GoldNBlack

Knew I left something off the list. The manifold IS ported and the ring removed with the ring side of the exhaust housing smoothed out to match.

I assume you mean the TQ drop offs. What has been the consensus on that? Is it bad exhaust flow through the exhaust valves, manifold and turbine housing? It seems plenty of other graphs were that torque peak can be made higher with lots of boost but it almost always comes back down quickly and on cars with near stock turbo housings/manifolds it ends up down near 150-175 lb-ft of torque at 6000. Wish there was more data out there to look at. didn't we have a dyno thread here somewhere? Next up: New Marnal head, TimCs Roller cam, new roller rockers, new valves, new springs, Hopefully I can afford a little port work when they assemble the head, TEP head gasket, head studs, new timing chain set. Still thinking I should do the bottom end too. I'm pretty sure I've got a small crack that lets in coolant when its really hot. Its a gamble how much damage that has done already. My old 12a was pretty crusted from the residue and Kevin C just HAD to post about how that little bit of coolant buring through will chew up the bottom end. Steve

Took the Starion to the dyno Saturday with a bunch of 3000GT guys and got my "before" baseline dyno done. '88 Starion, 103K miles on engine 1G intake system, (MAS, mas to turbo Boot,BOV) 14G turbo, stock 10psi (disabled the 7psi before 4K "feature") Herons 3in SS exhaust MSD 6AL, Bosch Red Coil Roughly at sea level, about 80 degrees in the shop, they had blowers on the intercooler. Seemed decent to me given the age of the engine and the fact that I'm pretty sure there is a crack that leaks some water. Hope to do an "after" tuning dyno once I replace the head with all new parts, new timing chains and the TimC Monsta Banshee cam still sitting in the garage. Just can't decide if I should save a little longer and do the entire bottom end too..... http://goldnblack.net/starq/StarionDyno030802.jpg

H&R 30384, I bought them back in '97. I'm pretty sure they were discontinued a few years ago. I remember calling them about spring rate info about 3 years ago and they couldn't look them up for me but now I can't find where I wrote that down.

I believe I used the +1.07 setting. I have H&R springs which were supposed to be about 1.5" down. The last time I had an alignment before the plates I think my rear end was edging past -2.5 so I picked the +1.07 to bring me up to -1.5. I haven't had an alignment since they've been in though, so I don't know exactly where I'm at but the tires seem to be wearing well. Putting the plates in will also eliminate the sagging stock rubber isolator which will also raise the car some resulting in a little more camber change. I think my car lifted back up almost 1/2 an inch. Steve A.

So are you out Tim? I've been delaying the inevitable need to order them as I looked for an '83 in the yards. Well, here's a taste of murphy's law for you. I was feeling lucky so went out to the pick N pull and found an '83. All these other times I've come across '83s where the hood is gone everything else is there, but this tiem the hood was there but someone had taken the engine! Actually out of a near record of 4 Quests in one yard, 3 had their engines gone and the 4th was left behind becuase it was toast. Apperently there are many StarQuests hiding out around San Jose, just not many enthusiasts. Anyway, I did get 8 keepers (4 sets) from West broad, no luck with the retainers though, When I was ordering stuff last month online I went ahead and requested them. I didn't realize I needed to put 16 down. So i still need the retainers and 8 keepers. Steve A.

A very good read that will hopefully answer the 2.5 vs. 3 on turbo'd cars debate: http://www.vishnutuning.com/exhaust101.htm I had to justify my 3" exhuast purchase to myself... Steve A. 14G-TD05H dumping into Heron's beautiful 3" SS Exhaust.

A very good read that will hopefully answer the 2.5 vs. 3 on turbo'd cars debate: http://www.vishnutuning.com/exhaust101.htm I had to justify my 3" exhuast purchase to myself... Steve A. 14G-TD05H dumping into Heron's beautiful 3" SS Exhaust.

What's the status on getting the valves? Steve

Rich, Any chance of getting the regular set of Hydraulic valves in trade for my ordered '83 length set? With the cost of retainers and keepers up to $65 I'm wondering if just dealing with the shims Tim provided would be worth while? Tim: Is not having to use the Shims you provided with the cam worth the money for these keepers? Thanks Steve

From my thinking, The rear plates don't affect the suspension travel. Neither do the fronts. At least with stock style springs. The top spring plates still sit on the shoulder of the piston rods just like they did in the stock design which means the piston rod length or whatever is strictly determined by the spring. Now what they don't do is help you lower the car, in fact mine was lifted a tad when they went in, probably because the stock rubber sagged so much. In order to get that slammed look you would then lower the car using the shortened springs thus reducing the travel. What is really needed is the cut down strut housing bodies with some shorter cartridges. I don't understand why they designed such that you have to jack the car up 2 feet to get the tires off the ground. Camber wise they have done great for me. I used the +1.07 setting to set my camber from -2.5 back to -1.5, perfect for autocross/daily driver status. Car seemed to like it much better in the turns too but this feeling also may have come from the strut ties. They aren't much for fine tuning but it wouldn't take me too long to set them to -3.5 if I ever find I need it. Once again on the fronts, lowering already increases the camber to over -2 degrees, I actually have the plates set to take about .5 degree back out, I think? I still haven't had the thing to an alignment shop since installing them all (2years ago!) but last tire temp check showed an even heat distribution so i'm going by that. I think when I flip the plates around and slide them in I can get to -3.5 but I've never tried it. Both sets of plates could use some improving but Stedebani designed them with the stock spring diameter in mind which is why their adjustment got limited for those with the smaller diameter GC. The fronts especially are overkill while lacking a little in the adjustability department but they sure do look pretty in the engine bay. Steve A.

See the ground control group Purchase thread in the the Group Purchase Forum. People were discussing the spring selection there.

Rich, What is the status on our valves? Can we expect them soon? My best rebuild oppertunity comes in about 2 weeks so I'm trying to finish gathering the parts. Thanks Steve

Rich, Make that the '83 spec valves. Didn't know that's what I needed for Tim's Roller cam.

So does this mean all of us with a Marnal head going on a stock bottom end have dropped our compression to 6.5? That makes me want to redo the bottom end now too....

I'll take a set of the stock valves for my '88. Thanks, Steve A.

ISturbo flowed a Magna head awhile back- > Flow spec on the magna tstr heads > > the open chamber version is an m3 to m7 > the close chamber is m8 or 9 > > our head flows about 150.4 cfm at .4 cam lift > > these test were done with the stack magna cam > total lift is .461 http://www.tristarion.com/images/personalpics/1043086739.gif

I've repaired two of mine before. One was severly cracked and the other had a small crack that wasn't all the way through but was severly worn through on the corner bottmos from scraping down driveways. I used another old bumper cover to donate strips of ite urethane and epoxied them in place on the backside of the spoiler so that they would hold the cracks closed. Needed to roughen up the surfaces quite a bit and grooved them a little to give the epoxy something to hold. Then I found som e product at pepboys that is made for flexible bumper repairs. That filled in the cracks and I used it to rebuild the under areas and corners that had been scraped away by basically layering it up and then sanding it back to shape. Of course it doesn't last forever. One nice whack on a curb sometime and the small crack has opened up again but it did last about 2 years looking good. The rebuilt corners are holding up though. Steve A.

If it's a Tokico, then it should have a silver spacer on the bottom. Both times they were installed on my cars they required some cutting/grinding to get the fit right. Something like 5 mm. I think mine used to have the oil in between the cartridge and the housing. I know at least some WAS in there since it would drip out when I had the struts off and laying on the floor. Just don't know how much is left in there now :-/ Steve

Alright Newbie ;D The bump stop may be able to move up and down but it should fit tight enough that it stays in one place, at the top, or you could glue it to the top perch. The bump stop is there to prevent a hard thwack of the spring getting all the way compressed or the strut top running into the top perch or perhaps the tire into the wheel well or something like that. On the Tokico strut, it should have a silver bushing on the bottom end of it. If this is missing, or cut wrong it would be loose in the casing. This bushing usually has to be shaved in order to get a perfect fit in the housing, such that the large nut doesn't thread all the way down on the housing but instead tightens down on the cartridge. Steve

Anyone have a part number or method for fixing the actuator? Steve

Actually I moved the battery to the back more for the balance as well as to clear the area for the way off in the future intercooler piping coming through there. The added benifit of being able to mount the MSD there is a bonus.

Is it the Coil overs or the camber plates that are making noise? Do you know why/Have you tried to correct it yet? I've got the front camber plates in and the are making some noise. It seems as though the stock spring top perches are not held tight with lowered springs on the assembly and knock against the camberplate mounting nuts. I put off putting in the rears till I redid the tops up front with an extra washer sandwiched inbetween the spring perch and the thrust bearing. On the rears I noticed that the bearing has a play between it and the eclip, this may be causing your rear noise. Steve A.