The chronicle of the VX, a day in the life

[Ldub]

Well, ive had it with Florida, time to move. Guys n gals im opening a shop near Ellicott city MD. I grew up in the area but id like to say if you need help keeping you VX alive im open for buisness in the area starting say the 12th of May. Just VXs and RX-8s. Also one of my projects that I might be doing is a STI engine swap to the VX. It was a little conjested under the hood anyway and ive put alot of thought into it, theres only so much you can do with the stock engine and thought what would be a good reliable swap out plus STI parts are a dime a dozen. I just wounder if they have any kind of of auto tiptronick settups to replace the tranny?? Im going to see what it will involve. Also on the list, im pulling the body off to expose the rolling chassis, entirely. Beef up time baby. Plus I want to rework the wiring harness, other then on the body everything else just runs down the frame rail. Ive been planning a major overhaul since I dont plan getting rid of it anytime soon. Its time to build it to go 200K with out any major problems. Dont get me wrong, shes never left me stranded and its done her job very well but I cant wait to rework it and tighten the whole package up. Gotta get it done buy next winter.

So...moondog is the new moonraker?...

[pbkid]

i would KILL to put an STI motor in my VX...

[Moondog]

Yeh, I forgot my logon code. Guess it works.

[Moondog]

i would KILL to put an STI motor in my VX...

Im thinking its the rite thing to do, you figure you can get 500 ponys out of it without much money plus thats reliable HP, you can buy 2 sti short blocks for the cost of a VX motor, not that mine is bad but it got hot when my fan clutch went bad and thats not good for an aluminium block. After it near over heated it started doing the oil consumption bit and im sure It needs a new valve seals, (it smokes sometimes after startup). Also think about it, there easy to get, they dont cost all that much to fix and build, getting the ecus to mate up is the big concern but after I have them both sitting together I can figure out the best way to sync the sti ECU to the VX tranny and most of that is a different system so figure a few days for that and alot of hair pulling. The fit, hmm the fit, well the sti motor is wider but has less stuff on the side, im sure it being so compact its gona clear everything and leave room for what ever like a scoop through the hood for the I/C. If I go the route of retaining the VX tranny ill trace out the motor plate cause im sure alot of other people will want to do this, I might make a kit available if all goes good, or even maybe ugrade to a subie tranny, havent looked into that yet but id have to figure out what it takes to mate that to the TOD. So what do you think would be the best plan of action??? Im waiting till I get to MD to start on this but I can still figure out a plan of execution. I have many sources for motors but I need to settup shop first.

[Moondog]

Ok, forester tranny seems a possible angle, gotta do some more research, I have it on good standings that one dynoed at 320 at japtrix, the if part, is the gear ratio correct going into the TOD, could use some impute on this, im a pro at making engines fit to trannys, im sure it wont be hard to settup the tranny to the TOD. The question is wether to bother with the tranny swap as well. Im not sure but I think the power button changes the what would you say, the way the tranny shifts under power. I can also put a control in for the TOD if I have to, its nice to slide if you want to without grabbing the E brake. And I wouldnt recommend playing with the TOD control on the street but offroad im sure the clutches can handle a good beating, I have the clutch pack in my hand and its beefier then any front wheel drive clutch ive ever seen, im talking multiple clutch disks wet sump. I say not to mess with the TOD on the street because my TOD was shorting out when I first got the truck and giving me full time all out 4WD, and made it handle like scary crap on the street.

[Moondog]

Ok, had some time to get down on checking if the engine was blown or not. Well, I started to do a compression test and when I pulled the coils I noticed oil was seeping past the spark plug bucket seals causing them to fill and idle to be rough because of missfiring. I found that in 3 of the 6 holes. After digging further I notice the valve covers were seeping oil onto the exaust manifold (fire hazerd) and aftermarket gaskets had to go. It was so slow that it was almost un-noticable but that would explain the oil consumpion issue or issues I was having. It seems I also had a small oil leak out of the valvecover gasket into a pinhole in the exaust manifold gasket. It seemed it seeping oil and was getting in there. Guess thats why it was smoking a little cause it aint doin it no more. I replaced all 6 bucket seals and both valve cover seals. When I did the compresion test I had 180 on every hole give or take a few PSI. The driverside valve cover is a bitch to get off, just bite the bullet and pull the master. Take it easy on the allens, they like to round out and cost $12 each. I completed the job from teardown to reinstalation in 1.5 hours for the driver side. At this time im nolonger burning oil. My VX is happy again.