Bronzit E30 - OBDII S52 shaved bay - weekend/autox toy - Journey

[Northern]

Very big fan of that wiring table/labelling/velcro setup. I would love to try to make a nice engine harness someday. If I ever graduate from grafting jank additions onto the factory harness, I hope I remember this setup

[Digitalwave]

What a project! I would never have the patience for that.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Work begins on harness construction. Slow and gradual process to ensure a good fit and no mistakes. I’m also a noob with this project so I’m moving extra slow ensuring I understand what/why I’m doing each crimp, splice and termination.



This will be the first harness test fit out of probably 50+ times it went in and out of the car



Refreshing my memory on C101 functionality so we can interface the new harness with existing chassis electronics and fuse box where necessary.



OCD



My intern is watching and learning



Restored that drill press






Doing my best to do the fancy service loops



Pieces starting to come together



Laid out and labeled the harness. This helps visualize its geometry while off the car, and mark critical dimensions. Also makes it easy to check that each termination got the correct wires leading into it.



Here's a splice for 5v power to some sensors. We’re not doing the full blown concentric twisting, but we’re doing our best to carefully twist the harness for maximum flexibility and visual appearance after heat shrink.





















This one came out nice






Crisp crimps are satisfying






Starting to look like something. DR-25 heat shrink. This is becoming permanent. Now I’m sweating because any mistakes will be very tough to correct without painful undoing of hard work.



Lots of tools and supplies needed to do this right.






Now it’s starting to look really neat




I also took the opportunity to replace the heater hoses. I purchased a bunch of silicone hoses of specific diameters and bends from Pegasus and used splices where necessary (larger to smaller diameter change) and these gates powergrip heat shrink clamps to seal them. I was slightly worried this would leak. At this point I can confirm they don’t.



Getting super cramped in the glove box area.



So damn satisfying to get to this point.

[moatilliatta]

Integrale - My first dream car.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

[Sh3rpak!ng]

What a crazy undertaking! Excellent work in execution.

Do you plan on swapping out your dash and that wart/growth of a gauge pod on top?

Thanks!

hahahahahaha gave me a laugh there... yes I do plan to go for a digital dash sooner than later but no I don't plan on ditching the gauge pods. I like them. What I'd really like to do is strip a spare dash down to metal and fabricate it to smoothly integrate the extra gauges. I really like the style of the Lancia delta integrale gauges and I also like classic aero bomber style gauges. I'll aim for some combination of both in a future project.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Wow, not that I didn't trust you or anything, but I had to check the manual to see for myself - and you're absolutely right.
It's advertised as having "8 Ignition Drivers" and I always taken "ignition driver" to be a built-in IGBT that drives a dumb coil, but I guess that becomes false somewhere between MS and Link. I had no idea

Yes that's correct. Not sure why exactly they do it this way. I suppose probably maximum flexibility of application? If I ran a smart coil I wouldn't have needed the external igniters.

[Digitalwave]

What a crazy undertaking! Excellent work in execution.

Do you plan on swapping out your dash and that wart/growth of a gauge pod on top?

[Northern]

\
The ECU doesn't have internal igniters, so you're required to figure out an external solution.

Wow, not that I didn't trust you or anything, but I had to check the manual to see for myself - and you're absolutely right.
It's advertised as having "8 Ignition Drivers" and I always taken "ignition driver" to be a built-in IGBT that drives a dumb coil, but I guess that becomes false somewhere between MS and Link. I had no idea

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Congrats on many things, especially the new job! I've never heard of them, but that certainly sounds like it's right up your alley.
In your workshop, I really like the mounting/placement of the buffer wheel, lol. Super convenient.

Thanks Kevin. Divergent 3D/Czinger are doing some very impressive things. I'm sure once we go into full production of the cars there will be much more public coverage. I'm really enjoying the job.
I've been frustrated with poor buffer placement forever before now. You're right, this spot is super handy! (just don't forget it's there and walk into it)

badass set of updates! congrats at czinger and the m2 purchase! oh and thanks again for always helping out via DM's btw!

Thanks! Always happy to help

You have really progressed, this is awesome to see. Hope all is well!

I've been dealing with additive at work as well, we'll have to meet up sometime.

Thanks Andrew! Nice to see you're still active on here. Dunno if I've missed updates on your own project (I'll check in a minute), but I hope it's still progressing and you're doing well. Yes it would be fun to trade notes, additive is really incredible.

I love the wiring updates, and that you're using a Link XtremeX - such a nice ECU.
I wish Link could get their PDM to market but last I heard they're still at least a year out.

What are the igniters for? I know the ECU has internal ignition drivers, but is there some reason they aren't sufficient?

Yes it's a super capable ECU. There are loads of functions I intend to grow into with time. It's "big boy" hardware for sure. I would've liked to use one of their PDM units, or even a motec/haltech PDM, but I was trying to keep budget in control. In hindsight I should've just sprung for it. Would've made the wiring, trouble shooting, and control over the electronics that much easier and simpler. Also easy to add into.

The ECU doesn't have internal igniters, so you're required to figure out an external solution.

What coils you using?

While I was fitting the DBW actuator on my motor I realized I cut off all the extra mounting nubs before I painted the block... No DBW for standalone for the S50 motor... DOH!

Just standard 3 channel bosch igniters. The keen eyes might recognize that the igniters pictured were incorrect, I made a mistake and had ordered some 2 channel igniters
Which mounting nubs did you remove?

Ahem... Sh3rpak!ng let’s hear the dyno results

Don’t kill the forplay!

Hahaha... well I can answer this easy without ruining any surprise - no final numbers. Ran into issues with the crank sensor/signal and timing. Not quite yet sure what's up. I'm gonna put a post in the bimmerforums FI section (because those guys know their standalone ECU shit and the S/M5X motors like the back of their hand).

I'm still running the OEM hall effect crank sensor in OE position (below the starter). But when it's wired according to all of the diagrams, it doesn't work. When I swap power and ground pins, it works. But we see timing increase with RPM. Something isn't quite right. I wonder if this sensor is not exactly a "standard" hall effect sensor and if it was another kinda weird thing BMW did. Anyway, we still got a nice tune on the car and just corrected for the timing gain at high RPM. So on WOT it pulls like a freight train, but in lower RPMs I'm not making power like it should, and all of this was making a more precise tune difficult. I'll figure this out and go back.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

As I mentioned earlier, I’m ditching the MAF in favor of speed density tuning which requires a manifold pressure and temp sensor. Easier said than done. This is a plastic intake manifold – not so easy to just “add a bung” like you’d do with a manifold made from metal. For the pressure sensor I suppose I could port a small silicone hose off the manifold and mount a remote sensor. And maybe I could find a suitable threaded temp sensor to carefully mount. I don’t like the idea of either. Not very sleek or compact. So I came up with a solution. Using one of these bosch TMAP sensors – temp and pressure in one unit, a small piece of aluminum and some careful measurements.

I came up with this. The sensor seals with an oring designed to fit a precise bore. The aluminum plate provides that solid bore. Then the aluminum plate is bolted and JB welded to the manifold to seal and fix it in place.










Had to make a mid stream design change. The internal side of the manifold had further ribbing that interfered with where I wanted to bolt the mounting block. So I changed the design to 3 point, which should be fine.




Roughed up both surfaces before the JB weld to give the epoxy something extra to key into and make a strong bond.



Here it is done







Started making the mount and bracket for the accelerator pedal




Custom ordered some new electronic custom gauges to replace the old VDO gauges. Going for an classic airplane vibe with the colors.



Nice backlight too



Packaging this stuff is tough. Not much space to work with. And I want to be able to put the glovebox back together.



Refinished the vanos solenoid



Getting the harness right without mistakes takes loads of planning and patience. We drew out the harness many times on paper and on the table to visualize and keep track of all the components.



My oil filter housing was leaking a drip of oil, so I took the opportunity to pull it off and refinish it. I ended up going a bit mad and sanded smooth all the casting marks, then had it powder coated. Came out lovely. Did the thermostat housing too. Wish I could do the vanos unit as well, but couldn’t justify the unneeded disassembly of the head etc. Ended up replacing the alternator with a new bosch unit as well as the belt tensioner. Preventative maintenance. And I wanted everything shiny.



Looking super fresh with all of the new sensors and bits of hardware.



This was a relatively serious issue not far from becoming much worse. Power cable that ran between starter/fusebox/main battery lug (can’t remember exactly). Anyway, from casual observation its routing was fine, but on closer inspection it was riding on a sharp edge of the plastic wire loom cover and this was the result over ~30k miles.



Painted brackets for mounting the ECU and wideband controllers



Small side project. Tired of messy coolant drain. AN fitting adapter and 90* fitting will make draining coolant a breeze.



Little by little building up the new loom and associated cables






In the midst of this project I picked up this monster drill press. It’s a 1974 delta rockwell variable speed 3 phase drill press. Needs a minor restoration, but I love it.

[moatilliatta]

Don’t kill the forplay!

[2mAn]

Ahem... Sh3rpak!ng let’s hear the dyno results

[moatilliatta]

What coils you using?

While I was fitting the DBW actuator on my motor I realized I cut off all the extra mounting nubs before I painted the block... No DBW for standalone for the S50 motor... DOH!

[Northern]

I love the wiring updates, and that you're using a Link XtremeX - such a nice ECU.
I wish Link could get their PDM to market but last I heard they're still at least a year out.

What are the igniters for? I know the ECU has internal ignition drivers, but is there some reason they aren't sufficient?