T2K-CAR

[ArdWrknTrk]

Were it me, I would probably fill that panel and cover the whole thing in matching burl wrap.
But I'm unsure of how the front of the console fits, or how close to other burl trim it sits.

[Gary Lewis]

85lebaront2 wrote

Using the console switch panel.
Advantage, removing the control panel will allow for a 4 disc CD changer.
Disadvantage. hazard flasher, panel dimmer and power point will need a new location.

Leaving the control panel
Advantage, no need to extend wires and switch mountings
Disadvantage, have to come up with something to close the front of the console in.

I like the idea of the 4-disc CD changer.  But does it work with the speakers you have?

And could you put an aftermarket, modern player in place of the one you'd planned to use and stream music from a phone or a thumb drive?  That would let you use the setup you've created and have far more music than 4 CDs, plus have Bluetooth for hands-free calling.

[85lebaront2]

Gary, the 4 disc CD changer works with the radios I have, it was a factory option on Sebring, Stratus and the FWD 300s, also vans.

[85lebaront2]

Well, discovered a problem on the engine. After (a) being originally assembled 17 years ago and then sitting covered up but outside for 6 years and (b) as a result some rust on the seal area of the crank snout, I found I had a nice "rust proofed" right side of the lower firewall and floor pan. Everything came apart reasonably well until the crank sprocket for the timing belt at which point I was stuck. Chrysler decided in 1988 to change from 4 to 5 the number or 8mm bolts holding the crank pulley to the sprocket and at the same time make the sprocket a press fit on the crank. I had made a tool for doing this when I was still working, but was unable to find it when we were emptying the garage (I may have loaned it to a machine shop that went through a change of hands as they had several 1988 up Chrysler 2.2/2.5L cranks to grind).

The Chrysler tool is available used from $190 - over $300! Since the sprocket has 5 bolts that screw into it, no normal puller will work, the "cheat" is to use a 3/4-16 puller bolt through the nice thick crank pulley and a nut then 5 8mmX1.25 bolts into the sprocket and something that will pass through the center to push against. The factory tool has a piece of hard bar stock the puller screw acts against. Now comes the other problem, the 1988 engine short block is a one year only oddity in that area, the crank snout is smaller OD than either the 1987 using the 4 bolt sprocket or the 1989 "common block" engines, and to compound it, the OD of the pilot for the crank pulley is larger, about 1" OD instead of closer to 3/4" OD so the nut behind the pulley requires a sturdy washer. I finally got it off so I can replace the seal after carefully polishing the seal area on the crank. There are 3 identical seals on the "front" of the engine, crank, intermediate shaft and cam.

While I have all that off, I am also replacing the timing belt and correcting a small mistake I made when I built it, the intermediate shaft drives the oil pump and distributor, I did not get the oil pump drive gear properly timed to the shaft, so had to rotate the intermediate shaft sprocket to allow enough rotation of the distributor to set the timing as the location of the shutter in relation to the pickups is critical (turbo engines have a "window" in one shutter to tell the computer which is #1 cyl). Timing belt replacement requires disassembly of the right motor mount, but since the powertrains were installed from below, that mount is in two parts which does simplify timing belt replacement.

[85lebaront2]

Forgot to add this the other day. This is the engine bottom end with the pan off:

Note the ARP studs on the main caps. Crank is a forged steel one and the rods are actually 1989 2.5L turbo ones, apparently released in 1988 for the turbo II 2.2L engines.

[Gary Lewis]

Bill - Somehow I missed this in my travels.  But it looks like you are making good progress and can correct the minimal damage.  

Those ARP studs and the forged crank should make for a stout bottom end.    

[85lebaront2]

If you look closely at the 1st step on the crank. that is where the seal rides. It had surface rust on that area and most of the oil was coming out there. I polished it with 220 and 400 emery paper before reinstalling the seal housing.

That engine package was developed in conjunction with Chrysler's engineers by a Texas Chicken Farmer who was repaying the favor Lee Iaccoca did for him about 23 years earlier. There were even special packages on some of the cars along with a batch assembled in Wittier CA (Randy, GLHS60) owns one.

[Gary Lewis]

Gee, might that chicken farmer have been part of Ford vs Ferrari?    (By the way, how deep do you have to plant a chicken to get it to grow?)

[85lebaront2]

Wise guy huh, I can ask some of my friends about the chickens.

Stout bottom end is definitely correct, I ran 14 psi boost on it for roughly 200 hp from 135 ci, some of the people with these T2 engines run 20 psi or more which will push 300 hp out of them. The T3 engines were DOHC and ran even more power at high rpm, but were very hard on timing belts due to only having about 90° wrap on each of the cam sprockets and a smaller intermediate sprocket that spun the oil pump faster. Since they had a DIS system, a failed oil pump drive gear wasn't instantly obvious as it is on the T1, T2 and T4 engines all of which use a distributor.

An FYI, the T4 Chrysler engines are also referred to as VNT, for Variable Nozzle Turbocharger. Sound familiar?

[Gary Lewis]

Yep, VNT sounds familiar.  Ford had fits with them coking up on the PowerStrokes if you let them idle too long.  My buddy had that problem until he loaned the truck to his SiL who wagged a trailer at high speed for a few thousand miles.  When it came back the boost had gone up to over 20 psi, and he was a happy camper.

As for the engines, it is amazing what the little ones will do with some boost.  As you know, I'll pit my 3.5L EB against my 7.5L any day.  

[85lebaront2]

Gary, I will just ask one thing, percentage wise how much fuel economy does the EB lose towing a heavy load? Darth would drop 20% from 10 average to 8 towing a 30 ft 10K 5th wheel, worst was running roughly 70 into a 35 mph head wind towing said 5th wheel, got 7 that run.

Had some running issues with the Konvertible last Saturday and finally got a chance to dig into it today, found a hard plastic line had come out of the multiple connector and it just happened to be the one to the MAP sensor. Fixed it and finished what I had started Last Saturday, charging the AC system, a complete R134a system with electronic ATC. While I was balancing the charge, it got a little high on pressure and my high speed fans came on, pressure dropped almost instantly. System works a lot better than the 1985 I tried converting to R134a and had to go back to R12 as I couldn't keep a compressor belt on it. The dual pusher fans work great!

[Gary Lewis]

Bill - I haven't towed anything that heavy with the EB.  Heaviest was Big Blue on a 3000 lb trailer, so probably 9000 - 9500 lbs, or maybe closer to 10k given all the parts we brought back.  We ran 75 consistently and got 9 MPH.  Which is almost exactly half of what it normally gets w/o a trailer, so I'd say it drops 50%.

Glad you got the problem with the Konvertible sorted.  And it sounds like you got the A/C working nicely.    (Reminds me I still need to do that on Big Blue.)

[85lebaront2]

You also definitely have to factor in wind drag, 5th wheel was 11'6'' high at the front, I did have an air deflector on top of the cab which helped. The reason I asked was for information in case my brother asks about towing with his EB 150.

[IDIBronco]

Reading lightly through this thread takes me back to my 2.3 Ford turbo days, had a turbo coupe for a few years.  A real beater, but that car was sure fun.  Several years later I had an 84 svo mustang that had a 2 stage boost control.  Basically stock, and flip a switch and boost would run to 25psi.  I have had a good 2.3 turbo out of a merkur xr4ti sitting on an engine stand in the shop for maybe 15 years now.  If the right project ever turns up I have a couple of shelves worth of parts stored away.

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for sending me down memory lane a little and keep it up.  Always have been a fan of that era of small displacement turbo cars.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, you have to figure in wind drag.  Big Blue put a lot of drag on because when you looked in the rear view mirror on Blue all you could see was the Ford logo on BB's grille.  It sure set up high.

For a couple of other data points, we got about 14 MPG just pulling the trailer down to FL to pick BB up.  We were running more like 70 MPH, but the trailer towed very nicely and obviously had very little wind drag.

And when we pulled the 25' Sea Ray to Lake Powell we got 11.0 MPG running 65 MPH for the 2500 miles.  And it was on that trip where I found that the truck likes higher octane gas when towing - just like the owner's manual says.

[85lebaront2]

My son had the original (a 1985 LeBaron convertible) up near DC at an area know as "the mixing bowl" where I-95, I-395 and I-495 all come together and the roads from the air look like a bowl of spaghetti. It is called the Springfield Interchange. He had gone up once before in our 1993 Grand Caravan and had been cut off trying to get to his exit. The next time, since I was recovering from a right knee replacement and couldn't drive at that time, he borrowed the konvertible (our nickname) and drove it. Same scenario, but, when someone attempted to cut him off, he stomped it, when he got home he said, "dad, you know that digital dash doesn't blank out at 85, it keeps going, it went 99, 00 then started up again" I told him I had put the export switch in export so it wouldn't blank at 85, I asked what he got to, his reply "21 and it was still pulling. but I had to slow down for the exit".

Rough guess on HP is around 200 using 14 psi over the normal 12 for the Turbo II engine package. The A413 Torqueflite was set up so it shifted 1-2 at 56 mph and 2-3 at 79 mph at WOT. This is one of the reasons the 86 has an upgraded brake system to 4 wheel discs and a later K frame and lower control arms. Long term plans will be a 3 bar map sensor, and computer calibrated for 20 psi boost, which should push 300 HP, engine is an actual Turbo II long block and is assembled with ARP head studs a MOPAR Performance head gasket and ARP main studs and rod bolts. As the lower end picture shows it is a healthy beast, forged steel crank and beefy rods.

[85lebaront2]

Well, Murphy has reared his head again. In order to tune the Chrysler engine computers there are a limited number of options, some of which require some serious modifications to the computers, The first version turbo engines were pretty simple, and the boost limit was purely mechanical, these were a one year design and used a two part engine computer system. Inside the car, behind the right side kick panel was the Logic Module or brains of the system and underhood near the left front corner was the power module or brawn. The logic modules were not sealed nor potted and could be easily socketed, but the 84 was not a good candidate, 1985-1987 models were better, and of the whole series the 1987 logic module was the best to use (that is what the 1985 had in it). On these it was fairly easy to socket the LM to allow for different tunes to be used. These were a bank fired (1-2 and 3-4) injector strategy.

In 1988 Chrysler introduced the SMEC or Single Module Engine Controller. This still had the two separate pieces, but the logic portion was now underhood in the same casing as the power board. The power board was removable and could be swapped between similar engines. These were nice for socketing as the power board could be used to seal the cut out area in the logic board potting. These were still bank fired on the injectors. These were a 1988-1989 only run.

In 1990 the SBEC was introduced as the engine control, it stood for Single Board Engine Controller. These are sequential injection units. The SBEC as originally built could not be externally re-flashed, the SBEC2 and higher can be reflashed using Chrysler's DRB units. The LM, SMEC and SBEC use 28 pin program chips, the SBEC2 went to a 32 pin chip, but because this was in the works, the SBEC boards have 32 holes available, but 3 or 4 are not drilled requiring they be carefully drilled with a #63 drill. One man who had been working with these systems since the beginning developed a flash module for these that is installed in place of the original chip. New chips can be burned (programmed) but the originals are obsolete and contained a "latch". The solution for that was a latch board that goes between the new chip and the board.

I have a board I tried to socket and damaged some of the traces on, I have another I had socketed by someone else. I spent a bit of time getting the ZIF socket off that board and found it had been glued to the board. I have now two boards with some damaged traces, but a roll of 30ga wire, brush on flux and low temp solder should solve that and hopefully give me two SBECs for automatic transmission use. Just like a Ford system there are some internal differences, some in the program, but one main difference, these were the first turbo models with a lock up torque converter.
Here are the areas on the SBEC board, you can see some of the bad areas:
Top side:

Bottom side:


Here are the flash module and 32 pin socket:
Flash module:

32 pin socket:

[Gary Lewis]

Man, those look like a pain to repair.  Hope you have steady hands and a magnifying hood or lens.  

But how are you going to reprogram the chip?  Or do you need to?

[85lebaront2]

The flash module replaces the chip and is programmed through an FTDI cable that connects to the diagnostic connector underhood near the SBEC. it is a 6 pin connector of which 3, the transmit and receive wires and ground are used. The FTDI chip provides the interface from the USB cable to the Chrysler electronics much as the Mongoose cable provides the interface to the Ford EEC-V system.

There are actually two connection ports on Chrysler cars in the 90s, the underhood and a blue connector for what Chrysler called a CCD bus for Car Collision Detection bus (you will have to ask Ma Mopar why). One of the ECU leads also goes there, the pink SCI transmit wire, however when using the FTDI cable Rx and Tx are swapped. The underhood has a ground, the two signal leads, an ignition power and the grounding signal for the ASD relay. The inside one has battery, the two CCD bus leads, the SCI transmit and a different SCI receive a pink/light blue and a ground. It is used to communicate with the body computer, trip computer and with the electronic 4 speed OD transaxle, it's controls.

[ArdWrknTrk]

My, those holes in the socket take me back to days of Eprom's.                    👴