Fiat acquisition of Chrysler (in my driveway)

More parts! Modern Performance sent me these springs and some ARP rod bolts that will fit stock rods and 1.8 Ford Duratec motors apparently. 

More bits are inbound as well. Head checked good at the machine shop and got cut an additional 24thou. 

I also built an oil restrictor for the block to limit oil to the head. It is made out of an old rear MTB quick release rear axle. The forums have told me that the engine will fill the head with oil at high rpm (where this motor will hopefully spend a fair bit of time) and the drainage is slow which can cause oil starvation. The idea behind this restriction is that it will reduce the excess oil to the head. Seems like a part that I can make. 

chop. 
 

marked for the length cut with sharpie and caliper scratch. I'm building from a recipe on Neons forum. 

I did the second cut on the porta band and it worked great. Over to the drill press to make a place for braze to sit. 

Zapped some bronze until there's no hole. 

then back over to the drill press for a smaller hole. Ended up with measurements closely aligned to my recipe. 

My hole is not totally centered but it should be fine that way and if not I can melt the bronze and try to make it more centered. The next step in the oil system mods will be to make the drains work better. Also considering adding some external drain lines. Thoughts or tips? 

Parts!

Got some more parts. Specifically these adjustable cam gears. They are Fidenza and tool marked, but were also very affordable.

Last night after work I went over to a buddy's house to do some balancer mods on his lathe. Since space in front of the engine is tight and the v-belt pulley on the ballancer has nothing to turn in the Fiat it needed to go. 

In process:

Basically turned all the extra metal into hot chips.

With the v-belt pulley gone, he cut through the outer ring of steel and into the rubber. We thought that we might have to go at the rubber with a saw or knife but the lathe took it right off. The ballancer is now shortened up to just past the spokes from the center ring. 

Should have done a before and after measurement, but it is for sure shorter and that is really what hopefully matters. I still have the stock PT balancer but decided to use the Neon one with this modification because the PT hub and belt tracks join on the front side of the balancer so cutting that off would make the two pieces come apart. It is above freezing today so hopefully I can get some more done.  

The old engine needs to go. So drained the oil and pushed it aside awaiting a scrap run. 

With that done I wanted to start seeing how well the 2.4 is going to fit. Since I know that it isn't going to just slide right in there fully dressed I took off basically everything but the alternator and stuffed ports with paper towel to keep the inevitable grinder grit out. This is not the head that will run on the car but still don't want to fill the engine with metal and abrasive grit. That done, I got the engine off the stand and onto the chains. 

For mockup and fittment purposes the transaxle is mated to the engine sans clutch and flywheel. It all has to come out anyway, probably multiple times. 

Removed the poly shackle bushings from the trans mount and replaced them with the alloy dummy bushings from the original mount build.

The engine and trans are riding on a wheel dolly so the car can come up and the powertrain can slide under. 

Well, it isn't obviously not going to work. Hoping to minimize initial interference areas It is obviously without the balancer, front mount etc. With the car back on stands I connected the chains and lifted the powertrain up for the first interference check. 

Alternator has to go for now. I'd hoped that it would just fit, but no. 

With the alternator removed the trans mount lined up and the engine in its current state clears. 

The old mount body side is not going to be helpful so chopping happened. 

My 1/2" drive HF ratchet also crapped out so now it's in the pile with the old engine, ballance shafts and springs from a long-gone trampoline. 

Also hitting the pile: At least part of the factory PT front engine mount. It sure would be convenient if this could bolt onto the front of the engine and I could build a mount off of it. Also, I was sure to leave plenty of sharp metal on which to hurt myself later. Despite some effort and loud words the PT front piece does not fit at this point. 

This is where I found out that my torque mount will also have to be re-fabricated. The engine block and oil pan are completely different from the 2.0. So, instead of making just one new mount I will be doing at least 2. 

I ended up with the trans mount bolted up and a scissor jack under the front of the engine. Put the tools away and set the engine cover on. 

I ate some food and went to a really fun fitness class. While driving home in our Mini Cooper I noticed the RPMs significantly outpacing the acceleration up a hill. Looks like this slipping clutch is going to push the Fiat to the back burner for now. I have a clutch on the way so maybe until then some Fiat progress can happen. 

After some delays from weather and working on the Mini Cooper I spent yesterday on the Fiat.

The parts of the car in the way of allowing me to use the factory PT engine timingcover mount  are out of the way now. I decided to use the heavy cast iron piece because I don't want to make one. 

Engine goes in easy now. I harvested the shackle bushing mount that I previously cut out of the car. It took too long and I would have just made a new one if I had the material on hand. I saw these "flipper " mounts and thought they would work well for me. Starting with a new piece of tube, since I have it and already spent too much time reclaiming other parts. the flipper part is a scrap of steel and needs to take these 10mm bolts. I have plenty of 3/8" drill bits but not a one to make a 10mm bolt fit. So, drill and file. 

A piece of angle iron to keep the flipper from twisting. And some more material to triangulate it. Up with the powertrain for the dozenth? time. I have string to line up the height and fore-aft. 

Measuring off of the valve cover mating surface of the head and sighting against the head for parallelism. 

When there was no problem I could see I added a fractional smidgen of height to the pulley side to compensate for bolt and bushing sag. I used some bits of metal to fix the car side mount in place. 
Look away now if you have a sensitive nature regarding ugly welds. I got a lot of contamination from the Fiat steel and still need to grind and redo multiple areas. I ended up with the engine and trans hanging on their mounts. Looks great in terms of the string. 

Next I need to figure out the torque mount. Then I'll see about the alternator and balancer and add metal back to the unibody where the giant hole is. 

I wanted to make some progress and there are so many things to do. I picked an easy thing when I had a small window of time. Shackle bush tube: 

Marked out.

Cut on porta band and sanded flat.Deburred.With something accomplished it was now past the time to make ridiculous noise in the garage. So, I decided to pull the valves in the Neon head. My 'spring compressor' was also last loaned out as a brake piston pusher and came back in less than ideal alignment. 

Clamped a clamp and then bent it with a crescent wrench. Made some slight mods to the alloy handlebar end that is cut to allow removal of keepers. The red cap is a shipping cap that comes on the through axles of Fox bicycle forks. The silver cone is actually a part from a broken BMX hub. 

Add the end of a roll of el-cheapo duct tape and voila! A slow and janky valve spring compressor. Believe it or not, this junk gets the job done. I have a magnet and a "pokey spoke" to get the keepers out. 

The next day I wanted to check the header fittment. Fits good enough for now. 

There was a bracket on the old motor that went from the block to the tail of the transaxle and I wondered if it would bolt up. No, it does not. 

But after some cutting up scrap and some chopping and bending and welding it will. I even checked the header again and it still goes in. 

Next on to the torque mount. The crossmember that I built to run fore aft under the engine was my jack point, (red circle in below pic) held the torque shackle mount and the shift cables on the front end. It was also aggressively and unnecessarily low to the ground. So, chop, chop.

I harvested the shacke hanger and the jack point part of the rear mount and started work on building a torque mount. There are a couple of threaded holes on the oil pan that don't connect to anything on the Neon trans and they look like they are in a pretty good spot. I grabbed a piece of round tube and made a slight bend with my engine stand and bouncing up and down on the pipe. 

Didn't get any under the car pictures, but ended the night with the hanger end welded up and the tube mitered and welded to the bushing holder and two tabs to connect to the oil pan. Also got a new tube to connect the front and rear of the crossmember sized up but going to wait on welding that in because getting to some thing is easier without it in the way. 

Today after work I made some more progress and fabbed up two more tabs that connect the torque mount to the transaxle as well. This should really solidify the connection to the drivetrain and prevent too much stress on the alloy pan. Rocking the engine back and forth by hand there is zero movement with this installed. 

Feels like some more progress. 

Memorial Day 2024 and I have the day off. Got a fair bit of work on the Fiat done. Dropped out the engine and trans to install balancer and alternator. I heated up the hub of the balancer with a maap gas torch and it slid straight on.

The super new belt that I just changed on the Neon 2.0 is too short to work. This is the belt:This is it not fitting even with the tension all the way close:

I will need a longer belt to run the alternator but for today I really wanted one installed just to mock up where it is going to live in the car. I punched some holes:

Then I cut the belt and put a zip tie through the holes:

I'm going to take this thing into the parts store and see what I can find that will work. Next I narrowed the piece of the subframe that I chopped out to allow the mounts to fit. 

With the piece a little narrower I tacked it in and put the engine and trans back up on their mounts. (108th time?). And, just to be sure it would still go with the alternator in, header mocked up. 

It goes in pretty easy. Not a ton of room between the mount and the frame, but the engine moves very little. I ground some protrusions on the cast mount and hammered a little on the frame. Should be good. 

Things were going so nicely I wanted to check and see how much firewall clearancing would be required. A fab assistant came by and was very helpful in making templates, cutting metal, and holding/handing things. This is so nice, manifold actually will go as is! Actually, I did have to move the FPR, but that is way less than I was expecting to have to do. I could actually install the intake on the engine in the car if I didn't use any studs and only bolts:

To add some strength to the now narrower rail we decided to run a support tube down to a plate on the forward structure below the firewall. Mr. Whthaus usually is welding BMX frames and he wanted to bust out some TIG. Fun to watch! A really nice looking weld that will be almost impossible to see in the car. 

At the end of the workday it looks like this:

Things are about to be pretty busy for a while, but hopefully I can get some more done in the next few weeks. 

Small progress last night. I wanted to make the oil drain holes in the head have a smoother flow path. I hit them with the die grinder. The tape is a non functional containment experiment. I needed to do a bunch of cleaning anyway since chips from the machine shop kept dropping out of the head already. Blasted everything out with the hose and compressed air. Then replaced the valve stem seals. I bent a little more angle into my HF hose pliers and they worked great for removal. 
Installation was super easy with a 17mm deep socket and extension. 

I'm missing 3 of f the washers that go on the valve cover bolts but I did find a pack of the rubber grommets for them that were somehow not included in my head gasket set. 

The washers are 10mm id (a common rear axle size) so maybe there is something at the bike shop that will work. I also found three random oil filters that are unlikely to work with this project. I need to get better at writing the application on my saved parts. 

Axle washers are a good replacement for my missing valve cover bolt washers. Grabbed three of these from work. They should squish the rubber grommets just fine.

I also received the super cheapo Jeep 4.0 Throttle body that I ordered. It claims to be 60mm and that is partly true. The bottom is "necked down" for some reason and I don't think I like it that way.

I disassembled the shaft and butterfly. I also need to make a flange for my modified intake pipe so I clamped the stripped TB onto a piece of aluminum scrap and transfer punched the mounting holes.

I thought about using the center point of the mounting holes to find the bore center, but I am not totally confident in 1. My own accuracy 2. The centeredness of this cheapo part. So in walking around the garage and looking at things that would maybe serve as a good transfer punch I came across my set of forstner bits. With a bit of tape added to the biggest one it gave me a center point.

At this point hopefully all the real machinists can have already thrown up their hands in disgust and clicked over to someone else's build that cuts chips properly. I have a drill press so that is what got used to make the pilot holes for the mounting holes. I really should (note to self here) get a set of metric drill bits since using the SAE ones for holes that get tapped metric is sub optimal. But, that is what I did and then I chucked the tap in my hand drill and made the holes threaded for a matching set of 4 stainless M6 bicycle Vbrake bolts. Then with much NVH the "neck down" became much less so. And I have a flange to connect to my intake. Yes! I used a holesaw to open up the throttle body. 

More when I get the chance

What size holesaw did you use? And you gotta do what ya gotta do!

Excellent progress. Do continue.

In reply to TurboFource :

57mm/ 2-1/4" labeled. Thanks. 

I put some pieces of adhesive backed sandpaper on the hole saw and made a improvised drum sander to further open the bottom of the TB. There was a moment of catching and bucking that did cause some scratches to places I'd prefer weren't, but it got the surface smoother and a larger diameter. 

Seems opened enough since the pipe is actually a bit smaller. 

Then to jump around a little and set aside the TB for a while I hit the intake and valve cover with some paint stripper. 

Hmm... I had forgotten about the gold painted manifold under the red. Needs more stripper and work. Letting it marinade for a bit as well. I did get some more parts and that prompted me to jump around again. Back to the head. I ordered a 10 pack of US made -10 alloy weld fittings to allow an external oil drain from the head. Picked a location. (A speck higher would have been easier in hindsight)

Made a little hole.

Used a forstner bit to make it shiny around the hole. (Would make it bigger next time)

Step bit to make the little hole into a bigger one. 

Test fit fitting and hold in place with a random bolt and nut. 

Really, really thoroughly clean the area including farther than you think you need to from the fitting. This is the step that I skipped and made a gross mess of things when welding. 

YUCK! Not only does this look terrible, it also fails the soapy water bubble test. Sent myself to bed to think about what I've done. Came back fresh the next day to make it better. With a sawzall. 

A combination of forstner bit captured in a steel tube, step drill and die grinder were employed to remove all of the disgustingness visible in this picture and get to shiny clean metal. 

Once it was clean and nice it actually welded pretty well. My bubble test is to attatch a 45 fitting and blow into it with the opening blocked with 3m trim adhesive tape and apply soapy water to the weld. It worked and ended up like this. 

You may be thinking: But GoLucky, didn't that head just come back from the machine shop and shouldn't you have welded that fitting in BEFORE machining. Yes and yes. I did check with my imprecise straight edge though and at least it looks good. 

Next up is to find a place for the drained oil to return. I don't see any really obvious spots. Open to ideas if anyone has them. I saw that the turbo blocks have a return hole in them, mine does not but it could. ?

I felt the need to make some headway on the Fiat. Separated the engine and trans and got the engine on the stand. Pulled the pan and confirmed fit of the matching, appropriately sized bolts and washers (BMX axle washers) that attach the trapdoor assembly. 
Next I pulled the assembly and the pickup tube and installed ARP rod bolts. I used torque since stretch is not something I can measure. 

Made a cardboard template for the trapdoor assembly and transferred it to some perforated steel I ordered for the project. Silicon Bronze TIG joined. I got a bunch of tips from the pro frame welder who stopped by to help. 
added nylock nuts to the bolts that attach the alloy trapdoor frame. Red Locktite on the m10 bolts and the assembly is installed on the engine. New oil pickup tube o ring and torqued the bolt. 

Not pictured, but I also pulled the head and need to rent a balancer puller again to proceed. Also hit a second application of stripper to the valve cover and painted a couple of random parts. 

I have been distracted by life events and a big van project, so the Fiat has been on the back burner. There is a countdown now for the Fiat to be mobile. I would love to DRIVE it to its new location (TBD) but, it must at minimum be tow-able. There isn't a firm deadline yet for when the Fiat needs to move, but we are likely moving in the nearish future. 
 

Tonight I put the valves and springs into the Neon head. First, some assembly grease on the valve stem. 
Then I used my homemade compressor to make room for the keepers to go in using a flattened pokey tool and some of the firm tack Assemblee goo. 

Rinse and repeat. I had enough and no extras at the end of the job. 

I'm thinking that storing the head ON the block, hopefully IN the car,  is going to be more convenient than having a bunch of parts to keep track of. 

Oil return from turbo: can you just add a bung to the upper portion of the oil pan? 

In reply to Mezzanine :

Maybe? Things are tight with the axle and oil filter taking up real estate. I don't actually have a turbo set up yet; the oil return would be to allow the oil to leave the head in a better than factory way with future spoolie goodness a possibility. The AN fitting I welded into the head can also be capped off if I don't end up getting a return added to pan or block. 

I didn't get a ton done in the garage, but I did use my balancer puller that I rented months ago and am keeping at this point. I have never gotten one of the rentals before that was actually in good shape and this one is (was) brand new. I am justifying the purchase because it works on the Dodge engine in the Fiat, possibly the one in my B3500 and LS engines. 

I also replaced the water pump, since I have a new one to go in. Hopefully more cleanup and parts replacement followed by an engine assembly in the near future. Trying to fit in some car progress in between work and house projects. 

Moved the project along a small amount. On my last trip to the hardware store I got 3 m6x1 bolts to add to my steering wheel puller to remove the lower belt gear. The balancer bolt is installed and gets pushed upon by the tool. 
It worked. It was removed so that I can change the timing cover crank seal now instead of never. Ran a self tapping screw into the seal using a screwdriver. 
and it came right out with a little pry. New ones ne went in without any problems. 
I reinstalled the key and heated the gear with a torch to encourage it to go on easily. 

worked great On to the timing cover: This thing is cracked and the Fidenza pulleys are supposed to need special things in order to fit. I have an idea for the upper part of the belt cover so I went ahead and chopped up this one. 

Next I got the shaving cream and a razor and did some block grooming. 

I used the shop vac to clean up after the "shaving " and wiped everything off with some paper towels. I installed my DIY oil restrictor. 

It didn't line up perfectly. The hole is not exactly centered. I pulled it out with a wood screw and drilled the hole with a 3mm bit and then it looked good. I could probably leave it out, I am not sure how much restriction it is even going to be with the hole nearly the size of the one in the gasket. 
At this point I was feeling pretty excited about installing the head. It was not up to visual standards so I hit it with some spray can primer and silver. 

Letting the paint dry before I go any further. 

Just typed out an update that got lost near the end. Whoof. 
Shorter version: I have hoarder tendencies and sometimes in an attempt to get "better " I throw away things that I actually need. I am now short a neon/early PT cam sensor magnet and bolt and cam gear bolts. Because I am not smart sometimes. I'm looking for the above items; please let me know if you have some to part with. 
 

I did some positive progress as well. Made a square 3/16" tool out of flat stock to remove the oil plug in the head. 

The tap handle worked great to hold and turn my fabricated bit. 

The block heater plug came out too in order to make room for an AN fitting in the block to return the oil from the head drain. But it went right back in when I flipped the engine over and pulled the pan. The spot where I was going to drill doesn't seem like it goes through like I thought it would. 

So, looks like the return needs to go into the pan where all sensible people would put it anyway. Has to be above the oil level, not blocking pan bolts and roughly below the head fitting. 

The end of the return journey is a little uphill, but the other options were also and had other issues too. I made a hole with the step bit. 

Some tape held the fitting for tacking. 

The access from the inside of the pan was great, less so outside. I welded it from the inside. 

Hopefully with some combination of fittings and hose I can make this go around the obstructions and have an external oil drain from the head to the pan. There is a CV axle still to be added to the equation. Fingers crossed. 
it looks closer to an engine, but the valve cover is sitting there and there are only two head bolts installed finger tight. Still, it looks pretty cool on the stand and hopefully it will be getting better soon. 
 

I saw in my journal that it's been two years now since I dragged this engine home. It motivated me to head out to the garage and play with it some.

First off. Installed and torqued head bolts. 

went smoothly. I got to use my angle gauge that I bought for the original Fiat/Neon engine. 
The intake needs some fab to function. The "no 90" needs to become a "sub 90" to clear the firewall (in front of the engine in this car). I wanted to do some pie cuts because I like them and I don't have any alloy bends. Problem is: I already welded the straight tube onto the lower intake so my bandsaw isn't going to work. I dug out my pie cut fixture and chopped a scrap of 2.5" exhaust tube and made a cut. 
I took a scrap piece of paper and wrapped it around the tube to transfer the cut shape to my intake. Then I folded it so that it matched the outline. This makes a crease on the long and the short side of the cut. I folded it in half again to locate the 90 degree lines. 
The paper template was attached to the intake tube and I rotated it to angle the pie bend where it should go. 

At this point I had to decide whether I should do a straight cut and then cut the angle cut on the bandsaw or go for a hacksaw angle cut. 

I went for the hacksaw. It has too fine of a blade since I usually only use it on thin hardened bike tubing. 

Chopped. It came out pretty good. Not perfect, but a quick cleanup on the sanding disc and it is good to go. Now with a section of tube free of the manifold I made a slice of pie on the porta-band. I used my layout lines to check square and clamped it to the fixture and it chopped it nice and clean. 
Starting to take shape. 

I dug out the flange for the TB and trimmed it up on the bandsaw too. 

So, if everything goes well it should end up something like this:

I am not welding it out yet because I want to check fit around the trans. I may tack the intake and then join up the engine and trans to check fit of the intake and TB and make the drain hose on the exhaust side. Calling it a night.