JT's M20 Build Thread

[JehTehsus]

From a different thread but needs to be here and elaborated on 8^)

Not much on this subject for M20s, what do you have planned?

At this point I am still educating myself... (and mostly focusing on getting the motor in and running). Once I know enough to get into trouble I will be sure to throw up a post with my schemes.

Also, update tonight! Made good progress this weekend. Car is in the shop and I am getting to work on some bay prep. Unfortunately my uncle does want his shop back in the near future, no hard deadline but it does mean I can't fully strip the bay and take a few weeks to completely clean everything. It will have to wait till another time, like when I put in a cage.

Engine is built up, minus a few bits here and there and couple bolts I want to replace. As far as I can tell it is essentially ready to go in:






Bay prep started. Hoping to get the rack out after work tomorrow, then I can move onto final cleaning, paint and the Z3 rack. After that motor goes in.





Also, all of this happened just today. Car went in Friday night.

I spent ALL of Saturday removing a single wheel - all four lugs were completely seized, never had anything like it. Multiple Canadian tire trips later (probably have the virus now), 3 rounded bolts, I finally got the fucking thing off. Somewhere between 550ft lbs and 700ft lbs for each bolt, which is based on the rating of my impact (didn't work) and me laying my fat ass flat out on the end of a ~44" extension/pipe/breaker bar combo and bouncing up and down (eventually worked). Only one bolt didn't round.

Also, for the record I put those wheels on like 8 months ago or something and I sure as hell torqued em to 80ft lbs, no anti seize though. Maybe my girl was slamming midnight drift sessions without telling me or something.

[ramerco]

Hey, just saw you posted on r/E30. This is great build. Your photos from google dont seem to be loading.. maybe a network thing.

[JehTehsus]

Damn pictures. Some of them seem fine but others don't, swear my process is the same... Anyway I edited last post, think they are okay now?

Update today as well. Z3 rack is in, except for a weird case of disappearing steering column knuckle bolts. Seriously, they have just vanished. Wonder if my uncle came through and grabbed them or something, really friggen annoying. Rack was a pain in the ass, only because the column was so rusted it was a total fight to get it on without stripping anything, but it is done. I also ended up mounting in the front holes, could not seem to make it fit in the rears where the original rack came from. If this messes things up too badly I will need to move it back I guess:





Paint did not turn out ideal, there are a couple rust holes I really need to cut and weld, but I don't have the time this pass. Once my uncle gets his truck done I will be revisiting, maybe not the paint but definitely the rust holes. In the interim POR15 will have to do.

Mounting the transmission: Do NOT let the weight of the motor and the tranny sit on one of the aluminium mounting tabs for the transmission.


Why, you may ask? Well:



So off to the welding shop. Going to try this with a bracket for additional support:



Went for the top down approach. Though about going in from the bottom, but I managed to get it out the top without too much hassle so I figured I would try in reverse.








Going to get in trouble for this, but the expression on the face of my wonderful and lovely assistant really shows how much she enjoys my latest project. Nonetheless, she was a great help here.


















Still lots to do, but overall it actually went it quite painlessly. Basically used a jack under the transmission at the rear while my partner worked the chainfall and we essentially just rocked the car back and forth lowering the engine in. A little bit of muscling things around but it was overall pretty painless.

Coming up next: Schemes and dreams and what in fuck made me want to wire my own harness and redo all the factory lines? Planning work is coming along well:

[JehTehsus]

Got a bit of stuff done this week... what with the quarantine and all I plan on making quite a bit of progress this weekend.

For the record, the steering rack does in fact need to go in the holes further back. I actually found another thread where someone had an issue with the rack interfering/rubbing against the oil pan... of course this is after I find out I have that exact problem.

Anyway, bit of a pain in the ass and would have preferred to do that with the motor out, but oh well. In other news, starting to mock up some wire routing, trying to decide on placement for various elements. Here is a summary of some of the changes that are being looked at right now:

• Seriously tempted to delete the brake booster. Leaning towards the bracket massive lee has for twin MCs behind the brake pedal. Anyone have any recommendations on this front?
• Need to mount the ID750 fuel filter in the bay. Another good reason to get rid of the booster, I think it could work nicely back there.
• Ended up going with the chase bays power steering rack hose replacement kit and cooler. Old hoses were leaking everywhere anyway, probably could have figured something out on my own but this is basically bolt in.
• Replacing the brake lines in the engine bay. ABS pump had to go anyway, so I am going to move to braided lines in the bay. This could also tie in nicely with booster delete.
• I need to decide on how and where I am going to mount the coil packs. I think they *may* fit above the engine on a plate. Especially if I strip off the sound isolation rubber stuff up top there behind the valve cover. Ideally I can keep the plug lines up and run the ECM harness low to hopefully mitigate any noise that may get coupled in. I feel like this would be a superior solution to mounting the coils in the battery tray.
• Going to get a 16" 2000CFM SPAL fan (factory viscous clutch fan will not be installed) on order and mount it in front of the radiator. Speaking of which, swapping out the radiator for an all aluminium CSF. Going to need to change a few hoses over there to get it to work properly with the old style waterpump and cooling setup. Are there any real gotcha's with this or am I safe essentially changing out the rad + plumbing to and from? I am very strongly leaning towards replacing the reservoir as well but am fine to keep mostly the same position so I don't see how I would run into any real issues.
• Going to run the valve cover vent to a catch can.
• Wideband will be replacing factory O2 sensor. Not sure if I should try to mess with the mounting orientation or not.
• For the throttle body I plan on tapping the two smaller side holes on the intake manifold side of the throttle plate. One of these I will run to the vacuum station as my vacuum/manifold pressure 'source' and the other I am planning on running a downsized adapter plug to 1/16th NPT and running the extended version of the T1 fast response sensor. Just trying to track down some mechanical drawings to ensure I can jam it in there (not a ton of space between TB and IM on that side) before pulling the trigger (https://www.t1racedevelopment.com/product/t1-fast-at/). Debating whether to plug the hole that used to run to valve cover or to use it to pull some vacuum (when the throttle is open) on the catch can. Once I get the blower in place I would obviously need to pull this though, don't want the CC at positive pressure.
• Going to mount the nuke FPR in a similar location to the factory FPR. Will use the same tap off the side of the IM as well for manifold pressure.
• Planning on running the bosch combination temperature/pressure sensor where the old oil pressure switch was and where the old coolant temperature switch was (the ECM one sitting in the thermostat housing). This is the same sensor on the ID750 so hopefully once I get the one calibrated and working with the MS the others are easy as pie.
• Will need to get in a replacement connector and crimps for the engine-to-main-loom harness plug (C101). Possibly make a couple of changes here so that I can get a CAN bus out to the instrument cluster, which I will eventually be replacing with my other crazy project.
• Lots of little cosmetic and minor bits. Need to get the proper screws for the fuel rail to IM (you may be able to tell it is not fully seated), various heatshrink bits, somehow lost my nuts for the exhaust manifolds, etc. Oh, and vacuuming.

Here's some pictures of where I got to this week, nothing really exciting but may be good for reference:

[digger]

pics no worky

[JehTehsus]

pics no worky

Thanks for the heads up... I will figure something else out in a little while here

[JehTehsus]

Trying an imgur album... mostly just the photos that should be showing in the last few posts.

Allbum: https://imgur.com/a/P48NFqD

Will try copy pasting them below in rough chronological order



















































Probably missed a few, but there we are.

[RobE30]

Sounds like a great build thread. From the few pictures I saw, it looks great too! Keep it up, looking forward to following along

[RobE30]

double post

[JehTehsus]

Currently trying to decide on where I am going to put all these damn coil packs... Feels like a toss up between battery tray and rear firewall. Anyone have any suggestions? (yes, I do plan on keeping that sexy green masking tape in the final build)








I am leaning towards firewall. I need to do the 2x2+1x2 pattern because 2x3 will block the fittings coming off the fuel rail/slightly interfere with the intake manifold. I still think it will look better there than trying to cram them into the battery tray, however, where they just do not really fit.

Another option I was considering would be in the battery tray but on an angled piece of sheet metal, in the same orientation as the windshield.

Finally, if I do mount on firewall, anyone have any recommendations or information about how likely I am to get significant interference from the coil packs/plug wires being coupled into the main harness? I need to route the main harness around that way as well, and my inner EE tells me routing low voltage mostly un-shielded wire directly parallel to definitely not low voltage wire for any distance should be avoided... I suspect a battery tray mount would probably be a lot better for noise.

[LowR3V'in]

i put them on the valve cover on my m30 looks kinda cool.

[JehTehsus]

i put them on the valve cover on my m30 looks kinda cool.

Seems to be the way others have gone too. I don't think it's what I'm looking for though - I'm trying to cleanup the bay and want to keep most of the wiring tucked out of sight or at least around the edges.

[Lugnuts]

Seriously tempted to delete the brake booster.

Not the same kit you're considering, but I went down the path of deleting the brake booster and installing the kit from...a company we shall refer to as "Base Chays".

Should mention I have Wilwood 4-pot DynaPro on the front and I think at the time I also had the same calipers on the rear.

Long story short, I went back to the stock booster after a couple months. First issue I encountered was the bias adjuster shitting itself. Don't know exactly when. Plunger inside jammed open. Only discovered this after pressure testing, and dismantling it through the course of trouble-shooting. Found an identical model adjuster on fleabay for some hard-to-believe price. Replaced the adjuster, but even after numerous late night brake pad run-ins (BP10, BP20), performance under emergency stopping was still a concern.

Spent a fair bit of time trying to understand brake pressure calculators - worked out all the numbers, ratios, diameters etc etc. Replaced the rears with rebuilt stock calipers - slightly better, but still a leg work out and definitely not my peace-of-mind configuration.

Final nail was the development of "thunk thunk thunk" noises under braking on the new set of rear stock rotors (still boosterless at the time). I think it was consequence of material deposits on the rotors caused by insufficient volume of fluid movement, causing the pads to drag. It's honestly surprising how little lateral run-out is required to make your brakes noisy...

I think the booster-less set up probably would have worked OK with stock calipers front and rear. I just got sufficiently fed up bleeding my brake system for the nth time, I threw in the towel, tore it all out (including my own hard line which I was quite proud of!) and chalked it up to a learning exercise. A larger master cylinder bore to accommodate the larger 4-pot calipers front and rear might have given me the performance I was hoping for ("well yeah, duh" you might be thinking). Guess I shouldn't have trusted the advice of "Base Chay's" sales person...live and learn.

For sale...one lightly used E30 booster delete kit... PM if interested :)

[JehTehsus]

Not the same kit you're considering, but I went down the path of deleting the brake booster and installing the kit from...a company we shall refer to as "Base Chays".

Should mention I have Wilwood 4-pot DynaPro on the front and I think at the time I also had the same calipers on the rear.

Long story short, I went back to the stock booster after a couple months. First issue I encountered was the bias adjuster shitting itself. Don't know exactly when. Plunger inside jammed open. Only discovered this after pressure testing, and dismantling it through the course of trouble-shooting. Found an identical model adjuster on fleabay for some hard-to-believe price. Replaced the adjuster, but even after numerous late night brake pad run-ins (BP10, BP20), performance under emergency stopping was still a concern.

Spent a fair bit of time trying to understand brake pressure calculators - worked out all the numbers, ratios, diameters etc etc. Replaced the rears with rebuilt stock calipers - slightly better, but still a leg work out and definitely not my peace-of-mind configuration.

Final nail was the development of "thunk thunk thunk" noises under braking on the new set of rear stock rotors (still boosterless at the time). I think it was consequence of material deposits on the rotors caused by insufficient volume of fluid movement, causing the pads to drag. It's honestly surprising how little lateral run-out is required to make your brakes noisy...

I think the booster-less set up probably would have worked OK with stock calipers front and rear. I just got sufficiently fed up bleeding my brake system for the nth time, I threw in the towel, tore it all out (including my own hard line which I was quite proud of!) and chalked it up to a learning exercise. A larger master cylinder bore to accommodate the larger 4-pot calipers front and rear might have given me the performance I was hoping for ("well yeah, duh" you might be thinking). Guess I shouldn't have trusted the advice of "Base Chay's" sales person...live and learn.

For sale...one lightly used E30 booster delete kit... PM if interested :)

Thanks, I actually looked at that kit but I decided against it for a few reasons.

I did give their power steering kit a try, it seems well built enough to me, but really it is just some hoses and a reservoir (admittedly with correct fittings and lengths for the Z3 rack). Given the price I would probably not go that route again.

I am leaning towards a dual master cylinder setup for the brakes with a balance bar, so no possible proportioning valve failures and two truly independent circuits. I don't know if I will go with a full pedal box or the bracket/kit massive Lee has for twin MCs. I don't need a ton of extra space but routing 8-AN hose eats up room damn fast, especially when you have fittings everywhere.

Really want to get her up and running though, if I can avoid tackling the brakes for a few more months both my sanity and wallet will thank me, especially since I will probably be moving to a 5-lug swap with different calipers and everything in the future and would probably have to buy another set of masters anyway. Plus I really only want to put the E85 sensor in where the booster is right now, I can just run a union fitting on the lines and tuck it in behind the booster for the time being.

In other news, basically all I got done over the weekend was determining what a correctly spaced Z3 rack looks like and slightly scratching my paint job on the oil pan (that and hours browsing for weird ass adapter fittings). Use the right mounting holes kids, and also don't put the bolts in upside down so you have to lift the engine partially out again to remove them. Future you will thank you:



Think my new rad shows up today... should barely fit... going to be a busy week. Need to get as much done as I can while I have the lift, my Uncle is ripping the roof off the shop after next weekend so it can be raised 3 feet (roof is a bit low, right now with something on the lift the wheels are about 5 feet in the air. Just low enough to be uncomfortable as you repeatedly bang your head. Narrow shop so you can't walk around the lift, have to go under/over).

I also need to start looking for a transmission, or something. The weld on that guy did not hold up, went to loosen the mounts on the tranny (lifting the engine to adjust rack and all that) and the welded tab came right off in my hand. What are some good options? Not against a direct replacement, if I can pick up something used reasonably and then eventually get around to fixing mine and reselling, but I am also open to suggestions for alternatives. This will be a blower powered death wish running E85 someday, not sure how high it will actually be able to go but I am designing for well over 400WHP.

[Lugnuts]

I am leaning towards a dual master cylinder setup for the brakes with a balance bar, so no possible proportioning valve failures and two truly independent circuits.

If I had to go down the rabbit hole again, this is probably what I'd go with too.

Currently trying to decide on where I am going to put all these damn coil packs

I went the battery tray route, but mine's NA + wasted spark. Plus I went with a cheaper coil pack. Few cap screws and rubber grommets for cushioning and provide a tad of spacing underneath. The space under the tray gets tighter towards the side of the car on account of the wheel well arch. Your angled plate idea might make your life easier...