Like promised, i said i would update on the SRT4. When trying to find one of these beuts, we new we had to find another gem. Most of the 4's out there are high millage and have been played with. That's something we didn't want. When we found this little guy, we automatically got attached. Reason one was it was never really played with. Reason two, the millage was only at 115,xxx. Finally, reason three was the owner. instead of being a punk ass kid (like me) the seller was a older 40 year old.
When we brought the 4 home, the only thing we needed was a set of summers for her.....the old tires were shot. She passed a safety with flying colors.
Next on the list was to get rid of the annoying check engine light. No cat will equal that horrid check engine light. What most SRT4 owners do is install something called a "Defouler Valve" What it does is trick the secondary O2 sensor to thinking there is more oxygen then necessary. In simple terms, running any type of catless exhaust system, your O2 sensors will automatically read that there is more of a fuel mixture, due to not running a cat, causing a check engine light to come on. With the Defouler Valve, your able to fool the sensors because your placing the sensor away from the exhaust stream, essentially away from the fuel mixture. As long as the sensor can read a small amount of oxygen, you'll trick the annoying little bastards and get away with not seeing your dash light up like a Christmas tree.
As you can see here, the valve threads into your stock O2 housing, then your O2 sensor threads into the other side. Simple right?
After that easy fix was done, it was time to look at the fuel system....There's a small D.I.Y that you can do regarding your fuel pump and Chrysler's stupid idiotic things they come up with. When the 4's were released, the boys at DCX thought it would be fun to have there fuel pumps run between 8 to 9 volts every time 4800 rpm and over was reached. To this day, people have no idea why they did this but hey, something in the lines of running 12 volts instead of 8 sounds a little bit better, -don't ye think?? Not only will you get slight savings at the gas station, your putting less strain on your pump and internal parts within the fuel pump.........
Really Chrysler??.........Really???
The last owner butchered the fuel pump D.I.Y and ran all the wiring underneath the car zip tying exposed wiring to fuel lines. Not only that, all connections were never soldered or shrink tubed correctly.....Also, he took main power from the alternator, ran a wire all the way to the back of the car where the connector for the fuel pump is at the tank, and installed his breaker and relay there.....So, if in the event something shorts out, all that wire from the alternator to to back of the car is not protected, eventually heating up and catching fire. "fire and fuel equals no no" What we did was take a completely new path and ran power from the fuse box. Right after that, we put a breaker in. SO if in the event something shorts, all the wiring we ran does not heat up...Speaking of the wiring, we ran all the wiring inside the car, not under where its exposed to the elements. Also, instead of putting our new relay under the car next to the connector and fuel pump, we installed it correctly......away from harm inside the trunk.
Out with the old.....As you can see, the last owner took the relay, had it mounted to exposed weather with connections done by crimping...not solder or shrink tube.....
Here's some more connections made by genius. as well as his fuse......3/4's of the way down the wire......
In with the new. Here's our new wiring. As you can see, we removed the rear seats and carpet, just to do it correctly. (don't mind the speaker wire)
Finally, here's the new relay mounted in the trunk along with new connections. As you can see, connectors have been soldered and shrink tubed correctly.
More wiring
Here's our new breaker mounted right after the fuse box. If in the event something shorts, it will only short out the wiring done between the fuse box and the breaker, not after the breaker -DONE LIKE A BOSSS!!
Late evenings turned into late night antics with the 4...
And after all that was done, we took the new kid to the local meet and met up with some buddies......
To anyone out there, hope this helps in any way. Before i wrap things up, i just wanted to thank our good friend Brandon for the help. The work could't have been done without the "Electric Wizard"
will update soon
-Chris
