SNAFU; high performance 318is build that lives up to the name, Turbo M42 ➞ Turbo M20

[wworm]

looks damn good too. Really looking forward to the eventual 302 swap for this beast haha. If that ever happens....

[zwill23]

Car is looking great, glad to see it with some meat again.

I aspire to reach your level of performance / daily drivability, I always enjoy your thread!

[2mAn]

Good stuff! PM sent

[varg]

They must be running out of good candidates for car of the month, because as you may have noticed my car is this month's pick

Here are a few more photos from the shoot I did for the COTM feature.









Thanks, 2mAn :up:

[2mAn]

They must be running out of good candidates for car of the month, because as you may have noticed my car is this month's pick

Here are a few more photos from the shoot I did for the COTM feature.

Thanks, 2mAn :up:

NOT true!!

My goal for the Car of the Month is to feature cars that the owners have built for themselves. Its not about the fancy paint, fancy wheels, stance-scene. This car checks all the right boxes and there will be some shiny paint cars thrown in too, but at this point the youngest E30 is still 25 years old so its hard to find those survivors and really, these cars should be enjoyed, not packed away in some climate controlled garage.

[wworm]

I love this car. That volvo turbo badge is so rad haha. Is the "cool" badge below it also from a volvo? Also what are your tire specs?

[varg]

NOT true!!

My goal for the Car of the Month is to feature cars that the owners have built for themselves. Its not about the fancy paint, fancy wheels, stance-scene. This car checks all the right boxes and there will be some shiny paint cars thrown in too, but at this point the youngest E30 is still 25 years old so its hard to find those survivors and really, these cars should be enjoyed, not packed away in some climate controlled garage.

I'm glad there are others who appreciate my priorities and I appreciate the recognition.

I love this car. That volvo turbo badge is so rad haha. Is the "cool" badge below it also from a volvo? Also what are your tire specs?

Yeah the 'cool' is from an 'intercooler' badge which I bent while removing from a Volvo 740 Turbo. They're 225/50/16s. I love these tires. The car is easier to break loose than with the star specs, but it does so much more gently.

[varg]

Haven't been getting full boost lately, and it builds slow and sounds like there's an exhaust leak so I took it apart.




Wonderful news. Turbo bearings are hosed. This is the used replacement to my dead turbo which I brought brand new and ran on the M42, that turbo was immaculate, killed when a piece of engine deposit found its way into the turbonetics factory oil inlet filter and starved it of oil. This one was in good shape but not perfect, and now it needs a rebuild. Luckily I have a spare set of brand new bearings laying around, so hopefully the CHRA isn't bored out and they fit properly.



As for the exhaust leak, the turbo flange bolts were loose, as were quite a few on the header, so at first it didn't seem so bad. But wait, there's a bigass crack in my header, running across a joint in the collector and down two tubes. I haven't pulled the header so I don't know if there are more but I'm hoping not. I was really hoping this wouldn't happen, the header was so solid and confidence inspiring when I bought it. It has been on the car for a little under 2 years at this point (was back on the road after the swap in November 2016), and has seen many thousands of miles since I put something like 20,000mi on this car in the past year, but unfortunately all of these miles and heat cycles took their toll on it.



Spectoberfest 2018 is right around the corner and at this point it's doubtful I'll go. My last turbo issue occurred almost precisely a year ago.
SNAFU

[efficient]

are you just going to weld it up and throw it back on?

[2mAn]

bravo for daily driving a turbo M20. Ive honestly been thinking about ^^^^^^ this guys ^^^^^^^ kit for a while, but Ive managed to resist the urge and am in process of sourcing the parts to rebuild an M20, likely doing an NA 2.8

[KIRIEIW]

Dude, that oil cap is bad ass.

[varg]

Update: my spare turbo bearings are for a T3 and they don't fit this T3/T04E shaft, so I'm screwed. At this point it's either wait for bearings in the mail and do a crap rebuild (no blasting, no balance) or drive over an hour to a shop which will rebuild and balance it, drop it off, drive back and pick it up 2 days later, spending $250+ in the process. Maybe more than $300 if they tell me the compressor wheel needs to be replaced. Either way, chances of this car being at spectoberfest 2018 are approaching zero. I'm leaning towards a shop rebuild despite the huge pain in the ass that it is, it would be nice to have a nice new turbo. Plan is to buy a bigger 4AN inline filter than the tiny one I have which would clog so fast if anything came down the oil line that it would starve the turbo before I finished my drive and had a chance to check. Going to have to check the filter every time I check the dipstick. Not fun but feeding unfiltered oil to the turbo (sandwich plate or oil pressure sender fitting) has its risks as followers of my build have seen.

are you just going to weld it up and throw it back on?

Probably. I hate to splatter my awful fluxcore welds all over this pretty stainless steel rapid spool header but it's probably my only option at this point.

bravo for daily driving a turbo M20. Ive honestly been thinking about ^^^^^^ this guys ^^^^^^^ kit for a while, but Ive managed to resist the urge and am in process of sourcing the parts to rebuild an M20, likely doing an NA 2.8

Well my recommendation with turbo cars has evolved over the years; if you don't have the budget to put a bunch of nice new parts on it, don't do it unless you're ok with having some problems once in a while. Honestly the M20 has treated me well, but I'm sick of dailying turbocharged cars that weren't supposed to be turbocharged. The cheap power is nice but I have found myself not getting full boost a couple of times per year, consistently, even doing things "right" like buying a header that wasn't ebay junk and a friggin brand new turbo. The charge piping is so long and has so many joints with this setup that something always seems to be leaking, I've trashed my t-bolt clamps because they suck and gone to worm gear clamps which eliminated a lot of leaking at the joints. Now it's just exhaust leaks, header bolts are always coming loose on this car and I don't know why.

Dude, that oil cap is bad ass.

Thanks. It gets a lot of comments.

[wworm]

sounds like its time for a v8 :)

[varg]

sounds like its time for a v8 :)

I'm accepting donations

[zwill23]

Even "doing things right" can result in some trial and error that are setup dependent. If you've put nearly 40k miles on the current setup with that few problems I would call that damn reliable. Tying up those last couple loose ends would push it into "bulletproof" territory.

I believe Stage 8 makes generic locking header bolt kits that may resolve your loose header bolt issues, seems like the going rate is around $50, but if it resolves a recurring issue it might be worth the expense.