Northern's Sterlingsilber M52 Turbo 325is

[wilholl]

Work is slow, only one A/C in and it's almost at flightline so I brought my windage tray in to modify to clear the pickup bracket.

Wish there was a picture of the finished product on this windage tray.
I am doing the same thing on mine, wanted to know how yours turned out?

[Northern]

Wish there was a picture of the finished product on this windage tray.
I am doing the same thing on mine, wanted to know how yours turned out?

Test fitted it and the raised base part of the bracket interfered with the tray, so I ended up slotting that too:


I now have too many tires:



Aforementioned driveshaft ready to go on. Still need 3 more guibo bolts though.


I decided to finish the harness on Monday. Found an M20 harness in a box out in the shed, and snipped C101 + the coolant temp sensor off it.

Early on:


Example of crimps this tool makes with these butt splices.


One example Heat shrunk. Slapped some dielectric grease on each one before sliding the heatshrink over. Trying to omit as much oxygen as possible...


Finished Coolant temp senders(except for taping up the Y in the harness)


C101 done:


Note the two wires poking out from under the rubber backshell are for the oil level sender that the E36 pans don't have. I'm told one of them needs to see ground, but I'm not sure if it is the one labelled "Dynamic" or the "Static" one.

Also the two pins taped up are from X6031, and are switched +12v power, and datalink for the in-cabin OBD2 port that I'll add on later. I'll probably connect them to some 2-connector plug and run it into the glovebox.
Planning on using either Torque Pro or Romraider logger via this OBD2 port.


Even the animals are curious about what's in the box:


This guy:


TinyT from The Arc Asylum sent me this Xbrace along with a Hoodie/shirt. I was just waiting for the hoodies to be ready to throw in the same box.

I'm pretty pumped about everything he's sent me so far. Maybe I'll have the opportunity to buy some slick LSx or S54 swap bits from him in the future.

Flickr is being a massive POS right now. Nothing loads anymore, so I'm going to call this good enough for tonight.

[Northern]

Ugh Amazon still hasn't even prepped any of my exhaust bits for shipment and it's been two weeks now...


I started messing with their shipping options and now it somehow split the order into two, so apparently I'm getting my vbands and resonator friday, and the muffler does not have an expected delivery date at all.

It now says they're out of stock for the muffler, so I might just cancel the muffler and buy one somewhere else.

[Northern]

Vibrant 1047 muffler cancelled, new one ordered from autopartsway.ca via amazon for another $20.

Vbands and resonator shipped this morning, and will be here friday. New muffler may ship out tomorrow morning, probably will show up after the misleadingly nicknamed "May 24" long weekend that is actually a week earlier this year.

After buying, messing around, and breaking a lot of cheap switches, I think my MS41 bench flashing setup and power supply are ready to go. I'm just waiting on a time to sit down for a final test and cross my fingers that it all works.

[wilholl]

Test fitted it and the raised base part of the bracket interfered with the tray, so I ended up slotting that too:

Thank you sir! This is exactly what I wanted to know. Thought the raised part might get in the way. had hoped to have this done already but too many other projects.
Good work, keep it up, you'll be done soon!

[Northern]

Thank you sir! This is exactly what I wanted to know. Thought the raised part might get in the way. had hoped to have this done already but too many other projects.
Good work, keep it up, you'll be done soon!

:up:


I Meant to do enough work today to get the engine in the car, but apparently 325iX boosters are far from plug and play.

As it showed up, the vacuum nipple rammed into the strut tower long before the booster would sit flush on the firewall. I rotated the booster 180 degrees around and then it wouldn't sit flush because it hit the brake lines. I thought I could just bend the lines, and decided to look at Roy's swapped touring that uses an iX booster with no spacer... the reservoir was right against the intake boot, and the master rests on the ICV hose opening in the boot.

No idea how people manage to use the booster with everything interfering ~1.5" further from the spacer (considering that a remote reservoir wouldn't help where the master sits) but I ended up taking the morning to cut down and rethread the rod, then drag the firewall holes to mount it up. At least it looks alright this way.

Semi-attached the alt, half attached the wiring harness, and stabbed the pinktop injectors with new orings into the M50 manifold to make myself feel like I made a little progress.

Flushed the fluid in the ZF and filled with ATF.

I'm still missing a water pump pulley, and the idler pulley setup because my M52 didn't come with them(or were broken.) There has to be at least one here amongst the dead 24v's here, but I can't find any.

I now have 3 PS pulleys though...

[Northern]

Vibrant Ultraquiet Resonator and 2 vbands showed up on Friday. Resonator looks good, and weighs 5.57 lbs for anyone interested.




The Vbands... well, one is great, and the other is the wrong size. I'm not sure how QTY:2 of the 1491 flange/clamp became one 1490 2.5" and one 1491 3" but I requested a replacement. That replacement showed up today, and it is again a 1490 2.5" clamp/flange Assy. I don't understand how you make that mistake while correcting for that mistake ughh. Closing in on the one month mark for this order...



On the positive side, after cancelling and re-ordering the Vibrant Streetpower muffler, it showed up pretty quickly. No real complaints, just that the oversized 3.5" tips are pretty obnoxious.



Greasy Engine bay pic before cleaning:


Removed airbox and relay mount brackets by grinding them thin at the spotwelds and peeling them off. Looking great underneath...



I hit the rust with a flapper disc, degreased with acetone, and threw some bondo on it...


Sanded it down:


And Painted with an old can of colour matched 244


New ZF slave cyl and IE stainless clutch line that I've been hoarding for 3-4 years now. Subframe also installed with TX'd Ardrox AV-15 Corrosion Inhibiting Compound sprayed on whole subframe, and loaded up with fluidfilm on the inside/seams/mating surfaces before install.


After realizing the 325iX booster isn't plug and play, I rotated the booster 180 degrees on the master for the vacuum fitting, removed the booster spacer, slotted the firewall holes, and shortened the booster rod:


Read files from the MS41 DME, disabled a few things and flashed it back:


There's going to be a round two, because I don't know how to set up launch control on the M52 DME. It only seems possible to do it on the S52 version of the software, so I'm going to try to convert it.

Flushed the ZF fluid. No chips found on the drain plug, and the ATF I flushed with looked clean when it came out (although I only spun it by hand...)



I could've waited to do that on the car, but it's easier and only adds like 1-2KG to do it now.

Hopefully this weekend:
CHANGE REVERSE CONNECTOR - Need to remember to do this before I stick the engine in...
Rear Main (have the kit)
Flywheel
Clutch
Stackup shift fork/TOB/etc on ZF and install.
Starter
Sling engine.

I think I found a WP pulley locally, but still SOL on the idler.

[Northern]

M50 fuel rail was unbelievably rusty, so I spent probably a full hour in between light showers this morning with the wire wheel trying to clean it up enough to paint and use.

Also managed to get the engine off the stand, and change the rear main seal:



I found the old ZF320 reverse wiring. I'll harvest the connector and install it on the E30 wiring tomorrow.

[efficient]

You do work!

[Northern]

Good progress Sunday.

Started off with installing the flywheel. The FX Racing flywheel doesn't have a TDC pin hole, so I resorted to using zipties around pressure plate bolts to hold it in place like the guys running UUC flywheels do.



Then the clutch disc:


And the pressure plate:


I also reinstalled the TOB tube, oem TOB, and new(er) clutch fork with the same MoS2 grease as the driveshaft, and installed the gearbox & Starter.


EDIT:

Then we dragged the engine/transmission on the hoist across the lawn (fun) and removed the hood.

Ready to drop in (Or so we thought) [Feat. Roy]


Part way through the first attempt, we realize that we can't get enough tilt, and need to remove to re-adjust the load leveller...


After the first adjust we fought trying to clear the subframe with the sump. Either there was enough tilt to insert the transmission into the tunnel and clear the sump (but the head hit the firewall) or the engine was flat enough for the head to clear the firewall, but the sump hit the steering rack/subframe, and the trans hit the top of the tunnel.
After a few hours removing little things to try to make it fit, we caved and removed the steering rack for clearance.
Shortly after that, we gave up and dropped the subframe as well, and the engine went in.
After some messing around seating the motor mounts, we called it a night.



Lesson learned: This setup is obviously designed to go in from the bottom, don't be so stubborn about going in from the top.

It's supposed to rain a lot this week, so I'm not going to make my deadline of next weekend.

[Northern]

Well it was slow at work, so I came home and started wrenching.

Subframe and CABs tightened up, trans brace went on with the old E30 rubber mounts (I also have a set of stud-thru poly mounts, and the Condor Speed Shop UHMW ones. I've experienced how solid trans mounts sound on a street car, and I'm out. Maybe E21 mounts in the future.)

I spent a while searching for a shift rod clip, managed to get the bitch clip installed with the solid carrier bushing, but then I got to the back and realized that the rear shift carrier bushing is off by like .5" because of the shape of the carrier...

I'd never heard of this before, but This Link shows what I mean. I'm going to cut the stud off the rear carrier bushing bracket, drill a hole where it should be, then use a bolt/nut to mount it in the right spot.

[BUDNUNTA]

What software are you using to flash?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Progress looks good! I am curious how the exhaust turns out. I have The vibrant streetpower muffler and a magnaflow oval center muffler. I was very close to buying the ultraquiet resonator.

[Northern]

What software are you using to flash?

Reading/writing with this made by one of the guys on the Romraider forums. Works flawlessly and ends up being ~$30. Well worth it vs using the BMW software.

To edit, I'm using Romraider and their MS41 definitions. It's still a work in progress, but there's loads of stuff mapped out now. Even compared to a year ago it's crazy how fast it is developing.

Progress looks good! I am curious how the exhaust turns out. I have The vibrant streetpower muffler and a magnaflow oval center muffler. I was very close to buying the ultraquiet resonator.

I'm pumped to have this all together. I really hope it's not crazy loud.

[Northern]

I'm going to cut the stud off the rear carrier bushing bracket, drill a hole where it should be, then use a bolt/nut to mount it in the right spot.

This didn't work. I welded a plate to make the bracket wider, and welded a bolt to it. ZF shift carrier bolts up without crazy amounts of force now (I have solid shifter bushings front and rear) and it also is centered in the shifter hole.



One unexpected problem solved...


I stick the driveshaft in:


Oh, why does it look like the driveshaft isn't straight? Probably because it isn't.
Everything I read about using the E36 driveshaft says to get an E30 CSB and install it backwards.
I don't know who the crackhead was, or why they decided it should go on backwards, but they're wrong. The offset E30 CSB bolts to the offset mounts on the E30 trans tunnel to center the driveshaft at the CSB. If you flip the CSB, instead of cancelling out the two offset parts, they add together and your driveshaft is way off.

Driveshaft was almost fully installed, only the CSB to go. It was great timing to piss me off.

I could've left it, but future me would have been mad when it failed, so I pulled the driveshaft and attempted to remove the CSB.

It was kind of a bitch to remove and re-install without damaging it, but I managed it. In the process I pulled the whole rubber/mounting part off of the actual bearing and found that it's just loosely pressed on. I guess it's supposed to be preloaded so it doesn't work its way off the bearing.


Positives:

Water pump pulley showed up :)


(Well, the pictures aren't loading for me right now, but flickr seems to be down again so I assume that's the cause)