Pretty much ready for first startup but the intake manifold is such a pain in the ass to install with it sitting so close to the firewall. I keep having issues with the harness being in the way of the last intake runner. Hopefully will get some time this weekend to work more on it
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Well the car started up but I had to take it to a shop after many months of unsuccessful debugging. Per them, harness problems, a bad crank sensor, and maybe some EWS related shenanigans. If all goes well I should have the car back next week running on the sssquid chip. The AN-line dip stick probably won't be the way to go, and I may opt for removing the M20 oil level sender and having one fabbed based on that.Comment
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Hit a snag, the high pressure power steering line is leaking, so looking into solutions for that, likely will need to have another line made. Very eager to get the car backComment
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Car is now complete and will be coming home Thursday! I'll have to put the front fascia, bumper and hood back on, but other than that, phase 1 is complete. The brakes are probably not the best since the booster was deleted, but I hope to fix that with maybe an electric booster in phase 2Comment
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Looks like Imgur changed sharing image formats, so here's a link to how it looks all put back together. https://imgur.com/a/s50-e30-325ix-ioAIf7s
So far, the issues I need to solve before driving it around outside the neighborhood are:- Brake pedal return: the bushing failed when I put the pedal return spring back in so I ordered a replacement that will go in tonight. If that does not work, I might need to modify the spring to a stronger one
- Windows don't roll up/down, suspect it's a relay
- One of the blinkers is fast, and with the lights on, the front blinkers are just solid on and not blinking. The shop had to swap in another fuse box, so I wonder if there are two swapped pins on the relay in question
- Brake pedal is super mushy, so I think I'm going to try to bleed the brakes again. I would assume unassisted brakes would be hard as opposed to mushy. Long term I'm going to try to make one of the electric boosters (ibooster) work
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Brake pedal return spring was weak, so I replaced it, and it still didn't fully depress the brake switch, so I'm running the weak spring as a helper and no longer have the brake switch issue. I also jumped the pins on a relay to be able to roll the driver's window up. Going to try to reseat one of the wires to the starter and see if that fixes some of the problemsComment
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I reseated the starter wires with no change to the behavior to the windows, so it's likely that circuit is not working. I took the car on a drive and had a pretty major oil leak from the stand-alone oil temp/pressure sensor. After the drive I drained the oil (because I still don't have a dipstick) and added the correct amount. Tightened the oil temp/pressure sensor back down and now I just have a power steering leak somewhere that the shop I had taken it to said they fixed. I'll have to get the front end in the air to check it out. The other gripes I have are the radiator cooling not being sufficient, I should've pushed back when they said the condenser fan would be enough to cool the rad, and with the AC running in 110+F heat, it can stall at a light as the rpms feel like they get throttled by the compressor. My battery is a little older, so I'm not sure if that's the culprit here, or if the alternator is having a hard time keeping up with the demands of the system. It's a 140A alternator off of the E36, with the correct voltage regulatorComment
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Got another oil leak somewhere that I'll be addressing soon. Also purchased a higher CFM condenser fan, rebuilt 140a alternator, and chevy bolt ibooster. The temp creeps up over 1/2 when sitting in traffic, and it's hot for 6 months of the year in AZ, so I figured I should swap out the fan. I'm hoping the new alternator takes care of the power throttling that the AC compressor does when stopped at a red light. As for the brake booster, I'll probably have that shop I took the car to earlier this year try to get it working at least in failsafe mode when I have them do the dipstick install. For the dipstick, I think I'm going to have them use the oil sensor that sits on the bottom of the oil pan as a template to cut a flange out of, and then weld a pipe up to connect to a dipstick tube.
I've taken the car on a couple drives around the valley so far and my impressions are that there is a bunch more NVH, especially on the freeway. I think part of this is because I don't have a speaker panel installed in the passenger footwell, or the driver's under-dash panel installed. The car sounds great, and feels faster, but I'm not sure how much since it's been 3 years since I last drove it and all I have to compare it to is the E46 330ci that I've been daily driving.Comment
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E30 taking a back seat for probably a month or so because I picked up a '00 z3 coupe in SF, drove it back to Phoenix and I'm having fun driving it. I finished the fan install on the E30 and I'm working on finishing up the alternator swap, just needed a longer top bolt/nut. I'll probably finish that this weekend and try to see if I can find that oil leak a little more. Still 100+ in AZ until probably late September or a few weeks into October.Comment
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Okay I got the E30 back together and fired up today. Alternator is working and the AC stays cold at idle now, but the new front fan doesn't do as good of a job cooling the radiator as I want so maybe back to the drawing board there, I'm not sure what else I can do to keep engine temps down. Added some oil dye, so I should be able to find out where that leak is originating fromComment
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Looking forward to seeing both in person hopefully this weekend.Comment
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What does your water temps read in traffic using a scan tool?
Car is lookin good, the quirks can be a tough as the swap..Comment
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I haven't connected a scan tool to watch during traffic, but I'm going to try to re-bleed the coolant to see if there are bubbles. The worst I've seen it get is to the 3/4 mark on the gauge sitting in traffic on a hot AZ day. Most of the time it sits a hair above the 50% markOriginally posted by moatilliatta View PostComment
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Hard to beat a clutch fan. Some data from the tool would even be good to know before and after you make changes.
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Got to the end of my knowledge and sent the car back to the shop that got it running and they found a few things wrong with it.- There was a coolant leak at the heater core, that has been repaired, coolant flushed, and the car appears to be cooling properly now
- Oil was leaking from the oil filter housing and the valve cover gasket near the firewall, those have also been fixed
- Still have a small oil leak probably originating from the welds on the frankenpan, which sucks pretty bad, but that's life. It took 6 months to get this oil pan from classic daily and I don't want to wait another 6 for another one, so I'll continue with this one as long as I can
- I think the normal E30 chassis can fit this because the engine is pitched differently. On the ix with the stock engine mounts and a M50 manifold the RHD model S master is in the way of the throttle body and a couple bits off of the intake
- The tesla booster needs some clearancing on the mounting plate to not make contact with the corner of the M50 intake since the engine sits so close to the firewall
- I'm going to try to run a different intake manifold that puts the throttle body closer to the driver's headlight to attempt to free up space in that area
- If that doesn't work, I'll delete ABS and run the normal M50 intake with a different brake master most likely
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