Emma Watson and 2 E34's (Low Mount Turbo M50 Project)

[Dj Buttchug]

Coming together nicely. Glacier Silver Cerakote looking good so far.

[Dj Buttchug]

A few bits of color for the finishing touches.

[Northern]

lookin fresh

[Dj Buttchug]

Turbo fits, sort of. These cast manifolds sure are lame

[Dj Buttchug]

Top end work coming together. AN fitting for turbo oil supply sorted @ rear of cylinder head.

[Dj Buttchug]

Still slacking. Progress has been slow. Switched to a Spa manifold. I could not get one of the previous ebay junkers to fit the way I wanted.

Heat shielding is done. Once the VC paint work is complete the engine will be put back into the chassis.

[varg]

Does the oil feed even fit with that fitting sticking straight out? When I fed my turbo M42 from the back of the head I used a banjo bolt.

[Dj Buttchug]

It does. Its a 90 degree line fitting. about 1/2 inch away from hitting the firewall.

[Dj Buttchug]

It's time for the drop boys. After hours of filling/ sanding/ painting the terrible magnesium cover, we have now achieved results I can live with. Some final glamor shots before the engine goes back in the chassis.

[Dj Buttchug]

Its IN

[varg]

I like the heat shielding, it's similar to what I did with my turbo. My car needs more, or new AC lines, I think the recent leakdown is due to the heat on the service ports.

[Dj Buttchug]

I like the heat shielding, it's similar to what I did with my turbo. My car needs more, or new AC lines, I think the recent leakdown is due to the heat on the service ports.

So does mine. The whole engine bay on that side is torched constantly. I've done what I can but I fear I will still have issues on hot days. My biggest concern is the last two cylinder of the block. I fear they will heat soak due to being at the end of the line in the cooling system along with minimum airflow. I think the issue could cause head gasket failure, especially at higher boost.

My plan was one of these options:

1. Find a way to use a small SXS electric clutch cooling fan and mount it someplace to circulate air around the turbo/ downpipe in the engine bay. Set it up on its own switch and use it on days where we see 120 degrees off the pavement in summer.

2. Use the engine block drain bolt as a cooling port and run AN fitted line out to a small radiator flat mounted to the bottom of the car. Pipe the coolant back into the main cooling system somewhere up front and further complicate my already over the top cooling system modifications.

Both potential solutions have one big problem. Space. All room in the engine bay is taken by IC piping, Scavenge pump hoses, oil restrictors, turbo cooling lines ect ect. Its a freakin' mess.

I have been searching for hours over the past few days trying to find a build I saw years ago where someone used the block drain to add in an additional radiator. The system had its own thermostat and was relatively small in size. The cooler was mounted in the wheel well with its own dedicated 6 inch electric fan. It was done on an E36 rally car out of the Europe somewhere. I wonder if it worked well enough to make it worth the headache of designing one.

3. Cut holes in the hood and install louvers. I am always massively against doing this type of thing. The louvers would have to be perfectly done and seriously functional for me to be happy with it. I would likely buy a donor hood and experiment. This idea could also work in addition to a custom under tray with lower scoops to force air passing under the car up into the turbo and downpipe area. Although it will require a considerable amount of fab work to do both of these (and a 3d printer I do not have) it might help. The only problem here is the additions are only effective when the car is moving. Stop and go traffic, lower speed side streets and a good majority of everyday commuting is done sub 40 mph. Not much air is moving around the car.

Upside to this idea- no space constraints for hood vents. It'll make the cooling system work better (in theory)
Downside to this idea - No longer will the car look stock. Potential ricer broccoli head mentality. Pop up meet fgts. Not ideal.

4. Sell it and buy a prius

[varg]

Yeah I hear you, I don't want to cut my car up either. Spal makes a good small cooling fan, I have one that I've been meaning to use to push cold air into the passenger side of the engine bay from behind the headlight when the air temp in the engine bay got above a set point. Another option that I explored was bilge blowers, but the one I was thinking of using sounded like an industrial hair dryer. The good thing about them though is they're easy to run a hose off of like those clutch blowers you're talking about. You can mount it down where the fresh air is and duct the air to where you want it.

I haven't seen that auxiliary cooler deal. I don't have a concrete image of the flow in the M50 in my head, but I'm not sure how introducing cold flow back there in the drain would affect flow elsewhere. The largest two coolant feeds to the head are back there though, probably because of pressure drop across the cylinders. Might be fine.

[Dj Buttchug]

After some thought I am leaning toward starting with something like this on the underside of the car to start. The plan would be to make a large scoop to pipe air up to the turbo. I had plans to build a custom undertray from ABS plastic anyway. With more air coming in from underneath it would still have to escape somewhere. Reading more about this and watching wind tunnel videos apparently its all about reducing positive air pressure in the engine bay. With no way to release air from the top, louvers in the hood seem to be the only real option that works...




Condor has a louvers. Paint matched and properly installed it may look ok. Still on the fence.





On another note the ClutchMasters FX350 clutch and flywheel I purchased for the car at the beginning of this whole ordeal now may not hold the power levels of my engine.

We had a client bring in a m52b28 top mounted turbo E36 drift car for a vanos rebuild. The engine is making 870whp on E85 @ 31 psi and 580 whp on 91 @ 22psi. Absolutely insane. The ZF 320 is holding it no problem. Out of control.

Here's the kicker. The car has some serious cooling issues LOL. Just goes to show that a 50k budget track car done considerably well (with 3 hood louvers)
STILL has engine bay overheating, AC system suffers and the whole right side of the bay is completely cooked.



Anyway,

This is the twin disk clutch that is installed. Pretty wild and very street use friendly.


This may be my next purchase as things progress.

[Northern]

Any chance it's like an e30, where you could cut the trailing edge of the hood to vent between outer/inner hood?
Here's my scrap hood I was messing with:


Not sure how well it works. I assume if you did it toward the centre, the high pressure zone in front of the windscreen would push air in - hoping the corners are at least closer to neutral.

I thought about those condor vents. If you mounted them from underneath and the cutout was clean, they could look good.