The [Ongoing] Story of Hilde30

[grandeswag]

I second what grandeswag said.

Great job, and keep going. Plenty of time before the snow hits to get it on the road.

Also, coincendentally I am about to start up my new-to-me S52 as well. My project is a bit of a mess, and took some weird turns. I'll post my updates when I get it running.

We can synchronize like a nuclear launch

[dice2012]

Also, coincendentally I am about to start up my new-to-me S52 as well. My project is a bit of a mess, and took some weird turns. I'll post my updates when I get it running.

Let's go, more Delphin S52s! I had a productive weekend, getting closer to it being reliable, fingers crossed.

We can synchronize like a nuclear launch

R3V ain't ready for the S52 apocalypse. Also, the SDW exhaust sounds sweet. Never had V-Bands on an exhaust before, but I expect I will never want to go back. So easy to install vs the rusted out flanges on the M20 exhaust...

[dice2012]

Part 6: Baby steps

I started out with the burst brake line. All of the lines in the rear looked pretty fresh, as if the previous owner did them, so I replaced only the line that burst. For whatever reason, that one had sooo much rust, compared to the others which were pretty spotless. The flare nut to the caliper was absolutely shredded in half when I got to it, so I'm guessing the PO destroyed it, couldn't get it undone, and then gave up to make it a problem for the next guy (you're looking at him).



Anyways, I replaced it with precut brake line from autozone, and it did the trick. Filled it up and ended up only needing to bleed the rear circuit (did all 4 for redundancy). Finally, a small win.



Up next, I replaced the fuel filter, as I've been meaning to replace it since I bought the car, just kept pushing it off. I ended up replacing a portion of the hose that draws from the fuel pump, as it was bent and had a permanent kink.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but when I installed the OEM control arm bushings, I fucked it up and did them 180* from how they're supposed to be oriented. Also, since I used the hammer method, they looked fucked up anyways. So I used a three jaw puller and soapy water to get them off the control arms, and a sawzall to cut out the bushings. Cleaned up and greased the powerflex bushings that came with the car, and they went on fine.

I pulled the passenger CV as the outside boot was torn, and that meant I had to replace both of them (unless there's a method I'm not aware of). So after a bit of cleaning, figuring out how to put the balls back in (they fell out almost immediately), and then getting new grease absolutely everywhere, I ended up with a fresh CV. Not sure I sealed the inside flanges correctly, so we'll see how that turns out.



The original tires were pretty old (and one was pretty worn on one side), so I ended up putting some MA-202's (195/65 r14) on the basketweaves. My plan is to run these for fall/spring/wet as they seem fairly good for it, and then this winter find some nice 15s or 16s, and run either super grippy summer tires, or nice all-seasons (still not sure which way to go here). The all-seasons will be backups for when it gets chilly up here in New England.



I emptied and refilled the radiator/reservoir with DI water a few times until the water came out clear, then drained the water at the plug on the side of the block. Filled it up with about 1.5gal of BMW blue and topped it up with distilled water. The system was fighting with me over bleeding, and I realized that the check valve on the coolant reservoir must be faulty. I pulled the small hose off, and it let a massive pocket of air out. After that, I kept topping up with distilled water until it wouldn't take any more.

I wasn't planning on installing these yet, but since the wiring for the old headlights was actively falling apart, along with the janky ground wire solution that the PO decided on, I finally unwrapped them after 11 months of hoarding. I got these Hellas from a guy in Maryland who refurbishes stuff like that. He's actually the guy who sold me the E34 oil pan as well. The wiring was way easier than I thought.



First time with the car outside the barn, standing on its own feet. I was pretty shocked with how low it was after having it on jack stands all year. I drove it around the block, and I felt like I could cry. It ran like shit, though. The throttle was sticky so it was hard to modulate power, and it felt like it wanted to die. The whole car shook when it was idling.



While I made huge leaps up to this point, I was not able to get the car driving reliably enough to make it to the NE30 meetup. Hell, there were still body panels to be assembled. An OBD scanner was showing me codes for the Intake air temp sensor, cam position sensor, upstream AND downstream O2s (thought I coded those out).

Looks pretty sweet though, can't wait to have it done.

[dice2012]

Part 7: The final frontier

I've been sitting on this update for a minute, though whether it's an attempt at suspense or procrastination, I'm not entirely sure.

After sacrificing my latest paycheck for a handful of sensors, I set out to get this car running well. For the (5th?) time, I took off the intake manifold, as well as the vanos solenoid, to get access to the cam position sensor. Taking apart the plug wiring showed me that the internal insulation had disintegrated, so I'm glad I tracked down another sensor.



With that out of the way, I took the O2 sensors out. I couldn't fit an O2 sensor wrench over the rear bank, but I found that taking out the first bank O2 gave me access to the second only using the open end of a box wrench. Replaced the old with new Pierburg's, we'll see how these hold up. (Is there any merit in saving the old ones?)



Two steps back, one step forward, just how I like it.



While I was down there, I also took the SAP hardware out and installed some block off plates on the manifolds. Really wish I had just done this to begin with, as there isn't enough clearance to take off the small pipe running on the front of the engine with the radiator in the way, but I'm glad I at least tried it out to see if it would work. Unfortunately, the SAP pump was wayyyy too big to fit in the bay without modification. If I end up moving to CA, I'll put it back in and just cut a hole in the battery tray for it, but I really don't want to mess up the metal or paint for now.



With the wiring cleaned up and all the sensors put back together, I threw the intake mani back on and installed the new throttle body. The old one had the throttle cable clip snapped off, so I was using the cruise control cable clip. I wanted to see if that was the source of the friction that I felt in the throttle cable, since it had a smaller diameter, which should mean more force required to open. UNFORTUNATELY, the E34 cable was just slightly too short (measuring from the cable stop to the sheath) to reach the throttle cable clip on the throttle body. I have an E36 throttle cable on the way, so I'm hoping that might solve these issues.



I threw the body panels on, tried setting the panel gap as best I could (I'm terrible at this), fixed some of the light wiring that corroded, and she's ready for the road.



I did a test run around town, and it went perfectly, so I ended up feeling confident enough to drive a few hours round trip to get the ECU flashed again (delete the SAP/extra fuel on startup and fix the rear O2 fault code). I gotta say, even though the throttle cable is a little annoying, she runs great! Even ran into a college car club's fall cruise (typical WRX, Mk5 supra, Miata, love it), and they were blown away by the swap.

The S52 feels absolutely insane in the E30, so much power in every gear. Fifth gear pulls like it used to in third or fourth on the highway, and with 65mph resting just around 3k rpm, I definitely am considering finding a new diff/transmission setup. It's just asking for a 6th gear and a taller differential. But the Z3 shifter feels great (might change gear oils down the road, as shifting feels a bit notchy), the E46 gold tag steering rack feels phenomenal, and the new control arms/poly bushings are great. It's a night-and-day difference; it feels like a whole new car now.

Thinking to the future, I'm deciding between revamping the rest of the suspension all around, refreshing the brakes, or jumping into more rust repair on the front factory jack points, rear battery box, or some other spots underneath (or maybe all of the above???). I also think she's due for some 15" wheels and grippy summer tires. Also open to suggestions if anyone has good ideas for upgrades or maintenance.

For now, I'm gonna take a bit of a break from working on the car, at least until the winter. The past two months have been insane, going from my 9-5 straight into another 20 hours on the car every weekend. There are still some small fixes I need to do, like a sticking front caliper and diagnosing a weird radio noise, but I'm really happy with how far I've come. Until then, thanks for all the support, R3V.

[JasonWilson48]

Nice progress. Congrats on the long test drive. And now that you have it running, you can start working out the kinks in a more reasonable timeline. I was the same way about spending a bunch of time on the car until I got it running. Now that mine is also running (with some slight issues), I am focusing on other stuff in my life. We all need some breaks from our project cars at some point.

Also, I'm about to do the opposite of you, and throw the 14 inch weaves on with all season tires for the winter. I need to install the LSD for some real fun, but that is a job I can't bring myself to complete until I drop the whole rear subframe. When I drop it, I'm doing everything at once to limit down time. Probably a winter task when there is too much snow on the ground to drive.

Good work, and it is coming along nicely.