316 superlite

[petrolhead]

I appreciate the knowledge being shared.

If my fiddling serves as info source, you're quite welcome :D. Half the time I don't even know what I'm doing, just coming up with shit as I go.


Only way I could think of to accurately cc the piston dome:


The gasket's so thick I'm starting to worry about weight distribution :D :P

[Bearmw]

I appreciate the knowledge being shared.

[petrolhead]

To continue my spark ignited rant.. I'm probably looking at a bit over 0,7mm piston to head clearance at the edges. That should be good for burning and knock sensitivity.

[petrolhead]

Do you plan to run the engine with 98E or E85?

98E5, its available everywhere. It'll be a road car that even my wife could drive or fill up. Trust me, I HAVE been thinking about that compression ratio. With M10, high compression is not a bad problem to have. Normally people have to machine the shit out of everything to get even 12:1.. My deck & head height are close to stock which is good for a number of reasons. Secondly, with that head the actual cylinder filling will never be what it would be with 16 valves. So the actual compression pressure will be lower. Another thing to keep in mind is that my cam closes inlet ~76 degrees ABDC, so that brings dynamic compresssion ratio way down.
On a 16 valve engine, 300 deg cams and 12,5:1 would be doomsday/all out racecar-stuff.

Tonight I actually measured rest of the combustion chambers, doing it properly this time. All 61-62cc. I'll come up with some clever shaping, that'll ofcourse bring down the compression a bit.




This is now ready to receive new internals 'n stuff:

[Skarpa]

Do you plan to run the engine with 98E or E85?

[petrolhead]

A few uncertainties, but I calculated that compression ratio should be 12,2-12,8:1. I'll call it 12,5:1 :D. My estimate was not far off. I was only now able to find out, when everything's machined so I could really cc the head and pistons.

Finally, head gasket arrived. 0,066" thick with 91mm hole.

[petrolhead]

It's coming along nicely 8)

Btw, where did you get that mainfuse/cableshoe thingy? Looks like something i could use in my own cars.

Donated by a friend. I can ask where he got it from. I understand they like to equip RVs and cars with fancy hifi-shit with one of those.
Edit: Search Ebay for "fused battery terminal" or something like that.

Got my stuff back. Not sure if I mentioned it, but the combustion chambers couldn't be opened enough for the domes without hitting valve seats. So, both dome and chamber were machined.





Side project, the 18iS/ix diff, cover now somewhat cleaned up. Sort of

[litu]

This is totally interesting project :)

[Maikkeli]

It's coming along nicely 8)

Btw, where did you get that mainfuse/cableshoe thingy? Looks like something i could use in my own cars.

[petrolhead]

If all doesn't fail, the car will be taken to the paint shop come January. Since none of you have probably seen VW's LJ1B color:







A little something many people have never seen on their E30s.. 4 cylinder cars sold to nordic countries had an electric water pump feeding coolant to the heater core. Delete relays and wiring sets, massive weight reduction :D :P



I will have an electric pump but it'll be for pumping water through a oil<->coolant heat exchanger and obviously controlled differently.

[petrolhead]

Main fuse/cable shoe:

Probably a smaller than 500 A fuse would do. The smaller the better ofcourse. I bought 2 metres of 35mm2 and 20mm2 copper coated aluminium cable for the main power cables.

A little side project: Is it possible to combine an ix's viscous diff and a 4,27:1 ratio? I'm about to find out.

[petrolhead]

Pistons & head are still in the machinist's work list..
Local speed shop hasn't delivered the head gasket or shock adjustment tools I've ordered a while back.. :roll: So, not much going on.

Started fiddling with the engine management wiring. I'll hook everything up to the original fuse/relay box.

Need to add a main power relay, and two relays for pumps, injectors, sensors etc. Renewing wires from end to end, not cutting/connecting the old wires will be neater and less prone to have bad connections.






I'm guessing those original S14B20 injectors will do just fine, after all with 3,0 bar they're good for atleast the 192 hp that the 320iS had. Whereas my regulator is 3,5 bar +-vacuum.


NOS crank rear end flange seals.. Probably older than me :D


Conrod wrist pin bushes, timingchain cover seals, crank seal (pulley side), valve stem seals. All from the dealership, not even that expensive.


Luckily, that crank needle bearing fits the crank (6 bolt 1966 M10 crank) and the 262 CR Getrag's "clutch axle". Wasn't quite sure about that, browsing the parts catalogue. Ofcourse the correct installing depth is a bit of a question mark.



Fabricated a ground cable and a battery tray. "Both work in progress"



Smallest car battery that the local parts store had. Not too heavy and a reasonable price




Throttle body adapter still work in progress.. Should have just paid some CNC-guy to do it. Oh well, might as well finish it with the tools I have

[petrolhead]

Crank back from maching shop. Just polished, no other stuff done. Here's hoping that the journals haven't gone thinner. I measured the clearances and bought the bearings BEFORE I realized the crank had scrathes.. Possibly scratched by the same mystery shit that had scraped a mark to no. IV piston skirt. I've used assembly oil generously, kept everything clean and left parts protected from dust etc. when I finish. But my garage isn't exactly a laboratory.


A 0,066" thick Cometic head gasket with 91mm holes should be on it's way. Well, I'm anticipating a long delivery time but anyway. The nice people from Cometic told when I asked them, that the catalog-gasket with 90mm holes might be a bit too close for 89,93mm piston that is 0,9mm above deck. Managed to change my order.

Surprising difficulty with the pistons/ head work. The machinist told me the combustion chamber cant be opened enough for the piston domes, he'd hit the valve seats. First solution that came to mind would be to machine the domes a bit narrower, then copy the shape to combustion chambers.

edit.. I got the clearances right. Standard "blue" bearings on no. 1 & 2 journals, STD on others :


-they're 0,01mm per part tighter ..as I'm sure you all knew :)


Garage mate did the ECU assembly. I'm OK with basic electrics stuff on cars, but soldering circuit board is not my cup of coffee.

[petrolhead]

I dropped the cylinder head off to a guy who has a CNC-machine at his garage, he'll grind the combustion chamber edges. Like I might have mentioned, I haven't even tried to calculate or measure the CR. Piston maker quotes 11,8:1 but that depends on what head is the starting point for grinding, head height, block height, gasket thickness etc.. My guess is prettydamnhigh :1. My cam is quite aggressive, so with it, the dynamic CR probably won't be too high.

Pictures and words when I get it back..

I managed to grind off a massive 25 grams per connecting rod. Atleast now they're all +-0 grams to eachother in weight. I use rods from an E30 M10, the old Neue Klasse rods that I have were even heavier than these.

[petrolhead]

Enjoying the pix

My cell phone camera is a potato but hopefully they're clear enough to get the message across :)

What a project. Enjoying the updates. Great work.

Thank you.

Installed the pistons to block. A bit tricky to measure how much the top land is over deck height, since almost the whole piston top is domed.

So, I found TDC with a dial indicator, then just put a feeler gauge next to piston like in the pic and try with another feeler which is higher. Accurate enough? My measurements varied from "bit over ,85mm" to "a bit under ,95mm" over the block. Feel free to comment/advice, this is new territory to me :) !


Anyway.. If I assume that pistons are 0,95mm over block (to be on the safe side), and buy a 0,066" head gasket, that would give 0,72mm piston to head clearance.

Measuring how deep the valve pockets are in relation to deck height @ TDC felt a bit tricky too. Anyway they are lower than deck height. With 2,6mm TDC lift the valves shouldn't collide. I need to verify this but hopefully no piston grinding is needed.

Friend told me he's halfway through soldering the engine management box.. New black roof lining or whatdoyoucall the roof upholstery in under work. It'll be without any of the rear seat belt etc. holes.

A few parts arrived





-The old crankshaft rear seal had eaten a groove in to the crank. Nothing too big. It looked like the new seal's lip is a bit deeper toward the engine. Also I'll be assembling that seal "frame" with sealing compound instead of an OEM paper gasket, that also moves the crank to seal contact point away from the groove.