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    I had previously used the Gates 21887 (M20 lower radiator hose) on the lower hose and it worked Ok.

    After I upgraded to my aluminum radiator it just didn't fit the same; it was 1cm or so too short. Turns out that the M20 upper radiator hose (Gates 21886) works even better and literally fits like a glove. it has the tightest 90 known to man.

    Plenty of clearance everywhere!


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      Also, I love my ABBA clamps!

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        Originally posted by Habla View Post
        Its quite a ride! I will let you know when the e91 gets too small for us, kid, stroller, and 2 dogs. Who knows, it could be tomorrow! Sure beats a damn mk5 jetta though, Byeeee
        You owned an e9x, but it was weighed down by 50 airbags, 500lb seats, and 11 speakers. You didnt see the potential then.
        don't ever sell it! We had a 2006 E91 6mt (along with my 2006 330i 6mt). Perfect family car - we also have 2 kids and 2 dogs. We took it on a trip once with 3 adults, 2 kids, bikes and camping gear for 5 days. Drove it across the steepest pass in Canada, which it did no problem at 80mph.

        Our old Subaru with half the weight did the same road before.. at maximum speed of 50mph, in 4th gear, foot literally to the floor. It also got 19mpg on that same trip vs the E91s 30. God I hated the Subaru.

        Later I did a 3 stage swap and my custom tune. It was way faster than any family wagon should be, lol. We also sold it for what we paid for it after 3 years and 40,000 miles of use.

        We only sold it because my wife wanted something with a 3rd row, so we got an X5. Worst mistake ever. X5s are total crap, it broke often, and no repair was cheap or simple (not even DIY). It often spent months undrivable due to the many catastrophic failures they suffer from. In hindsight, we could have just kept the E91, rented a car when we needed the extra space, and been way better off for it.

        Dumped the X5 at a huge loss for an F25 X3 (with an N52!). It's not an E91 - we both would have wanted another, but they're super expensive and hard to find, especially with a manual. The X3 isn't as good as the E91, but it shouldn't be broken as much as the X5, lol.
        Build thread

        Bimmerlabs

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          Still kicking myself for not buying your E91 when it was for sale. Timing was just wrong. Ended up getting a mk7 GTI which is pretty good overall but the E91 would have been even better than the hatch.

          Really wish we got the F11 5series wagons here. That would be perfect :)
          -Nick

          M42 on VEMS

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            It sold in a week for asking price! The dealer we got our X5 at offered me $3k trade value.. hahahaha, no.

            Working through a couple software bugs on Steve's swap - not resolved yet, but at least we got flashes working now (turns out he had a bad cable, doh!)
            Build thread

            Bimmerlabs

            Comment


              The issue is that I keep getting code P1023 which means that the limits of the Valvetronic stops hasn't been learned. This results in the motor locking the cams at full lift and using the Throttle body as the throttle. In normal operation, the valve lift is the throttle and the throttle body stays wide open to be there as backup. I'm actually very impressed how well the motor runs in this alternate mode!

              Using INPA, I saw that there is a weird discontinuity at the very end of the travel at minimum lift (0 degrees on the eccentric shaft), I'm thinking that's the cause of the issue and I'll know soon when I get the new eccentric shaft sensor in.

              These sensors are famous for failing after a few years, particularly if the oil seal in the valve cover gets old, in which case oil will enter through the plug. Even so, oil will enter through the plastic welds. They just fail...

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzpOTTT_IJ8 "VVT Excenter Istvert" means eccentric shaft actual value.

              Even in this "limp" mode, Gareth will attest that the car is plenty quick.

              *UPDATE*

              The eccentric shaft rotating past the 0 degree wasn't a symptom of the problem IT WAS THE PROBLEM... It wasn't a bad sensor, or coding in the ECU or an issue with the wiring, the eccentric shaft was just literally rotating to far on the idle stop.

              The idle hard-stop isn't meant to be adjustable and in fact is never even used in normal operation. It's just a physical limit to keep the eccentric shaft in-bounds. In actuality, the car idles with the eccentric shaft at about 16 to 17 degrees. The only time the shaft touches that stop is the first and only time the ECU performs a learn of the limits. In my case, with the stop screwed out 1.5mm the learn procedure worked perfectly because it never went below 0 degrees. Coincidentally, that 1.5mm was exactly the thickness of an M6 washer.

              Is a washer supposed to be there from the factory? Dunno... It's possible the motor drove it's entire life that way in the original car and it wouldn't have ever been an issue until the first time it needed to learn the stops.

              I can say, that after driving the car for several weeks on the throttle body, that the variable valve lift adds tons of torque. Wow!


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              Last edited by hoveringuy; 03-05-2021, 05:44 PM.

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                I don't quite know where I'm going with this, except that I have a huge wiring mess living in my battery tray, and the original grommet and firewall pass-through are impossibly small. We're a long way removed from a motor with a distributor and only a handful of wires for the injectors and a few sensors. Yeah, I could disassemble each connector down individual plugs and maybe squeeze them through.

                I'm envisioning some kind of a flange with a lip that I can wrap a rubber seal around the wire bundle. The EKP will go in the right, rear side panel cavity.

                Also, the battery terminal is moved one hole to the left.

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                  I had an idea for this that I didn't explain very well (I also think it only takes about 10 min to take the sub-connectors out of the black plastic clips and re-assemble them on the other side of the firewall, but hoveringuy REALLY wanted to cut that hole. To cover it back up again you could cut the rim off an air-sealed plastic container, mount/glue/seal it to the firewall, and then use the lid as your pass-through... so that you can "unclip" that part of the firewall and have a larger hole behind it?

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                  It would be like this, but instead of cheezits it would be your glove box.

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                    Originally posted by nando View Post
                    don't ever sell it! We had a 2006 E91 6mt (along with my 2006 330i 6mt). Perfect family car - we also have 2 kids and 2 dogs. We took it on a trip once with 3 adults, 2 kids, bikes and camping gear for 5 days. Drove it across the steepest pass in Canada, which it did no problem at 80mph.
                    Thanks, high praise! It should stick around for a while. Shes already attached :)

                    Originally posted by hubcapboy
                    It would be like this, but instead of cheezits it would be your glove box.
                    Haha, why not both? I'm not into the electrics yet, but maybe I'll consider putting the ebox in the battery tray?

                    Ive got the core support off the 330 now, and the entire interior is out, even the dash beam. Let me know if there are any in-situ pictures you might want before I start unhooking the engine too quickly and not documenting how it goes together...

                    Did you know it has a power steering oil cooler??

                    P
                    -Peter
                    '86 S52 coupe | Cotm: 6/18
                    '91 318is slicktop project
                    '14 F15 X5 35d M Sport
                    '00 Tundra

                    Comment


                      The E box is ugly and most of the electronics inside aren't needed, so it would be mostly empty. Seems to make sense to put it in the glovebox like a stock E30. A better grommet would be nice though..
                      Build thread

                      Bimmerlabs

                      Comment


                        See, isn't this better already? That long X3 harness is going to be replaced by one from a Z4, which exits the back of the engine instead of the side. It's going to look great, trust me.

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                        Last edited by hoveringuy; 03-08-2021, 08:12 AM.

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                          It's funny, because in a much smaller car - the engine is actually way more accessible and easier to work on than it was originally.
                          Build thread

                          Bimmerlabs

                          Comment


                            Originally posted by nando View Post
                            It's funny, because in a much smaller car - the engine is actually way more accessible and easier to work on than it was originally.
                            I can have the valve cover completely off in under 20 minutes (done that 3x now..), or have the electric water pump pulled in about the same.

                            How long would that take in an E90?

                            With the N54 intake I'm staring at the starter and the heater core connections are out in space

                            Comment


                              hours.. there's so much shit in the way. you can't really even fully access the head because the wiring harness runs right over cylinder #5.
                              Build thread

                              Bimmerlabs

                              Comment


                                On cooling...

                                So on my M54, as it was on the M20, I had a fixed 80C thermostat, which means my coolant temps ran somewhere around 90C/195F and my radiator outlet temps were around 82C. I had the standard 91C/99C aux fan thermostat switch and a SPAL pusher fan.

                                In normal driving the temp gauge was somewhere just to the left of 1/2 and if I was in slow traffic or at a light it would creep above 1/2 and trigger the aux fan low speed. All was good. (BTW, I never, ever had an issue cooling the M54 with the stock radiator, even tracking on hot days...)

                                The N52, however, is completely different...

                                I've had the chance to drive it a bit now and observe its quirks. First, it has a 97C thermostat which means that normal operating temp is around 105C/220F and it can also slip into "eco" mode.at 112C/234F or down to 95C, depending on what I'm doing. So, the gauge can be settled at 1/2 and then spontaneously start moving to the right if I'm not hooning it. it's kind-of disconcerting and probably why the modern temperature gauges just tell you that things are "normal".

                                Anyway, this means that with an operating temp of 105 my radiator outlet temp is around 95-97C, which clearly triggers the aux fan. Sometimes I even trigger aux "high" at 99C.

                                What seems to happen is that the aux fan and the ECU end up fighting each other. The aux fan kicks-on to drive down temps, but the ECU is determined to raise them so it just reduces coolant flow. The aux fan ends up running all the time, even at highway speeds.

                                So, I need the aux fan and the ECU to coordinate with each other. If only there was a way to do that...

                                To start, I connected C101 pin 14 VSS with 6001 pin 17 speed input and verified that the ECU is registering road speed, I think that's a critical parameter in how it controls the aux fan. I put the car on jackstands and at 40mph the
                                Geschwindigkeit was 63kph. Sweet!

                                Next, I need to see about getting an aux fan module and seeing how that integrates with the ECU and the SPAL.

                                As a final note, early N52's have a radiator outlet temperature sensor, but the later N52K's do not. I think the later motors just assign an outlet temp that's 7.5C lower than inlet. Since my flash isn't necessarily from a late motor, I may or may not need to add the outlet temp sensor to make everything work...

                                As a final, final note, the cooling parameters have tables and can be mapped like anything else, so there is a degree of software control that's available, but I'm not sure how I would change it.

                                For documentation, this is the PWM fan signal. It's a 5v signal that's pulled down to ground (open collector), 100Hz. This is 15 percent duty cycle. Some PWM fan controllers are setup for this signal and some are reversed polarity, where duty cycle is time at 5v instead of ground..

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                                Last edited by hoveringuy; 03-08-2021, 08:17 AM.

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