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VR-4 hardly starts

3K views 42 replies 7 participants last post by  pwhite2012 
#1 · (Edited)
So, I finished dropping the engine back in my VR-4 from having the heads off for a valve job. I went to start it up and it takes a bit longer than usual to start and cranks a little bit slower than normal. When it does catch, it either fires off a few times and dies or does one quick rev to ~1500 rpms and dies. I was able to get it to stay on for a bit by giving it some gas, but it ran really rough and low, even with 50-75% throttle. It did this for several seconds, then it revved to around ~3500-4000 rpms really quickly. I had my hand on the key and scared the piss out of me, so I shut it off out of instinct. Things of note:

-I checked the timing and it was on every mark before I dropped it in
-I had an issue with the car trying to start itself when the battery was connected, but it was resolved. I only attached one of the wires by the starter and missed the smaller one. Trying to find out the problem caused me to flood the engine, so I pulled the front plugs and let it sit over night. No change, so I replaced the plugs. Still no change.
-I have a couple connecters that I'm not sure of what they connect to. There is no other connecter anywhere near that I can find. One is below the passenger headlight. The other is near the power steering pump.
-OEM MLS headgaskets were used. No milling was done as the machine shop said the heads looked fine. A scraper was used to remove the old gaskets residue. It was about the smoothest thing I've ever felt before I put the gasket on.
-Whenever it turns on, the garage gets very smoky and there is a very burnt smell. I can't see any origin for the smoke. It's just smoky all over.

That's all I can think off the top of my head. Any other questions, just ask. Any help would be great. I'm tired of not being able to drive her. :(
 
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#31 ·
If you're still curious, I checked the block surface for flatness. I'd say it's not the problem. I couldn't get a .003 inch feeler gauge between the straight edge and the block anywhere. We'll see how bad the heads were tomorrow if they can get them done early enough.
 
#32 ·
I did not think that the block would of had a problem but it is always good practice to check. That is good news though. One less thing to worry about. With fresh milled heads, you should be within the service limits and OEM gaskets are sure to seal.

P.S. But check their work anyway. Did you take any measurements of the heads before you sent them in? That would be good information to have. If not, ask the machine shop what measurements they got for each head.
 
#33 ·
I just got my heads back, and I totally forgot to ask what measurements they got before. They said they took off .005", though. I had to go out of town right after, so I haven't gotten a chance to check them myself, yet. I'll do that tonight when I get back. I'll let you know what results I get.
 
#34 ·
Here are some pictures of a couple things that I can't figure out.

The first picture is of the two connectors I mentioned earlier. One of them goes into the fans, but I'm not exactly sure which one. One of the connectors seems to go into the headlight bucket, and the other one seems to go up under the fusebox.

The second picture is of a vacuum hose that I just now noticed. I have no clue what it goes to. There's nothing around it that I can find. If you follow it up, it goes into small silver piping that lays against the body of the car. It's the piping where there's 5 or so pipes beside each other that follow the contours of the body.
 

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#35 ·
The connector that goes into the fuse box is for the passenger side fan.

The thing you are holding looks like a charcoal canister line but I am not positive. I am having trouble with orientation. Is this on the passenger side?
 
#36 ·
The hose is on the passenger side. It's pretty much under the fuse box. The white thing you see at the top is the coolant overflow tank, if it helps you orient yourself. I believe you can see the clutch booster at the bottom of the picture.

What about the other connector that comes out of the headlight bucket? It's a '91 that I converted to a '99 front end. Could it be the power for the old pop-up headlights?

Update: Just got the timing belt on. Talk about a pain - literally and metaphorically. I'm bleeding from at least 5 spots on each hand from the cam gears slipping while my hand was near. Oh well, I guess. Everything from here on is pretty much cake. I hope to have it done tomorrow in the early afternoon.
 
#37 · (Edited)
The hose is on the passenger side. It's pretty much under the fuse box. The white thing you see at the top is the coolant overflow tank, if it helps you orient yourself. I believe you can see the clutch booster at the bottom of the picture.
Yeah, that goes to the charcoal canister. Then a thin vacuum line runs to the hard vacuum line under the thermostat housing, then connects to a soft hose again and to the solenoid on the firewall bracket.

What about the other connector that comes out of the headlight bucket? It's a '91 that I converted to a '99 front end. Could it be the power for the old pop-up headlights?
Not sure about that other connector. I only have one connector in that area on my 91. It must have connected somewhere in front of the evaporator core. You may be right. That is where I would look.

Update: Just got the timing belt on. Talk about a pain - literally and metaphorically. I'm bleeding from at least 5 spots on each hand from the cam gears slipping while my hand was near.
Would have been a lot easier with the engine out, ya think?

So did you get any feedback from the machinist on warpage? Were you able to verify his work?
 
#38 · (Edited)
Yeah, it definitely would've been easier with it out of the engine bay, but it definitely would've taken at least twice as long in the end.

As for the machinist, I was in a bit of a rush, so all I was able to find out was that he shaved off .005". When I got home, I checked them out, though. I could only just slightly get a .0015" feeler gauge under the straight in a couple places. If this doesn't seal, I don't know what I'm going to do.
 
#39 ·
Alright, so I'm about done messing with this. It still smokes like crazy and antifreeze is leaking very slowly, but quicker when the car starts, from near the oil pan. I know my ignition timing might be slightly off, but it still shouldn't be smoking like crazy like it is. There's also some blue smoke along with the white smoke. The smell is kind of sickening.

At first, it took a long time to start, but once it started the first time, it started just a bit slowly every time after that. It also only smoked from the front side, but after a test drive, it started smoking from both sides.

On the test drive, it had next to no power. It had trouble getting much over 2000 rpms. It was also missing a lot, I'm assuming because the head gasket didn't seal once again. I don't have a clue what more it could be other than the head gasket.

I don't know what more I could have done. It's as flat of a surface as possible. I'm thinking it's about time that I save up to have a shop do it, though I don't know what they'll do differently. I followed the service manual for everything and torqued everything down to spec. I torqued the head bolts down 30-60-90 in the correct order, broke them all loose in reverse order, and re-torqued them all directly to 90, exactly like the service manual says. I lubed the bolts with 10W-30 Royal Purple, the same as I put in my car. If I do decide to do it again, I'll just use the graphite head gaskets. They may not hold up to the forces from the different materials, but it should seal much easier. Past that, I'm lost.

If anybody has any ideas of what else it could be or what I should do, it would be appreciated.

P.S. Sorry for the super long post. I'm all flustrated (like my new term?), and I guess I'm using this to vent a little bit. Plus, the fumes are making me a bit dizzy...`
 
#41 ·
I used OEM MLS gaskets. I've read about other people's problems, so I didn't want to try anything but that.

As for water in the oil, is there anyway I can check without draining the oil? It's getting kind of expensive buying oil over and over again. I looked at the dipstick, and it didn't look weird. It was nice and purple.
 
#42 ·
When you say smoking is the smoke in the engine bay or out the exhaust. If in the engine bay did u spill anything/use wd40 etc to loosen bolts? Get back under and find the leak. As for missing and no power pull the covers off and make sure the timing belt didn't slip.
As for water in the oil u will know straight away by pulling the dipstick. It will be all white and sludgy. Also take the oil cap off and have a look in the valve cover for the milky sludge
 
#43 · (Edited)
I checked under the valve cover and there was nothing weird going on with the oil. Except, there did seem to be a very small amount. Like, it seemed almost clean still, other than a few patches of oil here and there. The dipstick looked normal as well.

As for the smoke, I see it coming out of the engine bay. It comes from the gap between the front turbo and the block and the rear turbo and the block. It could be coming from the exhaust. I have it open pre-cats for now because I wanted to test start it before I put the downpipe on. So, it could be just coming straight out and then rising up through the engine bay. However, my girlfriend looked under the car while I was revving it and said she didn't see smoke from the exhaust. Then again, she could easily be wrong and thought it was nothing. One thing I can say about the leak right now is that it didn't start until the coolant was full. I don't know if that means anything, but it may to somebody.

The timing belt look fine to me. Nothing strikes me as being way off, but I'll check it more in depth tomorrow. I don't really want to mess with it anymore today. It's late, and my hands hurt. They're cut up all over.

Also, I didn't use any kind of spray. I was going to to get some of the hoses on easier, but I couldn't find where I put it, so I never actually used any.
 
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