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

[Sh3rpak!ng]

couple of questions for you:
1) The oil vent tube that comes out of the front driverside, you have a black hose coming off of that. What does that go to?

2) The coolant temp sender. How do you have your's setup? Your setup is OBD1 or 2?

1) that goes to the catch can mounted in the front passenger side of the bay

2) it's OBD2 and the OBD1 coolant temp sender is mounted in the old throttle body heater line port (basically the OBD1 and OBD2 senders are mounted next to each other) and my aux gauge water temp sender is in the third spot

How well grounded is that bracket on the cam cover, though?

that's a good question - the normal grounding comes via two of the valve cover nuts that have an extra stud on the top which then grounds to one of the coil pack bolts at either end of the motor. That then grounds the bracket via metal touching metal through the bracket and coils. In theory I've added another ground path by linking all the coils with the extra ground straps. Now I'm thinking next time im in there I'll add an extra valve cover stud and pull another ground from there.... probably silly overkill but cant hurt

[The Dark Side of Will]

I haven't had the valve cover off a BMW 24V engine, but on a my Caddy Northstar, the valve covers are rubber-isolated from the cylinder heads for noise reduction. There are o-ring type linear seals between the cover and head which do not compress far enough for the metal parts to touch; and rubber grommets around shoulder screws holding the cover to the head. The result being that there's no conductive path from the cover to the head. The coil pack bolts to the rear cover, but has an independent ground wire from its baseplate to the cylinder head.

[jeenyus]

that fuel line 'U' coming off the filter is such a dumb item. I had the same situation, but my solutions was just to get a lot of extra hose to avoid the kink. It worked, but it is not nearly as tiddy as your little OEM U.

When you replace the fuel hose, did you also replace all the hardlines with braided or something? did i miss that?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I haven't had the valve cover off a BMW 24V engine, but on a my Caddy Northstar, the valve covers are rubber-isolated from the cylinder heads for noise reduction. There are o-ring type linear seals between the cover and head which do not compress far enough for the metal parts to touch; and rubber grommets around shoulder screws holding the cover to the head. The result being that there's no conductive path from the cover to the head. The coil pack bolts to the rear cover, but has an independent ground wire from its baseplate to the cylinder head.

No offense, but if you had taken one apart you'd understand that it's not the same as the northstar. There are special studs which bolt into the sealing surface on the head. The cover is fastened down with a special steel nut and rubber grommet. The ground is pulled from the central studs which take a further specialized nut which has a small stud on it's head.

So in other words ground is pull from head -> stud -> special stud/nut -> ground strap (you can see these in the photo)

that fuel line 'U' coming off the filter is such a dumb item. I had the same situation, but my solutions was just to get a lot of extra hose to avoid the kink. It worked, but it is not nearly as tiddy as your little OEM U.

When you replace the fuel hose, did you also replace all the hardlines with braided or something? did i miss that?

Yea I agree. One of them has to go in that super tight spot between filter and body and the other off the opposite end of the filter. I put the "U" in the tight spot and just used a long length of line in the other. One of those "U" hoses is discontinued by BMW

I kinda did a hybrid hardline/push-lock/fitting setup. Over time I noticed the standard soft fuel lines coming off the fuel rail were slipping off the end. There is no barb there - it's supposed to be a special hose fitting that's OEM to the E36 (probably could've just cut one end off the e36 hose and made it work but oh well). One time a few years ago one of those fuel hoses actually popped off... so I got some adapters that that converted the lines at the end of the oem fuel rail to male AN, then cut the OEM e30 hardline where they straightened out under the car and used compression fittings to adapt that end to male AN. Then I made two new fuel lines with push lock hose and fittings. Now it's a solid, leak proof and safe system that I can be comfortable with.

[jeenyus]

That's pretty cool to hear that. Whenever i look under the car (which has been a lot lately with rust repair) I think that eventually I would like to have some nice braided lines attached to an AN fitting for the fuel line. If you were to have used just a nice braided line to begin with, do you think they would have still failed over time and started to crack? You're in CA, right? No tough weather to deal with, really, right? For a daily, do you think that braided line under the car would be safe or would it need a cover as well to avoid ripping?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

That's pretty cool to hear that. Whenever i look under the car (which has been a lot lately with rust repair) I think that eventually I would like to have some nice braided lines attached to an AN fitting for the fuel line. If you were to have used just a nice braided line to begin with, do you think they would have still failed over time and started to crack? You're in CA, right? No tough weather to deal with, really, right? For a daily, do you think that braided line under the car would be safe or would it need a cover as well to avoid ripping?

My intuition says the failed lines had nothing to do with weather or any other external factor. I suspect they were just old surplus. So yea, if I had bought brand new fresh line vs discounted surplus there probably wouldn't be an issue. I didn't think about them getting chewed up, but they don't hang low and there are many other parts of the car hanging lower. I'm sure they'd be fine especially with braided SS protection.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I kinda did a hybrid hardline/push-lock/fitting setup. Over time I noticed the standard soft fuel lines coming off the fuel rail were slipping off the end. There is no barb there - it's supposed to be a special hose fitting that's OEM to the E36 (probably could've just cut one end off the e36 hose and made it work but oh well). One time a few years ago one of those fuel hoses actually popped off... so I got some adapters that that converted the lines at the end of the oem fuel rail to male AN, then cut the OEM e30 hardline where they straightened out under the car and used compression fittings to adapt that end to male AN. Then I made two new fuel lines with push lock hose and fittings. Now it's a solid, leak proof and safe system that I can be comfortable with.

You've already cut your lines at this point, but...

You made me take a look for your fuel lines.

Bent the fuel lines up toward the back of the motor so they'll be pointed to the right spot for the new fuel rail. OBD2 rail with integrated FPR and the feed/return lines exit downwards behind the intake manifold.

Cleaned up the super secret rare obd1 obd2 hybrid fuel rail. It has the fuel feed and return at the rear like obd2, and the fpr mounted on the rail like obd1 so I can run a fuel rail beauty cover, get the fuel lines out of the way to the rear, and not plump in a clunky running loss valve or some other adapter device for the fpr.

Looks like those connections are normal quick connect fuel fittings, like these:

https://aeromotiveinc.com/product/516-male-quick-connect-to-an-06-male/

https://aeromotiveinc.com/product/516-female-quick-connect-to-orb-06-port/

Or on the cheaper, easier side:

https://www.dormanproducts.com/p-101643-800-782.aspx

What's the fuel rail application?

[TeXJ]

1) that goes to the catch can mounted in the front passenger side of the bay

2) it's OBD2 and the OBD1 coolant temp sender is mounted in the old throttle body heater line port (basically the OBD1 and OBD2 senders are mounted next to each other) and my aux gauge water temp sender is in the third spot

Thank you! I guess I need to get a catch can kit or something for that line as well.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

You've already cut your lines at this point, but...

You made me take a look for your fuel lines.

Looks like those connections are normal quick connect fuel fittings, like these:

What's the fuel rail application?

Yes, you are correct. I suppose I could've just snipped the barb off the hardlines and used an adapter but I wanted more flexible length to make it easier to move the fuel rail out of the way if/when intake manifold etc need to come apart. Didn't really make much difference to me one way or another.

I actually used this adapter specifically because it threads together which I liked better than the "clip-on" ones

Thank you! I guess I need to get a catch can kit or something for that line as well.

Yes. I didn't get the lines in a kit though. Made my own.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Yes, you are correct. I suppose I could've just snipped the barb off the hardlines and used an adapter but I wanted more flexible length to make it easier to move the fuel rail out of the way if/when intake manifold etc need to come apart. Didn't really make much difference to me one way or another.

I actually used this adapter specifically because it threads together which I liked better than the "clip-on" ones

That's an interesting piece. Who's the maker/vendor?
What application did your fuel rail come from?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

That's an interesting piece. Who's the maker/vendor?
What application did your fuel rail come from?

russel makes those

fuel rail came from a 5 series 1999 IIRC theres 1 or 2 years where the FPR was mounted on the rear of the rail and both feed and return are also at the rear. Nice and neat OEM way to keep the fuel lines out of the way and not have to mount an external FPR

[The Dark Side of Will]

russel makes those

fuel rail came from a 5 series 1999 IIRC theres 1 or 2 years where the FPR was mounted on the rear of the rail and both feed and return are also at the rear. Nice and neat OEM way to keep the fuel lines out of the way and not have to mount an external FPR

Awesome! I have an extremely slow going S52B32 swap with M50 manifold that could benefit from that fuel rail. Thanks!

[mjweimer]

I believe the fuel rail is from the earliest E39 528i up to 09/1997 build. Part number is 13531436468. Very expensive new but used ones are out there...I finally found one at a yard that was willing to let me look at their inventory to determine build dates.

It is a really clean solution for fuel line routing and uses the standard rail mounted 3.5 bar regulator.


MJ

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I believe the fuel rail is from the earliest E39 528i up to 09/1997 build. Part number is 13531436468. Very expensive new but used ones are out there...I finally found one at a yard that was willing to let me look at their inventory to determine build dates. It is a really clean solution for fuel line routing and uses the standard rail mounted 3.5 bar regulator. MJ

Yes that's the one! Thanks for the detail. I forgot which year it was. Got lucky on ebay a few years back but otherwise I'm sure you can find one in a yard. The yards here in socal are loaded with e39s. LKQ lets you browse their inventory if you have any of those yards around where you live. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[ForcedFirebird]

I've used those fittings several times over the years, they are great (work on lsx swaps too) - they are also sold in the other direction (male quick disconnect to -an).

Will, since you are are planning on an m50 manifold, the m50 fuel rail will work perfect. It's when you mix OBD2 manifolds and OBD1 fuel rails that the beauty covers no longer fit.