My mono white 89 XR

leesonic · Post by **leesonic** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:14 pm

Here are some pictures of my recently purchased mono white 89 XR. I bought this from a towing company, so the next step for it might have been the crusher, sold for scrap to pay fines owed. A sad fate for a nice XR, so I rescued it.

Lurking in the back yard with my wifes XR and my Mini. It has a 205/60 tire on this front wheel. Once it's on the road, I wonder what it would look like with 205/60s on the back and 195/60s on the front? I've always thought the rear track of these cars looks a little narrow.

Tan interior pretty clean. Factory radio and amp work fine, Pioneer CD changer in the trunk.

Dueling XRs.

Hmmmm... my first automatic, but I'm sure neutral/park safety switches aren't supposed to look like this.

Welded anti-roll bar mount.

I thought I'd give it a tune-up. Since I have a ton of spare gaskets, I set about replacing the ones on the intake.

Tranny fluid looked like strawberry milkshake, probably the cooler in the radiator went bad. This aftermarket(?) cooler looks OK, but is jammed right up against the AC fan.

What's this cooler, right up behind the bumper bar? It must get a lot of cooling air there... or not.

Intake off.

Exhaust/turbo off. Never seen an XR head with EGR ports before, I might have to investigate further. I planned on taking the head off anyway, since I have some spare head gaskets (including a 1035).

Not all bad news, the springs and struts look fairly new.

Turbo looks pretty new as well. There are no cracks in the exhaust housing, all my other XRs had cracks here. The turbo/exhaust to engine brace was loose, again making me suspect the turbo had been replaced recently. Manifold could use some milling to make the turbo flange straight.

Dual port wastegate actuator fitted, these are $189 from BAT.

Post by **merkurdriver** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:54 pm

That extra cooler is the secondary trans cooler. (With the primary being the one in the rad). All auto XRs rolled out of the factory like that.

NiggyMerk · Post by **NiggyMerk** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:08 pm

That is the twin to my car, other than it being Automatic.
Tan interior is by far the best on a white car.

Stargazer7467 · Post by **Stargazer7467** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:31 pm

whats good about hte dual port actuator?

leesonic · Post by **leesonic** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 8:27 am

NiggyMerk wrote:That is the twin to my car, other than it being Automatic.

It might not be an automatic for much longer. If the block gets pulled, the autobox is coming out. If I fix the welded ARB mount (likely), the autobox is coming out.

Stargazer7467 wrote:whats good about hte dual port actuator?

I think it's meant for running an adjustable boost control inside the car.

Post by **hEaT** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 12:27 pm

Stargazer7467 wrote:whats good about hte dual port actuator?

A dual port wastegate adds a second port on the opposite side of the actuator. Air pressure allowed to enter this second port aids the spring to push harder in the direction of closing the wastegate. This is exactly the opposite of the first port. The ability to help the wastegate remain closed as boost pressure builds can be increased. This also adds further complexity to boost control, requiring more control ports on the solenoid or possibly a complete second boost control system with its own separate solenoid. Use of the second port is not necessary. Secondary ports, unlike primary ports, cannot be simply attached to a boost control line and require electronic control to be useful. C02 can also be used to apply pressure to the second port, in order to control boost on a much finer level.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wastegate

Rooster · Post by **Rooster** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:24 pm

so your the one who got that car before me lol

Whiplash · Post by **Whiplash** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 7:21 pm

Excellent.

nathankershaw · Post by **nathankershaw** » Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:43 pm

Cool, Nice looking car!
I do have a soft spot for the mono whites.
Nice to see bits and bobs getting done.
I've started on mine now. (thanks for the injector info)
I'm amazed at how brittle everything is on them over here.
England we have all the rust but here every piece of plastic and rubber just crumbles when you touch it.
Frustrating!
Let the journey continue!
Nathan.

leesonic · Post by **leesonic** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 3:30 pm

Things get more interesting the further I get into this car. Pulled the head off today, and it looks like the motor has been rebored at some point. The tops of the pistons say H559P 040, which would suggest it has been rebored +40 thou. When I put an old stock size piston into the bore upside down, it rattles around like a stick in a bucket. The bores still have their honing marks on them. One of the top two transmission to block bolts is missing, the other one hadn't even been tightened, and was sitting there loose.

Here are some pictures of the bores and pistons :

Here is the head, the camshaft has EP20 cast on it, but look at those combustion chambers. This does NOT look like a turbo head to me. Compare it to the spare head I have in the basement.

Head top view :

Here are the combustion chambers :

Compared to the turbo head I have in the basement :

whitelx · Post by **whitelx** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 4:36 pm

I'm not sure that is a turbo head. The chamber looks a bit odd. It doesn't quite look like the pictures I have seen of the N/A head either, so who knows.

I can tell you the engine has been rebuilt. The pistons are Federal Mogul cast hyperutectic .040 over pistons. Be careful, they are weaker than the factory pistons and forged replacements. Fine for a driver, but not for a performance application. If you plan on higher boost and more extensive mods, I'd suggest rebuilding it with forged pistons. Hopefully the bores are good and it just needs a hone, otherwise you'll need to find another block. I don't suggest going to .060 over on these engine, which is the next step after .040. I had a .040 block and I tossed it in the dump because it needed to be bored and found a standard bore block to build.

leesonic · Post by **leesonic** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:43 pm

whitelx wrote:I can tell you the engine has been rebuilt. The pistons are Federal Mogul cast hyperutectic .040 over pistons. Be careful, they are weaker than the factory pistons and forged replacements.

That sucks big time then! I was hoping for some good luck with this car/motor, when I saw how good the bores are, I thought things were getting better. Now, what's the point of me putting it back together with cast pistons in it? Just paid $400+ for new pistons for the red XR, not about to do it again in a hurry.

Post by **DPDISXR4Ti** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:36 pm

leesonic wrote:
whitelx wrote:I can tell you the engine has been rebuilt. The pistons are Federal Mogul cast hyperutectic .040 over pistons.
That sucks big time then! I was hoping for some good luck with this car/motor

Lee, there's no reason why you can't run that motor, as-is, for years and thousands of miles. Bear in mind, almost all current production turbo motors run cast pistons.

Yes, you should probably be a little more conservative in your tune, and certainly leave the KS connected, but I think you'll be hard pressed to break that motor.

As for the head, it's the "Pinto head", which had air injection driven by a separate pump. This was also used on the Mustang II. As you've seen, the CC are a little smaller, yielding a SCR of ~8.5:1. I know I gave one of these heads to Don Haulsee years ago - he'd probably still be running it today if he hadn't gone all sorts of Folvo crazy.

But you do want to go ahead and block off those ports - easily done with an Allen head set-screw.

whitelx · Post by **whitelx** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:20 pm

Brad,
I was under the impression Pinto 2.3L engines had oval ports, not D ports. I have an oval port head on my car that was from a pinto and does have those holes (I believe they are air injection for smog). I didn't do anything with those holes as the E6 manifold covers them. I had the manifold surfaces and ran a very thin bead of orange RTV on the surface. Haven't had any issues with leaks in the year I've been driving it.

leesonic · Post by **leesonic** » Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:32 pm

The spare turbo head turned out to be cracked in FIVE places when I had it Magnafluxed. Looks like I'll need another head...