2nd e30, 87 Lachssilber Revival

[Reichart12]

Old stroker engine back in Maryland was apparently taking up too much room as a complete engine, or just that my dad was bored. But anyways, he decided to spend a weekend taking it apart and seeing how everything looked. Here are the photos he sent me after. Let me know what you think. I'm going to start looking into ways to get everything checked out so I can try to plan a rebuild with hopefully some reused parts. Reminder, it had about 20,000 miles on it...

[Reichart12]

Ok, played around with two things today and at least one of them helped. The LC-2 wideband has four wires. Previously had all four connected. Just undid one and that showed the AFR gauge more responsiveness but was still stuck sitting at 10. But now with throttle it would shoot to 22 and fall back to 10 when off the throttle. Reading some other threads, I saw people mentioning "getting alpha-n good then go to ITB mode". Turns out I totally forgot about alpha-n. So made that switch and burned it to the controller. Now my AFRs were in the 12-14 range! Took the car for a spin around the neighborhood roads (25 mph) and it would stumble coasting at 3000 rpm in 2nd needing to go into third to fix it. Throttle reponse seems laggy, like it need a deeeepth breathe being going. And once after a stop sign it bogged down on me and took a few seconds to do anything. Not sure what's going on. Will play around more tomorrow and might try this cruise around the neighborhood again with the autotune feature on.

[Reichart12]

Looking shiny inside and out.

Do those ITBs need to be balanced/adjusted at all?

Balanced with a synchrometer air flow tool. That part has been fairly straight forward but it's set with too high of an idle currently. They are balanced off the middle pair since that is the one connected to the throttle cable. Need to back that off and hopefully the others move with it since they are currently all in sync.

[roguetoaster]

Looking shiny inside and out.

Do those ITBs need to be balanced/adjusted at all?

[Reichart12]

https://youtu.be/RrHSRT1oL3o

Finished the base layer ITB install. Started the car and began troubleshooting whatever is left.

Next videos will have going into MegaSquirt where I had two of the three location set for wideband. Changing that to be three for three helped the car start right away. Idle set too high right now so hopefully there is enough room in the set screws to lower this back down. The throttle cable doesn't sit nice and flat so I zip tied the knob to the arm. Oops! Desparately wanting to get the ITBs and wideband to act correctly to be able to drive the car this coming weekend. Was getting cobwebs on it from sitting so long I had to take it out of the garage for a wash!

[Reichart12]

New Youtube video posted:

https://youtu.be/jvmAE16owLM

This is the actual install of the runners and throttle bodies that I did several months ago now. WOW I'm lazy. Breaking it up to 2-3 parts but I have all the footage to the first start so these videos should slowly release as I trim them up. And maybe this weekend I will get in the garage to sync the throttles. For the YT side of things, I'm trying to have a light music track playing underneath everything. Just sounds empty right now with all the pauses I take while talking. If anyone here has been watching the video, there was a truck video and the catch can video where I recorded on my Nikon camera and not the Go Pro, that takes a lot more work to set up but I think I will continue doing that. Should show how long ago these ITB videos were as it was before I thought about making the switch to using the Nikon haha.

And because I couldn't leave a post without a photo, this is from last weekends Pro3 event where they had a 50+ car grid. I'll get to the other 400 photos I took someday...

[roguetoaster]

Find me a set for under 600 and I'll do it

Ha! Next time I see a set...

[Reichart12]

Every time I see those wheels on a small screen I momentarily think they are those Ronal teddybear wheels.

Find me a set for under 600 and I'll do it

[roguetoaster]

Every time I see those wheels on a small screen I momentarily think they are those Ronal teddybear wheels.

[Reichart12]

Haven't posted much lately but still working on the ITBs. They should be finished soon. The car starts with throttle input and will idle. Slight vacuum leak due to a slightly too big hose being used from the charcoal canister without a hose clamp. Need to sync the throttle next and finish bleeding the coolant and that's mainly it before some basic tuning/driving. Planning to go to the Pro3 20th anniversary race this weekend to spectate and take photos. Here's a photoshoot I did of the car before the ITB work started, surprised I never posted them. Videos coming soon, breaking the install into a few parts.

[Reichart12]

Woah almost two month update... oops! So much for a week long swap.

Anyways, added a catch can. Moved some wires around. Things look mildly cleaner. Added the vacuum hoses to each throttle to the distributor block.

Did get a first start but you'll have to wait to hear that.

Still need to connect the brake booster and ICV and then finish the runners and trumpets.

[Reichart12]

I didnt get any hoses, fitting etc with the kit way back when i did it so have no idea how you are supposed to fit with supplied parts but i just got hoses from autoparts store and routed and connect everything and did not get too focused on neat any tidy initially.

VC i vented to catch can and then atmosphere, i am working on routing back to airbox in a neat way.

When i had that style of distribution block i had it sitting around not mounted in a bundle of hoses, i ended up tidying it up making a rail type distribution like the s54 but i suggest you decide on mounting and orienting it appropriately if you want something tidy for it as it will dictate the hoses and routings for the other stuff.

ICV is just a hose attached to a fitting on the airbox to the ICV then to distribution block. I would mount ICV close to the block as its a vacuum line so prone to collapse.

Thanks Digger that helps. Will be a few days until I have the time to get working on this again but should be further along getting some hoses to start connecting everything. I don't have a catch can set up but maybe I can make a little makeshift at home version.

[digger]

So I think my mechanic-skills have been struggling trying to connect everything back together with these ITBs. Wish the instructions just had a bit more info on what to do. Figured enough people have installed them but not really finding the details. Here are the four hoses I have leftover.



The valve cover hose, no idea where the other ends go.

Brake booster hose, I think I just need to reuse the elbow and get a new hose that connects to the T supplied by RHD. Other ends of the T go to one runner and the distribution block.

The ICV needs different hoses I think and one end goes to distribution block and the other end to a plug fitting that needs to be install into the plenum or backing plate.

Other item that is from the charcoal cannister needs to reconnect to canister and go to the distribution block.

Mainly just need to find a couple fittings and hoses to connect everything. Feels off since the instructions originally said only needed to provide some 8mm hoses but now I'm searching for all of this.

Here's my distribution block set up. Just going to be chilling in there, no clue how to mount it to anything. Also notice the wiring circle thing and two plugs that normally attach into a bracket. They will also just be hanging out until I can find a solution for mounting. Also need to get a real connection for the coolant hoses. All I had sitting around was this T haha. At least I know the size now.





Hopefully the last thing to tackle will be rearranging all these cables. Somehow I think the engine harness should have been run behind the throttle body, like next to the runner but there is not a lot of room to orient these things in a cleaner fashion. They do not want to bend into the places I want them in.

I didnt get any hoses, fitting etc with the kit way back when i did it so have no idea how you are supposed to fit with supplied parts but i just got hoses from autoparts store and routed and connect everything and did not get too focused on neat any tidy initially.

VC i vented to catch can and then atmosphere, i am working on routing back to airbox in a neat way.

When i had that style of distribution block i had it sitting around not mounted in a bundle of hoses, i ended up tidying it up making a rail type distribution like the s54 but i suggest you decide on mounting and orienting it appropriately if you want something tidy for it as it will dictate the hoses and routings for the other stuff.

ICV is just a hose attached to a fitting on the airbox to the ICV then to distribution block. I would mount ICV close to the block as its a vacuum line so prone to collapse.

[Reichart12]

So I think my mechanic-skills have been struggling trying to connect everything back together with these ITBs. Wish the instructions just had a bit more info on what to do. Figured enough people have installed them but not really finding the details. Here are the four hoses I have leftover.



The valve cover hose, no idea where the other ends go.

Brake booster hose, I think I just need to reuse the elbow and get a new hose that connects to the T supplied by RHD. Other ends of the T go to one runner and the distribution block.

The ICV needs different hoses I think and one end goes to distribution block and the other end to a plug fitting that needs to be install into the plenum or backing plate.

Other item that is from the charcoal cannister needs to reconnect to canister and go to the distribution block.

Mainly just need to find a couple fittings and hoses to connect everything. Feels off since the instructions originally said only needed to provide some 8mm hoses but now I'm searching for all of this.

Here's my distribution block set up. Just going to be chilling in there, no clue how to mount it to anything. Also notice the wiring circle thing and two plugs that normally attach into a bracket. They will also just be hanging out until I can find a solution for mounting. Also need to get a real connection for the coolant hoses. All I had sitting around was this T haha. At least I know the size now.





Hopefully the last thing to tackle will be rearranging all these cables. Somehow I think the engine harness should have been run behind the throttle body, like next to the runner but there is not a lot of room to orient these things in a cleaner fashion. They do not want to bend into the places I want them in.

[Reichart12]

"Fun" is relative. At the peak of my driving career, it was 25-35 events annually. Most of the time, it was volunteering to clubs for free track/test time. I'm getting old and just pay for the track/dyno time when needed anymore. I spent more time volunteering than working on my own junk.......

I can't wait to get to a track day. Don't really trust my brakes all that much but hopefully soon I can refresh all of that. I've just been going to autocross but have already missed three events so far. Oops!