Vorshlag $2010 GRM Challenge car - BMW E30 V8

[Hick]

brake lining sensor?

[FredK]

Question 1: This connects to the starter relay and eventually feeds to pin 18 on the C101 connector at the firewall.

Question 5: I believe K5 and K7 are unloader relays for the starter circuit.

Exactly.

Not only does C101 Pin 18 handle the start signal (pull in coil) on the starter, it also energizes Terminal 85 on K5 (windows) and K7 (blower motor), such that during START, power to the windows and blower motor are interrupted.

C200 also must be plugged in.

Has your fusebox been tampered with, and do you still have a C101? It's the round 20 pin connector that is connected to the fusebox.

[Fair!]

Exactly.

Not only does C101 Pin 18 handle the start signal (pull in coil) on the starter, it also energizes Terminal 85 on K5 (windows) and K7 (blower motor), such that during START, power to the windows and blower motor are interrupted.

C200 also must be plugged in.

Has your fusebox been tampered with, and do you still have a C101? It's the round 20 pin connector that is connected to the fusebox.

Thanks guys. We have one side of the C101 round connector and we have it mapped for some of the wires we're trying to tie into. It sounds like we need to dig deeper into this guy for most of our issues...

Since neither the blower motor or power windows work (a-ha!), it sounds like we need to trick the K5 and K7 relays into triggering them back on. I'm breaking out the ETK/Bentley and moving on to more work at C101.

Thanks!

[FredK]

Oh great, that means you probably only need to hook up the pull in coil terminal of the starter to the 2.5 mm diameter BK/YL wire on the C101, and stuff should magically work.

You can either go to the junkyard and snip a C101 from an engine wiring harness, or you can use a large wire tap to tap into pin 18 on the C101.

[Fair!]

Whew... electric nightmare averted! Thanks to everyone on all 5 forums where we post up about the E30 V8 (corner-carvers, bimmerforums, r3vlimited, SCCAforums, & Vorshlag forums) that pointed out what the K5/K7 unloader relays do (disconnect many circuits during "START" to maximize voltage to the starter), and to Larry from Corner-Carvers for giving us a call and making me check the build date on this car (02-86... so this is an '87 model!?). And the suggestions several folks had to go to the round 20 pin "C101 connector" (engine bay, near the fuse box) were what Chris had been saying all along - easy access to the harness, and the pins are actually numbered on both sides of the connector (in the tiniest font EVAR).



Costas with a test light is like a surgeon with a scalpel - precise, quick and potentially deadly! He scoffed at our attempts to find the perfect wiring diagrams, and figured out the start wire we needed in the C200 connector within 5 minutes of probing. He and Chris had the starter solenoid wired up and working (from C101) with a turn of the ignition key within 20 minutes, schematics be damned. After Costas jumpered the two K5/K7 relays we also had working power windows, heater blower motor, and everything else worked again - even the aux cooling fan! He was mashing various buttons on the interior and the "recirc" button on the HVAC turned the aux cooling fan on...?! That's the fan we're using to cool the E36 radiator in this car (the same a/c aux electric fan worked well on E36 LS1 cars we built, so why not our little E30 V8?). I had plugged the fan into the factory connector so I guess the jumpered unloader relays completed that circuit? That was easy.

Question 5: Anyone know the trick to triggering the K5/K7 relays correctly, so that during START they kill power to their sub-circuits but remain on during "RUN"? Remember - we don't have the original DME in the car anymore, if that is what controls it, so we need to trick it from just the "START" wire. Its probably another jumper from Pin 18 at C101, but we're going to skip ahead to the fun part and keep the relay jumpers in place for now.

Chris couldn't stay long but he managed to solder wires for the starter solenoid at the C101 round (20 pin) connector as well as from the fuel pump relay we've got connected to our engine computer to part of the fuel pump (I finished that this morning). Costas stood on his head under the dash for a while and got the brake pedal out so we could make a custom pushrod to connect the pedal to the E36 master cylinder we are using without a brake booster. While cleaning it up I managed to crack one of the low pressure nipple fittings (clutch hydraulic supply) on one of the better of the two E36 brake reservoirs we had scrounged up, so my friend Mr. JB Weld came to the rescue and that's all fixed up and cleaned, ready for final installaiton.



I did a little welding on the brake pedal bracket and then started to remove the lower part for relocation of the pick-up point on the brake pedal itself - right up until the power went out to half the town. Costas thought we had tripped a breaker, but the whole area went dark. Eventually we went and grabbed food. After 2 hours of waiting we gave up, Costas headed home, and Amy and I went to the movies (Scott Pilgrim vs The World = hilarious, crazy, different). I went out this morning and after a little testing to find the correct positive and negative leads on the E30 fuel pump assembly connector, I finally made the fuel pump go WHIRRR!, so we're very close to making the big loud and revealing update that people are waiting for... :)



Thanks again everyone for your helpful electrical suggestions!

[JoeyBones]

was this all so you could have HVAC and a working Cluster?

[Fair!]

was this all so you could have HVAC and a working Cluster?

Not just those - the non-working K5/K7 relay circuits were causing all sorts of systems to lose power, some of which we needed for the car to make a test drive. We needed the aux fan to work, etc. Now that the starter can crank, and fuel pump to go, we can fire it up.

[JoeyBones]

oh ok... Just seems for a car like this that you could hardwire a lot of things to switches and individual relays with something like a painless kit or on a budget robbed from cars at the yard and spare wire.. though what you've done is MUCH cleaner.

[Fair!]

Update for September 1, 2010: I said I wouldn't do another update without a video of the car running - so here you go! Please ignore the chuckle-head announcer in the video, and just listen to the sweet V8 melodies....


Click for video of the first fire of the Vorshlag E30 junkyard V8 - 51 MB, 1:13 in length

Can you guess the engine now? Some of you nailed it already (and some of you on corner-carvers gave us the idea in the first place - I had no idea those engines were this cheap yet, or this lively!). This sound should just about give it away. No, that isn't the stock camshaft(s) - it was a used set-up we purchased second hand.

Also, no, this engine/computer has not been tuned whatsoever - hence the copious clouds of black smoke (fuel rich). :D Once it can drive safely around the block, we'll get a bit of a tune on it. It was running last Friday, but dumping fuel everywhere (3 fuel leaks). We've been hacking away at tons of little issues that cropped up for the past week and a half. The biggest fuel leak is fixed, I've done a ton of small wiring re-dos and clean-up, LOTS of brake system/lines/pedal/pushrod work, the upper radiator hose was reworked/rerouted for the 4th time, engine fluids were filled and bled and rechecked, a battery tray was built, and more of the interior was installed last night.


Custom brake pedal pivot bracket and pushrod - to work with E36 manual brake MC

The E36 master cylinder is giving me fits - it won't bleed. I've tried the manual push pedal/open bleeder valve trick, gravity bleeding, vacuum bleeding, but nothing works. We can't get a drop out of the MC. It was bone dry when it was installed so we're trying a pressure bleeder tonight (thanks for the loan, Greg!), but the hydraulic clutch circuit is giving me similar fits (it shoots fluid all over the place, but won't firm up). When those two issues are sorted we can do our first test drive - and the drive-by video and engine reveal. Hopefully before I leave for the SCCA Solo Nationals, this Saturday! :)


Battery tray made of scrap aluminum angle and some old/bent end links (Mustang? Datsun? Some old junk I had)

Today I rounded up some loaner woodworking tools (tanks Dave B!) to help with fender flare wooden buck construction that I'll hopefully start tonight, and we're also making some dash panel inserts to cover holes in which we'll place a few crucial (and dirt cheap/used) mechanical gauges. I'll try to make a small aluminum heat shield for the open element air cleaner tonight, too. We're still looking for a few last minute bits before its ready to race - hopefully it is tuned and running properly enough so that we can race it for the first time in about a week (we don't have much time left after the Solo Nationals and before the GRM Challenge, arg!).

If anyone has the following parts for sale cheaply, please PM me!

• 4th gen Camaro shift knob - stock? aftermarket? V6 or V8? anything inexpensive - we don't care (we might just whittle something on the lathe)
• A pair of used but usable E36 front Bilstein Sport struts - and I mean cheap

If you're gong to the Solo Nationals and need AST decals (for contingency) or Vorshlag decals (represent!), come find us at the back of the paddock. We'll be at the big red Vorshlag trailer from Saturday to Saturday, Sept 4-11th. If I'm not there I'm probably near the courses (walking/driving/helping/working), but we'll leave plenty of decals out for the taking when elsewhere. I'm running Thursday/Friday in DSP... hopefully the weaknut M54 doesn't blow up! :D

Thanks,

[e30polak]

Holy shit those CCWs are huge!!! So damn Sexy!!! :puppy:

[Jean]

Nice, glad to hear it running! Sounds like an american v8 to me :)

[Wh33lhop]

I would guess a 5.3 LSx. Sounding great, how are the fenders coming along?

[KennyT]

Nice build. Want more video!

[JoeyBones]

I can't hear it, but judging by choice of tranny, i'm still guessing a ford 5.0. However, if it is an LS and you're talking cheap, my guess switches over to being an LS pulled from a 1500 Silverado...

[5spoke]

Holy crap that thing sounds beastly!