kev

Looks incredible! Obviously, you are a great machinist! Wow, tons of work on this thing. Do you see any issues without much of a plenum though? Very much the opposite of a Magna with its large plenum and longer runners. It's been a while since I looked into the pros/cons of the different intake types.

Oh wow, yes definitely a different intake than the North American spec cars. But, yes, the two prong one is the CTS for the ECU. The single prong connector runs the gauge in your dash. I've had bad luck with aftermarket sensors. Although haven't experienced exactly what you are describing. My issues were in calibration. The aftermarket sensor displayed either real low or real high on the stock gauge when at normal operating temperature. Actually, I never found an aftermarket sensor that I ended up keeping in the car....I've always ended up tossing in an original one.

I'm confused what is meant by a 'T' shaped connector. Although, the image posted above should help. Item 3 is the CTS for the main ECU. It is a variable resistance thermostat. Item 1 is the temperature gauge in the cluster. It is variable resistance based on temperature. On 87 and earlier cars, this is a single pronged connector. 87 and earlier cars have another thermostat on the heater core piping under the dash to control the operation of cabin heating. 88/89 cars removed that inside thermostat and simply use the same thermostat on the intake, #1, for this purpose....thus these years have two prongs on this sensor. I will say that my knowledge is limited to only to the North American market. EU market cars may be different. Item 4 is for the air conditioning only and it is an on-off thermostat switch. If the temp reaches a certain level, it shuts off the air conditioning Item 2 is a thermostat that is used for the fuel vapor system....this is an on/off type of switch as well. It simply keeps the purge valve closed until the engine is warmed up such that it isn't allowing fuel tank vapor from entering the intake system and increasing emissions under engine warm-up conditions. It's important to note that this is all that it does. If you pull both vacuum lines to this thermostat and plug them, the purge valve still shuts at idle and opens off idle based on the vacuum/boost before and after the throttle plate.

I do just this, whenever possible. Although, I mostly just lurk on fb...or really just look at the messages that pop up in my feed...which is infrequent because I mostly use fb just to browse marketplace. It's a good platform to say 'Hey, I took it out for a ride today' and toss in a picture, but using it to solve issues, nah. Case in point, I now have eight old cars on my property, of different makes/models, thanks to my kids. I'm subscribed to FB groups on all of them, but never once have I found any useful information on troubleshooting/repairing. I have better luck finding information in forums and/or youtube. I do wish it would evolve to the 'community' being mostly FB (like the BS forum on here) but the technical issues/resolutions handled via forums. Although, I agree with some of the earlier posts in that the crashes, and especially the data server issue, drove many away for good. Haha, good point! That just goes to show that many have the same frustrations.

The green fusible link (in the visible fusible link box outside the relay cluster) is corroded or nearing failure.

Do a leak-down test. It will tell you if you really do have a blowby issue. Don't assume the worst from the start. Valve seals will have the same symptoms and are easily replaceable...especially if you have a leak-down tester (if not, buy one, they are cheap nowadays) to hold the valve up without tearing down the engine.

Welcome! So, what are the valve train ideas you have?

I've had overheating issues with larger fuel pumps on these cars using the OEM fuel setup. Could it have been the filter, or the fuel lines, or??? Not sure. In all, I really learned not to like external fuel pumps. I think the in-tank modification that MKS is selling is the way to go...although I haven't personally tried it.

That looks right. I ran them on my 88 starion in the mid 90s. They were readily available in our sizes and affordable. It's refreshing to see people starting to try to take these cars back to pure original. It's not an easy feat!

Similar here. Got my first starion in 92, didn't turn 16 & get a license until 93. Always was a challenge keeping it on the road, and I didn't even think about mods until my 20s when I was out of college and had sustainable income. Yes, these things were even basket-cases in the early 90s when they were only a few years old (my first one was an 84 though). These cars were on Car & Driver's top 10 used cars NOT to buy list throughout the early to mid 90s.

no. They are no longer in production.

Yokohama A403

The reason why it is there is for the right hand drive cars sold to the Asian and Eu markets, the wiper motor is mounted on the driver's side. It also gives access to the wiper mechanism in the cowl.

The only feedback I heard on those assembled heads is that some people complained that the rockers ate the cam. Could have been too tight of a valve lash but also bad materials, etc. I believe all of the feedback I saw was for the manual rocker ones, not sure if anyone had the same issue on a hydraulic rocker head. The earlier model cqs actually had slightly longer valves too, with the manual rockers. Although the manual rockers work fine with the shorter valves because they can simply be adjusted. I don't think I would try to use hydraulic rockers on the longer valves though. Might be worth reaching out to Dad on here to talk with him a bit about all of this.

It’s hard to tell until you start cleaning it up. One of my blocks looked worse than that on there out of the four cylinders. It was sitting in storage for 20 years although the head was visibly cracked in two of the cylinders. The block was magnufluxed SAT and a 20mil bore cleaned it all up great. Sucks, but isn’t the end of the world. Blocks are easy to find, if needed, with everyone destroying, I mean swapping, the engines in these cars these days. My driver that had 97k original ended up having a cracked block and a head with an internal non-visible crack that sucked oil into the coolant.