New Year's Eve Hyundai Teardown

It goes like this. One of the best friends I've ever had built this car from junk parts. He said it best, "it was built from literally a box of scraps". It ran an 13.2 in the quarter mile using no aftermarket performance parts of any kind. That quarter mile time was limited by traction. I know this car had more in it, but I never managed to get it to stick before encountering this.

More on this build...

The proper bolts were not always available, but the builder knows isht from Shinola. Even though this engine defies all engineering logic from Mitsubishi, the builder knew what would work and what would not. Budget was of the most primary of his concerns, and it shows at every turn, and it's what brought us to the kind of failure we find in this video.

I asked him what bearings he used. He said, "...the least expensive ones I could find. Picture Aluglides. Now picture generic Aluglides. I paid half-as-much for those bearings as I would for generic Aluglides.

Bolt too long? Put a nut on it and shorten it. Oil pan too close to the pickup? Hammer a big dent in it to make clearance for it. Wrong water pipe? Put a brass hardware store tee in the line to tap a turbo coolant feed. Forget buying ARP's, this is an all-standard re-used factory fastenere'd no-oil-squirter .030"-overbore 6-bolt with the cut-off balance shaft mod. It's using a small combustion chamber head off of a 1.6L Mirage with a 2.0L non-turbo block. The plug wires are used. The radiator hoses were used. Everything but the head gasket came from a junk car. The FWD turbo gearbox is from my 150,000 mile old Plymouth Laser that donated the block to the Colt. This is one of the most amusing cars I've ever wrapped my fingers around because of these kinds of character-building attributes. Nevermind that the chassis has less than 70,000 miles on it (not bad for a '92), it's just that it's built without using any new parts. Parts were substituted when they were not available, and it's ridiculously powerful.

Thank you Jamie. You discovered your answer. I'm happy to help. I'll be changing some things like the oil pan bolts, bearing quality, some of the plumbing and fixing a few wiring harness problems, but I'm not changing anything else if I can avoid it. This car was never intended to have anything upgraded to deliver raw power, and I'll do my best to keep it that way, replacing and restoring what failed so that we can keep pushing these generic non-turbo .030" over pistons to the limit. Apparently, 24 PSI from a 14b is not enough.

In the meantime, my diagnosis is that excessive oil pressure lead to the breakdown of the #1 bearing. After all, it's the 1st bearing in-line in the oil system on the main gallery. It's the most isolated from clutch harmonics, yet it was the one that spun. The #1 bearing supplies the oil pump. The teardrop on the head is nearly gone from head resurfacing, and this is a no-balance-shaft no-oil-squirter block. I think high oil pressure is why it falls on its face above 6000 rpms. There's a restriction upstream from the lifters and they deflate at high RPMs, losing lift. I'll fix it. I've got the parts.