Please help with Engine Issue - 182 2004

[Jontt]

Right cooking on gas now:
1) cleaned and fitted stops, rocker arms and cams.
2) new seals for cams, timing end, didn't lube them so hope that is correct.
3) applied RheinoPlast to main cam cover. Wasn't sure where is was supposed to go, so went ape sh*t and put it everywhere.
4) fitted cam cover and torqued as service manual
5) cleaned up excess sealer from what I considered Critical faces.

QUESTION: on the non-timing end of the cams, there are notches in the cam. As James pointed out they are slightly offset from centre. The service manual says to rotate cams so that they are "offset downwards as indicated by diagram". I have attached the diagram at the bottom of this post. The diagram is as clear as mud and does not indicate anything. My interpretation is that the cam notches should physically be sitting below the centre line of the cam, and the cams should be in that orientation - BUT as I have already spotted several mistakes in this service manual and can not clearly see the diagram I want to check with you guys? Obviously if I get this bit wrong then I am going to smash the valves again. Can anyone please confirm that the notches should be lying south of cam centre-line at this stage of the build? That is how I read the serive manual.

 

[Dan@SJM]

Big D on the top of the cam.

2 things. That's too much sealant, that will end up in the sump, and block the pick up.

And the cam shaft oil seals are too far in. They will piss oil out.

 

[Dan@SJM]

As for sealing it, 2mm thick bead along the outside edge, and around the spark plug holes.

 

[Jontt]

Cheers Dan

- OK I take the covers off tomorrow, clean up and try again. At least you spotted it before too late.

- Big D at the top, great thats what I was hoping.

- OK I'll re-fit the seals closer to the edge, I wasn't sure where to put them.

 

[Dan@SJM]

They should be flush with the edge of the cover, don't worry, you're not the first to make these mistakes, and certainly won't be the last!

 

[Jontt]

LOLs just spent the last few hours in the dark with the mozzies, scraping goey sealer off the head and cam covers! Not the relaxing evening I had planned. Oh well at least it's done now. It seemed prudent to get it done before the sealer dried completely.

Dan, I took a pic of the cam covers below. On the main cover I have drawn in GREEN where I think the sealer should route, can you confirm if that is correct please? (you can zoom in by clicking on the pic)

My concern is that with the bolt holes not protected by sealer then the oil may capillary it's way up the bolt holes and out through the bolt heads in places.

The smaller upper cam cover will be easier, I assume I am supposed to use sealer on that upper cover, even though there is a gasket? The service manual says to do so. Well actually the service manual doesn't show a gasket there at all. Well infact it shows the cam cover completely a different shape! I think it's for a different version of the F4R.

 

[Dan@SJM]

Yes that's correct. Except I take it to the edges where the oil seals go rather than a 90 towards it. The sealant squashes round and spreads anyway so seals the bolt holes.

Strainer plate (upper cover) just bolt it down, don't use sealant.

 

[Jontt]

Sh*te, I managed to miss Dan's latest post this morning but hopefully not the end of the World:
- luckily at last minute I decided to re-reroute to the cam oil seals anyway, so that was lucky
- timing cam oil seals now flush cam cover, maybe a tiny bit proud, <1mm
- I did use sealant on the strainer plate, but I don't think it will do any damage
- I tried my best to maintain 2mm bead diameter as stipulated but is VERY hard, especially with the nozzle that I have. It went larger than 2mm in many places, but I think that is the best I can do. It has squidged out a little bit on the inside and outside of the cam cover wall, but much less than previous attempt.

What do we think?

 

[Dan@SJM]

Looks a lot better mate.

 

[Jontt]

OK - only managed to get few mins to work on Clio this evening between the rain and customers calling to complain about late deliveries - I mean whats with that? Why do they call to say the courier is a day late? What can I do about it? Turn back time so the courier can try again? Really gets my back up! ..... calm down

OK:
1) all various timing mating faces de-greased including nut/bolt collars
2) crank cog and both cam pulleys fitted, but without tightening bolts at all. The phaser pulley went on nicely with reference to the cam seal. When I try to turn the king wheel it doesn't rotate but does make a squidging sound, but not too worried.
3) cams locked with Big D's facing up using Tool 1409
Tomorrow will attempt to work through the timing belt procedure.
EDIT - note for tomorrow: make a mark on crank sprocket & block so I know where piston neutral position is, just in case. Crank is currently in pistons neutral.

 

[Dan@SJM]

There's an inspection hole on bell housing, with a few lines, one marked 0. This is TDC, there is a line on the flywheel, line this up

 

[Jontt]

Cool thx.

So with the cams locked as my picture are the valves in a state where they are all closed and so can not contact the pistons? That would be the logical thing.

Also, out of interest, what piston state is TDC? It is when they are all neutral? Or when 1 & 4 are at the top of travel? Just interested.

Thx

 

[Gus]

Loving this thread, learned a lot from how you have documented it. Thanks

 

[Dan@SJM]

Cam position/valve-piston contact is all relative. As the cams are now, providing the crank is at no1/4TDC there will be no contact.

Crank locking pin goes in at No1 TDC.

 

[Jontt]

Loving this thread, learned a lot from how you have documented it. Thanks

Thanks, so have I!

Cam position/valve-piston contact is all relative. As the cams are now, providing the crank is at no1/4TDC there will be no contact.
Crank locking pin goes in at No1 TDC.

Gotcha - OK I'll have a play today

 

[Jontt]

That looks right yes Dan? I believe that is pinned in place with tool 1054 now. I bounced the pistons into the valves a few times while trying to get my bearings, but it was very light hand rotation, so I'd be amazed if it did any damage:






FYI - the service manual dioesn't say any of this. I would never have got that right if you hadn't of guided me. Scary stuff.

 

[Jontt]

- Pulleys & timing belt on. Everything loose at mo except 2 idler pulleys which are torqued.
- Lower timing belt cover fitted & crank pulley with bolt left loose

 

[bloke]

tension looks wrong?

 

[Jontt]

It certainly does! You have eagle eyes. OK I've read through the tensioning procedure and I think I understand it. BUT I just realised that I forgot to order Tool 799-01 for turning the pulleys under tension.

Tried bodging it with some tools, but it's not going to happen.

Sooooo... got to order 799-01 from Renault and back to waiting for tools to arrive again. Dang it.

Then I should be able to tension the belt.

 

[bloke]

i just use a 'key' off an angle grinder for turning the pulleys.

 

[Jontt]

Awesome - I'll try that tomorrow. The pulleys are MUCH stiffer than I expected. I guess there is a lot of friction.

I guess I'm still suppose to still have the TDC lock in. The manual hasn't told me to remove it.

 

[bloke]

yup, crank and cams locked still. watch how much clearance there is on the bolts/nut as they can start to nip up as you turn the belt/pulleys.

 

[Jontt]

Hey guys got 5 mins free so jumping onto clio. Looking @ tensioning timing belt. As usual the service manual is completely unclear.

It says after doing to bit with the tensioner to "rotate the timing 6 times using exhaust pulley". Well does than mean rotate so that the entire belt travels all the way round 6 times? Or does it mean rotate the pulley 6 times? Or does it mean rotate so that the crank turns 6 times? Getting fed up with this manual.

thx as ever

 

[Dan@SJM]

I do 1 full rotation of the belt. Never had any issues myself.

 

[Jontt]

That probably is about 6 rotations of cam pulley. OK here we go!

 

[Jontt]

Hmmm well that was sh*t.

I attempted to follow the procedure from the manual, but got stuck at the same part each time and had to abort...

So, with TDC pin and non-timing end cam shaft lock in place:
followed procedure turning through 6 timings, then torquing the tensioner bolt up to full, torque crank pulley bolt to 20Nm, made marks on belt above cam pulleys, then it says to:
REMOVE TDC PIN
LOCK FLYWHEEL WITH SCREWDRIVER IN FLYWHEEL TEETH
TIGHTEN CRANK PULLEY BOLT TO 115º+-15º

Well that is impossible. You can't hold a screwdriver in the flywheel teeth on the nearside of the engine, while on the other side of the engine angle torquing the crank bolt to 115º. The screwdriver just slips because you can not hold onto it. I challenge anyone to do that.

Stuck. The stupid thing is that the next thing in the procedure is to INSERT TDC LOCKING PIN. Well, why do you have to remove the TDC pin in the first place? Oh, I suppose it is because you may snap the pin while torquing the crank bolt. Bollox. I don't really have any neighbours that can help out with this job. I'll have to find another way of locking crank. Poo.

OK regards the pic below, does the belt position look ok? To me it looks too close to the engine and to far (3-4m) from the exhaust pulley guide edge bit.

 

[Dan@SJM]

Just use the pin to lock the crank. I've done them for years like this without issue.

The dephaser seems to be sitting too far out to me, but that could be the pic.

 

[bloke]

can see quite a bit of the pulley itself, did think it was the angle at first but would say it's not all the way on the cam.

 

[Jontt]

Cheers guys. Doesn't seem any point in risking it so I will remove belt and have a poke around the dephaser and see if I can get her to sit a little better.

 

[Dan@SJM]

Just bolt it up, it'll either slide on or go right in which its on there far enough

 

[Jontt]

OK

- gave it a wiggle and no movement, didnt want to go on any further.
- so yes as you said bolted up to 20-30Nm and def no movement so is def on correctly or as far as she'll go.
- next I put a level on the edge of the dephaser and it is perfectly inline with outer edge of the exh pulley. So I get the feeling that is good.

See pic below, I think the issue is that the belt is fitted scewif. You can see that it is only about 1mm away from touching the cyl head on that guide pulley. Shall I lever it away from the engine? Or will it sort itself out when it's done a few miles? Also before I forget Bloke - the angle grinder key trick works beautifully to turn the pulleys.

 

[Dan@SJM]

Rotate it a bit more, as it looks like it's trying to ride off the pulley

 

[Jontt]

Will do Dan. I'm away now for the weekend to help someone else with a car so can not work on Clio till Mon 😧

Can we change topic for a couple of days please? For fun.

While doing this re-build I have been looking for tuning possibilities as I've gone along. I'm starting to like the car a bit more now, so it is becoming more of a draw.

I am experienced @ tuning non-VVT turbo cars, but I've never had a modern VVT N/A car to play with before, so seems quite fun and new.

Here are some notes that I have taken so far:
1 - head ports are rough and should be smoothed, that can wait till future obviosuly as there is no way that head is coming off again in a hurry if I have any say.
2 - exhaust header is allready really good from OEM by looks of it, nice long tubular, so no gains there to be had I imagine.
3 - inlet also looks very good, the runners are nice and long and the plenum is decent, so I don't suppose there is much gain there to be had either.
4 - VVT system appears to be where the 182 makes it's power. Appears to be inlet-only phaser, so I guess there is not much control/scope with say compared to Honda VTec, but maybe there is some scope for improvement. Is the OEM phaser ECU controlled do we know? Is there scope to push/pull some more degrees to increase high RPM flow? Or is it already maxed-out from OEM?
5 - I guess from OEM the spark timing is fairly retarded for crappy fuel etc. Are there ECU mods (chips or boards maybe) that can push the spark timing & optimize injector pulse width and squeeze some power that way?
6 - not interested in forced ind. or anythign like that, but would be great fun to try to get her up to the 200Hp level as N/A.

Any thoughts? I guess this is a clioSPORT website so I should imagine that here is a large tuning scene, like Nissan & Honda. Thx

 

[Chambers_RS]

Wouldn't mind seeing a few pics of your jap car tbh and what spec it's running :smile:

 

[Jontt]

Cool - there is a link earlier in this thread that links to pics of the sil80.

BUT more importantly here is the build thread - http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?566318-Tokyo_black-s-180SX-becoming-EMPEROR-TUNING-s(Jont)-Sil80-Project&highlight=emperor

That takes it from when I got it a few years ago. Half a decade before that my bro imported it from Japan. He sold it after 4 years, a year later I tracked it down and forced guy to sell it back to me (in a friendly way, with lots of money)

A quick look spec:
Nothing serious, but I think perfect build for an S13. Had 400+hp S14 before but it was crap:
- HKS 2530 @ 18.5Psi giving 300Hp@fly
- 550cc injectors
- OE ecu with NIStune board mapped by me
- stock flat head SR20DET OE internals 90K
- stock drivetrain more or less
- full tub back 3" S/S Nur Spec
- cheap rota's and coils
- car weighs 1054Kg wet but empty

EDIT - been using sil80 as a daily since Clio went down. She is struggling with the job, this summer heat has cracked her 23 year old rubber seals so she leaks bad now, also smash bumpers on a few curbs and she's just getting worn. AS SOON AS mr Clio is working and takes over the daily duties, I'm going to spoil sil80 rotten. Full new OE rubber seals all over. Complete paint job in white, £450 plasidip job just to last me a year or so, some nice seats and carbon bonnet. All cash dependent obviously. Dependent on getting the F4R working at mo.

 

[bloke]

group n cam timing, rs2 inlet and get it mapped.

 

[Jontt]

Gotcha cheers guys.

 

[Dan@SJM]

The vvt system is emissions control only, activates at 1450rpm-6500rpm where it gives a drop in torque to make you change gear.

You can gain a bit by a custom map, but the definitions aren't easily available, and there are a few traits to working with the stock ecu. I do a lot of stock ecu mapping, but I'd sooner bin them off for standalone.

 

[Jontt]

I presume the done thing is to bin the dephaser and fit a normal pulley if that is the case.

 

[Dan@SJM]

No, as it won't idle then. The dephaser is a good thing really. The problem really is these engines don't tune well NA. £10k will get you 240bhp, but that's it. 3k for boost and you get the same power and more torque.