My new e30 resurrection project

[shawmcbigdis]

Arrrgh. I have no ordered head bolts two times, from two different vendors, both claimed to have them in stock then never sent them and admitted to it having them. OEM head bolts are out of stock and now known ETA everywhere right now. Victor Rienz are in stock all over the place, and I also found a set of Febi on eBay. I'm leaning towards the Febi because of the problems I've heard about with the VR ones. Anyone have experience with the Febi head bolts on am M20? Or better yet know where I can get a set of OEM bolts? Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[shawmcbigdis]

Arrrgh. I have no ordered head bolts two times, from two different vendors, both claimed to have them in stock then never sent them and admitted to it having them. OEM head bolts are out of stock and now known ETA everywhere right now. Victor Rienz are in stock all over the place, and I also found a set of Febi on eBay. I'm leaning towards the Febi because of the problems I've heard about with the VR ones. Anyone have experience with the Febi head bolts on am M20? Or better yet know where I can get a set of OEM bolts? Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

Well I get home and there is a package, open it up and it's a set of VR head bolts????? Apearntly FCP sent them to me since the OEM ones aren't available, but they never told me they were doing that. What ever, they are refunding me so it's not like I paid OEM price for them. So the question is, are they worth using, or should I hold out for the Debi's, or wait till OEMs are available? Most bad reviews I've seen are on turbo motors, which this isn't. I also found one guy saying 2 of his bolts weren't straight. That worries me. But it's easy to check. So I guess if all bolts are straight, are they OK to use, or should I wait? Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[shawmcbigdis]

Head bolts, all the VR bolts checked out against a straight edge, so I'm going to go ahead and use them. Tracking for the head bolt washers said they would be here yesterday, so I placed the head on the motor, and then the washers never showed up. It's almost 6PM and tracking still says they should show up today, but does not show them out for delivery, so not so sure about that....

So back to wiring since I'm at a stand still on the head itself. Found 2 more connections near the oil pan that have no plug on the new harness. Traced them back and realized it must be the e motors crank position sensor. Not sure why it needs 2 different 3 pin connectors, but I assume there is no problem in abandoning them.

More troubling is the starter wiring. The starter on the car only has a large terminal for the positive, and then a spade connection for the negative. There is another terminal on it, but nothing from the old harness was connected to it. The new harness has a positive and 2 negative, all "eye" bolt connection type. I assume I can connect one of them to the other terminal on the solenoid which I assume is negative (although it is smaller than the bolt so I would have to bore out the connector, or put on a new one), but how do I adapt the other negative to the spade connection? I guess I could splice the one on from the old harness. I guess I could also just put on a new style starter, I would really rather not buy more parts at this point though....

[shawmcbigdis]

So, for a more interesting update, here is the engine as it sits today;



I should receive the throttle body gasket today, so I can install the TB and the vacuum lines, and the last of the sensors on the wiring harness. Then, if I can find a belt that will fit I can put the water pump pulley on, and hook up the cooling system. Need to hook up the exhaust to the manifolds still. Need to get new spark plugs, and a drop in filter (leaning towards a Pipercross), change the oil and that should be it.

I don't have the SSSquid chip yet. But I figure I can break it in on the stock ECU, install the chip whenever I get it, then change the oil around 500-1000 miles. It will run crazy rich, since it has 19lB injectors in it, but at least it won't blow anything up. Well assuming I put everything together correctly.

Oh I also didn't get the eBay exhaust, because they seem to be out of stock with all the vendors now. One of them told me they should have more in 2 months. Guess they are waiting on a new shipment from China. Bummer.

[shawmcbigdis]

Well, got everything put back together, and it won't start. It turns over, I have spark (checked with in line light tester thing) and I have fuel (I know because after cranking for a few seconds without starting it will start to leak form the exit of the fuel filter).

With key in on position I have 12v at the injectors, but I don't know for sure if they are firing.

[shawmcbigdis]

It's alive!!!!

So the something wrong was me. I had the fuel feed and return lines backwards. After I put them on correctly, the car would sputter and try to start, but just not. I thought I may have ruined the FPR by running it backwards, so I put the FPR from my ETA fuel rail on, and sure enough it fired right up.

I'm going to leave it like that for now, since it has 19lB injectors and a stock tune. This way, fuel wise its running about right. I'll swap in a new FPR's when I put the chip in.

Starting bleeding the coolant. Everything seems pretty good, no obvious leaks anywhere that I could see. Revs nice and smooth. Only issue is idle is a bit low and rough. It seems to be idling at about 500RPM, should be more like 7-800 correct?

Cant wait to drive it! But I have to, going out of town for work tomorrow, so wont get a chance to mess with it, so Friday evening maybe, probably Saturday morning. Going to try and take it really easy the first 500 miles to break it in. Considering just reving it in the garage it feels so much stronger/faster than it was, keeping it under 4k should be easy (but the upper revs will be very tempting.) Given how hot its been lately its going to take a while to get to that 500 mile mark. Hopefully it actually cools down next week so I can drive it to work. It was supposed to be cool this week, then ended up in the 90's all week.

Oh, and yeah the tach works, I was really worried about that part of the wiring, but it seems that went just fine.

[mike.bmw]

That's awesome. Congrats on getting it running!

[shawmcbigdis]

That's awesome. Congrats on getting it running!

Thanks.

I'm actually both pretty stocked, and a little pissed with myself that it went so smooth getting it running again. I mean, if not for the stupid fuel line reversal, it would have started on the first try. But all in all I'm pretty happy with it.

So after a little less than 100 miles, first impressions are;

First, it starts way better/faster than it did before. That is most likely because of the timing belt being off by a tooth before, at least that's my guess.

2nd, the idle is crazy rough. It's only a 272 cam, so that cant be the whole reason. I figure with the 19lB injectors, but 2.5bar FPR its running about 13% more fuel that it thinks. Maybe its having a hard time with that at idle, especially with the cam?

3rd, the 2.93 rear end is a serious weak point still. I've only revved it to 5k once, kept it under 4k besides that. But it is obvious that it still takes a lot to get the revs going, and now that it will rev to 6k+ I can't imagine how long each gear will take. It def has more power (even without being tuned right) but it still feels pretty slow because of those gears.

4th, the tach works but the econo gauge doesn't. I thought al I had to do to get both to work was bridge the 3 wires at the ECU harness. I did that, and like I said, tach works fine. So not sure if there is something else I need, or if maybe that splice isnt' good that sends the feed for it?

5th, one other weird bit, the cruise control almost worked. While I had it apart I took apart the steering column and cleaned all the connections on the CC stalk, and cleaned the connector at the CC control module. When I took it out for the first drive I tried to turn on the CC, and it felt like it was trying to turn on, but wouldn't exactly hold speed. I pressed the column up to accelerate and it started to speed up, I then let off, and it continued to speed up!. I had to hit the brakes to disengage cruise to make it stop. After that, it did the same thing where it tried to maintain speed, but could exactly do it. You could tell it was trying to work, it wasn't completely closed throttle coasting, it was partially open, but not enough to keep the speed up. After a while of playing with it, it stopped even doing that, and its just back to totally not working. So I'm leaning towards a bad stalk maybe? Since I took it out and sprayed contact cleaner in it, but didn't see a way to open it.

All in all, I'm very glad I did it. Hopefully I will be able to get the tune pretty soon, to see what it will really do.

[shawmcbigdis]

OK, finally, drove it a little over 500 miles so far. I got a chip from SSSquid, and a 3bar FPR installed. Idle smoothed up a lot, but its still rough, a little lumpy, like it has a big cam, but a 272 shouldn't idle lumpy should it?

I've revved it to 6 k a couple times. Feels real good in lower gear (1 and 2) anything higher than that revving that high gets way past the speed limit even on the highway. I really need to swap that diff. Anyone doing a 24v or V8 swap and want to trade a 2.93 LSD for a 2.73 LSD?

The only thing I haven't done that I had planned to do on this project was the exhaust. I was going to get one of those cheap ebay stainless systems. But they have been out of stock for months now, as soon as they are available I will pick on up.

Also this weekend I swapped out the BAVAuto spring for a set of H&R OE Sport springs. That is a huge improvement. I'm shocked at how bad those BAVAuto springs rode. I have cheap Koni STRT struts, so I didn't want to go with a stiffer lower spring, that's why I got the BAV's in the first place. These H&R's are just a smidge taller, but being progressive they ride a heck of a lot nicer. It felt like the BAV's were constantly bottoming out on any hard bump.

I think I will wait until after I get the exhaust to dyno it again. Not that it will make much difference, I just want to make sure all the "performance" stuff is done before I dyno again. It def has a lot more HP now, I'm interested to see how much more, and how much, if any, TQ it lost (which it should have with ETA pistons and 885 head). I'm wondering if the t-belt being off was already loosing me a bunch of TQ, so that I wont actually loose any with the swap. That's not a total fair apples to apples comparison for other people looking at this swap, but oh well.

[shawmcbigdis]

I can't believe it's been almost 4 years since I updated on the e30. I still have the car, and have done some more to it. This is going to be a long update, so bare with me

I found and installed a 3.73 LSD, while I was at it also installed Garagistic eccentric alignment adjusters and all their rear subframe enforcement plates. I also got some cheap axels off eBay and put those in at the same time. I then unsuccesfully tried to get the AC working (started another thread on that). Still not sure what the issue there is, but I haven't had the time or energy to deal with that issue.

Then about a year ago I was driving it, and something went pop and I lost all drive. Engine still ran fine, but I got no propulsion. Got it towed home, and the tow truck driver and I made the decision it must be the clutch went out. Made sense because as far as I know it was original. So I ordered new clutch, flywheel, trans seals, bearings, the whole deal. Also ordered a new driveshaft off ebay since both my u-joints were half locked up and I suspect the source of my vibrations I was having. Well, then I proceed to not touch the car for the past year, finally a couple weeks ago I decide I'm going to fix it. Get it in the garage and jacked up, crawl under and stop in my tracks and curse myself for not actually inspecting the car when the problem happened. the inboard CV joint on the drivers side axel came apart, the outer and inner races and the bears wear gone, and the axel was just hanging there, nothing attached to the dif at all. On the other side half the bolts were backed all the way out and the other half were loose. So, not sure what I did wrong when I installed those cheap axels, but I sure didn't do something right. So I order another set of axels (still cheap ones, but these from Amazon, and these have a more stock design so the washer plate things actually fit, they didn't on the old ones.

But now I have a decision to make, am I going to still replace the clutch? I decide I might as well since I have the parts. So I take the exhaust down (and break one of the bolts holding the exhaust to the manifold), pull the driveshaft, and then start on removing the transmission. Then things got squirrely. Whatever that foam blanket thing on the firewall is drooping down on my car, so I can't even see the top bolts on the trans. After messing with it for a while, I decide it's not worth it since the clutch isn't bad yet, and I decide to leave it in place and just put in the new driveshaft, new axels, and new exhaust.

So, a while back I went ahead and against everyone's advice, bought the cheap eBay header. I figured since I broke a bolt on the stock manifold that was a sign to just go ahead and try this thing out. This turned into an ordeal that I almost regret, but this is my project car, and it was kind of fun working through it all, but probably not at all worth the money.... Here's how it went down.

I would say overall build quality of the header is shockingly good for the price. that doesn't mean it's really good and can just be slapped on without a problem. It means the bends and the welds are pretty darn good. The quality control and the design is where the problems lay. First problem, the flanges are nowhere near flat with each other, and there is no way bolting them down will bend them into compliance. So I slapped a 40 grit belt onto my 6" wide benchtop belt sander and went to town, until I got both headers flanges all lined up together. Thinking this would be the most difficult part I was pretty pleased with myself. Well it turned out that was the easiest part of this whole ordeal. To get the headers mounted, I had to remove the heat shield from the motor mount, and pound the bracket out of the way, also had to make a couple little dents in the firewall for clearance. Then to once the headers where in place, but with only 2 nuts each keeping them there, while I fit everything I had to get the X-pipe onto them. This turned out to be extremely difficult because the pipes were at 2 different angles. I ended up lubing the header collectors with copper anti-seize and heating the x-pipe ends to make them a bit bigger. I was then able to get it onto the headers.

At this point I had a decision to make. do I cut the stock front section of exhaust, or do I make (or have made) a custom center section of exhaust for me. Since I'm trying to be cheap I decide to go ahead and cut the factory exhaust. Because I'm lazy and stupid I didn't realize until I got under the car with the now cut factory section that there is no way to slip fit the 2" x-pipe onto the 1.75" factory pipe. And then I realize because of the angles of both pipes, I'm not sure I could even put 2" to 1.75" adapters in the middle. So I angerly decide to build my own exhaust. I figure it won't be that bad since its basically just two 45 degree bends all on the same plane. Very long story short, I got it working, but I would probably been better off just going to an exhaust shop and having them weld something up for me. It probably would have cost about the same (maybe a smidge more) and wouldn't leak like mine is. I've got I think 16 slip fit joints and clamps under the car now, and there is now copper RTV all of the bottom of the car, because that stuff is a freaking mess to work with. But I got it working, and while there are some slight leaks, it actually leaks less then it did with the factory exhaust, since I could never get the pipes to the manifold to seal well and those stupid donut seals to the muffler section also never sealed good. So now I have the headers connected to all 2" piping until the rear muffler section that is still the stock 1.75" (I will change that some time in the future) Oh, and yeah, it is crazy low. the x-pipe doesn't have enough angle to it so it points slightly down, and thus brings the exhaust pretty low. It is easily the lowest part of the car now. I'll get some pics of this monstrosity later.

Oh, I also installed a KA Motors type intake system, it's a carbon fiber cylinder with a heat shield and cone filter in it (it was from another car I don't have any more so essentially free), and got a cheap high beam snorkel off ebay and hooked it together with some 3" flexi hose.

After all that, finally got it back on the road last night. Vibration is gone, so driveshaft fixed that. feels a bit stronger on the butt dyno, but then it's been a year since I've driven it, so not sure how much I can trust that.

So now I'm wondering should I get it dynoed now like this, or wait till I replace the muffler section so it will be all 2" pipe?

Next step needs to be windshield though. It's always been cracked since I got it, but its expanding, and the seal is so warn away in some spots it's starting to leak (I actually put silicone caulking in there to stop the leaks). Speaking of that, anyone ever use Safelight to replace the windshield. The online quote is stupid cheap, so I can only assume that doesn't include a new seal or locking strip. But how in the world could you install a new windshield without a new seal, that seems silly at best.