VAROOOM!!

Well - the car runs. It wasn't easy or fun, but it's running.

After chasing down fuel pressure issues, ensuring proper oil pressure before it was allowed to fire up, and a bazillion other issues, I was finally able to turn the key, and it sputtered to life on what sounded like 2 cylinders. It sounded terrible for a 4 cylinder car, but on the other hand, it sounded EXACTLY like a Ducati at idle. That was a very good thing...

While this was fun and amusing, it wasn't a happy Neon. I messed around with plug wires, coil packs, swapped plugs etc. Nothing helped.

I pulled the plugs to take see if I could figure out which cylinders were not firing. It turned out that 2&3 were firing, but 1&4 were not. I also noticed a fair amount of oil on the threads of the plugs in each cylinder. A few days before, I poured a capful of oil into each cylinder to ensure good compression for the initial startup. I wondered if the oil was keeping the plugs from grounding properly, and thus, not firing. So I cleaned the threads of all the plugs and the cylinder holes. Started it up again, and now I magically had 3 cylinders running. Not complete success, but good progress.

The next night, I set about to figure out why the last cylinder wasn't firing. My spark checker said the plug was getting current, and when pulled, there was clear evidence of the plug arcing properly. In engine diagnosis, there are three things that you need to make an engine (or a single cylinder)function.

1.Fuel
2.Spark
3.Compression

If you have all three - then the engine pretty much has to at least try to run.
So I started down the line. I didn't get very far either.

The #4 cylinder wasn't getting fuel. I knew from previous tests that I had reasonable compression and spark to that cylinder. First guess was either that the injector wasn't being told to 'fire' by the computer, or the injector itself was clogged or bad. A quick check with a voltmeter showed that the injector was indeed getting a signal from the engine's computer, so that left the injector itself. Rather that futz around diagnosing the injector, I simply swapped in a spare from the old engine. I put it all back together and gave it a crank, varoooom! The engine was happily running on all 4 cylinders! I felt rather proud of myself to be entirely honest and I wanted to bask in the moment, but the garage was rapidly filling with fumes.

Before I could turn it off, the engine pretty much stalled on it's own. A scene that would repeat itself every time I started it. It would start and die usually 4 times before it would run on it's own. Not exactly a trait I wanted in my race car. But no matter - it was time to drive it!!

Next: The First Drive

Huger(er) update.

Again, no real time to write. Hopefully it's true that pictures are worth a thousand words, 'cause here comes a small novel...

We got the engine back in the car.




I left of some of the critical parts off in order to make installation easier. Now it was time to get all those parts back on. A task made much more difficult when the engine is crammed into the tight quarters of the engine compartment.
After a few hours of work it's all back together, but I don't have a battery to crank it over. I don't want to use a stock battery because they're very large and heavy - something not really conducive to race intentions. Stock batteries are made to start a car in all 4 seasons, thus their size and weight. I only need to start this car in 1 season, kind of like a lawn tractor. So that's what I did - bought a biggest tractor battery I could find. It was still a good 1/3 smaller and probably 15 lbs lighter. Best of all, it's got more than enough power to crank a Neon motor.


So now, its all back together and ready to crank.



It's been well over a month of work to get the engine to this point. Countless runs to auto parts stores, hours and hours online doing research and asking questions, and most of all working until 1am practically every night. The shop is completely trashed - I even took a couple of breaks to clean it up so I could continue to actually get some work done. And it still looks like this:








The car, for all the work doesn't look any closer to being a "Race Car"

Guess I should start it and see if it runs...