Eric's '90 80QT: rustic bits

[mrmotorhead13]

That's pretty much exactly what my plans are for my battery... looks great Eric! I'd also thought about using a Miata battery since they're AGM with no venting issues and small.

[DE80q]

Thanks Eric, fitting in there is what I was worried about.

mrmotorhead13 That is kind of why I was looking into the civic battery. If I get the optima civic battery, it will be small.

[elaw]

I actually did a really cool setup many years ago in a Saab 900. In that car, the spare tire was located in a well under the trunk floor. I found a gel-cell battery that fit in that well laid on its side, so it used no space at all in the trunk, you couldn't even see it!

I'll try to remember to take a couple of measurements on my battery box when I get home from work tonight, so you guys can know what fits.

[mrmotorhead13]

mrmotorhead13 That is kind of why I was looking into the civic battery. If I get the optima civic battery, it will be small.

I haven't looked at the Civic battery (I have a Miata in the garage) but I imagine it's small too. Are the stock Civic batteries AGM? The stock Miata ones are and you can pick one up on Amazon for about $80, considerably less than Optimas generally go for.

[DE80q]

As far as I know, the factory civic battery is a standard lead acid battery, whick is why i say about the optima. I will have to look into the miata battery though thanks.

[elaw]

Time to change the subject! This hour's topic: rubber boots on tie rod ends (as well as other places like ball joints). Question: has anyone ever tried replacing the boots with universal ones like these: http://www.energysuspensionparts.com/pr ... od=9.13103?

I'm replacing most of the suspension parts on this car, but while installing the axles I noticed at least one of the boots on the rear tie rods is cracked and leaking grease. It looks like it happened recently, the joint still feels fine and it appears no water has gotten in. At this point in the project/budget, I'd prefer to spend $10 on two boots (shipped!) than ~$250 on a couple of tie rods... :(

[elaw]

Hey for anyone that cares, the dimensions of the battery box are as follows (all measured on the outside):
Width: 8-1/4" (possibly 8-1/2" really, it's bowed in a little)
Length: 11-1/2"
Height w/o cover: 8-1/4"
Height with cover: 10-1/2"

The battery is a group 34/78 size, you should be able to look up the dimensions on Optima's website.

[elaw]

Here's a quick cool thing... I give you: Exhaust Flange Mania!!!

Okay maybe not *that* cool. What I currently have for the rear part of the exhaust is an UrQ mid muffler in bad shape with pipe in great shape but a rusted flange, and another piece of UrQ pipe with an equally rusty flange going to the rear muffler. So it's good pipe, mufflers going to be replaced with Magnaflows, and what to do about the flanges?

The answer is this:

...a spiffy 3/8" thick 2-1/2" 3-bolt 304SS flange, enlarged a little to accommodate the 65mm pipe, and with a chamfer added to accommodate the flare at the end of each pipe. Ya won't see these things rusting any time soon!

Edit - here's a pic of it on the pipe:

It's a bit of a tight fit, but there's room to get the bolts on - I think it'll work okay.

[DE80q]

looks good, who did the chamfer for you?

[elaw]

My welding guy's father-in-law! 8)

I was talking to him one day and asked him if he knew a machinist who was reasonably priced and would do small jobs. He showed me he actually has some machining equipment in his shop but his retired father-in-law was a machinist and likes to keep busy so he ended up doing the flanges. He's also doing the piece that'll go in place of the fan bearing on the AAN motor that I mentioned a few posts back. Hopefully I'll be seeing that part in a couple of days.

[DE80q]

I was going to asking you for pics of that part, just to see is I would have been able to do it for you or not. Im a machinest too.

[elaw]

Ah, I'm sure you could have... I wish I had known!

Basically what I did was start with one of these: http://www.streettunedmotorsports.com/p ... flange.htm in the 2.5" size. Then I had the guy enlarge the ID to 2.60 inches (so it would be a bit loose on 65mm pipe which is 2.559") then cut a 45-degree chamfer 3/16" wide on one end of the ID.

Although I think it'll work, this thing's a fairly close fit on the pipe - it doesn't have much room to move around. I now see Vibrant makes a 2.75" version of that flange which might work better and eliminate the need to enlarge the ID. The flange that came off the pipe measures about 2.78" ID but is incredibly rusty so who knows what it was originally?

On the other hand, clearance is always an issue with that part of the exhaust and having the flange as small as possible will help in that area.

[elaw]

CHARGE!!!!!

No... um...

DISCHARGE!!!!!

Well either one really. Got a small but important bit of electrical work done last night:

The big red wire you see coming out of the harness is the one from the fusebox that used to go to the battery. And now it's connected to the battery once again! So there still won't be any driving taking place, what with no engine and all, but I can at least "power up" the car electrically which is nice for checking stuff.

I also hooked in that extra junction block (taken from a Saab) which will provide a good place to tap power for the engine-management system and such.

The big hole through the firewall there is for the Megasquirt wiring - I have the entire harness that I pulled intact from the 4K, including the grommet/boot thing where it went through the firewall. So installing the MS harness into this car will consist of feeding the wires through that hole, snapping the grommet/boot into place, and that's it!

[DE80q]

Nice work, hope mine comes out that clean

[elaw]

Okay so I promised axle pics and here they are! They're not very good as I was still having trouble with the lens fogging.



I do have to say it seems to me they're a little too long, although I can't see any good reason for that. I measured them and they're exactly the same length as what came out of the car (both with and without CV joints). But both inner CVs are very close to the inner limit of their travel, and depending on how the lower ball joint is positioned, I'm worried they might bottom out under some circumstances. I guess I'll just have to see what happens. :?

For those new to this thread, the axles originally came out of a FWD B5 A4, and you'll notice they have a tubular section which is a bit larger in diameter than the original solid shafts. But they seem to have plenty of clearance. CV-wise, the inners (108mm) are the ones that came with the axles, the outers are regular B3 items. The ones on the 80 would have worked, but I actually got CQ ones since I'm thinking I might add ABS to this car at some point, and the CQ ones have the trigger wheels for ABS.

[elaw]

So here's one for you all from the irony department...

On my car there's no engine, transmission, brakes, wheels... but dammit the lights work!

[my2000apb DrBeastCar]

WHAT!?! add ABS?

[audifreakjim]

WHAT!?! add ABS?

[elaw]

Ayyup!

IMHO ABS falls into the "better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it" category. And if you don't want it to do its thing, you can always switch it off!

[my2000apb DrBeastCar]

WHAT!?! add ABS?

of all mods it should be the easiest to find free parts

[elaw]

Okay so I'm walking out through the garage this morning, and look over at the engine hoist and the engine's not there!

Then I remembered I put it in the car yesterday.

In case you've never seen an 80 quattro with an engine in it, it looks like this:


A few quick random observations...
In general, the engine fits in the car just fine. In the 4K there was a weird issue when I installed the AAN, with all the engine + trans mounts in the correct position, the passenger's side transmission bracket sat about 1/4" above (rather than resting on) the mount. I fixed the problem by using a few washers to lower the engine mount on the same side, but was worried I'd encounter the same problem with the 80. No such luck, it mounts up just fine.

The turbo definitely has more clearance than in the 4k:

In the 4K, the mounting tab for the airbox was about 1/4" from the turbo center housing. On the 80, the closest the turbo comes to anything is over an inch, which is massive clearance by comparison!

Here is a shot that shows my spiffy custom intake manifold better:

You can't tell from the photo of course, but clearance from the top of the throttle body to the hood is *very* tight - I haven't fully closed the hood but I'm estimating it's about 1/4 inch. Removing the dashpot and its bracket might help that a bit, I'm also considering lowering the front of the engine a little by putting washers between the engine mounts and the frame. Removing material from the hood might also be an option. But the "right answer" would have been to angle the TB downward a little more when fabricating the manifold*.

*Edit: I need to start thinking more before I type stuff. Angling the TB downward more would have made it hit the banjo bolt on the inlet to the PS pump. So that solution's not a good one.

The other area (so far!) in which clearance has been an issue is the shift linkage. It didn't "just fit" - when I first tried to install it, it hit the floor just in front of the shifter where the two sections join together (where you adjust it). A little creative bending (which was surprisingly easy) fixed that problem.

The harder-to-solve problem with the linkage is this:

There's a little bracket hanging off the steering gear that's supposed to support an A/C line, and the linkage comes *very* close to it. The photo shows it with the transmission in neutral and there's only maybe 5/16" clearance. I still need to check the clearance with the shifter in other positions, but getting the A/C line in there is going to be challenging.

[elaw]

One more thing of interest... I think I had mentioned earlier I was dealing with serpentine idler pulley issues? Well that one's just about solved:

On the right is the standard AAN bracket for the alternator and A/C compressor, which also has a pulley for the serpentine belt. On the UrS6 a fan is attached to the pulley, on my car it just functions as an idler.

Or maybe "malfunctions" is a better word, since the bearings were shot. Apparently the dealer's solution is to replace the entire bracket for $500, the "cheap" alternative is to buy a new shaft+bearings for the pulley for a measly $250. I think $250 is still way too much, so for $40 I had a machinist make an aluminum "plug" that goes where the OE pulley shaft went, and onto the front is bolted a Saab idler pulley I had lying around which can easily be replaced if it ever fails for about 30 dollars!

The new pulley is a little smaller than the old one. I'm hoping the tensioner can make up the difference, otherwise I'll have to find a serpentine belt that's a little shorter.

A couple of notes for anyone intending to do something similar: about 0.350" of the "snout" of the bracket had to be cut off as the stock pulley has a lot of "negative offset" that the new one doesn't. Also the new pulley is no wider than the belt, so it must be positioned very carefully. The "plug" it's mounted to can slide in and out - my plan is to put the belt on, get it positioned in just the right place, then drill a hole through the housing into the plug, tap it, and thread a bolt into both to lock the plug in position.

[NiTeC]

clean car...

for the pulley - you could simply do this and save yourself all the headaches...




not sure if anybody answered the battery box question - the plastic battery enclosures are used on marine applications and can usually be found at your local parts store in the 20-30$ range...

[elaw]

That's an interesting idea with the belt... my worry is that with an A/C compressor on there, the belt will be going straight downward off the alternator pulley which would give it a very small contact area on that pulley. With the idler, you get more "wrap" on both that and the A/C pulley which lessens the chance of the belt slipping. I do like the simplicity of your setup though!

[NiTeC]

valid point - I don't have an AC to worry about...you could always try and see if you have any issues...the belt is pretty tight I doubt it'll be skipping but who knows...

then again - you're building yourself a fast car...ditch the AC and let the girlfriend complain