Table of Contents:
Introduction and History:
Some of you may remember from a previous thread that I bought this SVO last summer. It had a hurt motor(rod knock and a ton of leak down on cyl #2), but it was a good deal and I primarily bought it for the super clean body. It has 85k miles and originally came from California. It is 100% rust free except for two spots at the top of the c-pillar behind the hatch where it's a little scaley, but easily fixable. The floors, strut towers, doors, etc are incredibly clean. It just needs a good paint job and it'll look killer.
My original intention was to do a turbo LS - primarily because it's a direct bolt-in, easy to make a bunch of power, and I already had a ton of parts laying around to do it. So I went out and picked up a 5.3 from the St. Charles Yacht Club:
However, I realized that everybody has an LS swapped fox-body and I felt extra bad for wanting to do it to an SVO.
So then I went out and picked up a known-good ford 2.3T motor out of a Merkur. It is in great shape, had been rebuilt at some point in the past with Clevite bearings, ARP head studs, etc. I went through it and re-gasketed it, checked the rod bearings, added a billet BoPort cam/nicer springs/roller rockers, round-tooth timing belt, etc - Just to make it a little more fun than stock:
But then I started realizing that these 2.3 motors objectively suck. It's 1970s pinto technology that they just strapped a turbo on at some point. The iron head is a boat anchor - it flows about 140cfm on the intake, and with extensive porting and a bunch of valve lift, it'll still only flow like 225-230. Esllinger used to make aluminum heads for it, but they're no longer in production and the existing Esslinger heads sell for $2-3k or more. The aftermarket for these motors is pretty small to begin with, and seems to be shrinking rapidly. I realized I was putting too much effort into an engine that would struggle to make 300 rwhp reliably, when I knew I wanted way more than that. I needed a more modern engine with a much better aftermarket - but I wanted to stick with a turbo 4-cylinder to kind of stay within the spirit of what the SVO is/was.
Enter the 4G63:
I have always been a big fan of these engines for obvious reasons, and know a decent amount about them just from reading over the years. They have a huge aftermarket and can make great power with relative ease. This particular engine came out of a Galant VR4 and is in great shape from what I've seen thus far.
My plans so far are:
-Stock bottom-end for now
-Rebuilt head with 272 cams, upgraded springs, etc
-ARP headstuds
-JMFab Billet RWD intake manifold
-Sch10 turbo manifold with a Holset hx35-ish turbo
-Built th400 w/ transbrake
-MS3 Pro ECU
The goal is to make 400-450rwhp on the stock bottom end through the th400, which shouldn't be too difficult. I'd like to go mid-high 10s with it, which should be fun on the street for a little while.
Future plans - Built bottom-end, possibly a 2.3 stroker. I'm doing the th400 for now because it's easy and I have a nice one sitting on the shelf. But, I'd like to go back to a 5 or 6 speed (Tremec TKX, T56, or some other variant), something along the lines of a gt35 turbo, and then do some nicer suspension and brakes. The goal would be to make 500-600+rwhp reliably and have excellent handling - basically taking the original vision of the SVO and introducing it to PCP.
I'll keep this thread updated as I go along. I have a ton of parts already with a few more that are on order.
P.S. - I'm not making any irreversible changes to the car(aside from maybe frame ties and torque-box reinforcements). I'm going to mothball the original engine, the replacement Merkur engine, and all the oem parts I take off of the car - just so I can revert it back to stock in the future if I want to.
NEXT POST - HEAD REBUILD
Introduction and History:
Some of you may remember from a previous thread that I bought this SVO last summer. It had a hurt motor(rod knock and a ton of leak down on cyl #2), but it was a good deal and I primarily bought it for the super clean body. It has 85k miles and originally came from California. It is 100% rust free except for two spots at the top of the c-pillar behind the hatch where it's a little scaley, but easily fixable. The floors, strut towers, doors, etc are incredibly clean. It just needs a good paint job and it'll look killer.
My original intention was to do a turbo LS - primarily because it's a direct bolt-in, easy to make a bunch of power, and I already had a ton of parts laying around to do it. So I went out and picked up a 5.3 from the St. Charles Yacht Club:
However, I realized that everybody has an LS swapped fox-body and I felt extra bad for wanting to do it to an SVO.
So then I went out and picked up a known-good ford 2.3T motor out of a Merkur. It is in great shape, had been rebuilt at some point in the past with Clevite bearings, ARP head studs, etc. I went through it and re-gasketed it, checked the rod bearings, added a billet BoPort cam/nicer springs/roller rockers, round-tooth timing belt, etc - Just to make it a little more fun than stock:
But then I started realizing that these 2.3 motors objectively suck. It's 1970s pinto technology that they just strapped a turbo on at some point. The iron head is a boat anchor - it flows about 140cfm on the intake, and with extensive porting and a bunch of valve lift, it'll still only flow like 225-230. Esllinger used to make aluminum heads for it, but they're no longer in production and the existing Esslinger heads sell for $2-3k or more. The aftermarket for these motors is pretty small to begin with, and seems to be shrinking rapidly. I realized I was putting too much effort into an engine that would struggle to make 300 rwhp reliably, when I knew I wanted way more than that. I needed a more modern engine with a much better aftermarket - but I wanted to stick with a turbo 4-cylinder to kind of stay within the spirit of what the SVO is/was.
Enter the 4G63:
I have always been a big fan of these engines for obvious reasons, and know a decent amount about them just from reading over the years. They have a huge aftermarket and can make great power with relative ease. This particular engine came out of a Galant VR4 and is in great shape from what I've seen thus far.
My plans so far are:
-Stock bottom-end for now
-Rebuilt head with 272 cams, upgraded springs, etc
-ARP headstuds
-JMFab Billet RWD intake manifold
-Sch10 turbo manifold with a Holset hx35-ish turbo
-Built th400 w/ transbrake
-MS3 Pro ECU
The goal is to make 400-450rwhp on the stock bottom end through the th400, which shouldn't be too difficult. I'd like to go mid-high 10s with it, which should be fun on the street for a little while.
Future plans - Built bottom-end, possibly a 2.3 stroker. I'm doing the th400 for now because it's easy and I have a nice one sitting on the shelf. But, I'd like to go back to a 5 or 6 speed (Tremec TKX, T56, or some other variant), something along the lines of a gt35 turbo, and then do some nicer suspension and brakes. The goal would be to make 500-600+rwhp reliably and have excellent handling - basically taking the original vision of the SVO and introducing it to PCP.
I'll keep this thread updated as I go along. I have a ton of parts already with a few more that are on order.
P.S. - I'm not making any irreversible changes to the car(aside from maybe frame ties and torque-box reinforcements). I'm going to mothball the original engine, the replacement Merkur engine, and all the oem parts I take off of the car - just so I can revert it back to stock in the future if I want to.
NEXT POST - HEAD REBUILD