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

[ForcedFirebird]

Unfortunately 885 heads crack where you can't do a visual. Typically when they are on the car, I have to pressurize the coolant system to about 20psi and wait about 30min for the coolant to start weeping under the cam. When off the engine, I have a rig that seals all the passages and pressurizes the passages. Usually filling with water to test takes forever to show a leak, so now I submerge them and pressurize with air.

[econti]

Nice knob

[varg]

I spent Christmas tearing down the spare head I bought recently. Plan is to swap heads and get the header flange machined flat to eliminate the annoying exhaust leak once and for all. Unfortunately the cam has seen better days, so I may be forced into an upgrade. There was also some sort of damage one of the rocker shaft tips, someone had this head apart in the past and pulled a shaft out with vise grips, I filed down the visible damage to protect the bores but there was some I didn't see due to its position which scored some of the lifter and shaft bores. Not sure if the lifter bushings are bad enough that it'll warrant replacement, I was hoping to just get the lifter pads ground to avoid spending $300+ on new lifters since I'm already in for a new cam. The head itself seems to be good though, I didn't see any evidence of cracks, the valve seats and valve mating surfaces looked good and it is fairly clean. I'm probably going to order one of IE's 272° cams, I'm not planning to upgrade the valve springs or anything and rev out to over 7,000rpm because it will probably fall off before then with my small turbine housing (0.63AR). Speaking of turbines, my wife bought me a shift knob for Christmas, and I was out test driving with it and remembered my boost creep is really bad in the cold (50s) weather. I was hitting 20psi boost cut before the rev limiter. I turned off the electronic boost control and was still hitting 20psi by redline. Looks like I'm going to be buying an external wastegate soon too. I'm glad to be employed and able to afford to now.

[varg]

Your best bet is finding a part number on the existing blue display and searching for its red counterpart. Usually the part number is the same but with a suffix, or one digit is different. You can power up the gauge and see what the polarity of the display is by finding the common pin and seeing if you get positive or negative voltage when referencing it to another pin for a lit segment, then it's down to measuring pin pitch and display digit size and hoping you can find a display which has the same outer dimensions for the digit size.

[Northern]

yeah I honestly have no idea. I have two Innovate LC-1 setups, one with a red gauge and one with a blue.
I want to gut one to desolder/extend the 7 segment and use it in the check light spot, and I'd rather use the blue one (I already cut it up to see if it's possible, and I just don't like the blue.)

[TeXJ]

Yeah they're 225/45/16 tires.

thank you too! :D

[varg]

Yeah they're 225/45/16 tires.

Nice to see an update. I imagine those 225's are grippier than my 245 T1Rs by a fair margin.

Any chance you have a link to that 7 segment replacement? Similar blue gauge problem here lol

The question is will it be useful to you? If you don't have the same exact unit it might not. Common cathode vs common anode, pitch, digit size. It also didn't entirely work as a fix, the display works perfectly and looks nice compared to that awful blue, but the gauge still blinks out on me and overheats for no apparent reason. I'm going to be replacing it, likely with an AEM unit.

[TeXJ]

Im guessing 225/45/16

thanks!

[2mAn]

Im guessing 225/45/16

[TeXJ]

what size are those tires? I cant read it at all lol

Trying to see what size I can go to with mine.

[Northern]

Nice to see an update. I imagine those 225's are grippier than my 245 T1Rs by a fair margin.

Any chance you have a link to that 7 segment replacement? Similar blue gauge problem here lol

[varg]

I finally got new tires (Proxes R1R) and a good alignment done. I had been putting it off with the pandemic going on, was stuck at home a lot and sparsely employed. 2020 has been a trip. Next up is a head swap so I can fix the broken stud afflicted one at my leisure and getting the manifold flanges machined flat. The exhaust leak tick when the car is cold drives me frigging nuts and it has to be hurting my boost response.

[varg]

Fixed my broken wideband gauge/controller today. Many of the segments on the display had stopped working, and it was blue which I always hated. So I sourced some similar displays which are red, de-soldered the old one and replaced it. I also put a heatsink on both the 5V regulator and the heater control MOSFET because the gauge would overheat and reset repeatedly if the car was hot. It'll probably still happen but it will cool down faster with heat sinks.

[Digitalwave]

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any E30 that truly has truly had 0 rust, ever. Par for the course with their age. Do what you can now to prevent it from getting any worse, and a full repair can wait for later days.

[ForcedFirebird]

Corroseal is another good converter, but it does leave a coating.