Northern's Sterlingsilber M52 Turbo 325is

[Northern]

Ordered some bits during the black Friday sales:
Garagistic delrin subframe 12mm riser bushings
Garagistic Weld-on m3 style sway bar tabs
Revshift 95a trailing arm bushings.

I already have studs in my diff to make it easier to line up and hold the smaller diff spacers I'm running because of the shitty Lencas bushings I bought forever ago. I did need 12mm diff spacers though, so I found an old stainless bolt and turned it into some decent looking spacers.

...and I guess I can't upload pictures from my phone.

[FreedomM3]

Sweetness

[Northern]

I did some stuff, and found the original owner of that kit on e30tech, here's what it looked like circa 2009:

[Northern]

So. Back in 2012, there was a 4-5 month period where I was working 40 hours/week regular time, plus 24 at 1.5x and another 8 at 2x. That's when I decided I wanted an iX. So I bought one sight unseen and it was a huge mistake.

I also bought a semi-complete turbo kit a week later, which consisted of (Copypasta from FS thread):

So after I started my build I got an opportunity to buy a finished turbo E30, so the parts I've collected so far must be sacrificed. This setup made 406rwhp/370ft/lbs on a 2.7L M20 @ 16psi. * All prices are OBO and don't include shipping *
Holset HX35/HX40 Hybrid - 16cm H1C turbine housing. Ceramic coated compressor housing. -4AN feed flange, -10AN drain flange. Ready to bolt on. Only 10k on it since it was built by G-Pop Shop. $600



Equal-Length Stainless Turbo Manifold - One of the Dan Pinder Swedish made manifolds from a group buy a few years ago. It's been welded some around the turbo flange and a external wastegate provision has been added. $200


Tial 38mm Wastegate w/ Dump Tube - 10psi spring installed. Comes with flange bolts & a stainless 1.5" dump pipe. $150


21x9x2.75 Front Mount Intercooler - 2.5" inlet/outlet. Perfect for mounting behind the kidneys. A few bent fins, but works as it should. $70


2.5" Intercooler Piping w/ Couplers, T-Bolt Clamps, & HKS SSQV Knock-Off - 2.5" mandrel bent piping made specifically for a E30 w/ low-mount FMIC. Includes silicone couplers, t-bolt clamps, HKS knock-off BOV, and 2 types of GM IAT sensors installed. $100

Also came with some vacuum lines, a brace for between the turbo and valve cover, a downpipe + vband clamp and some other odds/ends.

Obviously the Manifold and wastegate aren't going to fit the 24v, so that's where the order from otis comes in.

In addition to that, I also bought:
Whodwho MS2 PNP unit (Not planning to use this now)
Innovate LC-1 Wideband (two of them because one came up super cheap after I bought the first)
M20 ARP studs
Wasted spark setup from a 6cyl GM
various gauges
oil filter relocation setup
GE silicon intake boot
Siemens Deka 60lb/hr injectors
TRE 255lph fuel pump (not sure how I feel about this now)
various oil feed lines/fittings.
all components to build a 3" exhaust w/vbands
3.64 Ring&pinion for the rear diff to go with the euro front diff I have.
plugs, wires, wire crimping tool and ends
heat wrap
and a whole shitload of other stuff.

So I'm going to rip everything off that car that I need and throw it on this one. Not going to use any M20 specific parts, or the megasquirt unit. I'm going to keep this running MS41 and see how far I get first.

Inital plan is to run ~8lbs of boost on stock CR without studs and see how that goes while adding/upgrading parts. I have a spare engine, so if something pops, the plan is:
Send out other head to get resurfaced
Buy .120 or .140 MLS
Buy 11mm S54 ARP studs
Rent jig to drill and tap block for S54 ARP's
Install new head with MLS.
Turn boost up to 15psi ish.

If budget allows, I'll also try to pick up some riot regrind cams and some supertech springs/retainers and up the redline to 7500 or so.

I know I'll have problems cheaping out on a lot of stuff.
I know the 16cm holset housing is like 1.12A/R so spool will suck. A PT6262 or at the very least, a Bullseye Power .70 A/R housing for this holset would be spectacular.
I know I'm going to want or need an S54 housing/oil cooler setup, I have my eyes open
I'm going to want a cleaner gauge setup: Econoboost gauge, George graves AFR gauge, etc.
EBC, Water/Meth, catch can, silicon intake boot/nicer charge piping, better fuel pump/fuel system, etc.

On the other hand, things I have going for me:
FX stage 3 clutch
Pretty nice 3" stainless exhaust
Bigass radiator
-10AN oil return in side of block
Metric fucktons of downpipe clearance thanks to the skinny Arc Asylum subframe and front mounted swaybar.
Significantly reinforced engine mount tabs on subframe, also thanks to the above.

End game, I would like to go low comp bottom end with stock gasket,
and some sort of mildly built head and timing setup to withstand 8k RPM.
I want to keep the block unmodified, and the head casting stock so If something does happen, its just a matter of getting another one checked and slapping the valvetrain into it.

Going to start ripping things apart as soon as I get the car tent set up in the back yard.

[Northern]

Alright, time to back pedal a bit...

The issue I had with TPS errors stopped when I swapped to my second ECU, so I'm going to make a note of that and see if it changes next time I swap them.

I drove a lot, and took very few pictures:


My old Cam sensor:


Finally installed the IE strut bar I've been holding onto for like 5 years:


Slow time at work, so I made a brass hammer and a handle and mated the two. Super useful for fasteners like Hi-Lok, Hi-Lite, Hi-Tigue for stuff at work. Nice to cut out the middle-man when you don't have clearance for a 6" brass drift and a ball peen, or a brass snap on a rivet gun...


Picked up a bigger compressor for I think $75, unfortunately it's still too small to run a die grinder or paint gun for more than a few quick blasts, but still more than twice the size of my last one:


New shelf for the "Tire Room" and the tire hoard:


Corded my Falken FK452's because my toe is bad. Or was bad before I got an alignment last year, or maybe it's bad again after changing subframes. Who knows. Same size Toyo TR1's are on and ready to go for next year:



A mini project I've though about ever since I snapped my timing belt last year and realized how useless the stock toolkit is. I couldn't even pull the valve cover with the open ended wrench in the kit.

I bought an E34(?) Full size tool kit, and gutted the molded inside for some foam. I'll grab some wrenches, sockets, pliers, screwdriver, etc and shadow them into the foam.


And here's a random picture of a setup similar to what I bought from Otis last night:


I'll get more into that in the next post...

[Northern]

Damnnnnnn

[328ijunkie]

Damnnnnnn

[Northern]

I have a few things to report. I started getting cam sensor and vanos jam errors a while back, and INPA showed my sensor was spitting out garbage. Swapped it out with another and all is well.

Dave Markert was saying that the insulation on the wires just after the connector eventually disintegrates, and sure enough, there was a twisted mess of bare wires under the connector boot.

I killed my front tires with toe wear, so I threw some new Toyo T1R's on and I'll get an alignment before I start driving it in the spring.

My first set of Koni Race showed up, and they were dented to hell. Sent them back, and finally received the first one this week, hopefully the second one next week.

The last bits for my external mic arrived, but I only took one shitty video before they started salting (today) so the car is off the road now.

In other news, I pulled the trigger on this: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/151823928855

so this winter should be interesting.

[Northern]

Mini update...

I'm running MS41.2 (M3 software) now with launch control. Just stock 328i maps copypasta'd into it. No issues so far, and the TPS issue hasn't come up yet, but I'm not holding my breath for it being fixed from just swapping the ECU.

Bought two Koni 8610 1437RACE inserts via amazon today. Trying to avoid putting these on my freshly paid off visa, so I'm buying front/rears separately over a few paycheques.

I also stayed dead even with a friend's '09 hemi chrysler 300 from a roll at 60-110ish mph. Not sure how, but I'm not reading into it too much

I've beep putting a lot of time into my iX recently to try to get it drivable by winter, so there's not a lot going on otherwise.

[Gnarles]

Thanks for the clutch update! I think I'm going to pick one up.

[arch4ngel]

Sweet much appreciated.

[Northern]

Correct, I'm running ms41.2.

My definitions file version is 0.40, do you have a newer one?

I was able to find the thread using google cache so I have the location and value now but I wouldn't mind having the latest if you can send it to me.

Thanks.

I'll pm you v0.40b in a sec.

[Northern]

I'm surprised you don't like the ride with bilsteins. I'm running those and and h&rsprings

I'm running German Engineering coilovers from the group buy a few years back(450f/650r), so my rates are considerably higher than the H&R options. I don't think the bilsteins are stiff enough to deal with these, and the fronts definitely don't compress as low as the koni 8641 1210Sport I had in front.

[arch4ngel]

Correct, I'm running ms41.2.

My definitions file version is 0.40, do you have a newer one?

I was able to find the thread using google cache so I have the location and value now but I wouldn't mind having the latest if you can send it to me.

Thanks.

[Northern]

Awesome thread, great to see folks swapping the right way. Most seem to take short cuts or OBD1 swap needlessly.

Would you mind shedding some more light on the VSS correction?
I use the same flashing setup (ebay cable and chipster.no software) but my definition file must be outdated because I can't seem to find the VSS correction factor. I have a suspicion my vanos activation may be off and a couple of my readiness monitors aren't setting properly and I'm thinking they may be related.

Unfortunately romraider has been down for several days so I haven't been able to check.

I'm assuming you're running MS41.2 since you're talking about vanos...
Romraider is down for maintenance right now, (I think this is the right link), but there's a thread about VSS correction, and there's a definition file in there with the MS41.2 correction loaction set up, and discussion of what the value should be (correction factor shows up in limiters section.)

MS41.1 and MS41.0 still haven't been added, and I don't know enough about xml to do it myself.