1987 325es + SETA Turbo - This thing is going to explode immediately

[Steve o 77]

Looking great so far. Are you close to Cleveland? Who did the block work?

Thanks man. Im actually down in Columbus. Performance research did the work.

So I broke the cam in today, 20 minutes of 2k rpm. Ran ok, I'm having issues with my wideband, it's not broadcasting to the megasquirt for some reason so the ecu seemed to be pulling fuel to compensate for the fake super rich reading. I went ahead and disabled the O2 sensor feature and finished the breakin like that. Anyone have any idea why it would do that? I wired the analog out to the stock O2 plug assuming the mspnp would be wired to run like that.

Anyway The engine now idles at 2k rpm lol. Pretty sure it's just a massive vacuum leak somewhere.

There was also a massive pool of oil under the car after the breakin, I cannot tell where it's coming from though. Seems to be drivers side near the rear of the engine. There doesn't seem to be any oil above the starter, I'll look into it more later. The head gasket also has an oil leak on the exhaust side near the front, in just going to ignore it and hope it goes away when I re-torque the head studs down...

[efficient]

Nice. Keep up the updates

[Steve o 77]

Still chasing down this vacuum leak, getting annoying. I disconnected and plunged the booster port with no change. I really can't think of any other ports that could be leaking. I've plugged the charcoal canister port, booster, idle valve, and the ports on the passenger side of the intake.

I guess I need to move on to spraying brake cleaner.

[Steve o 77]

Got the vacuum leak figured out, just an open port I didn't see before.

She's running pretty good now, just waiting on one elbow to wrap up the charge pipes. I guess I should build an exhaust too lol

[Steve o 77]

Alright I drove the car for the first time last night, it's running like absolute garbage but it runs! Under any sort of load it pops like crazy, I think that means lean which agrees with the afr readings.

I'm building the exhaust next, once that's done tubing can start.

[Steve o 77]

Exhaust is all tacked and ready for final welding.

[Steve o 77]

Well the exhaust is all done and I got to drive the car a bit more tonight.

Im having some trouble with a misfire at idle that almost sounds like detonation, I can set the timing to whatever I want and it doesn't change.

Also, under light load it pops like crazy out the exhaust and hesitates. Once you break through that and get it under boost it clears up somewhat but still not great. My afr's are about 10.5 under boost so that might be why it doesn't feel great there but I cannot get rid of that popping.

I'm almost thinking it's ignition related now. Any ideas?

[Neil1138]

Excellent work so far

[exhaust]

Looks good. Did you ever find the oil leak?

[Steve o 77]

Looks good. Did you ever find the oil leak?

Pretty sure it was the bitch tube because after re-seating it there's no more leak.

[Steve o 77]

Well I pulled the plugs today, 2-6 look good, #1 looks completely brand new meaning no fuel in that cylinder I think. Checked for spark and in the megasquirt test mode I have spark.

I also pulled the fuel rail up out of the manifold and jammed some paper towel under the #1 injector (all other injectors unplugged) and test fired it which worked perfectly...

I'm thinking the plug might not have been plugged all the way in. I'm going to try firing it up again tomorrow when the neighbors aren't trying to sleep.

[Steve o 77]

Found the issue, the plug wire for cyl 1 was not crimped correctly causing it to fire intermittently, fixed that and she runs great now! Now I can finally clean up the engine bay wiring and put some miles on this thing.

[warshark]

what kind of hp do you think you will get

[Steve o 77]

what kind of hp do you think you will get

Not sure, I'll just turn up the boost till it feels good. Probably in the 350-400 whp range.

[badwella]

Awesome thread, man! Is that exhaust stainless or mild steel?

Btw, how do you like your Alphatig? I got mine on 3/4/16 but it was delivered with a non-functioning high freq start. Bummer, but it let me practice my scratch starts some more, etc. Their customer service is pretty good so far. They're shipping me a whole new HF board that should arrive Saturday.