1991 BMW 325i Coupe - Build Thread - The end is in sight!

[88SuperETABD]

hey man, just read every page/post, great build. Props to you doing all this on your own. I wish i knew electrical like you :) I'm ME. anyways, I have some m50 injectors in my trunk right now to go along with my cammed 2.7i and m30 AFM. Where did you get your "rebuild kit" and how much?

Btw, why didn't you powerwash your head instead of soaking it. Mine got way cleaner than yours by just powerwashing it. but i dont think mine was as dirty as yours.

[MaksV]

So I cought a good break today. I cleaned the head up and went to my machine shop. Had my boy Archie take a look at the head and put it on the vacuum bench. After tapping the valves a bit with a hammer to get any stuff stuck between teh valve and the head(remember the engine is dirty as shit) he hooked up the vacuum.....................perfect on all 24 valves :thumbsup:




this made me super happy as it saves me time and money. We talked about it, cause I am planning on boost later, but he took a closer look and said to just leave it be. So tahts what I am gonna do.

If anyone needs machine work in the dallas area check them out . - Plano Automotive machine

Then I stopped by elliots to get the oil drain fitting., also got some cleaning supplies from the house. Need to collect my roloc pads and fitting from Alex and go attack the engine next.




At this point I was ready to go home. and when I got home I found 3 different keys in my mail box. Each of the "extra large mail boxes" (i live in an apt) had a nice big box of goodies for me :)




Steering rack

NVM50 Maf

NVM50 harness

Dungeon Motorsports Airbag steering rack conversion kit

[MaksV]

another 5 hour day down.

Question: How in the fuck do you remove the water pump. I thought you pull of the pulley, then you remove the 4 screws and then you simply slide it out. Or at least thats how it was on my e46. I did all that here, and the pump is still stuck in the block. Any ideas?

So today.

First I got around to cleaning the parts that were banging around in my trunk. Started with rebuilding the injectors, with the kit I got.





donesky.

Now to clean all the parts. first the oil pan bolts:



and then clean up the valve cover bolts, ground, nuts,


cleaned up the oil filter some



Al thermastat housing and parts


alternator and pulley, and bolt


PS p8ump


Shit, gonna have to clean that at some point.


Now I went to the storage facility to finally pull teh head and the rest of the pieces. With the right tools, this stubborn thing came off.


progress being made


off comes the crank pull, and teh thing that holds the compressor - not sure about actual name


down to the block. finally.


first gotta unscrew this tensioner, note bolt locations


then start to break the cam gears loose


tensioner and cam gears, and conecting chain off.



Main chain tensioner out



oil pump gear and nut off. going to replace with locking unit from Bimmerworld.


tried to get the WP out again, no dice


intake cam coming out



both cams gone


cam tray and lifters out - all the lifters pop well, so they are good. Time to get those bolts out of the head.


both trays


main chain guide


and the head is off. At first I was a bit sickened with what I saw...


This looks shitty - there is grease and junk in there. is this going to end badly?


and the head is just as bed, the valves are covered in grease type stuff...



Maybe everything will be ok. 2 minutes worth of rubbing with a dry towel.




5 hours worth of work. Done for the day, Now I gotta clean all this and figure out if I am gonna get any machine work done to the head. What do you guys thing? have the valves pulled and recut the valves and seats? or just clean it up and hope for the best?

















moving right along.

[MaksV]

Was going to pull the head today but when i got to storage I realized I had left my e sockets, and my fan tools at my parents house, so it gets to live to fight another day. Instead i decided to take off all the peripherals. and here again I was stymied in the end by the water pump pully fan clutch. :censor:

Any way here is what I accomplished:

what it looked like when i got there:


F*cking oil leaked everwhere. Great.


task 1 is to clean.

Now that that was done I decided to start pulling more stuff off. Starting with the hook.


then I found this thing. Any clues as to what it is? I guess it used to hold some wires or some shit.


Pulled the thermostat housing. Its already Al and not plastic. Anyone have a good reason why I should not reuse it? save myself 20 bucks?

and yay look at that. instead of buying a new gasket they used silicon. Super.



15 minutes with a razor


AC compressor is just held on by 4 scews - piece of cake


cant remove this without removing the crank. Cant remove the crank without pulling the WP pully. F*ck.


PS pump is also simple


time to take care of some random hoses that were cut anyway. I need to spend some time on RealOEM, to add these to my shopping list. Hate Junkyards...





Alternator comes off with the pully, and another long bolt


time to get the infamous oil filter housing off. There was so much damn dirt that I couldnt find the last bolt for a good 5 minutes.




Gasket was in pretty good shape. still had some flex to it so it was probably replaced at some point.


Decided that while I was here I would just yank the front cover off the head for funsies.


Locking up for the day...



My car was covered with soda from yesterdays sandblasting fun, so decided to stop by my buddies apartment building (free power washing stations), after washing the car I had an :idea: and went ahead and powerwashed the components too. Not as good as soda blashing but pretty damn effective.



Plans for tomorrow:

-Get all the bolts clean, and sorted.
-finish rebuilding the injectors
-get the tools i need
-head coming off this week.

[MaksV]

So I have not started with my job yet, so I am still kinda broke. So I will have to contain myself to cleaning and disassembling stuff for now as it at least seems to be cheaper. Also there is no real time line on thsi swap other then later in the summer so I feel pretty good now.

went to Alex's with a 50lbs bag of soda. Personally I think the power washer does wonders on its own as well. So I do not think I will use the soda again but you never know.

new oil pan:


valve cover - call me crazy, but I really like the way it looks now - clean but still old and scuffed, somehow it suits my cars mental image of itself.


cleaned these things up


got some new stuff in:

injector rebuild kit. Definintly should have bought from this guy the first go around. Everything is shipped very well wrapped and safe. And the price and CS can not be beat.



The infamous White325is trans brace


and 405 green lable

[MaksV]

boost? hell ya!

as far as oil return goes, just put it somewhere up high on the pan and make sure the bung will clear any pumps or brackets. and get a female threaded return. that way you can thread a barb in there or thread in a nice braided stainless line. or a plug for the time being.

what turbo plans do you have?

any one have pictures? Not really sure yet. The engine will get a turbo later in life.

[IxTech]

boost? hell ya!

as far as oil return goes, just put it somewhere up high on the pan and make sure the bung will clear any pumps or brackets. and get a female threaded return. that way you can thread a barb in there or thread in a nice braided stainless line. or a plug for the time being.

what turbo plans do you have?

[MaksV]

Well today started pretty shitty but the day got better exponentially.

So first I decided to take the stuff I had already removed home and clean it all up. Cleaning is the single most time consuming part of engine work I think.

measured the coils. All of them were at .9 ohms so all is well....or so i thought.



I started taking them apart to clean them and inspect all the connector boots - theya re all cracked or falling apart - another 40 bucks that needs to be spent


and then life got worse - as I pull on one of the boot the whole coil falls apart. I am strong but not strong enough to pull apart ceramics, so there had been a crack there.....


perfect another 50 bucks for a new coil.

the 5 remaining good coils.


worked the injectors out of the fuel rail and pulled off the electronics. I have a new harness coming in o this is going into the back of the shed for now


I decided to rebuild these - that will be easy, I have done it before, or so I thought.

Manifold sans throttle body.


damn even the throttle body was filthy. I swear they dragged this motor through used oil, and then rolled it around in dirt.


cracking old seals out of intake mani


throttle body - cleanish


intake manifold - cleaner


so I got my screw and vice, my pick, and got ready to take the injectors apart. All the pintle caps, o rings, and stuff came off with no problem. Then I got around to taking the old filters out. On the 19# ford injectors I rebuild for my m20 this was a breeze. Screw a screw into the filter put it in a vice and pull. They all popped out.


Only 3/6 popped out this time.The metal rims that keep the filters in didnt come out. Now I am really pissed, worst case i buy some new injectors (chea) but I dont like to lose. Then i rembered I own a power drill. found a bit that fits perfectly, and bam - no more metal rings.

ready for new hardware


at this point I am done cleaning. I decided I had time to go do some more work on the engine.

First things first. I brought extnsions with me so I could pull the plugs.

Does not look promising - oil everywhere.



time for teh valve cover to come off. At this point I am expecting the worst - destroyed cams, dirt, animals living in there. Everythign.



here is the valve cover



here we go. a little caked oil, but for an engine sitting for 2 years with no turning over this is ok. Chain looks good,


and BAM! the cam lobes are perfect, not even the tinyest bit of wear. My day is starting to get better


got the cover off. What is this for anyway?


didnt realize there was still oil in htere. Not one of my brightest Ideas, but thats what that metal thing is for


time to attack the oil pan



So i got all the bolts off around the sides, and it was still stuck. wouldnt come off. I figured it wouldnt hurt to remove this oil sensor.


now I am pretty upset so far at this point and the oil pan just refuses to come off. Then I get an email that makes my day perfect, but more on that later.

So i take a step back, get a drink of water, and come back, and look. Seems like the PS pump is in the way.

pulled one bolt and let it flop on its side


and voila. oil pan off.



crank looks like a crank. Turned it over a few time - couldnt find any obvious cracks, breaks, chips, ect/. that will have to do for now.



oil pump nut is where it is supposed to be. Not sure how i will treat this just yet.


I was able to get some of the gasket off - virgin metal



That email I got early was an offer for an excellent internship. I was worried about how I was gonna finance this expedition, but now I have an excellent answer. Progress may be slowed slightly but the financial bump will feel great, and allow me to do stuff right.

Plans:
- soda blast the valve cover and oil pan.
-tap oil pan for turbo (any pictures of the correct locations?)
-figure out the oil pump nut
- start buying stuff.

[MaksV]

Swap Build day 2. Got some more work done tearing this bad boy apart.

Good News and Bad news.

actually i am not really sure how to classify any of it but whatever.

-there is grass and shit inside my head(above my valves)
-so the head is coming off to be cleaned - and properly checked out.
-also there was absolutly an oil leak at some point some where
-engine is still dirty as shit

I think I will spend one day cleaning for every day I spend taking stuff apart. anyway the sequence of todays events....

the day starting
\

pulled out the ancient oil filter - didnt look that bad.


trash bucket


parts to clean


this little hose is fucking solid - had to cut it in half to get the injectors rail out... nuts



Coils and injector rail are out. Need tot test the coils. believe it supposed to be about .8 ohms across all of them. Not sure if I want to rebuild the stock injectors or get 19# units - they are cheap and flow a little better. worth it ? what you guys think?


here is the intake manifold....except after i pulled it off, I found I had more of this shit inside my head. Made me sooo angry.


and out of the car.



Next i decided to yank teh stock headers



and the studs are gone


and took the engine arms off. the right side is a pain cause of teh dipstick


e30s have nice large trunks


all done for the day


and it works as a shelf for when you need to go short distances.



thats it for today. Trying to figure out what I am gonna do with the steering rack choice..

[MaksV]

Harbor freight engine hoist FTW. Got mine in baltimore for 135 bucks.

got you beat $99 with coupon. :)

[rotarievtec]

Harbor freight engine hoist FTW. Got mine in baltimore for 135 bucks.

[MaksV]

so got the engine clean(ish), and moved into storage. Ran into a few small roadblocks but at the end of the day its in there. Big thanks to my roomate for letting me barrow his truck, it would have been impossible to do it with one truck.

a few pieces of information
-the bolts that go into the engine from the engine stand are 80mm M12 with 1.75pitch. for future generations

other stuff I got in the deal




will part that stuff out later.

Day started with some construction - gotta build this stuff- final product


decided to pull the flywheel and junk off while it was in the bed, to make hooking to the stand easier


home Depot rapes you - 2 bucks a piece. can only fit three though


going to carwash


we washed a lot of stuff off this engine - pretty nasty




decided to bolt the plate to the engine first and then just slide it into the stand.


Dad getting the hoist up.


and bam. I can fly



my new home



Now I gotta set up some lights and shit, and get to work.

[MaksV]

just thought I would leave this here

[MaksV]

I know how you guys love teasers so here is one for you:



more info coming tonight.

[1mz]

First off - fantastic thread man. Tons of useful information/pictures that will inevitably help with my suspension build. And to cap it off - I just discovered that I have a keyless entry unit (the very same as yours) in my trunk uninstalled and now I have a complete wiring diagram! Win!

Second - take your time as you have done so far on whatever route you go, definately the difference between success and failure. I say go m50, IMO if the m20 has to come out anways, you can find a 24v motor to replace it for the cost that you would incur to rejuvenate it.

Good luck either way and keep up the awesome thread