Northern's Sterlingsilber M52 Turbo 325is

[Good & Tight]

But there's not a scratch on it. If anything, it must've pummeled some other poor bastard's package.

This made me LOL....!! Good to see everything arrived safely.

[Northern]

I came home to a pleasant surprise...

At first glance I was a little scared. USPS and/or Canada post tried to work it over a bit:


But there's not a scratch on it. If anything, it must've pummeled some other poor bastard's package. Despite the above image, it was actually packed really well, and all the Tial gear was wrapped in a lot of foam and taped together to hold it together.



Really happy with the welds on this too. And the flange looks to be 1/2" thick.




Other than that, no progress to report. I finally moved the iX and my old M20 out of the parking spot behind my fence. I just need to move this car back there, put up the car tent, and put some anchors in the concrete to stop the tent from blowing around.

[Northern]

Just o-ring it.
You can rent the tool for it.

I'm not worried about o-ringing, I just don't want to remove the head, or buy pistons/rods/hardware to lower CR until sometime in the future when I can afford to do so.

[Northern]

Were running ~450whp on stock gasket on a SC car...

I didn't see that. Last one I saw was the 400whp sc s52. I don't have the cam/displacement of that, and as far as I understand, high comp SC'd cars are less temperamental than turbo ones. For now I'd be extremely happy at 350. Keep in mind there's only 91 here, no fancy 94 like central Canada or e85 like in the US. Water/meth may help me out a lot though.

[ak-]

Just o-ring it.
You can rent the tool for it.

[328ijunkie]

Were running ~450whp on stock gasket on a SC car...

[Northern]

I'd love to build a bottom end right away, then borrow an isky o-ring tool to o-ring the block and run a stock gasket. If the first gasket lasts at ~10psi for a summer, then I might be able to go straight to that option.

[328ijunkie]

The biggest thing with MLS is extensive prep, and lotsa copper spray. Still not infallible either way. Cutring is a cutring. Halfway to Oringing block and holds as such.

[Northern]

Mls leak nearly without fail, unless extensively prepped.
We use cutring hgs on all our customer FI cars.

I can't spend $500USD on a head gasket. I've been through the "don't go MLS" circuit and been an advocate of the CES spacer+ cutring, but as I read more and more, I see some people still running the MLS. Some threads mentioned newer ARP's holding better and block/head/gasket prep being an issue before. I'm still not set on MLS by any means, and thinking about other (dumber) ideas like CES spacer + elring gasket for similar price to the MLS.

If it comes down to it, I'd rather spend ~1k on 8.5:1ish pistons and run a cheap Elring HG (As Boris does) than money on a "consumable" HG, but how much money I can drop when the gasket pops is what really decides what way I'll go.

[328ijunkie]

Mls leak nearly without fail, unless extensively prepped.
We use cutring hgs on all our customer FI cars.

[varg]

MLS is garbage. Dont use.

Care to elaborate?

[328ijunkie]

MLS is garbage. Dont use.

[Northern]

that's a pretty wild coolant routing on the original setup.

It looks a little weird with the early coolant setup and some mods to relocate the reservoir. Definitely cleaner to just convert it to a late e30 setup.

[ahrensNW]

that's a pretty wild coolant routing on the original setup.

[Northern]

...there we go.