GoldStar
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Posts posted by GoldStar
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For those of us in some of those Facebook groups, I think one of the things we could do is reply to questions with links to threads here that answer said questions, instead of answering them directly in Facebook. This should bring some traffic here, and hopefully some of that traffic will see "hey, there's a ton of other useful info here that's alot easier to sift through than Facebook is".
And for image embeds, I created this thread a while back for using Imgur for image and video hosting. Really the hardest part is getting the account setup (which really isn't hard). Once that's done, it's just uploading the picture to Imgur>copying the link>pasting it here; the forum software will automatically embed photos before you even click Post:-
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Friendly warning; I suggest doing a quick google search on your project name before committing. Project "Stormfront" might bring you some, uh, unwanted attention.
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Page 52 here has some measurements you could check:
http://www.starquestgarage.com/manuals/service/conquest/1988/88_conquest_service_manual_-_group_09_-_engine.pdfShort of that, measuring oil pressure when it's running would be the next best thing I can think of.
As an alternative, the Melling oil pump for an N/A G54B does work, and is much cheaper and more readily available than the turbo oil pumps. You just need to grab an N/A oil pickup tube with gasket and use the appropriate oil pump gasket when installing, they are different. I somewhat recently found out that I've been running an N/A pump this whole time. While I'm not a fan of my oil pressure (I'm dubious of the last engine rebuild), my warm oil pressure is still above the minimum spec for these turbo engines.
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I believe the only differences between the heads are the valves and the cams. At a minimum, our turbo engines came with different exhaust valves that could handle the extra heat from boost. Non-turbo heads (like the one you linked) aren't going to have them. Also, those have mechanical rockers; if yours is an 87 or newer, you'll have hydraulic rockers/rocker arms.
And ditto, get a new head from Dad:
https://www.enginemachineservice.com/ems/index.php -
Very similar symptoms to mine (albeit I still have my oil-air separator), and this is my cause. All 4 cylinders look like this:
My symptoms were quite a bit of smoke on startup and loosing an abnormal amount oil, but otherwise ran great. In my initial digging, I found that there was oil pooling up in the intercooler. Cleaning out the intercooler temporarily fixed it, but the next time I got it into boost, oil would get caught in the intercooler again, leading to smoking on cold starts. After confirming my PCV valve was good, I cleaned out my oil air separator, its associated lines, and even got a new turbo core to eliminate that; made no difference.
Digging a bit further, I found that compression test readings were great, and adding oil to the cylinders made no difference. The test that really prompted me to get in there with a borescope was a leak down test. I've forgotten the readings at this point, but they were definitely out of spec. Never got to the bottom of what caused this damage, but I suspect it was one of the previous owners; the old turbine was chewed up like it had eaten debris. -
On 2/21/2024 at 7:01 PM, tux said:
Edited* 2/28
I received my front subframe today! It looks to be of good quality.
I was refunded for the rack and we agreed he will contact me when he has a rack in hand I will purchase the rack from him. If the time comes to install the subframe before he has one ready, I might reach out to flamingriver and have them make one for me.
I am also willing to purchase additional parts from him like I planned, if they are in stock and ready to ship within a day or two.
Tomorrow is our court date so I will let the courts know I have been made whole.
Wow, he got that one in by the skin of his teeth. I wonder if he finally got replacements for those welders he says he lost during the move.
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Shame, was really hoping this guy would turn it around. Guess I'll have to go local for my rack swap.
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There's so many people in the Facebook groups, but this place is a wealth of information with write-ups that can actually be found here with relative ease. I've seen a couple guys try to do write-ups in the Facebook groups, but they immediately get lost in all the chatter, so people don't know they exist unless they know exactly what to search for. Want to do my part to keep this place alive, so once I gather the funds, I'm planning to document my restore here.
The upshot to the 2015 crash is that these cars stopped being produced in the 80s lol.
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I'd kill to rebuild mine to that level for that much. Right now, with the paint/engine/trans work I'm planning on, I'm estimating around $15k, not including the cost of the car.
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On 12/11/2023 at 4:09 PM, BKB94 said:
Did a quick alignment so I could tighten up my cam bolts. Seems the right side has some issues that I can't fix without caster plates.
On the front when I start to pull the right wheel front to add caster the wheel is now leading the other wheel (set back) this is not good and the cross member has 0 slop in it to adjust it there. The rear right is maxed out on the toe cam and I can't get it into a + number and it has a lot of - camber also. Not going to worry about it until she has some drive time and see if things settle.
Decided to weigh the car and corner scale it to see if we have any issues there. I'm at 2824 with a running car 5 gallons of fuel, missing parts are spare tire, fenders, front bumper, hood, headlights. I don't know if that's even 150 pounds to add. Now the scales I built myself and they have been accurate to around 40 pounds, I'm more than happy with that for what I paid to build them.
LF 804lbs RF 768lbs RR 700lbs LR 600LBS
F 54.7% R 45.3% Full tank of gas will really improve this.
I will try and get some height measurements and see if I can shim up the LR a bit to get better weight distribution.
For the front caster, the torque arm doesn't have enough threads to even it out?
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1 hour ago, Grendel said:
Thanks, it's more the size of the pics.
Yes the file size limit here is very small, probably to save on server costs. Imgur AFAIK doesn't have a file size limit, so you can upload there and simply put the link here.
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Welcome. Yeah see that thread regarding NDD; I was able to (eventually) get a complete set of control arms out of them, but the process was borderline teeth-pulling. I really hope they get their stuff together, because I really want that front subframe for a rack conversion.
On 11/25/2023 at 7:35 PM, Grendel said:I also can't post pics here, but eventually this will be my build thread.
For posting pics, check out this thread:
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I second the BOV; I had a very similar issue with a non-crushed DSM BOV, it wasn't holding vacuum at idle. I confirmed it by blocking the opening "horn" with my hand and watching the engine idle noticeably smoother. My AFR gauge also jumped from 10:1 to around 12-13:1.
Also FWIW I run my BOV off of a port coming off of the intake crossover pipe, it's never been the source of problems for me. -
I think the 500 KB limit is to save on server costs. Also, I guess the forum software only supports embedding links from certain image hosts. If you're willing, I do have this write up for using Imgur:
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The patron saint of Starquests, Mikie, has both front and rear polyurethane replacements on his site:
https://mksmotorsport.com/Dad also appears to have standard set on his site as well:
https://www.enginemachineservice.com/ems/parts/conquest/steeringsuspension.php -
For me, I ended up personally reaching out to them a few times, but I eventually got the bushings (and some extras) I needed from them to finish the control arms:
Here's a closer pic I took of the spares for reference; they're the larger of the two sizes I got:
Unfortunately for me, I won't be able to test out these control arms for a long while. After pulling the pan to investigate an intermittent oil pressure issue, I found out why the previous owner used so much RTV on the pan gasket; my crankcase pressure was too high and blew out the seal the next time I got into boost. I decided at that point it's officially time to really start digging into my quest. Currently getting the pieces together to pull the engine & trans to rebuild them while I look for a shop that is willing to do a ground-up repaint on something of this vintage.
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Yeah old fuel isn't going to affect fuel pressure. It's either that fuel pump dying or the fuel pressure regulator going out.
I believe those Trilogy FPRs are adjustable. See if the adjusting nut at the bottom is loose; it could be "adjusting" itself when the engine is running. -
5 hours ago, Contsis said:
Is it guaranteed bad alternator if engine stops by disconnecting the battery?
Measuring batt voltage at terminals with car running (just under 12 v).
Yes; provided you're not shorting the positive/negative cables to each other, the engine should stay running with the battery removed. A battery with no load should be reading ~12.6 volts. While running, a functional alternator should bring that to 13-14 volts.
Not to make you feel old, but 2008 was 15 years ago; that's enough time for even a new alternator to fail, much less a remanufactured unit.You can still get new and reman units for the stock 75 amp capacity, but if you're one of those guys running aftermarket cooling fans (like me), this would probably be a good time to look into a higher-amp unit provided your wiring isn't too hacked up. I recently upgraded to a 90 amp alternator from a 1995 Hyundai Accent with the 1.5l (Denso 2116012) and it works great. Had to reuse and drill out my old alternator pulley to 17mm, but otherwise it was a bolt-on upgrade.
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Close, my bet's on the torque tube splines themselves. Pull the torque tube and re-grease the splines. This is how I did mine. Didn't eliminate the clunk completely, but made a huge difference.
Probably wouldn't hurt to do the torque tube bearing while you have it out, it's real easy:
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Depends on where they are leaking. If the plastic is cracked, they're toast. Otherwise you should be able to have them cleaned. I've had a good experience with RC Fuel Injection/RC Engineering. I do have aftermarket Delphi injectors, but they got them all cleaned up just the same.
If they end up being too far gone to be saved, madman Mikie is now offering replacement fuel injectors: https://mksmotorsport.com/product/g54b-replacement-fuel-injectors/ -
Welcome back.
From what I gather, our turbos are still pretty standard, so any turbo shop should be able to handle them. I had a good experience with Forced Performance, but they are local to me. I'm sure there's a good shop closer to you.
Also the pictures aren't working for me either. The forum re-launch greatly reduced the max file upload size. Check this out to use Imgur for image hosting: -
If you took it to a shop to have that recharge done, they most likely used a luminescent compressor oil that should show up under a blacklight. Might be pretty difficult to see now, though.
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Welcome back. Most have moved on to the Facebook groups, but I still prefer the forums as you can actually form a proper write-up here. Much more structure.
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16 hours ago, tux said:
That stinks. I find it strange they wouldn't use similar bushings to what's in the mks or mk1 kits.
They do look very nice though.
yeah I kinda wanted to try pulling the MKS bushings out of my current control arms, but I didn't want to immobilize my car on a hunch
How can we bring life back into starquestclub?
in Just plain ol' B.S.
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It's got more than you think, you have to mess with the URLs a little bit to get it to work, I go over it a bit here: