The LSD will hopefully make all the trouble worth it. The Quaife in particular is a great unit being that it’s gear driven. I’m excited to see how it performs. $300 for that option seems like a bargain!

 

Great write up! Just read the whole thread! I have done a very similar rebuild as you, minus the exterior LEDs and programming (want to do this stuff next)! You'll love the LSD! The amount of traction and subsequent acceleration you get going around corners, especially in first gear in the wet or damp conditions, is mind boggling and makes you recalibrate the steering angles. If you still have the transmission off, you can tap the clutch fork off with an 3/8 extension and a hammer. Was able to get mine off and change out all the white plastic bushings. Once all together the clutch pedal is so light and easy! Also, when you are putting the transmission back on, and you're trying to get the input spline to mesh with the clutch disk, turn the crank pulley a little bit and it should sync in really easily. I ended up using high temp urea grease on all the transmission parts as I use it on all the Honda S2000's I work on. It holds up to high heat at the track, so I didn't see why it wouldn't work in my DD application.

 

Did you just tap it back on too? Mine seemed really stuck on there. You think high temp wheel bearing grease would work too? I’m sure Sil-Glyde is not a recommended lube for this.

I’m at work now, just finished doing the oil filter housing gasket and power steering return line. The oil cooler gaskets I got are the correct ones according to realoem and they show up under the oil cooler section on ECS, but they are not the right thickness and they don’t have the taper the ones that I pulled out have. They are loose in the channels for them so I just put the old ones back in. Oh well.

 

It went back together a lot easier after i tapped off the claw part of it. There was some corrosion that made it hard to remove. I just put lube on arm part and it slid easily back together. I am not sure on wheel bearing grease, but if there's no other grease in there, it should be ok. It just when you have two different types of lubricants that there can be compatibility issues (may not last as long either). Less is more with all this stuff, especially with reciprocating parts.

That's strange about the gaskets. My mistake was thinking i only needed 1 (thinking that they came with two gaskets) so I had to wait an extra week to get the missing gasket. have the correct part number?

 

I ended up not taking the fork off. It moves smoothly so I'm not worried about it. I did wipe the Sil-Glyde off and put on some red grease that was recommended to me by a coworker.

I'm pretty sure I have the correct part number 11427509261. The ones in the oil cooler are oval shaped while these are circular. I assumed they would stretch to fit the shape and they do, but they aren't thick enough and they don't have the same taper the old ones have. I don't know what that's about.

I've now got the transmission in and I've hooked up the slave cylinder and shift cables. The pedal is about the same stiffness with the Valeo but it's more progressive than the stock Luk setup, at least to my feeling. I don't like that. I really liked having an almost perfectly linear clutch where the pedal had the same stiffness all the way down. Now it's stiff, gets a little stiffer going down, and then drops out at the bottom of its travel. I've felt this in other cars and I always appreciated the linear pedal I had. Oh well. I'm now struggling really hard with the supercharger. The intake duct going into the supercharger was stuck super tightly on the bypass valve and the small coolant hose going into the water pump at the top was also very stiff. I struggled with the dipstick tube too and ended up having to wait until I could move the supercharger around to take it off. I guess I bent it in the process because the tabs didn't line up when I put it back in. So now I've got the supercharger mounted with the coolant hose in place, but the bolt holes for the supercharger don't line up. There appears to be a dowel at the top left corner bolt of the supercharger that needs to slot into the block before you can put the bolt in and I can't get the dowel to line up. I've been wrestling it for like a half an hour. This is so frustrating. I wanted to get done today and I probably won't. Still have the entire undercarriage to put back together, the intake tract, and the entire front end.

 

Left work for the night. Finally got the supercharger bolted in. Still have to get the subframe in and the entire front end, along with the rest of the intake and connectors on top.

I went ahead and slotted the axles back in, but I noticed something weird that has got me a bit worried. When I bottomed out the passenger axle, the carrier bearing bolts no longer line up. I actually had to tap the axle out a bit to line up those bolts again. I’m assuming this is due to the new Quaife differential. Does anyone have experience with this? I’m just worried the differential will now leak through that axle.

Really hope I can get this done tomorrow with no leaks though I’m pretty sure the oil cooler is actually leaking. Wish I could have replaced those gaskets.

 

The ones I bought were round too. They ended up fitting into the oval hole and mounted alright and did not leak when i ran the motor. I think the bevel you see is the imprint the original gasket got from being installed.

In regards to the clutch, you may have air in your slave, or the slave didn't like being pried off when you removed it to change the clutch. My one started leaking the second i removed it from the transmission. My clutch is incredibly light and there's no resistance in its travel.

Use a hairdryer or heat gun to break the seal the rubber gasket has on the bypass valve. When you're reinstalling it, use engine oil to lubricate the edge so it mounts more easily.

When i installed my quaife i had a worry as well, with the axles not going in correctly, but they ended up being alright. I have a slight weep from the driver's side axle, but it's not enough to warrant me pulling it apart to change the seal again.

 

Moving things along okay today, but I've run into a bit of a mystery. The water pump o-ring that seals against the lower radiator hose seems ridiculous to me. There's no groove for the o-ring to sit in and no amount of grease is going to allow the hose to slip over the o-ring without jamming it down against the bottom of the flange. What's the deal? Seems like I should just throw it away.

I've got the subframe and suspension back together. Just need to get the front end back together, intake and intercooler installed, and then add some coolant for a test start.

 

I don't recall there being an o-ring to hose connection. Only port on the pump that has a groove is the one facing the flange mounted on the block. The connection from pump to hose headed to radiator just has the spring clamp (on both ends).

The smaller hose is also connecting to the pump is also slip fit and spring clamp held.

 

Yeah, I thought about it some more and I think I bought an extra o-ring with the water pump last year as I thought it was required. My mistake.

Just about ready to start the car. Everything is in except the bumper cover and lower radiator hose. Just gonna mix some coolant and I’ll start her up.

 

Anticipation now... Good luck!

 

Success! At least, after one correction. The first start sounded good and no unwanted lights came on, but there was a stream of oil coming from the oil cooler. I took another look at the gaskets that I thought were incorrect after pulling the cooler off and I realized that they must actually be the right ones. They are slightly taller as well as skinnier so I didn't realize at first that they would probably compress and fit to the cavity once the oil cooler was tightened down. Replaced them and didn't get a leak when I started again.

After I bled the cooling system, went for a test drive. The clutch pedal is a little progressive as noted before, but it's also quite a bit lighter. I liked the stiffer clutch pedal, but this is fine. Hopefully it gets more linear. It also appears to grab much harder and I guess this may be down to the single mass design versus the dual mass. I also get a little vibration from the pedal and through the seat when using the clutch at low RPMs, like when taking off from a stop or shifting at lower RPMs. Again, probably down to the single mass design so I'm not worried; just a minor annoyance. Didn't want to push hard tonight as it's raining so I didn't test the new diff much.

After getting back I noticed the oil cooler was in fact dripping, though obviously not streaming as before. Also noted a film of oil underneath the passenger axle seal. I sprayed everything off and went for another drive, expecting the same result. However, the oil cooler didn't drip and there was no film of oil under the axle seal this time. There was still some oil hanging out at the bottom of the oil cooler, but I'm hoping that was due to my spraying it down with brake cleaner and not wiping it off afterwards.

So all in all, everything went well. 26-27 hours worth of work, a lot of it was frustrating but in the end I didn't break anything, I'm not missing any more bolts and the new parts seem to work so I really can't complain.

 

Kick ****! Well done! And no "spare parts"! Very cool.

All in all, if that cooler gasket is all you play with, not bad at all! Now that the MCS is working and functional... when is the REAL test drive and LSD eval? lol

Good job. Looks good all buttoned back up.

 

I’m going to write up some more later, but I did hit the gas once coming out of a corner earlier today and it literally turns harder under throttle with the Quaife, the opposite of what you would expect with a FWD car. I think when I start pushing it more I’m going to find that I will oversteer under throttle in a corner like you would get in a RWD car. My rear sway bar is at the stiffest setting so I may end up needing to back that off too. We shall see.

 

Pulled the car in tonight to check leaks and a squeak I've developed in the left front. I was pretty certain the squeak was the left front sway bar endlink, so I've already bought a pair of those. Curiously enough, after lowering the car to take the first test drive, there was no more squeak. It happened pretty frequently before so I guess the suspension was somehow bound up and needed to be completely decompressed to settle correctly. That's nice.

I did have a scare with the transmission case seal. I used Permatex Ultra Grey to seal the case halves together after installing the differential. I used a little more than is ideal but I was pretty sure it would be fine. It was leaking when I looked under the car tonight. Wiped it off and test drove again to verify and it did indeed continue to leak. I feared the worst, but upon re-inspection without using a flash light, I could see the sheen of oil was only emanating from the bolts at the bottom of the case. Decided to try and seal the threads of the bolts. When I went to untighten them, I found that they were actually very loose. Broke loose almost instantly when I began applying pressure with a short-handle ratchet. Retightened them and the leak has stopped.

The oil cooler seems to be leaking slightly. When I inspected it initially tonight, I could see two drips of oil at the bottom tangs of the oil cooler. Wiped it off and over the course of a couple test drives, maybe 40 minutes total, I can see a small channel of oil coming from the front of cooler on its way back down the bottom, but it hadn't made it yet. I guess it's pretty minor. I'm assuming the case is warped or something as I think I've tightened them well and I've replaced the gaskets correctly.

As I mentioned before, the passenger axle cannot be allowed to bottom out in the differential because the carrier bearing bolts will no longer line up, so I have mine tapped out slightly so those bolts can line up. It does appear that the axle seal is leaking. I can't imagine that this is normal. I'm in contact with Lohen and I'm going to see what they say. Maybe I can just polish the sealing surface of the axle with some 800 grit and it will be okay.

I've also noticed that the car pulls much harder at the top end. I'm assuming this is due to the fuel pressure regulator vacuum line I found unplugged last week. I'm guessing when I plugged it back in, it didn't have time to fix the fuel trims before I did the clutch. When I disconnected the battery and ECU for the clutch job, I'm assuming the fuel trims were reset and re-learned according to the extra fuel it could receive with the fuel pressure regulator functioning correctly. So that's a plus.

 

More troubles. The car is exhibiting some intermittent hesitation and power loss. I thought this might be due to my D1 throttle controller, but I've unplugged that and it still does it. The car hesitates occasionally in seemingly any gear at any throttle position. For example, I was cruising in 6th on the way home today and I could feel the car suddenly drop out and jitter a little. I had light throttle application so it wasn't super jerky, but I added some throttle and it bumped back in. In a more extreme case, I can accelerate at WOT and have the car literally decelerate in the power band. Did it earlier this morning in 2nd gear. WOT starting at 3k RPM and by the time I got to 5k, the car was no longer accelerating. No lights or unusual noises. I can hear the intake charge rushing in as normal and the blower is whining loudly as normal. The car does not feel like it's bogging, it just stops making power. Hard to describe. I did remove the MAP sensor when I did my thermostat, maybe I damaged it? Not a good situation. I hope it's something simple.

 

Sorry to hear you're having issues. Did you ever check backlash on the differential when you installed it? Change out any of the washers behind the outer race of the bearings on the case? I ended up waiting a little longer to locate the anaerobic sealant for the trans case, but i've read other people haven't had issue with that. Are they OEM axles? Did you change them at the same time you did all the work?

In regards to the bogging, I'd check vacuum lines and electrical connections. Whatever you've worked on with the clutch etc..

 

Double check the ground straps too. If they're loose, it could cause the symptoms you are experiencing. I'm assuming no check engine light?

 

I didn't check backlash or shim the Quaife. I had read it was just a drop in and no shims were needed. It looks like the Ultra Grey I used to seal the transmission halves holds fine. It's not anaerobic. The axles are Sneed4Speed race axles. I changed them 1.5 years ago. I'll certainly be checking over the vacuum lines and electrical connections.

How many are there? I know of one on the passenger frame rail and it's good. There's no CEL, or any other lights for that matter.

 

 

I got that one night driving home from a mine site. 20 miles from a roadside service station down the weird road and the car kept juddering and losing power. Turned out I had loosened the relays in the fuse box and they would briefly break contact. No codes, no errors on my Ultragauge. Reseat the relays and it has been fine since. Hope you find it easily!

James

 

Thanks for your input. I'll check them again, but I don't think I even opened the fuse cover when I did the transmission. I did move the box though.

 

All the relays and fuses appear to be seated correctly.

 

Planning on chasing the power loss issue more in-depth this week. Also planning on finally wiring up my oil pressure and boost/vacuum gauges. Got the senders in place for those already.

The next biggish project has just been ordered from Allmag:

 

Let us know how the install goes!