Before installing the oil pan, I drilled a hole and tapped it for an oil temperature sensor. This will be for a gauge in the dash most likely, but I may change my mind and wire it directly to the MS to datalog/view on my digital dash if I decide to.

Kind of a dark picture, but that’s a picture of the bolt and metal tab that cover the oil feed that would normally go to the balance shafts. Very important that this gets capped, without it, you get no oil pressure. :)

I really wanted to get pictures of this awesome oil pan gasket, it’s got a “crank scraper” built into it. Makes sense, given the SRT4 motor has oil squirters that spray oil at the bottom of the pistons, and side squirters at the big end of the rods that just generally fling oil everywhere. These scrapers help catch the oil that’s flying around so that it can return to the pan.

Notice the major color difference between the block/crank and the brand new SRT4 rods.. :)

When I got this motor, the head gasket had been blown, and after having the head checked out, it was found to be warped beyond saving (cam journals out of alignment). So while looking for a new head at the JY, I managed to track down a turbo PT Cruiser that had burned to the ground. I got this head off that car. It needed a valve job, but it was flat. I also had them shave .040 off the head to raise the compression from 8.1:1 to 8.8:1, which will better suit my E85 fuel.

It cost me a small fortune to get the valve job done, but it’s a good head with turbo valves, so I’m cool with it.

Ahhh, eBay turbo’s.. It’s a chinese “50 trim” knockoff.. T3/T4 hybrid.. .63ar exhaust housing. It dwarfs the stock SRT4 turbo, which is good to 300whp.. heh..

Sadly, I think it’s bad before ever even firing it up. The exhaust turbine rubs the housing and makes a shrill screaching sound when trying to spin it by hand. MAYBE putting pressurized oil into the bearings will solve that.. Somehow, I’m not that optimistic.. Plan B is a Holset...

Apparently, that’s actually a name brand cast exhaust manifold, not one of the many sold on eBay.. It’s made by “AGP”. Either way, it’s used and not cracked, so it must be pretty decent. They normally go for about $300.. I got it for $100, so I saved a nice chunk of change. Log manifolds are supposed to be better for spool times (less lag) than tubular headers, for reasons I can’t wrap my little mind around. ;)

This is a 1st gen DOHC Neon intake manifold. 3 new bolt holes and it works on the later head no problem. This is lucky, because I can get these manifolds for $25. While an SRT4 intake manifold fetches $150-$250.. Rediculous. As for a gasket, that may be a bit more difficult, I’ll probably just use some “the right stuff” RTV. That stuff rocks.

That previous picture was going to be my list picture, but I wanted to make it plainly obvious why I went with coil on plug coilpacks.. The hot side of this turbo is crazy close to where the factory coilpack would be. This gets the coils away from the heat of the turbo. :) Those are COP units from a 2.7L V6 Intrepid.. Though I may go with VW coils in the long run, as they’re very very cheap brand new, and they also include onboard IGBT’s, which will work nicely with MS3.

I’ll end with a video of me removing the motor from the Omni. I didn’t have an engine crane handy, and I wasn’t too concerned about being careful with the very very dead old motor. So I tried a trick I had heard mentioned on the forums, about bringing it out the bottom. Worked exactly as well as I expected. At least it didn’t knock the car over. :) hehehe.. Enjoy the video.

More when I make more progress. (Probably have the engine installed for the next update)