Brilliantrot 24v swap: BACK UNDER THE KNIFE!..Now with puppy content

[Nick_S]

Drove up this evening to do some work, staying at my moms and working again tomorrow morning.

Started with a little non-e30 work. Put new snow tires on my e34 daily. My buddy showed me how to dismount, remount and balance tires so that was fun.


Got cracking on the e30 after. My euro 320 linkage finally showed up and got it all mounted. I'm really bad about taking pictures while I'm working.
Nice and center, better and easier than trying to modify the stock stuff.


Hooked up the coolant hoses and modified the new e36 radiator hoses I had my friend order in.




Got distracted when and ate some Mexican food and drank beer.


....and then we kept drinking and I didn't do much else for fear of being distracted and a tad drunk, so we left and went bowling, ha. Going back first thing in the morning and while its unlikely, may possibly try to start it tomorrow. We'll see.

Cool working on my car selfie.

[Nick_S]

Did a little more today. Woke up with an insane head cold.

Continued running and trying to sort the harness, I really wish I had done this when it was out of the car, oh well.

Next I got to the intake manifold. Put new O-rings on the injectors. Found one of them was cracked, luckily I happen to have an extra set around.


It's the same color, just faded.

Cracked one.


Put new intake manifold gaskets in and all new breather, ICV and fuel pressure regulator hoses in.


Mounted it up for hopefully the last time.


Ran the throttle cable and reconnected the fuel lines.


And as far as I can tell, that finishes up the mechanical part of it the swap. Well I still need to bolt the driveshaft up. Was having a hell of a time getting the bolts at the dif flange loose. Any trick to those? Couldn't seem to get an impact in there.

At this point I was feeling ambitious and was going to try to reconnect the rest of the harness and maybe try to fire it but as I was working I started to second guess some of my labeling and figured better safe than sorry so that's basically where I stopped.

I did get a tad sidetracked and decided to put on some new Lamin-X I had ordered a few months back. Ordered some light smoke for the headlights and a solid sheet to do the bumper lights and finished it off with yellow fogs. I love the way it looks now.




I need to repaint my lip.
Looking back at what I've done so far, I can't tell you how much I wish I would have done the majority of this work with the engine out of the car. Connected the trans, the harness and all the accessories first, then put it all in at once. I've wasted alot of time retracing steps and has made it harder actually. Oh well, next time I'll know.

Till next time!

[Hans Gruber]

Doesn't seem like you hit to many MAJOR snags. Car looks like its damn near ready to go.

[Nick_S]

Car is cranking, not currently starting

[Nick_S]

Checked the main relay, all grounds, crank sensor, all the connections. Everything checked out fine. Pulled the fuel feed line and it was pumping through. Sprayed some carb cleaner in the intake and spurted to life for a brief second before dying!!!! So, seems like the injectors aren't firing. I'm out of time today and have some research to do but it's starting to come together finally!

[Nick_S]

Just to clear it up so I'm not crazy. The feed line for the fuel rail is the black one? That goes to the rear of the manifold through the pressure regulator correct?

[Beau B]

I would check your connectors again, I had a similar problem with one of my past M50 swapped cars and I ended up having two connectors swapped. Once I swapped them it fired right to life, now this was 7 or so years ago and I can not remember what the connectors were for, but they were the same connector and under the intake manifold. Probably not much help, but good luck looks like it is coming along nicely.

[Nick_S]

I would check your connectors again, I had a similar problem with one of my past M50 swapped cars and I ended up having two connectors swapped. Once I swapped them it fired right to life, now this was 7 or so years ago and I can not remember what the connectors were for, but they were the same connector and under the intake manifold. Probably not much help, but good luck looks like it is coming along nicely.

Probably the crank and cam sensors. They look identical and are even the same color wires, you have pull the boot back and one has red and the other has green tape on it. I was very careful not to switch these but I'll check again.

[Beau B]

Yep that is it, sounds like you are on top of it already..

[10Toes]

Just to clear it up so I'm not crazy. The feed line for the fuel rail is the black one? That goes to the rear of the manifold through the pressure regulator correct?

No, Fuel feeds in to the front of the fuel rail and exits at the regulator, cant remember which color is which.

Like the arrows on this show.

[Nick_S]

No, Fuel feeds in to the front of the fuel rail and exits at the regulator, cant remember which color is which.

Hmm, I very well may have it backwards. I can't recall exactly but I think the line that was pumping fuel was connected to the rear of the manifold, entering through the regulator. I may drive up tomorrow and try to switch them.

[10Toes]

Hopefully that is the problem as that is an easy fix.

[Nick_S]

Hopefully that is the problem as that is an easy fix.

Me too man. I won't be able to check till this weekend unfortunately. His shop will packed tomorrow and I'll be away for the rest of the week. If that's the case all I'll have to do is sort the exhaust and clean up some wiring and I'll be driving!

[Nick_S]

Currently sitting at the shop waiting to hear from anyone. The car is sunk into the ground and I can't move it on my own. Looks like another week down the drain. I'm about to have it towed home, it's getting incredibly frustrating to have to wait a week at a time to maybe get to work on it. Even if it sits till spring, at least it will be at my house and not an hour away.

[MF DOOM]

I like your cars. Bummer about shop arrangement though.. But youll be cruising it before you know it.