Northern's Sterlingsilber M52 Turbo 325is

[Northern]

For now, it's fun to have to work to get any kind of speed going. My riding skills are probably benefiting a bit from having to shift so much too.

The 250/300 range seems like a good starting bike for price, insurance, and to not kill myself by being hamfisted with the throttle. I'm ~260lbs so I definitely will upgrade to something else in a year or so when I can

[econti]

You may find that after a few months a 250 is no longer enough.

Also +1 on leaving argon on and draining a tank I emptied a tank into my shop over a weekend, we all wondered why we were lightheaded on the Monday

[Northern]

I bought a 2009 Ninja 250R. I took the course over the most miserable weekend of April and was looking ever since.

I really wanted a 2015ish 300 since they're fuel injected and some have ABS, but I replied to like 8 ads and heard nothing back. Then this 250 popped up on Kijiji for $1500 and was 10 mins away so I sent a message. He replied almost instantly and I went out to check it out the next morning.

It ran fine but was a little neglected: Front brake was on the backing plate, and obviously for some time. Rear tire was bald and the chain had a lot of slack. It had been dropped lightly on the left side at some point, and had 3/4 aftermarket turn signal lenses - the 4th had the stock lens and was hotglued together haha.

He agreed to deliver it for the asking price, and after ~$100 and a few evenings, it had a new tire, tensioned/cleaned/lubed chain, and new front brakes. I'm realizing that it's stupidly easy to do any maintenance to this thing, and I've been driving it to work ~4 days a week since I got it.

I don't really have any pics of it handy, but it's 99% stock and black (thankfully not green IMO). I haven't seen any of them listed for less than $2250 since I picked it up, so I should be able to flip it whenever I'm ready for something else.

[s14brent]

I got my AC Tig up and running and patched the E34 oil pan for the 4dr car, then promptly left the Argon on and wasted practically a full tank.

crap...i've done that once with the argon....price of argon made sure it never happened again.


btw what kind of bike did you pick up?

[Northern]

Bump from the dead, more than a year since I last touched this thing.

Last month, my E36 parts car was finally cut up and scrapped. I still have some parts to get rid of, but nothing really worth mentioning.

The wife was super happy to have the slab in the backyard again (until I showed up the next day with a motorcycle...)

I got my AC Tig up and running and patched the E34 oil pan for the 4dr car, then promptly left the Argon on and wasted practically a full tank.

On Monday, I had a friend help me switch Rusty and the 4dr around so I could drive it for a safety inspection sometime soon. After we moved it (primed the oil pump for a few seconds and then it fired right up), we drove to fill the gas tank (It's registered and insured for the first time since 2017).

Initial Observations:
1. Holy shit the brakes are awful. - Ordered Pagid OEs, and new rotors today. I'll bleed the brakes this weekend also to see what it do.
2. I hate this ebay shifter. - I have parts for this, just need to do something about it.
3. I forgot how fast the turbo spools. - really need to redo the tune as detailed in prev. post. Sticking with MS41 for at least the next 2 years while I'm in school.
4. Taillights leak even with new gaskets. They are cracked now, not sure if that's from freeze/thaw of the water or if it's from shitty drivers. I'm at a loss for this one.


Also ordered a blower resistor, new oil filter housing gasket, and some odd bits of trim.

The car really needs a good wash, lots of green crud growing on the front and from the rear spoiler drains.

[Northern]

Nothing really to report. The car sat all winter while I was bumbling through the rest of this school year. Now that exams are done, I'm scrambling to get a car together for Formula Michigan (again).

I'll be back from that halfway through may, then I plan on getting this car running again.

It needs:
Washer fluid reservoir
Lowbeams inop again - probably HID kit related again
Catch can


I also want to:
- Buy new 225's for the rear. They're currently cracked and almost to the wear bars.
- Get rid of the 2.5>3" adapter before the MAF to smooth airflow/ move BOV to before the FMIC. I don't think it's a problem, but the car stalls after a WOT pull and I'm picking the low hanging fruit first.
- Retune MS41 using the 'WOT Enrichment" table. I currently have it zeroed, with the main fuel table set up to go richer as MAF increases. But with fuel trims are enabled, it's constantly trying to make this main table hit stoich so it tries to lean everything out all the time. I need to make other changes to scale tables more so I don't run off the map anywhere.
- Swap in some OE shifter to get rid of this ebay thing that keeps dropping down into the trans tunnel.

[ak-]

I would appreciate an update :p

[Northern]

For the price, it's the best thing out there.

Would I buy it again? For ~400HP or less, probably.

I don't find the 6 puck that bad. There's still a friction zone and it's not hard to modulate the clutch at all, just the window is much smaller for slipping the clutch. The stock s52 HD pressure plate probably helps, I don't think it's very aggressive (comparatively)
In traffic it sucks - as it heats up, it starts to chatter.
Upgrade route if this slips would be to change the pressure plate to the Sachs 792(iirc) pressure plate. It's not rated as high as the M30/S38's -765, but would definitely go further than the M3 HD plate.

Alternatively:

RHD recently started making 24v flywheels that fit an S38 pressure plate. Pair that with a Sachs 765 like Nisse or Matti (and others) run, and you're good for 1k+ depending on clutch disc choice.

Probably a little heavier on the foot, but I think Matti runs an organic disc with >1k awhp



Now that I typed that all out, a Sachs 618 pp for the M20 flywheel will also hold ton of torque, so that might be a reasonable upgrade.

[marek|steezkal]

How do you like the FX 6 puck clutch and chromoly flywheel? I'm going to order the same exact kit (or the stage 2) for my ZF box. I'm a little worried about going 6 puck though. I've put a lot of miles on their stage 2 in m20 228mm size and love it but will probably slip once some boost is added this fall.

[Northern]

haha that reminds me of the time when I had stored the car at my dad's place for a week during the winter... (I think I went to Banff for a week to work or something?)

I came back and the battery was completely dead. I had my dad and his friend pushing the car up the street trying to roll start it, and the battery was just too dead for it to start.
After two attempts going up the street plus coming back, I think they really regretted their decision to help push haha

[Roysneon]

Just push start it.

[Northern]

Battery was dead when I came back(8 days sitting.) Not sure why... draw is 50mA, which is above "ideal" but not unreasonable, or enough to kill a battery in a week.
I also had a solar battery tender hooked up, which I assumed would help, but maybe not.



For my future reference:

Derale 51610
6.7" x 13" x 2" overall

Derale 51910
7.6" x 13" x 2" overall

90deg fittings?

[Northern]

I've always viewed VEMS as a megasquirt competitor, and I'm not really interested.
From what I can see, the current gen Link and ECUmaster offerings seem to be highly regarded in most communities besides the BMW ones(which seem fixated on megasquirt for the most part.) It's about as good as you're going to get for the <2k range, unless you're also considering getting into like a high end MoTeC or Bosch MS unit for significantly more.

Not sure if I'm going to go with it yet. Big potential for drivability issues if I ditch the stock ECU, and I'm not sure if I like that. Plus cost. It all comes down to how well this setup works once I get some tuning done.


I got idle somewhat dialed in before I left. Power went out while I was flashing. It wrote a blank file to the ECU, but somehow it didn't brick and I just rewrote over it.
It took me a few hours to figure out what the hell had happened.

I also did a little part throttle fuel tuning, but now I guess my lowbeam died, so I have to figure out what the hell happened to it now. Not sure if it's just not plugged in, or if this damn HID setup died already.

[marek|steezkal]

Have you looked into VEMS?

http://www.efiexpress.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=133

You can source it through Gunni from GSTuning for cheaper. He builds these to directly plug into M5x 24v motors even with knock control. Last I remember he had been developing it for M52. I have the pnp for M50 and am liking it so far. It's a pretty user friendly interface and even a noob like me was able to tune it to idle very nicely and map it well.

Another good one I see the Swedes using is Autronic SM4.

[Northern]

I haven't run into him yet, but I found some E21 guy... lol