Pitchblack Motorsports Rally e30 318i (now with M50) - and some Porsche 924S stuff.

[irish44j]

so got a couple things in the mail today. This after bailing out of work to play in a charity golf tournament with a buddy and my uncle (who, incidentally, has a truly excellent BMW 2002).

if you haven't figured it out yet, black is kind of my color haha...


now, on to the mail.....
the first, you probably won't be interested in but I am pretty excited about.



the second, is the rest of the crap that I need to put this engine back together (other than a few remaining timing components that I need).



So, the plan will be to do just that this weekend. New HG, head bolts, a few random gaskets and seals I forgot to get last order, new water pump (with metal impeller), and front crank seal.

I know there have been some complaints about the Victor Reintz head gaskets here and there (and 10x as many people who have used them with no problem) but they seem mostly on 6-cyl cars and mostly with guys who are boosted. And as we all know on the internet, if 5 people have a problem with something they will post it 1000 times and convince 1000 others that that thing is "bad," whereas if the other 95 people don't have a problem with that same thing, they won't post about it....because nobody posts about something that is working corectly :) So, the VR head gasket is half the price of OEM so will give it a go and see what happens. This isn't my daily driver so if I need to re-do it, that's not a big deal.

I also plan to use copper sealant on it, which I think will alleviate any possibility of minor outside leaks (which I don't think will be an issue anyhow on a stock-power M42).

So...more when I do more...

[phenryiv1]

You'll be fine with the VR gasket.

[irish44j]

Finally got everything prepped enough to do the HG. Since this is the budget/beater car I really didn't feel like having the head skimmed, but my engineering edge showed that the head is flush and smooth, no signs of warping so I'm not real worried about it (famous last words).

Prepped the head gasket with copper make-a-seal spray so it will take care of any surface imperfections (none that I saw) and seal better.



fitted, with new timing case and profile seals



got the head on and torqued everything down to the specified torque + 90 + 90 degrees. On the last turn some of the head bolts felt tighter than others, but I guess I'll just trust the method rather than my arms. Should I re-torque to a higher value?



That done, I drove out the old crankshaft seal on the timing case and put a new one in using the wood-and-hammer method :)





So on to the water pump. When removing the old pump one of the bolts had sheared off in the hole (or it was already broken by the p/o, not sure), which is pretty inconvenient.



So I drilled it out and re-tapped for an M8 bolt (vice M6)....pretty easy in the aluminum anyhow.



no problemo. Fit the water pump. lubed the seal to help it in, and then started slowly tightening the three bolts (cross-pattern) to seat it. Unfortunately, even with minimal force, the housing cracked. This really pisses me off, honestly. The amount of force being put on the bolts evenly was truly minimal (using a little 1/4-drive ratchet!), and the housing casting should be strong enough to overcome the o-ring resistance, especially when lubed up well as it was. The I drilled out the hole in the housing slightly to accomodate the M8 bolt, and it doesn't appear that had anything to do with where the housing cracked (about 2" away on the adjacent edge).

So now the dilemma.....the pump is on there and sealed well with the other 2 bolts. I don't see any particular reason why the lack of the third bolt would cause it to come loose or lose the seal, honestly.......so I COULD just leave it as is and see how it works out. IDK. I hate to do all this work only to have to pull the pump later on with it on the car. Chances are I'll just order another one....$50, I'll survive. But still annoying.

[phenryiv1]

When are you ordering your Condor m42 mounts?

[irish44j]

probably not until sometime in the winter, since I don't need them anytime soon. Likely won't drop the engine in until after new year's..

[irish44j]

little crap tonight, it's a bit slow.

First, dumped all my oil pan bolts and timing case bolts into a nice bath of Dawn and degreaser to clean them up. Worked nicely :) I know, very exciting....



Then thought about how my garage is slowly being taken over by kid and baby stuff....



On to little things, literally. My tachometer hasn't been working for a couple weeks, after it was reading a bit off before that. Not that I really need a tach, I've been driving stick for 20+ years, but still nice to have, and I hate it when things don't work.

Everything else in the cluster works, and the circuit board batteries were recently replaced so that's not the problem. My guess is the wiring or plugs are bad someplace, but pulled it open to check everything and to put dielectric grease on all the contacts that I could find..





While I was in there I did a modification to the "fuel economy" gauge that basically just shows me getting 5mpg when on the gas and 40mpg when coasting most of the time, lol..

this is a bit more accurate, I think

[irish44j]

I guess everyone is bored with this thread now and I'm just talking to myself, but that's ok. It's all for posterity anyhow. Maybe I should change the title to "600hp drift e30 twin turbo and it jumps like the Dukes of Hazzard" haha......

Yeah, I get kind of bored between events too. Worked a bit more on the M42, nothing photo-worthy, mostly just cleaning up stuff, figuring out parts I still need to find, etc.

Also put the gauge cluster back together (tach still doesn't work....) and spent about an hour cleaning up the wiring under the dash, since random wires would on occasion just drop down near my feet.....

my daughter....er.....helped.



she wanted to drive



and she wanted to do something on the car. So with a giant box of ski/snowboard/car/outdoorsy stickers I have accrued over the last decade of working at a ski shop and working on cars, we had some fun....

because rallykar....

[johnson357]

Any chance you guys will sell any of those Dirty E30s stickers........I too just started to rally a 91 318i .......would gladly trade for some Bad Monkey Racking stickers....will get some pics soon.

[irish44j]

Check your PM.

[irish44j]

No progress since I worked almost 75 hours last week (ugh)....

But Scott Johnson, who runs his e30 out in Indiana rallycross/autocross, did send me some stickers from his team, in exchange for a couple of ours...Because rallykar = stickarz....



his ride:



Hopefully will score up the last few parts I need to finish the M42 reassembly in the next week or so. Then I'm going to look for an e36 radiator (possibly an aluminum one) and m20 expansion tank, since I'm not going to use the failure-prone M42 radiator (at least from what I hear).

Also once the engine is all ready to roll I'll tackle the transmission and make sure everything looks good :)

[The Volta]

Nice build ! I'm going to be stealing some ideas from you for my e30. I also dig your subaru too !

How is the flocked dash holding up so far ?

[irish44j]

Holding up great so far - that said I've only vacuumed it once. I haven't, however, noticed any bare spots or any of the nylon fibers coming off anywhere.

[irish44j]

ok, kind of slow on updates here as we approach the next event about 9 days away now. Then the last one is the second weekend of November. Also I've decided to run the one-off event that Susquehanna SCCA is putting together the week after that up at some dirt oval-track raceway up in Pennsylvania. Will be a kind of longish drive in mid-November, but I want to get some work in on (hopefully) a different surface/layout, so it's worth it for me.

So a few things:
1. A photo of SCCA Nationals popped up on my facebook page of cars in the paddock during tech inspection this morning. And what do you know, an e30 front and center. I looked it up and that's Doug Largent from Missouri region, running in stock RWD. He is the only e30 there. The rest of the RWD cars consist of a couple of Porsche 924s, 4 or 5 Miatas, and 4 or 5 RX-7s. Total field of over 100 cars.

photo courtesy of SCCA:


Got a bit of my own work done today. The secondhand header I picked up cheap had two studs missing and two of them rusted/broken off. So I took the grinder to them, grinded down the heads and popped them all out.





My daughter helped out by finding random tools and stuff in the garage and "fixing" them with zip ties....



And in the spirit of last night's presidential debate, let me put my own candidates into the ring:

[irish44j]

Since I'm heading out of town for a couple days, got most of my gear packed up for this weekend's rallycross. I'll have a co-driver this week as a buddy of Jim Spoth (who is one of the 4 drivers of the SR/PR 325e that runs with us) is coming down and wants to try something different than his automatic Saabaru that he brought last time. So hopefully everything goes well, and it will be nice to be able to see my own car in action for once :)

In the meantime, after a month of trying to find the last few timing parts I need to close up this engine, I finally just said fuck it and ordered them new (new main chain guide, new chain, and a few other little things I need). So those should be in later this week.

Also today received a package with a set of Ford Mustang Type 3 injectors that will be replacing my nasty OEM ones (btw, I have a bag full of like 15 OEM injectors, if anyone needs some - they will need new seals/pintle caps). The Ford injectors have new o-rings and pintle caps on them and hopefully will work fine. The "word" is that these have a better fuel spray pattern than the stockers due to the four spray holes (vs. 1). Who knows, but rebuilding/cleaning/new hardware on my old ones would have cost nearly as much as these did, so doesn't much matter if that's true or not anyhow.

Will post again after the weekend, where I"m coming in tied for 2nd place in MR class with Gorka Arrieta (driving Roberto Moreton's RX-7). Looks like Shawn has 1st locked up for the season (also in an RX-7), so last two events will be a battle for runner-up. Gorka is on brand-new rally tires now, so it will be an uphill climb - will have to hope for dry-hardpack conditions to have a reasonable chance!

[kingston]

Have a great time! I will be VERY interested to hear if you notice a difference with the Ford injectors.