Das Beast: My E30 track / street build

[digger]

That’s actually a pretty small volume and good for response no arguments
The ebay manifold is probably 60x7.5x15 = 6.75L so quite large
With a log type manifold on an i6 it’s hard to get the volume down without screwing distribution.
300mm from the plenum to head should work fine, the eBay manifold looks uber short

[dvallis]

Digger

eBay Manifold is (21" x 8.6" x 3")/2 = 271 in3 = 4.4L. That's spot on for a 1.5x of a 3L turbo

Runners are ridiculous short though. 76 mm vs 200 - 300 mm for high end power or 300 - 400 mm for lower end.

Stock intake plenum looks to be about 3L with 450mm runners. Can you confirm?

I think a well designed 4.5L plenum with 300 mm runners would be great for a 3L turbo. That's a future project.

[Elysian]

Can I help? :D

Woah the comment feature is neat

[dvallis]

Sure. I'll let you know when I start building it.

[dvallis]

Removed the eBay manifold. We'll eventually reuse the flange for a CFD designed custom manifold. I'm thinking of doing a 3D printed carbon fiber plenum.



View of the head intake ports.



Manifold will be ready Monday. Working on the throttle body in the meantime. It's full of holes we don't use. They have to be plugged

This one first. One of the bolts was stripped, had to be drilled and removed with an extractor. I chopped off the pipe and ground everything flat.



Port closed airtight with an aluminum plate and Very High Bond adhesive backing tape.



These two on the bottom and one on the other side will get tapped to 9/16-18 and fitted with lioctite coated hex hex set screws. Waiting on the tap tool and hardware.

[dvallis]

I ended up needing three different tap sizes for the throttle body

7/16-20 for these two




9/16-18 for this one




Then 1/2-20 for the hole I previously covered up. Decided to tap it as well. I'll replace the cover once its plugged.




All the taps turned out great. Just waiting for the set screws. Decided to clean the thing up in the meantime

[dvallis]

Manifold and valve cover back from powder coating. Total M20 porn

Interesting how they do two color:

Media blast
Shoot the black
Bake it
Shoot the white
Brush white powder off black highlights
Bake it again

Turned out great!

[Elysian]

Hot damn

[berndt]

That looks amazing. Now I want to do that to mine. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[turbski]

That is Friggin sweet. Nice choice.

[dvallis]

Finally back on track

Moving the fuel rail to the new manifold. Had to make new brackets.


Fits great on the stock manifold


Upgraded the manifold boost reference output


Ported all the intake runners. They had bumps near the end like the one on the left


Throttle body holes plugged with set screws and loctite 545 pneumatic sealant. That stuff is strong!


Block mating surface cleaned up, ready for gasket and head


Head gasket on. Using two studs only as guides.


Verified TDC for the head


Block at TDC


Head re-installed


Used anti-seize for all the head studs




We'll put the head stud nuts on and torque them down next time. Using the valve cover to keep dust out for now. Looks pretty good with the black oil cap.

[dvallis]

More progress

Head seated flush on the MLS head gasket. Pins aligned with block and head


Head torqued down. 22 ft-lbs for each nut per Bentley's pattern, repeat with 90 degrees x 2 for each


I remember this dance from the last time. At TDC the head gear teeth line up exactly with the belt teeth. There is NO stretch in that kevlar belt, so it's not going on this way.


Last time we cheated and put a couple of degrees advance on on the head to line up gear teeth with belt notches. Not horrible but not the best way. This time we used the Nuke gear adjustable feature to leave the head and block TDC, but slightly turn the head gear.


Note the gear TDC "dot" and head dash are still aligned.


Found the old throttle cable so we'll reuse this bracket and plastic bits.


Test fitting the manifold, throttle body and boost piping. I like the new look. No, the blue boost hose is not staying. :-)

[digger]

you don't have one of the dodgy gears with wrong tooth profile? you can tell how well the belt fits in when its off the engine. i had to get a replacement sent out and i know of others also

[dvallis]

Don't think so. Belt fits just fine in all the teeth where the belt wraps around it.

[jeenyus]

I just love this build. I have an IX and for the longest time I couldn't stop thinking about how to accomplish an engine swap. Then it occurred to me that a turbo M20 is a completely viable, awesome option. What figures are you hoping for?

[dvallis]

M20 is a great engine. Easy to work on, takes boost like a champ. Turbocharged it has an impressive horsepower to weight ratio. We're shooting for 400-500 HP. Here's some data from early in the build when we were considering engine swaps.