6/83 grey market 323i.. mtech I S50 5-lug

[kronus]

Nope... But we put a torsen 3.25 medium case diff in it last night!

I also now have a spare dme and a second set of l-jet injectors... Going to send them out for a rebuild and pop them in.

[LJ851]

Nope... But we put a torsen 3.25 medium case diff in it last night!

Tell me more about this.

[kronus]

Tell me more about this.

Wanganstyle built it. E30 medium case, 188mm 3.25 gearset from an e28, Torsen unit from an auto z3. Since the car is slower than most RVs now I haven't had a chance to actually try it out, but will do soon.

[Iain]

Awesome build, Kronus. I love those wheels!

It has made me determined to tick "Alpine S1 323i" off my bucketlist.

[kronus]

Awesome build, Kronus. I love those wheels!

It has made me determined to tick "Alpine S1 323i" off my bucketlist.

thanks!

and where the hell have you been?!?

[Iain]

thanks!

and where the hell have you been?!?

I got a new job as Editor of one of Australia's biggest car mags so I've been busy driving new Porsches, Ferraris, RS4s, M6s, etc in between buying an old American early-1960s cruiser :) Tough gig, I know.

PS: sick of new cars. Need another E30!

[Wh33lhop]

Cool a built diff. Is it faster than a lawnmower yet :p

[kronus]

I got a new job as Editor of one of Australia's biggest car mags so I've been busy driving new Porsches, Ferraris, RS4s, M6s, etc in between buying an old American early-1960s cruiser :) Tough gig, I know.

PS: sick of new cars. Need another E30!

sounds like a drag. need an intern?

Cool a built diff. Is it faster than a lawnmower yet :p

no :(

[kronus]

update, motor sadness is probably related to it generating almost 0 vacuum at idle. I'm suspecting vac leaks or a plugged exhaust.

[kronus]

went over the whole vacuum system, found no leaks. checked exhaust flow out the tail pipe, and it actually decreases as you rev the car... almost definitely sure it's a plugged cat, now.

I've ordered a Magnaflow dual in/dual out cat.. hopefully I'll have time to install it (and register the car) by Friday...

[Wanganstyle]

Tell me more about this.

Special diff to handle the special M106 later....from special donor 745i.. :P

euro car gets euro swap i suppose!

fitting a torsen was much cheaper than building up a clutch type unit to take the abuse as a Torsen can take 1Krwhp without much care. Also much more streetable than a most high power clutch unit;

[kronus]

[crossposted from m20 subforum troubleshooting thread...]

I built a smoke tester out of two vw hubcaps, some hose, an air sprayer, a zip tie and a rag:


you have to keep the air intake closed:


using that, I found that the distributor retard line was completely severed at the distributor. fixed, but didn't solve vacuum issue.

then, I read a lot about timing m20 engines with distributors and figured out that I did it drastically wrong the first time - I'd set it to sit at the O|T mark at 3k RPM, because I mistook it for the 19 deg advance line (Z mark), since both had convenient yellow lines drawn over them, and the distributor was maxing out its travel before getting to the correct advance setting.

I pulled the distributor out, advanced the rotor manually to give it enough travel, reset the timing to the correct 19 degree BTDC at 3k RPM, verified no more vacuum leaks, and went out for a test drive. Power felt better than before, but not great, and now it is backfiring a lot on power, idles at ~1200 and smells fairly rich. Ideas? Could this be just because I have the exhaust off pre-cat?

[after some reading]

Apparently, backfiring could be due to running overly rich OR overly lean. It also could be due to too much advance, OR not enough advance. lol.

I'm going to see if putting the exhaust on will make the backfiring go away, and also check AFRs, although I'm not sure what can be done to fix AFR problems on an L-Jet engine.

Annoyingly, the idle vacuum has only slightly increased, from 5 in hg to 8 in hg. Running out of ideas, although the high idle continues to point to a vacuum leak despite the smoke test's inability to locate any after I fixed the distributor line.

[Farbin Kaiber]

What ~PSI was your smoke at?

[kronus]

didn't have a gauge on it, but 5psi or so.

[z6ne]

awesome, keep it up.