Time to refresh and upgrade the M20. Looking for feedback on both.

[e30davie]

Nice work, it's great to finish a project and have a good result.

Every time I see a beautiful looking engine bay I get all enthusiastic about cleaning mine up, then I open the bonnet and think, nah too hard. and I shut the bonnet again.

[r-mm]

Mine was running like a million bucks but leaky. Hence replacing 100 seals but no machine work. My radiator looks like a supermodel but its shroud looks like not good. Its next on the list...

[325e '87]

You’ve really made me jealous. I’m looking forward to doing what you’ve done here some day, problem is, mine runs pretty nicely for having 217,000 on it.

For some snark, now your radiator looks like caca

[r-mm]

Topped off the tranny, linseed oil’d some of the black parts and took some glamor shots.

[r-mm]

SSSquid "phase .5" chip is in. Won't say its night and day but it was not advertised as such and sure doesn't does make 4000-redline a wonderful thing. It also does some nifty idle wizardy intended to compliment (aka: fix) issues introduced by the extremely light flywheel.

All in, I'm happy with my rebuild recipe, it was intended to and does result in a "woke stock" feel, not at all racecar, no compromises*. If I were post-gaming it and wanted to spend another grand I'd have pulled the cam, gone up "one level" such as 272deg, replaced the rockers, springs. The car adores revving now and it'd be nice to compliment that / strengthen parts but by no means is that a must do. It was an east decision for me not to do it because the valve train is in most excellent conditio and I knew it would add weeks to the project.

*see parallel thread on flywheel-starter issues

[r-mm]

The valve cover is powdercoated in my best effort to replicate raw alum, matches quite well to the intake manifold which is in fact clear coated raw alum. No matter what I did I couldn't get the valve cover to clean up nice enough to be clear coated and I was not going to put in the blast cab on account of nooks and crannies.

[earthwormjim]

Wow, I normally prefer black wrinkle finished valve covers, with contrasting raw stripes, but that raw finished Aluminum cover looks amazing when it's that clean.

Perhaps I'll go with bead blasted then clear coated valve cover on my car, when I eventually do a rebuild.

[r-mm]

One for you (car) one for me...

[Poorhouse]

Most excellent!

Celebratory Chaco Tacos all around!

[r-mm]

200mi drive today and all was well. The day before I left I was very relieved to have fixed a small coolant leak at the front of the thermostat housing that originated from an under tightened hose clamp. I went back around and tightened all of the hose clamps I think I was too gentle with them I gave them all a thorough snuggling down.

Going to find time to install the squid chip this weekend and will post my findings. please to have driven the car a bunch without it to establish a baseline.

[r-mm]

Time to refresh and upgrade the M20. Looking for feedback on both.

So far all I have to say about the RHD 7.5lb flywheel is YES. I intentionally did not install my squid chip yet so that I could separate the effect of each. when I told squid about the fly wheel they recommended and increased idle. maybe turning on the AC which I have not yet because it’s not charged would affect it but so far the idle is reasonably smooth and the clutch takes very little adjustment in technique to control. I really see this as being a zero down side modification. It does seem to me that the starter makes an uglier sound than it used to I don’t know what is to blame for this (need to read up on if I forgot to lube ring gear?) or whether the two will bed into each other but it seems a small price to pay.

I am presently eating a celebratory Choco taco at the gas station

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[r-mm]

Any issues getting the harness back on?

I recall a question about the CPS sensor wire and the lead off the spark plug.

I posted on another thread. Basically its #6 pass side, cps driver side. The only snafu i hit was i didn’t have the dme bigass connector seated right. Never messed with one of those before and it felt seated but wasnt. Listen for various snapcracklepops under hood with key in run. Took a good 45s cranking but i replaced fuel filter and all rear hose too so empty fuel system. I had cranked w fuel n dme relays pulled to build oil pressure before. Btw those relays showed some heat discoloration, ill probably grab spares for the glovebox.

[Poorhouse]

Any issues getting the harness back on?

I recall a question about the CPS sensor wire and the lead off the spark plug.

[zaq123]

good job saving that thing. :coolphoto:

[Poorhouse]

Nice!