1986 BMW 325es Turbo

[Jonhansen]

Hello all,

I picked up a 1986 BMW 325es from a shop owner that was closing down and had to sell off some projects. The car had sat under a tarp in the back of his shop for about 3 years. He told me that the car was driving but had been shutting off randomly and couldn't pass smog. Regardless of those minor issues I picked it up for a fair price and decided to start ordering some parts and eventually decided on building my first turbo engine.

I've worked as an automotive technician (Lexus & BMW OEM) for years but I have always followed factory specs and this is my first time attempting a "custom" build so feel free to leave any advice or feedback. This seemed like the best forum for fun e30 builds so I look forward to keep posting updates. And as of now I have been building this car for about a year and I have a lot of content so I will slowly post up little sections of my build.

The goal was to take the M20B27 that was in it, and swap in an 885 cylinder head and through some boost at it and see what happens...


Here's a picture of the car when I first went to look at it (Dec 2018)

[IMG]fullsizeoutput_1240 by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

And here is how she is looking in the driveway right now (Feb 2020)

[IMG]E30 by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]E30 by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]fullsizeoutput_1236 by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]fullsizeoutput_1234 by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

ENGINE BLOCK/TOP END:

• 885 cylinder head from 1989 325is
• Ireland Engineering 272 Camshaft
• Compression Ratio 8.5:1 (educated guess)
• M20B25 Intake Manifold
• M20B25 Throttle Body
• M20B25 Idle Speed Controller
• OEM Main Bearings – Stock Clearance
• OEM Connecting Rod Bearings – Stock Clearance
• Goetze Piston Rings – OEM Gap Spec
• Goetze Head Gasket
• ARP Cylinder Head Studs
• KA Motors Oil Filter Relocation Kit
• Bimmerheads Oil Feed Tap
• Silicone Radiator Hoses
• Relocated Coolant Reservoir (my own design)
• KA Motors Headlight Induction Kit

TRANSMISSION

• Clutch Masters Stage 2 Kit
• JB Racing Aluminum Lightened Flywheel
• IE Super Short Shift Kit
• Weighted BMW M Knob
• Condor Speed Shop Poly Transmission Mounts

FUEL/FORCED INDUCTION

• Unknown Brand Turbocharger T3 Turbine-63 Comp-50AR
• CX Racing T3/T4 V2 Manifold
• Turbosmart Ultra Gate 38mm Wastegate
• CX Racing V2 Front Mount Intercooler Kit
• Custom Intercooler Piping
• TRE 70ft/lb Fuel Injectors
• Walbro 255 Fuel Pump
• Tomei Adjustable Fuel Pressure Regulator
• Vibrant Performance Vacuum Manifold
• DiyAutotune Electronic Boost Controller
• 3” CX Racing Downpipe

ELECTRONICS

• Megasquirt MS2 PnP
• Modified Late Model Engine Harness
• Painless Performance Fuse Block w/ Relay Controls
• Innovate Wideband Sensor/Controller
• O-LED Boost & Volt Gauges
• Innovate Wideband Gauge

SUSPENSION/WHEELS

• Bilstein Sport Shocks
• H&R Lowering Springs
• M3 Offset Front Control Arms
• Enkei 92 15x8"
• Nitto NT05 P205/50 R15

Sooo as of now, the car has fired up for a few minutes but there is not a reliable map on the ECU and I'm a bit nervous I'm going to cause damage if I just start messing with it. So I am in the process of waiting to send this over to a tuning shop that I've found around my area, and hopefully with these tax returns I should have some funding secured (LOL) to get this thing fired up and ripping, or at least have an idea on what I messed up during this whole process?!

Feel free to hit me with some questions, I'll answer to the best of my knowledge

[mjweimer]

Welcome and great looking car! You have certainly done some solid work getting the car to its current state - the engine bay looks tidy. Can't help you with info on the tuning but there are plenty of folks on this board that have experience.

I look forward to the updates.


MJ

[mike.bmw]

What a great first post and introduction! Excellent choice for wheel color. Can't go wrong with white on gold, though I may be a bit biased. :)

[2mAn]

Great looking car. Where are you planning to take the car for the tuning?

[efficient]

very clean. are you going to swap to a different differential?

[Jonhansen]

Great looking car. Where are you planning to take the car for the tuning?

Thanks! I've had two people now refer me to a guy in Van Nuys who has tuned a lot of old bimmers and is pretty familiar with Megasquirt & Haltech. I've yet to meet him but he goes by TurboJoeTuned on instagram. Seems reputable, and I will post up results when I head out there. The goal right now is to get the engine broken in, and then I will start tuning for some higher numbers. As of now, I have little faith in the turbo that I have on the car so I don't plan to go balls-to-the-wall right out of the gate.

very clean. are you going to swap to a different differential?

Thanks, I've been told since it is a genuine eS Model it should have a Limited Slip Differential 2.93.. but I've yet to take the time and clean of the metal tag and actually see the part number. I'm going to be shifting my focus to the differential and suspension once I have the car running and I can finally take it out and see how it feels.

Can't go wrong with white on gold, though I may be a bit biased. :)

Thanks! I've read up on your build and I have a lot of respect for a clean OEM look like yours I would like to eventually move into a nice set of BBS but the Enkeis are going to work for now

[Jonhansen]

Here are some pictures from restoring & modifying the engine harness, this was probably one of the most time consuming parts of the process for me since I feel like there is a lot of misinformation out there online and I had to spend a lot of time verifying what pins and wires were correct via some old wiring diagrams and using them to help rewire the new harness...

As most of you probably know my car originally came with the older style 35-Pin ECU... and the Megasquirt MSII PnP utilizes the 55-Pin ECU from the newer models... since I was already swapping the top end of the engine (Head, Intake Manifold, Throttle etc.) I decided to just source a late model harness and modify the body C101 connector to fit with my vehicle. Fortunately, my vehicle already had the "round style" body connector so I just had to de-pin & re-pin some wires.

I did have some setbacks, when I started peeling back the harness tape I found some pretty sketch wiring repairs which I believe was the source of the melted wires I ended up finding, so I had to re-wire some parts of the circuit but overall it wasn't too bad.

Harness Modifications:
- Used Late Model Harness from 325iC (seller stated)
- Repaired melted wires on the Engine Main Relay Circuit
- Swapped the pins to the correct location for body harness C101
- Removed the O2 Heater Relay Circuit
- Removed the Air Fuel Meter Connector
- Modified Clutch Switch for Megasquirt Launch Control
- Relocated OBC into Glove Box
- Added the GM IAT Sensor
- Added the Innovate Wideband Sensor Harness
- Added Electronic Boost Controller
- Installed Painless Performance Fuse/Relay Box
- Fused OLED Volt/Boost Gauges
- Fused Boost Controller
- Fused Innovate Wideband Controller
- Fused Megasquirt ECU
- Re-loomed withe OEM Harness Tape
- Replaced all terminals for Power/Ground Studs
- "Snake Skin" for all branches of the engine harness

First Inspection of harness with all tape removed:

[IMG]Engine Harness by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

During Inspection found melted wires and some interesting relay work:

[IMG]Relays by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]Engine Harness by Jonathan Hansen[IMG]

[IMG]Mess by Jonathan Hansen[IMG]

The signs of a 30 year old wiring harness

[IMG]Engine Harness by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]



Final Results:

[IMG]Engine Harness by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]Engine Harness by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]Engine Harness by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

Location of the ECU & Fuse Block

[IMG]ECU by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]Fuse Block by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[jeenyus]

Nooice!

[325isman]

Beautiful......great looking car.

[Jonhansen]

I'm a big fan of the OEM+ vibes, and your typical A-Pillar gauge pod just gets me... meh.

I wanted to run something like the Awron Gauge Display like this:



But this is still a "budget build" so $700 for a gauge was just not in the cards.. haha but after doing some digging I found some small O-LED Displays and I had a little idea and decided to make my own little setup

[IMG]Displays by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]Displays by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]Displays by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[IMG]Displays by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

Hindsight, it probably would've been easier to run some regular gauges in the air vents or something... but I get a kick out of doing these little projects and that was kind of the reason I started building this car in the first place.

I also swapped in a 7k Tach and deleted the econometer just for fun

[IMG]Cluster by Jonathan Hansen[/IMG]

[jeenyus]

that's great work! if only it could have been red or orange in color.

[RobE30]

This is a great project! Any updates?

[Jonhansen]

What's up guys! Sorry for the lack of posting.. Works been a little crazy these past couple weeks.. ha

So I managed to get the car out to Van Nuys to Turbo Joe Tuning... Great guy, full of knowledge. We were able to get the car fired up and running but I definitely had some issues to take care of before we felt good about tuning on the dyno and trying to see what kind of power she makes. As of now the tune is pretty fuel rich, I can smell the unburned fuel when it's idling... but I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I had a bad exhaust manifold gasket which I'm assuming would give the wideband a "false lean reading".... so now that I have this fixed, it seems that the fuel map is still over-compensating with fuel.

Nonetheless, it's running!! Once I have addressed some of the little gremlins and I have some more time one of these weekends I will have this back out to his shop so we can actually do some dyno pulls. I'll make sure to take some video this next time around.



Some of the issues I've addressed in the past couple weeks:
- Replaced the Distributer Cap (Some corrosion on the points)
- Fixed an exhaust manifold leak from a poor gasket.. I replaced it with an OEM gasket, just had to cut the heat-shielding out to fit around the turbocharger
- Rewired the Innovate Wideband Controller Analog Output Wire.
- Full Brake Job (Pads, Rotors, Rebuild Calipers, Steel Braided Brake Lines)
- Installed Wheel Studs, because the P.O. had some weird Hex Head Lug Bolts that ended up hitting the parking brake in the rear.
- Valve Adjustment
- Drained the old fuel out of the tank and got a fresh tank of gas..



Removed the Turbocharger and replaced the Exhaust Manifold Gasket, I also had to route my Wastegate Vacuum Lines correctly..




At this point, I still have some minor things to adjust and fix:
- I need to change the configuration of the Innovate Wideband Controller so both of the outputs are a 1-5V Wideband reference. As of now there is only one output ands that's hooked up to the MSII, so my gauge is not reading properly.
- Route the vacuum lines to the wastegate correctly...
- Fix a Power Steering Fluid Leak... kind of looks like its the steering rack itself, and if that's the case I will probably hold off a bit.. the leak isn't too bad right now.
- Replace the Coolant Temp Sensor
- Figure out why my Fuel Level Gauge is not working (Stuck on Full)
- Tachometer is acting weird... It just reads around 1200RPM and will react a bit when I rev the engine but it is not accurate..
- Thinking of getting some of the new KW Coilovers
- Get a better tune!!

[Jonhansen]

My friend just bought a Buell S1 Lightning, so we decided to cruise around a bit and do an impromptu photo shoot down the street!

[rattrap]

great work! Can you find a part number for the painless wiring you used? I am about to go the same route with that and Megasquirt.

Thanks!