Northern's Sterlingsilber M52 Turbo 325is

[Northern]

Loving all the pics of turbo cars all of a sudden. Now you're making me want to work on my car lol.

[ba114]

What sort of hose did you end up using for the wastegate vac lines? Curious about how they're holding up to the heat.

I'm contemplating making hard lines but is a lot of effort...

[Northern]

Couldn't find anyone who sold silicone lines here, so I just have rubber. Someday I'll remember to order silicone stuff and change it out.
I haven't been under to check, but I left a lot of slack between manifold and the line, so I don't expect it to melt. Definitely one of those things that could be improved.

Running off spring pressure right now, want to make a basic EBC but I'm too lazy to finish the projects I've started, let alone start a new one.

[Northern]

Went on another google rampage trying to find any difference between the two rear mustang shocks people commonly use, come with GC, TCK kits, etc.

Gave up and sent them an email. Less than 10 minutes later I received the following reply:

The 8041-1026 Sport is shorter by 5mm in compressed length position, however it does not use a bump stop.
The 8041-1186 Sport does have a bump stop installed from the factory which makes contact with the shock body 50mm before full compression is reached.
The dampers are valved exactly the same.

Hoping the March Koni sale happens as usual, I'll be picking up one or the other, although -1026 seems slightly~significantly cheaper depending on the source.

[Northern]

Not a huge update, but a little forward motion:

Swapped rusty 325ix with rusty E36 328is. Worth less, sure, but at least there are plenty of people looking for E36 parts around me. That + liquidating my iX stash can fund some things, hopefully.

I bought a replacement compressor wheel for the HX35/40, just to put back together for the future, or to sell - whatever.

Problem when it showed up:


Hmmm... One of these things is not like the other.


Looks like a compressor wheel for ants. Thing was like a 35mm inducer lol. Not an HX40 wheel at all.

Then the place wouldn't swap it for the right wheel either, only wanted to refund me, so no rebuild for the Holset.



Also, it snowed twice in 3 days back in Feb:




That's all melted now, but it's snowing as I type...



I have a lot of small tune-related things to go through before I start the car up again:

A weird high idle issue that I thought was gone, but is back. Maybe TPS related or a vacuum leak.

Injector deadtime values for the Siemens Deka 60's are just plain wrong, so I have a few different sets to try and see what works. This will hopefully fix the idle quality problems I'm having.

Rescale the load axis so I have some headroom, and the spacing is somewhat consistent. Currently pretty wacky (Deltas between load axis columns vary from 75 to 150 - could be 125 consistently, then it's a little more intuitive and slightly more range)



Picked up some OEM strut gland nuts, since the Koni Race specific ones are too hard to find.

I just ordered some stuff for the car from Blunt. Rear Mustang Konis(Finally!), and another $250 in clips and seals to stop leaks and fix little things :loco:



List of things I want to have done before summer:
- Fix Sport seats.
- Turn down OEM gland nuts so they don't interfere with the GE Hyperco springs.
- Fix glaring tune issues
- Figure out oil cooler solution.
- Rear subframe bushings/RTABs v2.0


The bad:
Killed another battery.

[jph]

Sorry if I missed it, but what are you doing for your fuel system? Pump, regulator, etc?

[Northern]

Sorry if I missed it, but what are you doing for your fuel system? Pump, regulator, etc?

TRE 340 255gph pump in tank
Early e39 fuel rail (integrated 3.5bar FPR - running losses DTC turned off in the ECU)
Siemens Deka 60's.
Everything else stock, newish filter, new lines except for at the filter...


Not sure how I feel about the TRE. I think they're sketchy so I might swap it for a walbro at some point.

Originally had an M50 fuel rail, switched to the E39 one to try to have one less hose up front and more easily remove the intake. Didn't really make any difference, and the M50 rail fits the manifold without any extra tabs to hold it in place.


This reminds me that I need to replace the lines between the tank and filter soon...

[Northern]

Real update for once:

I don't think I ever posted a picture of how I notched my headlight brackets for FMIC pipe clearance, so here it is. I don't think this is even necessary for 2.5" TBH.




Blunt package showed up, complete with a pictogram of our relationship:



And some goodies:


We had a bit of snow over the past few weeks, so that delayed work by a bit. The sun is out now, and it's been 15 degrees (60 in degrees Freedom) or more for the past week consistently, so I have some motivation to do things.



Since the car is supposed to be going together, let's do the complete opposite:





Managed to get everything off without breaking any of those stupid plastic nut studs or balljoint boots:




I should've snapped a picture of what was inside - a rock hard negative mold made of rock and dirt. I had to chip it away with a chisel to find the vent lines...

Onward:


1" of chop chop...


Some bevel, wire wheel, and acetone action


Weldy McWelderson:


Then stick the new insert in to measure length for spacers, and realize that the Koni Race almost fit inside the spacer pipe, so it will need a top plate welded on. A few minutes later and these exist:


Koni 8610-1437 Race vs Bilstein Sports, ft shitbox e36:


Weld on some Garagistic droplink tabs and give everything a few coats of paint, unfortunately I ran out of black halfway through the first one
Clean it up and back together:


For reference, here's how I used the stock gland nuts (Gland nut flange was later turned down to clear the coils):



Onto the rear... New mustang Konis. 12mm shaft, but I already have 12mm bushings for my rear GC race plates, so no modification required.


vent line cover installed after a few extra coats of paint, and some waxy CIC, then shock overtop.

[Northern]

And because I was asked a few times now, here's the suspension history of the car:

All stock when purchased
Added H&R Race
Added IE RSM
Added Bilstein Sports
Added "Poland" camber plates.
Removed front spring pads
Added "Lencas" poly offset CABs, subframe, diff, rtabs.
Swap H&R Race for GE group buy coil conversion (I liked H&R in the rear, but the front felt too soft)
Swap GC Race plates front/rear (Poland plates were awful)
Swap "Lencas" CABs for THR eyeballs
Swap "Lencas" diff mount for AKG 75D when I swapped diff
Added stock length Konis (From M3 shell with full GC kit - E30 -1210 front, mustang -1026 rear)
Sold M3/GC kit, replaced with Bilstein sports front, Bilstein HD's rear from my ix.
Sold iX, rear bilsteins went with it.
Sectioned housings for Koni 8610-1437 Race front, 8041-1026 Sport rear.

Hoping that's the last of it. I have the M3 tabs welded on, but I don't know if I even want to run the droplinks with the 25mm IE bar. Probably massive overkill, I'm pretty happy with it set to the weakest setting right now.

Ready to go on:
Garagistic 75D subframe riser bushings
12mm diff spacers
Revshift 95a rtabs
The lencas stuff was crap. I'm hoping this solves my clunk issue, otherwise I don't know what it could be.

[Northern]

Almost forgot the unofficial sponsor of this week's E30 work:

[Northern]

I cracked a fog lens a few years back, and didn't reinstall them after the turbo install because I figured it would be a convenient time to finally replace the lenses (which I have somewhere). Somehow I ended up just buying some nice fogs for $40 to save myself from the hassle, and threw some spare laminx over them to hide the pitting/match the headlights. Also gives me a chance to undo the HID fogs that have been nothing but troublesome. Halogen 4lyfe.

Sent an email to get insurance reinstated. I want to check how much it would be for full coverage while I'm at it, so I doubt it'll be added today.

It would be a nice day to get some work done, but the Mazda decided to be needy, so I'm stuck fixing it instead.

[Northern]

Aforementioned fogs, look the same as the old ones sans crack or ebay HIDs. Halogen bulbs will hopefully last nearly forever (relatively speaking)



Figured that I pretty much had to pull the driver seat out to repair it before the car was running, or else I never would. So here's the seat as it came out:



Heater wiring for pinout ref.


Pro tip: The red/orange milspec pin extractors work perfect for these pins. Better than snipping the wires and using shitty butt connectors like someone did to the donor seats.


Why the recline function stopped working last year:


Couldn't even feel that the right side pivot was mostly ripped off the chair...


But I could certainly tell that the left side had split in half(bolster reinforcement rod was poking me in the hip)


Both side mechanisms had the backrest tabs previously snap where they thin out for the captive nut. Repaired (lol) with some sheet metal tabs and some cherrymax. Swapped these out while I was in there.


I don't have enough space in my workshop to do this, so I commandeered the living room. 3 seats ripped apart:


Back together:



I'm pretty excited to throw this back in the car. Need to slap some leather cleaner/conditioner on it and vacuum the carpet before it goes in.

The only downsides are:
1: I don't know if the lower section of the heated seat will work.
2: I used a passenger seat base, so the height adjust is on the wrong side. I might need to remove the handle and grind it thinner (might not clear/seatbelt holster catches when the seat folds forward)

[Northern]

Mazda update: No idea where all the noises come from, this car just sucks. Axle boot is ripped, and there's a lot of play through the axles/"diff" so I'm just going to send it until it grenades or I sell it. Heat shield is resting on the exhaust (which also is missing a hanger) so I want to get under it and rip that off/fix it soon.
As shitty as it is, it drove ~1500km this weekend with zero issues other than noise.

Next few weeks will be slow, as FSAE is taking over my life. Formula Michigan is in less than two weeks and the car is not assembled yet...


Really just need to slap in a battery, seat, and flash the ECU and it's ready to go...


Edit:
Misc stuff:
On the fence right now between a cheap E30 shell to throw a spare M52 in, an '06 Xterra, or a standalone+meth for this car(since I want meth/EBC and fancy features, and the price of an ECUmaster EMU Black is damn close to the same as a good EBC+W/M progressive controller, plus would let me ditch my MAF to make meth nozzle location easy). Really bouncing back and forth on this one.

[econti]

standalone, do your car right first

[Northern]

^ yeah I mean between the savings of standalone ECU vs buying stanalone systems for EBC, water/meth, traction control, it makes sense. I just want a nice ECU, and there are really only base tunes out there for MS because r3v/E30 guys have some weird boner for MS (been there, done that)

I drove the car for ~10 minutes the other day(started fine, but pig rich, too low, etc) to a "ten+ up" event at BMW where they lifted a bunch of stuff up on hoists and talked about them...

Highlights:
Pristine one owner E30 M3
MGB Coupe
Ferrari F355 GTS targa
some sort of '70s Alfa
E36/E46 M3s
New M3 x2 (or m4 or whatever they're called this year)
Tesla Model S
some minis

It was a pretty decent event to see the old stuff. Ferarri and Tesla were my favorites. I'm not a big electric car guy, but I have to admit they're impressive.