Good and bad today... need advice!

[Gokou]

Well, today was a good but mostly bad day for my TTA.

The Good: My RJC Powerplate arrived. With no other changes, I went from an average of 1 to 1.4 degrees of KR to 0, so in turn I upped the boost another 1/2 pound and am still at 0.0 KR.

The Bad: The tapped hole in the manifold for the bolt/stud for the plenum (the one the throttle cable bracket attaches to) was stripped from the factory! (I'll add that one to the pile with my stripped studs and lugnuts). Should I yank the plenum and helicoil the bastard, or leave it be? I read somewhere that there are a LOT of LC2's running around with this hole stripped.

The really bad: I think my rear main is going out. Came back from a show tonight and within 5 minutes I had a 1.5" puddle of oil under the car. The crossover pipe, tranny inspection cover, and tranny pan were wet. I didn't jack the car up and pull the inspection cover, but I know the signs.

How long does a rear main job on these cars take? Anything special to do/watch out for? Will I have to yank the motor to do it right? Will I have to remove the front timing cover? If so... I'm guessing I should upgrade the timing chain and install a roller thrust bearing for the cam with the cover off, right?

Please advise... I'm not a happy camper at the moment. Last thing I had in mind was to do a rear main job on a 2800 mile car

 

[Gokou]

I was also thinking, with the oil pan off it would be the perfect time to install a high volume oil pump, needle thrust bearing for the cam, and new sprockets and a double roller timing chain... comments?

 

[GTEATER]

Hows the cam affected by the hi-vol oil pump?

 

[Gokou]

I'm doing further investigation tonight when I get back home from dinner. I'm going to pull the tranny inspection cover and have a GOOD look.

Is it possible to weasel the oil pan off without raising the motor? It looks awfully tight...

I know my timing chain, sprockets, and thrust button are still like new, but I just figured that now would be a good opportunity to replace them. Just as easily though I could wait until a little farther down the road and replace them. It would be a lot of work to replace brand new parts, but I'm the type of person that likes to jump on things early before they bite me. Can't jump on it much earlier than 2800 miles

Thanks for the info on the HV pump-- I'll pass on that one!

I *hope* it's not the rear main. The car was dry as a bone last week when I took it out, then, geez, I lost 1/3 of a quart last night driving 40 miles! There were several hard passes though testing out the Power Plate...

Again, I'll have a status update after dinner tonight when I get the car up on the lift and pull the inspection cover.

Maybe not. I couldn't get the inspection cover off without pulling either the trans cooler lines or the crossover pipe, and since I didn't feel like doing either, I just made sure all the oil pan bolts were tight and verified the gasket was in place (it was). I cleaned everything up really well, I'll drive it around a little more tomorrow.

 

[TurboTA3.8]

ok here it goes i just went threw this problem on my friends 10000 mile tta he was running high boost 23psi and started getting oil leaks so i did a complete reseal of his engine i put in new front and rear main seals lost the old rope junk ones cork pan gasket, won't blow out like the rubber one did the front cover gasket and replaced the waterpump with a new one said wile its appart lets do a cam put in a atr309g billet roller cam with true roller chain hardened pushrods and roller lifters all in kit
resealed the intake dont use the rubber gaskets front and back of the intake use sealent it will last longer under boost new valve cover gasketsand car is now leakless you have to remember these low milage cars are 13 years old and everything is dryed out i dont think its wasting your money pulling it appart and using the gaskets the factory should have put in it you will be making it better for high boost o and btw this car is a 11 sec car now we added some other toys to it before we sealed it up think that was what made it leak cam realy made the car turn it on upstairs

thanks george

 

[Gokou]

TurboTA3.8, did you need to raise the engine off the motormounts to get the pan off? From the looks of it, I'm going to have to...

 

[TurboTA3.8]

yes you need to raise the motor up till the trans hits the tunnel

george

 

[Razor]

One more on the blowing seals out is these motors get additional blowby under high boost levels.The factory purges dont work.

I installed breathers on my pass and drivers side vc's to prevent such an occurrence.Another thing is the brass check valve in place of the PCV..you can get that from ATR.

And ditto on raise the engine till it hits the tunnel.And dont use the pins with the seal,squirt RTV in those slots.

HTH

 

[Gokou]

Well, I drove it more today. The oil likes to collect on the starter, then drip down onto the crossover pipe. Nice smoke when the exhaust gets warm. Some oil also drips out the hole in the tranny inspection cover, but the majority comes off the starter and onto the crossover pipe. It's not a real bad leak (it's VERY minor compared to other rear main leaks I've seen), but any leak is bad by my standards. I hate leaks!

I found the original PCV valve didn't seal completely under pressure (doh!), so I picked up a new one (Delco of course, no Fram crap here!). I have the turbosucker blocked and a breather in the driver's side valve cover-- one of my first mods to the car when I purchased it. I do want to pick up another driver's valve cover for the passenger side for another breather, but I haven't done it yet. One thing I noticed is that the hole in the push-in breather itself (from John's Performance) is rather small. I wouldn't doubt that under boost it can't let all the blowby out fast enough. Guess I'll open up the hole in the breather a bit more tomorrow.

I'm going to drive the car a few more days and see if it gets better or worse... I've had other cars with rope seals do real weird things in the past. I'm hoping it'll seal back up, but I know in the back of my head it probably won't happen.

Thanks for the info guys... I am SO relieved that I don't have to yank the motor to get the pan off. I wish HRpartsNstuff would get their poly mounts out real soon... when I have the motor up to drop the pan would be the perfect time to install new motor mounts. Still, it's going to be a miserable job and I'm not looking forward to it.

I really like that RJC powerplate... it was 100 degrees outside today, I was running 19.5 lbs boost with my 92/100 octane gas mix, and at the most I only got 0.5 degrees KR