kev

The bushings in the shifter linkage are known to disintegrate with time. They literally turn to dust. I'm not sure if they are available aftermarket currently. I've always just cut pieces of 1/2" or 5/8" heater hose and popped them in there and it works great!

I don't know, Technica's with digital dashes were pretty common to see years back but they were flatbodies that succumbed to junkyards and weren't collected. For some reason, most of the Technicas I ran into were burgundy. I've never personally seen a widebody with a digital dash (well at least one that came with it from the factory) but, as Steve said, I know that it was an option in 86/87. I do wish I would have pulled at least one of the digital dash clusters from a junkyard car years back just to have for nostalgia sake.

I bought one through jegs last year, Denso 1432052. Although, I don't see it there anymore. Also, it is a tad taller than the original making it hard to clamp the lid.

Welcome! I remember the LeBaron GTS very well. I had a close friend with one in highschool. I'm not sure I'd compare a CQ with a GTS in any way except that they are both turbo fours. They drive very differently. I did like the quick lag free acceleration of the old 2.2T chryslers though and the shfiter of the GTS going straight down into the floor. It had a fun feel to it. Best of luck with your search. The price of these cars is starting to go up quick. I will warn you in that these cars are a bit of a PIA. Reliability has never been their strong point and there aren't many mechanics out there that know these things...at least not the electronics aspects. So you learn to work on them quick. Also, keep in mind, that with the increase in value of these cars comes the increase in price of parts. Kevin

Just MPI the G54B

Yes, exactly! There is a metal clip that is on the frame of the motor. Make sure it is first there and second clean. It is the ground to chassis. If you lose it, the wipers won't park and the intermittent will be all messed up.

Engine Machine Service, Inc. - Conquest Here you go.

I'm still confused by what you mention as in front of the radiator. There are two sensors on the radiator itself but those are for the electric fans. On the intake, there are three temperature sensors. The CTS for the ECU is the one mounted vertically in the manifold and is the only one with two prongs on an 87. The larger one wire sensor is for the temperture gauge in the dash. The smaller one is a temperature switch associated with the air conditioning. Also, if you are squeezing the return fuel line and notice any changes, then you aren't getting the right fuel pressure...i.e. your FPR is bad. With a properly functioning FPR, you could squeeze all you want and not have any noticeable change in how the car is idling.

Oh for the harnesses, you will need every harness from the original car except portions of the engine harness that runs through the passenger side. There are a few differences between 87 and 88 'main' harnesses (not the engine harness). The big one is the thermostat on the heater core. You will need a few wires from the engine harness for the MPI swap, this being the starter wire and a few wires for your stock gauges in the cluster if you are maintaining them. It won't matter if it is an 87 vs 88 engine harness for doing an MPI swap. You only retain a couple wires and really the only difference is the knock box which you won't be using. kev

Yeah, pictures would help of its current condition...specifically of the engine compartment and areas of missing parts. Post some pictures of the Magna. If it hasn't been mod'd at all, it will need a bunch of modifications to make it ready for install. There is a different coolant passage near the rear of the head that needs to be amended unless the car has a Magna head. The thermostat hosing needs to be relocated to the front of the manifold. Need to add ports for the vac booster and the heater core line. Last would be to modify the input flange to accept a larger throttle body...typically we use ford 65mm throttle bodies off of a 5.0 or 4.6. Minor items needed would be a bracket for a throttle cable and vacuum ports. As for the clutch...there are some options depending on your goals. A common clutch is ACT, although i'd avoid the extreme p/pl, it makes the clutch hard to depress. The heavy duty p/pl would be a better option. There may be newer clutch alternatives that others can suggest. Your engine management will dictate the injectors you will need. The Magnas typically take a GM style injector but the EMS will determine if they need to be high impedance or low impedance and the flow rate. I'll let others chime in on the EMS. There again are many options. Megasquirt is probably the most common and you could get the most support from people on here (and facebook). I personally run SDS, it is a very simple system and can be frustrating but it serves the purpose for me. I think MotoCam360 is selling a very affordable EMS now, from what I just read recently on facebook. These forums are a good source of technical info but unfortunately most members scrammed after this last database issue and went to facebook. I'm not a facebook fan but I do lurk the starquest groups there...you will see a lot more 'activity' there. Hope this helps. kev

The three items to place attention to are the coolant temperature sensor (the two prong sensor that is vertical in the intake), the throttle position sensor, and the idle speed sensor. First off is to do as Jimmy said and measure the resistance of the CTS when the engine is good and warm. It should be around 300 ohms. Also, when the engine is hot, you can put a 300 ohm resistor between the two leads of the CTS connector and this will tell the ECU that the engine is warm. See if this changes anything. Now for the TPS/ISC/MPS. Your MPS seems to be working fine. As Jimmy said, the TPS should be .5V at idle and not 5V. It should sweep up to around 5V as you open the throttle plate. Adjust it to around .5V...doesn't need to be perfect yet. So once the car is nice and warm, turn it off and unplug the ISC servo connection (this is the second to last plug....the instructions on here are a bit confusing. You don't unplug the MPS connector which has the red, green, black wires, it is the one with the yellow-red, yellow-black, etc.) After unplugging, connect the yellow-red stripe wire to ground. Grounding this tells the computer the car is at idle even with the connector unplugged. Now fire her up. There are two idle screw adjustments on the injection mixer. The one that is easy to see and is vertical is the fixed SAS. The other is a bit harder to find (viewable from looking in from the passenger side of the car). The first thing I do is to unthread the fixed SAS screw several turns. This one is simply a safety so if the ISC doesn't do it's job, the throtte plate will close further until this is hit to prevent stalling. So you want that out of the way for now. Hopefully the car stays running at this point. Now turn the horizontal idle screw clockwise for increased rpm or counterclockwise for decreased. A timing light that reads rpm is beneficial to see your actual rpm but you can do it per the factory tack to. Turn the idle screw until you are at around 900rpms. The car should be idling really good at this stage. If not, there is a problem with the ISC or the TPS. Now turn in the fixed SAS slowly until you hear the idle just starting to increase. At that touch-point, the manual says to back it off one full turn. I actually like to back it about a half of a turn, sometimes even less. This lessens the effect of if and when the ISC doesn't do its job, the idle won't drop dramatically and stall the car. But you don't want the fixed SAS binding up with the idle screw, remember it is just a safety. You can then turn off the car. Put the key to on and now go back to your TPS and tune it into .5V at idle. Sweep your throttle plate from closed to fully open, you should see the voltage rising linearly. If you have an old analog volt gauge, it really helps to see if there are dead spots in your TPS. A more modern day digital unit sometimes misses this. Now plug it all in and fine up the car. Hopefully it is running good now and the problem is resolved. Kevin

It looks great! When you say 'cut and polish', do you mean wet sanded and then buffed? That's what I take it to mean but I've seen others refer to it as compound and then polish, which I consider just the 'polish' of the term 'cut and polish'. The latter doesn't get rid of the factory orange peel in the paint. Either way, it looks great!

The louvers look so good on a palmero or olive car. They, along with atlantic blue, are the only colors that I actually like the black stripe 87 and earlier bumpers better than the solid color 88/89 bumpers.

Yes, they are still available new. Coilover Conversion kit, 83-89 Dodge Conquest/Starion – Ground Control Suspension Systems (groundcontrolstore.com) Prices definitely went up but, if you buy new, you can select your spring weights. This is why I went with GC way back when. I didn't want anything overly stiff. I went with 350/250# for the front/rear with 7" front and 8" rear. I really like this combo. Only negative with GC is that the sleeves are still a bit oversized meaning I had to add the 'rubber bands', similar to the Cosmo ones, to take up the slop to keep them from making noise. No issues since the install though. BUT, if you are looking for a more common 'stiff' spring, there really isn't much of a difference between these and cosmos.

I never had one on these cars that didn't just slide off by hand. It isn't a press fit.

Yeah, I definitely know what you mean. Dad has them on his site. It's one of the things I'll be ordering from him shortly.

I've been loving driving this car since I resolved this issue but I have been having one lingering item..a rough idle. And it was not due to a TPS/ISC. It was similar to what was happening when cruising...just a little stumble. And this past week, it would sporadically stumble more than normal and stall. It was very intermittent and, surprisingly, seemed to only do it in a certain section of town that I drove in. So, this weekend, I popped the hood. Did another TPS/ISC check/reset. Rose the idle a hair so it wouldn't stall but it still would stumble bad at times and want to. While sniffing around under the hood, I decided to change my VC gasket. On a sidenote, I remember being able to pull the VC multiple times without changing the gasket but, on this car, it seems like every time I pull the VC, I get an oil leak in the rear and the only thing that amends it is a new gasket. But anyways, I changed it out. When I had the PCV line off, I pressure tested it and found a crack in it! I tossed on a thick-walled silicone hose for the time being, and you guessed it, it fixed the idle issue! I wouldn't be surprised if it was adding to the stumble at rpm prior too. I knew it felt like it was getting a hair of unmetered air and I've exhausted all of the other vacuum lines and intercooler & lines. I had that line off several times and even looked it over closely but never saw the crack. It wasn't until I put air pressure to it that I found it. Well, regardless to say, I'm elated. It runs like a champ now! I figured I'd post this here just to add to the resolution, in hopes that it helps others in the future. I really need to re-create my build thread on this car (and my other car too).

Stupid buyer

I've only ever used 10W30 on these cars, specifically Castrol GTX 10W30. Never used synthetics or any different oil weights on a CQ for over 30 years with up to 7 different cars (modified or stock). I had a rod knock when I bought one of my current cqs in 1996. I drove that car for three years as a daily driver with the known knock using Castrol 10W30 oil changed every 3k miles! Yes, there was metal in the oil on each oil change but it never seized up! Finally was able to pull and repair the engine when I had the funds and another available car to drive at the time. So, I always ponder why people insist on trying other oil weights, etc. kev

I missed the mention of 'high output injectors' Yes, that is alarming too. Again, what is mentioned is odd, for there have never really been too many options when it comes to cams and injection for our cars. We'd definitely need more info but I wouldn't worry about the cam and very very highly doubt it is the cause of the idling issues. The injectors is of concern and I'd be looking to source some originals if you can't determine what is in there, if I were you. Even snaping a photo would be helpful. I get to your area every now and then, for my employer is only 45 minutes from you, but I work remotely from my home in PA. I'll send you a message next time I plan to be in the area.

Welcome. I'm a bit confused with what you shared about the car but understand that you are hearing it all second hand. First off, there aren't too many aftermarket cams that were ever available for these things and none really would have very negative effects on the idle. But it would be good to know what cam he actually put into it. Have no clue what you mean by the temp sensor relocated to the front of the car, for it is already up front. You need to start off with putting new seals in your throttle body, cleaning your injectors (recommend sending them out to a place to be flow tested and cleaned), new injector clips and do an ISC/TPS reset. The codes can be read by a cheap analog voltmeter. Do a search here, there is plently of documentation on how to do it. Other things to definitely consider ding now are to replace the vacuum advance, new plugs (NGK 7031), wires, cap/rotor. Start simple with these basic tune-up steps. It's amazing what the results are from just a few o-rings, injector clips, and dialing in the ISC/TPS

I've never been a swap fan, at least outside the Mitsu family, but this is really incredible! BTW, I love that radiator setup that is lower down and tucked in front of the core support! To me, I get so much more stressed out when others do work on my car. My anxiety goes through the roof and my expectations are very high. I don't think I 'prove it to others' when I do work on my cars, I think I'm more 'proving it to myself'. I enjoy the learning aspect and, if I screw up, I can only blame myself...which, for me, is actually less stress than blaming another. I guess it is because I go in with the expectation that something negative may happen due to inexperience. But with a mechanic, I expect perfection, which is highly unrealistic, but I still do. I've always said that I enjoyed building my blue car more than I do driving it now that it is done. Which could be why it took me 20 years to finish the dang thing, haha. All in all, congrats! This is awesome! Kevin

Haha...yes, that happens. I was so used to the manual belts that I have on my blue car that it took me a bit to get use to the automatic belts again on my black car. Now, I forget when I go back to the blue one. As a mentioned above, my battery was completely dead the other day. Well, I found the problem which is kind of ironic that we are talking about belts. My son was with me the day before and when he got out of the car, the lap belt must have got caught in the door jam which kept it from fully latching....i.e. dead battery the next day. I didn't notice it until I charged the battery and energized the car (obviously never walked around to the passenger side). Here I was concerned that my rectifier in my alternator was bad. Measuring it at the battery, I'm at 14.5V. A little higher than I am used to for these cars but I'm not concerned. So, this was an easy fix. Now I need to pull that lap belt out and see if I can lubricate it to get the mechanism to actually pull the belt back without manual assistance, so this doesn't keep happening. It put a little ding on my rocker panel which is annoying but not the end of the world because I'll be getting back to doing bodywork on this car later in the winter.

I saw the news on FB and this is awesome! I'll be placing an order for a few odds and ends shortly.

The swirl on the bushing is correct but that bushing does wear with time and the added play causes leaks even with a new seal. id say toss another seal in it and give it a try but if it still leaks, it’s the bushing.