Das Beast: My E30 track / street build

[ForcedFirebird]

^^^x2. Specially with those public spark tables which pull way too much timing and cause excessive heat in the turbine.

Start with a stock table and subtract 2° for every 1psi of boost (or about -2° per 10kpa) - which is already conservative.

Also, VE tables pretty much never match up to another tune/engine with all the other variables in them. That's why you see some VE tables posted and they are in the ~40-110 range and others are much higher. Theoretically, "100" on the VE table should be "100% VE" - with a turbo motor, you are most certainly are more than 100% VE under boost (1bar = 1 extra atmosphere, or 200% VE) ;)

[dvallis]

+1 on what both of you said. We're focusing on buttoning everything up, then taking it to Boost Logic for three days on their DynoJet with a tuning expert. Can't wait.

[Digitalwave]

As long as you don't have any more mechanical issues (i.e. my car broke up at 5,200rpm -- didn't realize until further into the tune), you should be rocking after that dyno time!

[dvallis]

Dyno Prep

Speaking of mechanical issues, I decided to dig into the throttle response a bit more. It's acting wonky at low TPS percentages. Once I disconnected the pedal and pedal return spring, the problem was obvious. I had mechanical interference with the other end of the throttle linkage, way up under the dash. Linkage was binding against my pedal box.



Here's the culprit. Too long. Some work on the grinder took care of that.



While I was at it I replaced my wimpy throttle stop with this. With the free moving linkage and lower stop I picked up another inch of pedal travel. Much better feel now.



Put the wing back on for the hell of it. This might not be long for the world anyway. Will probably end up with a high wing. We'll see.

[dvallis]

The good, the bad, the ugly

Getting the waste gate off was not too bad. Thank god for V-bands.



We decided on the 15 psi spring set. According to everything I read, it should give us 400 - 500 HP on this built cammed 2.8L stroker with wasted spark. All depends on the tune.



Engine ready to go.



Car is buttoned up and ready for the dyno. Or so we thought. (More on that later) I'm liking the final product. Looks good. DTM livery will be killer.









Minor loading issues. Our car dolly sucks. Not enough clearance to load with the air dam on. Will have to upgrade it later. For now we just took off the front end.



Some auto porn next. This stuff was sitting around at the dyno shop:

Our tuner's E30 M3



And this random truck. Booring, right?



It has a freaking twin turbo LS1 stuffed into it.



Ferrari anyone?



Godzira!



Once we met the tuner, it was a case of Good, Bad and Ugly.

The Good: Our tuner KNOWS HIS SH-T. Literally asked us 100 questions about the engine and build. He could have just strapped Das Beast on the Dyno, blew the engine and said "You guys suck. Try again." He has an E30 M3, and is building an M60 swap for his day job. THAT'S THE GUY I want tuning my car. He also walked me through the tuning process. I get it now. Very detailed. Also commented that this is a "good build". Hey, that's encouraging. :devil:

The Bad: These cars are in front of us for tuning. No problem. For this guy, I'll wait..





The Ugly: We have homework before the tuner will strap it on a dyno:

1. Our turbo is clocked too far. If the oil inlet is any more than 15 degrees off vertical, Precision turbos start blowing oil past the seals and will burn up. No wonder our exhaust was a bit blue. We thought it was the rings seating. Wrong! LoL

2. Add an oil catch can for crank case venting

3. Figure out why the oil pressure is at 60 psi, even when water temp shows 180F. Only drops 5 psi when we blip the throttle. Check AIM sensor vs VDO

4. Check actual timing against MS2. Previous customer said "All good, but had 30 degrees advance, on TOP of what MS2 thought". Coolant splattered dyno bay ceiling when engine blew.

5. Get a turbo blanket

6. Leak down test. Reduce valve clearance from 0.010 to 0.012 if too high. Schrick recommends 0.010 for this cam, so we may be Ok.

7. Tuner strongly recommends solenoid boot control. As in "Please get one before you come back". In his experience, it holds boost better at high RPM, and does not creep. Allows him to get the most out of the engine. Will use MAC 12V 3 port boost controller MPN 35A-AAA-DDBA-1BA. Spring now determines minimum boost. Tuner said use ~1/3 of max boost, say 7 psi.



8. He's concerned our intake manifold might starve cylinder 6. Told him it was from a known good turbo M20 build, so we'll see. He will read the plug and tell us. Worst case we get a different manifold.


Well then. Back to work. More fun for you guys to watch, LoL.

[wworm]

holy moly 4-500 horsepower jeeeeez louise das BEAST indeed

[kid8]

Should be in good hands over there, I just had work done on my car and couldn't be happier. It wasn't tuning, but I've heard great things about them in that department as well.

Build is looking great, excited to see what it puts down!

[dvallis]

Boost

So, adding a boost control valve. How hard could it be, right?

This arrived yesterday. No instructions in the box. "Derivation is left to the student." Thanks guys.



First off, I figured out the wires have no polarity. 12V goes to one switched source. The other end goes to your ECU boost control. (That's for later)

I also found these specs for the solenoid:

15 Hz: 8 - 91 %dc
20 Hz: 10 - 87 %dc
30 Hz: 15 - 80 %dc

But also saw it spec'd as 10 - 40 Hz.

There are threads showing this solenoid works best at 20 Hz. (1), (2), (3)

What about plumbing? Of course, it's not straight forward either. This picture gives a good idea of how the valve operates. Path 2-3 is normally open. When 12V is applied, the valve closes and path 2-1 is open. You apply a 12V PWM signal with specific duty cycle and frequency so it is open for a percentage of any given time cycle. 0% duty cycle path 2-3 is open, path 1-2 is closed. 100% duty cycle, path 1-2 is open and 2-3 is closed. Stare at it a while and it will make sense.



However, just how the solenoid gets attached to the waste gate is ambiguous. This thread has a good discussion that let me figure it out.

This picture is the same configuration as the last one. As the solenoid opens, it routes more pressure from port 2 to port 1 and the bottom (normally atmospheric) side of the waste gate. This holds the gate closed longer, increasing boost. Seems simple, right? However, this configuration does not control boost as well, according to many posts. One guy finally coughed up the right answer: When you come off boost, path 1-2 closes and there is no path for pressure to bleed from the bottom waste gate actuator. This will give weird response in a PID controller.



Conversely, plumbing the valve as shown below achieves the same thing. As duty cycle of the PWM is increased, more pressure is fed on the 1-2 path, increasing the waste gate opening pressure. However, when the PWM drops to 0%, there is a straight connection between ports 2-3. The waste gate control diaphragm bleeds directly to atmosphere. It seems logical this would result in much quicker closed loop response of the system. One more mystery solved.



At least the MSPNP Gen2 hardware is easy. Boost control output is pin 7 on the option connector.

"The Boost control solenoid pin on the option connector is an output for boost control. To use boost control, connect one terminal of an electronic boost control solenoid valve to a 12 volt source that turns on with the ignition, and the other terminal to this pin of the option connector. The boost control solenoid valve plumbs into the line running from the intake to the waste gate."



Tuning this thing is going to be .... interesting. You're dialing in a PID loop, connected to 500 HP of gasoline fueled rotating inertial mass!.

Oh joy. What could possibly go wrong? Glad we have a Zen Master helping. This thread is an interesting preview.

To tune closed loop boost control, first set up the boost control target table. You will enter the desired kPa reading as a function of throttle position and RPM. You should not enter in any values lower than waste gate pressure as the valve cannot reduce boost any further, your mechanical wastegate's pressure is the baseline and can only be added to by electronic boost control. Next you will tune the PID values under Boost Control Settings to make it better hit these targets.

We'd recommend starting to tune CLEBC (closed loop electronic boost control) at a lower boost pressure than you ultimately intend to run. This will allow you to get a handle on tuning this feature prior to running more serious pressures. Before you start, make sure you've adjusted your VE and ignition tables conservatively around and above the boost pressures you are targeting, that means keep the fuel a bit richer than you expect to need, and the ignition a bit retarded from where you expect it to be.

You must change "Closed loop boost tuning mode" to "Advanced" for PID parameters tuning. They are greyed out for "Basic" mode.

To tune the PID parameters, start with 100% proportional gain, 0% integral gain and 0% differential gain. If the boost overshoots above its target get out of the loud pedal quickly, and increase the proportional gain. If it does not spike, you may reduce the proportional gain until you get just a very small amount of overshoot. Leave the proportional gain there. At this point, the boost is likely to creep up slowly after reaching the target. Add a bit more integral gain until the boost stays on target, then increase differential gain until you have minimal overshoot when the turbo first spools up. At this point the boost should track right along with the target boost pressure you've set your MSPNP2 to target.



Here's the ultimate goal.

[dvallis]

Need to refer to this for tuning so I'm posting it here:

1987 BMW 325i "E30"
2.8L turbo stroker
Built to NASA Super Touring and German Touring Sedan class specs

M20 Bottom End
M20B25 inline 6 base block
Stroked to 2.8L with M52B28 crank
M20B25 pistons w trimmed skirts
M20B27 rods
ARP crank studs and head studs
MLS head gasket 0.120"
Piston/rods/wrist pin sets balanced to 0.5 gram
Performance oil rings
New main & rod bearings
Crank scraper
Oil pan baffles
Compression ratio ~ 9 : 1

M20 Top End
Stock BMW 885 head
Ported and polished
Schrick HD valve springs
Schrick turbo cam 284/272
---lift 11.4 mm intake / 11.0 mm exhaust
---EO -246, IO -32, EC 26, IC 252 deg
---Intake / Exhaust overlap 58 deg
Ireland Engineering HD rockers
Stainless valves
Nuke adjustable cam gear
Kevlar timing belt

Turbo
Ceramic coated Precision 6262 T4 turbo
62mm compressor wheel
0.84 exhaust housing A/R
T4 divided twin scroll inlet
v-band exhaust outlet
Ported shroud compressor housing 4.0" / 2.5"
Journal Bearing
Precision 46mm waste gate

Intake
K&N 4" x 6" tapered intake filter
Custom intake air box
3" charge piping
2.5" x 27" intercooler
Custom aluminum intake manifold and throttle body

Exhaust
Ceramic coated Rapid Spool Industries T4 turbo manifold
3" 16 gauge 304 stainless mandrel bent down tube and exhaust
Borla 40085 XR-1 resonator, round, 3" I/O, 304SS
Borla 40943 XR-1 muffler, oval, 3" I/O, 304SS

ECU / Ignition / Electronics
Megasquirt MSPNP Gen2 using "known good" turbo base tune
Using Tunerstudio and Megalog viewer
Wasted spark ignition
Delphi GN1023 ignition coils x 3
---Max Dwell 3.4ms
NGK BPR7ES 5534 plugs, 5K ohm, gap 0.031"
LC-2 wideband O2 sensor
4 bar MAP sensor
IAT sensor
Throttle position sensor
AIM data acquisition system
Custom wiring harness
Custom lightweight dash

Fueling
Return fuel system
Fuel safe 15 gal cell
1 gallon swirl tank
Carter 100 gph lift pump
Bosch 044 275 gph high pressure pump
8AN braided SS fuel lines
Aluminum hard lines, cell to engine bay
Nuke billet fuel rail, 3/4" UNF
Aeromotive boost referenced fuel pressure regulator
Siemens Deka 60 lb PNP injectors
---static Flow Rate (GAS): 62.7 lb/hr = 646 cc/min = 474 g/min
---Dynamic Flow Rate 2.5ms PW @ 100Hz (GAS): 20.2mg/pulse
---Coil Resistance: 12 Ohms
---Gain: 0.11ms/mg
---Offset: 0.055ms
---Turn on time @ 14VDC: 1.14ms
---Turn off time: 0.85ms @ 600KPa
---Factory Tollerance: +/-6 %

[Roamies]

This looks familiar



Some auto porn next. This stuff was sitting around at the dyno shop:

Our tuner's E30 M3

[dvallis]

Hey, is that you Roman?

[dvallis]

This damn thing finally showed up so I can start on turbo rework this weekend.

[r-mm]

This is a high quality project, great work! I never thought I'd say something so frivolous, but given how lovely that engine bay looks I'd be sorely tempted to grind the old intake manifold support brackets off it...

[dvallis]

Oh, you mean grind the intake support brackets off the valve cover. LoL. Got enough to do lately. Wait until my next post about the #^/- turbo.

[dvallis]

Turboness

Finally got the turbo off, new oil drain installed





Extended oil drain allowed me to clock the inlet vertical



However, now the oil feed line is too short. LoL



These last two bolts were a total pain in the a$$ to tighten. With the turbo unclocked, I was able to tighten the large bolt.



I had to make this to reach the last bolt.



What a pita, but it worked.



Finally re-installed.



Oil catch can will go here



Working on the boost controller and waste gate next