Green '79 900 EMS

[acejed]

hey I've got the green head rest inserts for your ride .If you want em they are yours. I have no use for them anymore. Let me know

[DrewP]

hey I've got the green head rest inserts for your ride .If you want em they are yours. I have no use for them anymore. Let me know

That would be great, thanks! Shoot me a P/M with your e-mail if you want to do PayPal for the shipping and I'll send you my address.




Got the engine out last night, will do some pressure washing and cleanup after work today, and tear into the timing cover and water pump to see what all broke. Then it'll probably get new engine mounts and a bit of a re-seal and go back in the car.









.....Which is important, because Lissi really likes the green car!

[RadioFlyer]

You should stick in a 16v while it's out. I'd love to see that build thread. I've got a spare 16v engine waiting just in case the B-engine goes out in my '80.

[DrewP]

I've got a spare too, but '79 still has to be emissions tested in CA and would not pass the visual inspection with the entirely wrong engine and fuel injection system installed, unfortunately.

CA is sort of in limbo, and keeps perpetuating that all model year 1976 and newer still have to pass emissions tests (visual and tailpipe test), so unless that starts rolling forwards anytime soon, it'll keep it's B20.

#sadface.

[MattWatson]

I've got a spare too, but '79 still has to be emissions tested in CA and would not pass the visual inspection with the entirely wrong engine and fuel injection system installed, unfortunately.

CA is sort of in limbo, and keeps perpetuating that all model year 1976 and newer still have to pass emissions tests (visual and tailpipe test), so unless that starts rolling forwards anytime soon, it'll keep it's B20.

#sadface.

You would think that a newer engine would have better emissions anyway... well at least when you switched it back to the "right" T5 maps

[DrewP]

It would absolutely be better.

There is a process to go through registering a car with a swapped engine, or a home-built "kit" car, but it can be costly and time consuming, and a limited number are allowed for each calendar year.

That's what we get in exchange for our vastly competent, well-staffed, well-budgeted state government here in Cali.*

[Crazyswede]

do they check all this stuff out when you register a car? Couldn't you just go register the car and not say anything. We could always register it in Vermont.

[DrewP]

Technically it still is registered in VT, but the tags are up in December and after that it'd have to be inspected on initial reg. into CA, and then every 2 years for emissions.

So I could swap a B engine back in every 2 years for smog, pretty sure I'm not up for that amount of work though.

I guess I'll see what I find broken or worn out in this engine and then decide what to do.

[DrewP]

More bad new for the Green Bean Machine....

Got the engine out and cleaned up and started investigating...








Nice clean water pump parts, a nice change from the last few I've done that are corroded to no end:






My little Dewalt 1/4" impact driver works wonders for disassembly. In this case the impeller would slip on the pump shaft, and pulsing the impact on it I was able to work the nut off:






VIDEO: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/i ... directlink

This got me thinking about what was going on, I could spin the distributor and the pump impeller turned freely, and no noise from the timing cover end.




So I took the crank pulley off to get ready to pull the cover before I ruined a perfectly good water pump seal for no reason, and found this:








Then I took off the cam cover and found this:














*****************************


The intake valve where the lifter broke doesn't look bent looking down the port, but I haven't compression tested it yet.

This happened coming down one of the fast sections at a Rallycross and I had it pegged at the rev limiter for a few seconds, then *POP*, engine stopped.

My best guess is that the lifter bound up in the bore, which snapped the chain, blew up the lifter, the pieces of which wedged between the cam lobe and the carrier and broke that. Then the chain looped over on itself and let the tensioner pop out, and buggered up the chain sprocket on the crank and broke the timing cover.

The timing chain guides and the tensioner are also extraordinarily worn, I've never seen any this worn. They might be original, at ~320k miles.




Damage that I can see so far:

-1 lifter
-Cam carrier
-Cam (#1 intake lobe is all chewed up)
-Timing chain
-Timing cover
-Timing gear on crank

Might have bent valves, and will need new guides and tensioner (or just the tensioner shoe) at the very least in addition to all the broken parts above.



Plan right now is to keep an eye out for an 8-valve H engine to swap in, since that gets rid of the asinine jackshaft and water pump, and looks similar enough that the smog check technicians won't notice a difference unless they really start looking at it, and even then probably won't be a big deal.

[RadioFlyer]

[DrewP]

I know, right?

[Luke]

Bummer!
You probably got some valve float at high RPM and then cracked the bucket. That's pretty typical unfortunately without double valve springs in the 8V's.

The H motor 8Vs are a logical replacement choice, but they are just such dogs compared to the B motors for some reason.

[Jordan]

Yeah, bucket failure is no fun

[SwedeSport]

I have not had much trouble since I put on the head I got off the old RallyHo car. Its mildly ported and polished, has hardened lifters, and dual valve springs. There are also some additional oil passages added to cool the valve springs. Couple that with a header, exhaust, and a lightened flywheel.

I used to destroy lifters with mild spirited driving. Now I have an 8500 rpm redline, although there is little power above 6k.

Couple that head with a 2.1 short block, and it is quite peppy.

[DrewP]

Bummer!
You probably got some valve float at high RPM and then cracked the bucket. That's pretty typical unfortunately without double valve springs in the 8V's.

Booo, didn't know that.

The H motor 8Vs are a logical replacement choice, but they are just such dogs compared to the B motors for some reason.

Didn't know that either.

Couple ways I could go about this.

I actually talked to the tech help line for the CA smog referee system (where you go to get cars with engine swaps inspected and signed off on) and it's much more straightforward than I realized. Especially if the donor engine is newer than the car.

I can put a turbo 16V in and as long as it has the matching emissions control equipment from the donor 16V year, it's just a matter of getting it inspected and filing some paperwork. Then it gets a sticker under the hood that lets the tech know that it's been swapped, and a new number to run when it gets inspected after that. I am likely to go that route now. Shame that it's not original, but it should be WAAAYYYY more fun to drive.