Beretta.net

Figured I'd post a little bit of an update. Most of this will be redundant if you're on Facebook.

After getting things ready for Bfest 2014, the new engine didn't seem to be making much power. As such, I really hadn't driven the car much at all since June 2014 and until about a month ago, it had pretty much sat. With Bfest 2015 fast approaching, getting the car running correctly became priority. The engine started fine and had excellent oil pressure but had a stumble/miss and was slow to rev. After spending dozens of hours checking out any/all systems, I decided to swap the fuel pump simply because it as the one thing I hadn't changed since buying the car (virtually every other part/sensor was changed out with no change in symptoms) -- Keep in mind I bought the car without an engine in it so I'd never seen this car run correctly.

After swapping the fuel pump out the car had noticeably more power but still had a miss. I decided to check the plugs to ensure that they were still gapped properly -- as they had ~550 miles on them I didn't expect any issues with them. The gap was fine on all 4 plugs. I cleaned the porcelain off to put a label on each one and discovered that 3 of 4 plugs had cracked insulators. Swapped them out with new ones and the car ran like a champ - ALL issues were gone!!! Over the next week I ordered parts for the A/C overhaul and we were able to head down to Bfest 2015 in Biloxi. The car ran great the entire time.

After the group photo at Bfest I left the parking lot pretty quick - After letting off of the gas the car developed a horrible knocking/bearing noise. In summation, the flywheel bolts came loose. On Saturday night myself, yellow3800, themixer, and 3X00-modified (and like 15 others!) pulled the transmission to get to the flywheel bolts and re torqued things down. After the fix, everything was fine and I was able to drive the car home without incident.

So -- now with the car finally acting right I am beginning to think about the upgrades I've wanted to do for a while now. I'm going to be going through all of the suspension and get things back in decent shape. To get my parts baseline established, I'll probably go ahead and swap all bushings, tie rod ends, ball joints -- everything -- with new stuff. Probably overkill but I prefer establishing that maintenance baseline on cars like these that have likely sat in recent years.

I'm waiting for some new wheels and a Wilwood brake kit to arrive... I'll leave you to wonder about the wheels but I'm hoping that they'll help bridge the gap from the 90's to now while still fitting the lines of the car.

Cracked spark plugs?

All that hand wringing and speculation due to cracked spark plugs? WTF!!

And flywheel bolts that come loose on a fresh rebuild?

Well at least you had the reinforcements to get it sorted.

I am looking forward to your wheel selection. Geoff got me looking again, and I can't wait to see your choice.

I just can't bring myself to like the stock GTZ wheels, (although I will keep them for originality when the car goes bye-bye).

Best place to have a breakdown is most likely Bfest

Well Geoff started the trend "Bfest or Bust" like 10+ years ago....

Cool, after all this time this is a good news update. Cracked plugs still have me scratching my head. But hey, if it never happens again who cares?
Damn lucky that you had an army of trained guys to help on the flywheel bolts. Berettas can be hard to fight alone sometimes. Tough little buggers.

I was very lucky to have a group present - I was so frazzled from troubleshooting the car during the weeks prior that I don't think I could have handled the added stress without the help. Oh yeah, and most everyone who was around when we got the flywheel out signed the back of it -- pretty cool moment. Found out later some missed out on the signing...

As for the plugs - Seems crazy (and stupid) but they were brand new with just 500 miles on them. I never thought to check them before for that simple reason. They were NOS ACDelco Rapidfires so perhaps they were bad out of the box but all 3 were cracked in the same exact place. Needless to say I think I'm going to keep a set of plugs in the glovebox just in case.

That is so kewl that all the folks signed the flywheel!

THAT is a photo that will be a B'Net keeper forever!

So happy you got that great car figured out!

Cheers!!

Thought those plugs were band new. Sure makes you think.....NKG next time?
Wow, now you have to get another flywheel! Names to the inside I hope.

Spent a bit of time tonight to install the MRZ lower dogbone mount. Not sure it's going to do much at the moment, but it was a shiny part that has been sitting on the shelf for months... Don't mind my decaying brake hoses... those will be replaced when the Wilwood kit goes on.

Also thought I'd include a teaser shot of the new rotating thingees... Not ready to do a reveal yet, but stay tuned...

The thingees, the thingees! We want to see the damn thingees!

Oh you will know that mount is there and feel it at idle and feel it another way the first time you "get off the line" at a stop light.

Not sure how much a Quad alt pulley weighs. I know that my Eco was stupid heavy and a light weight pulley help a lot. I never felt good about a crank pulley change. Have a light weight one for the Eco and the underdrive 3100. Without the rubber ring they became paper weights. Also the 3100 overdrive alt pulley(which must be used with the underdive crank pulley) from Mach was stupid heavy. All three are just sitting.
I can give you a link to the guy that made my Eco alt pulley. He also makes Quad alt pulleys. Or there is always MRZ.

Note: stupid heavy=why the hell does this thing have that much weight? Or way more than needed weight.

Money pit Beretta wrote:Oh you will know that mount is there and feel it at idle and feel it another way the first time you "get off the line" at a stop light.

Holy cow, you aren't kidding! I hadn't moved it until just now and even upon starting it up it transmits tons more vibration and noise into the car. Yikes. We'll just have to see how this thing performs -- I'd hope it'd be noticeably better with it because if not, this thing is coming back off... hehe.

Is that torque strut shorter than the original? It should be bolted through the "M" hole not the "A" hole unless you have the incorrect engine mount.

Cliff8928 wrote:Is that torque strut shorter than the original? It should be bolted through the "M" hole not the "A" hole unless you have the incorrect engine mount.

If the driveline is offset, it can cause premature wear/fatigue to your axles.

Cliff8928 wrote:Is that torque strut shorter than the original? It should be bolted through the "M" hole not the "A" hole unless you have the incorrect engine mount.

The MRZ piece has the same length between bolt holes that the original one did. I'll check the other GTZ tonight and verify.