New turbo coupe owner, need some help identifying some things in the engine bay.

[Arvid]

Well, my old 86 sedan finally succumbed to rust and various problems so I sent it to the scrapyard. At the same time a 88 turbo coupe popped up for sale just across the road. After checking it out it had several small problems:

 

-Brakes didn´t work well, unable to lock the wheels even if it´s wet outside

-Power mirrors didn´t work

-Passenger side power window didn´t work

-4 CV boots were bad

-Pulled slightly to the right

 

Other than that it seemed ok, and most important it didn´t have a lot of rust.

Negotiated it down to 2/3 of what seller wanted at first.

The first thing I did was giving it a complete tune up with oil and filter, plugs, rotor, cap, air filter, plug wires and adjusted the timing.

Bleeding the brakes fixed that problem, power mirrors just needed a new fuse, power window seems to need a new motor, replaced the CV boots and putting on the summer tires instead of the well worn winter tires fixed the pulling to the right problem.

 

Day after i bought it the water hose beneath the turbo cracked, quite a pain to replace that. Then the other day the hose from hell developed a leak. Yesterday I went ahead and replaced every hose on the whole engine, tires of all these leaks popping up all the time.

 

While working on the engine I have noticed few things that I need help in identifying, so I hope someone might help me out. Bear in mind this is a european model, so I guess some things might be different. Also the engine in this car has been replaced with a similar one, which might be why there are some things that seem to be unneeded.

 

First is this thing which I assume is a solenoid for controlling something. It´s plugged in electrically, but the vacuum hoses are not connected to anything:

 

 

Then there´s a spare vacuum connection that´s plugged near the coil:

 

 

Some unused electrical connections near the firewall, both sides of the car:

 

 

 

Finally my oil pump has two banjo connections that are just looped with a hose. I assumes this is for a oil cooler ? The piece with the connections just seems to be a sandwich adapter between the oil pump and the filter. Is this something from the factory or is it aftermarket ? :

 

 

 

I will try to get some pictures of the car later if anyone is interested

Edited May 14, 2009 by Arvid

[tizzle]

The solenoid your holding in the 1st photo connects to the metal line on the bottom left.

 

Not sure about the 2nd pic at the moment

 

The rest look OK to me.

 

Do your self a favor and just change all those coolant hoses now, or they will go one by one like your turbo coolant hose.

[Arvid]

The solenoid your holding in the 1st photo connects to the metal line on the bottom left.

 

Not sure about the 2nd pic at the moment

 

The rest look OK to me.

 

Do your self a favor and just change all those coolant hoses now, or they will go one by one like your turbo coolant hose.

 

That metal line in the bottom left goes to the intake pipe directly to the filter box. The reason it´s unplugged is because I was working on the engine.

 

Don´t know if I was clear enough about it, but I replaced all the coolant hoses yesterday since I know they eventually leak all of them

[john in KY]

Vacuum line near the coil could be for the distributor. Know my 85 turbo had 2 such lines and I'm thinking my 90 turbo had one. What I am thinking if your distributor doesn't have a vacuum cannister then maybe the distributor has been replaced with a wrong one. Those connectors are just test connectors.

[bheinen74]

wow the intake throttle body is all gunked up too. I would try to clean that with some spray or something, will help performance.

[robm]

I am not positive, but I believe the black and yellow connectors are for connecting a diagnostic device to the ECU. Not required, and the device was proprietary, so good luck trying to find one.

 

I think you are right about the banjo bolt device on the oil filter, it is for a cooler. Not sure if it is stock or aftermarket. Maybe clean it up, and look for a maker's mark? A very neat idea, in any case. If it had thermostatic control, it might improve the longevity of the engine, which have notoriously sensitive cooling systems.

[Frank B]

That oil cooler is worth keeping, once you get the actual cooler part of it. get used to that oil leak to, or pull the engine and replace ALL the seals, most likely cam seals and valve cover gaskets.

+1 on the firewall electrical connectors being for diagnostic equipment. That line next to the coil may be fore the heater and AC controls, do they work? I think that line goes through the firwall on the other side anyway. There is also a boost sensor for the ecm. Does the car have the center differential lock? The switch should be near the shifter. It uses two vacuum solenoids up near the firewall. Get a manual with a vacuum diagram, or search here for one.

Did you replace the heater hoses, turbo coolant hose, and the little ones on the intake? The little ones will get you.

With an engine that dirty, I'd say a bath is in order. i like Eagle one wheel and tire cleaner, not too strong smeeling, and it pulls the dirt right out of the rubber. usually takes two bottles.

Then clean all the electrical connections, ALL of them. Then add a few ground wires, one from intake to engine case, one from case to body.

Is there any fault codes, or check engine light?

[Arvid]

That oil cooler is worth keeping, once you get the actual cooler part of it. get used to that oil leak to, or pull the engine and replace ALL the seals, most likely cam seals and valve cover gaskets.

+1 on the firewall electrical connectors being for diagnostic equipment. That line next to the coil may be fore the heater and AC controls, do they work? I think that line goes through the firwall on the other side anyway. There is also a boost sensor for the ecm. Does the car have the center differential lock? The switch should be near the shifter. It uses two vacuum solenoids up near the firewall. Get a manual with a vacuum diagram, or search here for one.

Did you replace the heater hoses, turbo coolant hose, and the little ones on the intake? The little ones will get you.

With an engine that dirty, I'd say a bath is in order. i like Eagle one wheel and tire cleaner, not too strong smeeling, and it pulls the dirt right out of the rubber. usually takes two bottles.

Then clean all the electrical connections, ALL of them. Then add a few ground wires, one from intake to engine case, one from case to body.

Is there any fault codes, or check engine light?

 

I plan on replacing the oil pump when I do the timing belts soon because of a pretty bad ticking sometimes. Is there any seals I can replace while i change the pump and belts ?

 

Heater and ventilation controls work just fine, however my car does not have AC but perhaps the car from which the motor came had AC ?

 

My car have the locking center differential and it works like it should. The two solenoids you mention are there and the vacuum lines connected to them are fine.

 

I replaced absolutely all the coolant hoses, including the little ones on the throttle body/intake and the heater hoses. I know the little ones eventually will get me since they did on my 86 sedan

 

I have actually washed my engine bay several times, but only from the top, so the underside of the engine is still pretty dirty.

 

There is no check engine light right now, but there´s two codes stored, 11 and 31. Which is TPS and CAS if I remember correctly. The check engine light did light up very briefly (like less than a second) while accelerating in 2nd gear at 5500 rpm or so one of the first days I owned the car, but not seen it after that.

[Frank B]

Try that Eagle One All Wheel and Tire cleaner sometime, it makes a difference.

While you have the timing belts off, do the cam seals and front crank seal. Pull the pulleys off of the belt idlers and regrease the bearings too.

Oh, the turbos I've had really liked a new O2 sensor. You can get cheap(price) ones on Ebay.

The TPS may just need to be adjusted, or cleaned. You can get it apart to clean the contacts then use epoxy or zip ties to keep it together if it breaks.

Edited May 14, 2009 by Frank B

[zukiru]

pics of the car!

[Frank B]

Here's an oil cooler;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1990-96-300zx-twin-turbo-oil-cooler-wrx-evo-240sx_W0QQitemZ220415089540QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item3351c35b84&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

 

Check his other items too.....

[Arvid]

Here's an oil cooler;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1990-96-300zx-twin-turbo-oil-cooler-wrx-evo-240sx_W0QQitemZ220415089540QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories?hash=item3351c35b84&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

 

Check his other items too.....

 

Thanks for the link, something like that could be useful. Too bad he only ships to the US.

 

Pics of the car here : http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?p=824388

[bheinen74]

Thanks for the link, something like that could be useful. Too bad he only ships to the US.

 

Pics of the car here : http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/showthread.php?p=824388

 

If you need something and they ship only to USA, then someone on here could then forward ship it to you out of the states. I am willing to lend a hand on this sort of thing.

[Arvid]

If you need something and they ship only to USA, then someone on here could then forward ship it to you out of the states. I am willing to lend a hand on this sort of thing.

 

Thanks for the offer, but I did infact find an oil cooler out of a 87 coupe on the webpages for a junkyard locally so I´ll be ordering that one