTS]

KM, 2 days sure, but im guessing you didnt go quite into the things i did, waiting for numerous parts, sending off the head to be overhauled, spray and religously clean every single part i took off, lol....spent hours on the block.

bar in mind this was only done with a few hours here and there on the weekends, including the hours upon hours of spraying.....and i missed the odd weekend either due to the whether, how hungover i was, whether it was spent with the misses or i just couldnt be bothered, pmsl.
plus theres the fact of trying to book lukes time as i wernt confident about the cambelt side of things, so having to wait til he was free and all that.

if you just changing the HG then sure it can be done quick if you got the time.....

pistons, rods and all that, maybe if i had a huge turbo or something, i just didnt want the expense off all that, and probably more time taken, not to mention the engine would of had to come out really and it would have been in a shop for ages....
this way i got to oversee everything that went on with the car and learned alot.....plus made it look sweet!
hammerite spray btw 2Crooky, all of it!
only problem is now, the car hasnt had a wash for 3 months now, as before this i had my downpipe snap in half didnt i so spent time doing that instead of cleaning, lol.....

[jimGTS]

ok folks, thanks for suggestions....
route of the idling problem sourced!!!! WOOHOO!!!

finally got that isc off, bit of a nightmare! anyway i followed 3sgte's and ryans suggestions about checking this and the tps out by checking out the BGB.
anyway, i looked at the valve, and it wouldnt budge at all. its was 95% shut, hense why no air was getting to the TB to let me idle...
i applied some power to the vavle, and it wasnt moving at all!!
cleaned that sucker up good and proper, more power (12v) applied to the terminals and it shut and opened no problems!! this i was hoping was it!
fitted back, idled like dream, timed that baby up, power FC back on and WOW, awsome!!!



feels really excellent.....
lots of lovely boosting, pulls like mad to redline with that rev3 inlet camshaft!! pulls mental in all gears, 1st, 2nd is unreal top end. defo an improvement since the partial rebuild!
left it at 1bar for time bring in this weather....
but coupled with fixing my unknown leaky valves, full clean up, car feels awsome!!

steady 87-90C water temp wise, didnt budge at all after boosting!! so the sucker is fixed! aint i done good! think im gona need another map now take advantage of those things and crank up to 1.3bar!!!

[jimGTS]

coming up to 1000miles, still going strong, water temps still solid at 90C!
YEY!

time to redo those ARPs soon!

[MR2_RICH]

Excellent read Jim.

Didn't realise there was so much involved in a headgasket change on the MR2.

What propmted you to think you had a headgasket failure? Overheating? or some other symtoms? such as gurling coolant?

Rich

[jimGTS]

i started overheating, mainly after a bit of high boosting....readings of 100-120C water temp wise....stock guage was rising.
i started to use quite a bit of coolent....
i could hear the coolent bubbling away and the expansion tank being used after a run..obviously trying to suck coolent back into to the system as i lost a few cups werth..

took to garage, turns out there was exhaust gases in the coolent, so pretty dam sure it was the heatgasket...

since i done all in this thread, my water temps have stayed dead on 90C....in all boosting conditions...

its possible my head was lifitng under the high boost....

i wouldnt say theres to much involved, for exapmle i didnt need to remove the inlet manifold from the engine to get the head out (and all its other little components)....i didnt have to fully clean up the pistons, didnt have to replace various gaskets, i didnt have to have the head overhauled, i coulda just had the head skimmed and that was it...
i didnt have to remove the tvis and tvsv components, or decide to clean and spray the whole lot, which took up a fair amount of time !

[jimGTS]

isc is the idle speed control valve....
have a look at the BGB if you can, youll get an idea of how to chekc it...

its the piece that the 2 coolent and the large vaacum hoses connect to on the throttle body...its held in by 4 screws (which are pain to remove as they easily round!), so top tip here is to put as crazy amount of down pressure as you can when trying to turn it with a large heavy screw driver...thats how i got mine out....

youll see the valve...
to check its working run 12v power to the middle and left terminasl on the plug, and middle and right terminal, one should open the valve, other shut it....i think default position is 90ish% shut....
i just cleaned it up with brake cleaner and wd40...30second job..

id get a new gasket and screws to as i did from mr T, new screws where much stronger as i guess they havent been heated up and cooled down 1000s of times in the 15years the cars been around....

hth