The ups and downs of a 2.7L Turbo

[cleanasse30]

Great build ! I bet driving her down the coast was a blast !

Thanks! It was a blast indeed, and likely the biggest bimmerhausen circle jerk i've been apart of yet hahaha

I have always had pretty great luck with conventional 15w-40 diesel oil. It has higher detergent content which is good for our old motors (when m20's were designed, all oils had higher detergent content I'm told).

Keep at it bro, looks great!

Thanks! If this 15W-50 doesn't do the trick I'll give the 15W-40 a shot.

My next project will be coming up with a way to solid mount the coil packs to the chassis (yes. I have them zip tied in epic ghetto rig fashion right now lol) and redo the wiring with some weatherpack connectors from DIYAutotune

[cleanasse30]

Welp. The oil has been changed to 15W-50 Synthetic. The valves seem much quieter but I couldn't drive it around because I noticed this as I was doing a visual inspection of the underbody:



The fucking nut that holds the shock insert into the strut body came undone so the shock insert hasn't been secured for at least a 1000miles... :hitler: Fuck buying used car parts!!! Although I realize I should've checked that nut when I installed them in my own car.

So now me and the mad scientist gotta tear apart the coilover and figure out if the strut tube is ok, my guess is that its blown. So I guess that is my next project now, not wiring.

[cleanasse30]

This is a photo from the roadtrip I went on a couple weeks ago. It was taken alomg the oregon coast near Port Orford, really beautiful view along the coast during the late evening. Photo credit goes to my friend Cheuk (cg138 on r3v), Thanks again!

[cleanasse30]

Welp the strut is blown... Super-d-duper.

Debating rebuilding both fronts and adding the M3 strut mounted swaybar mount. Thoughts?


The oil issue also seems to be fixed as far as I can tell with the right oil in there now. So yeah, glad that was an easier fix than getting the head rebuilt!

[ak-]

Neat! Going to try the same oil as you used now.
Rebuild the shocks and add the M3 tabs - they are a night and day difference and probably my favorite suspension mod I have done other than sectioned housings and rear subframe refresh.

[cleanasse30]

Neat! Going to try the same oil as you used now.
Rebuild the shocks and add the M3 tabs - they are a night and day difference and probably my favorite suspension mod I have done other than sectioned housings and rear subframe refresh.

Mobil 1 15W-50

Awesome, thanks for the info! Did you order tabs to weld to the strut from someone or make your own? What size sway bars are you running?

[ak-]

Thank you bud.

I had Chris from CastroMotorsport make me some instead of ordering them back in 2011. At the time, I didn't think you were able to order them(?). I'm probably wrong.

He has a very long L-shaped piece of steel rod that he cuts the tabs out of and welds them onto the strut housing in the appropriate place. I'm running a 22mm front sway and after the mod it felt like my sway doubled in size or something. It was pretty night and day.
I also believe I'm using E34 endlinks. I can't recall, but many cars use them same longer links upfront and some are cheaper than others although they are the same thing.

[cleanasse30]

Thank you bud.

I had Chris from CastroMotorsport make me some instead of ordering them back in 2011. At the time, I didn't think you were able to order them(?). I'm probably wrong.

He has a very long L-shaped piece of steel rod that he cuts the tabs out of and welds them onto the strut housing in the appropriate place. I'm running a 22mm front sway and after the mod it felt like my sway doubled in size or something. It was pretty night and day.
I also believe I'm using E34 endlinks. I can't recall, but many cars use them same longer links upfront and some are cheaper than others although they are the same thing.

Thanks for the info, I think I'm going to try to make my own end link tabs. Dunno if I'm going to try to weld them myself though.

I'm working with a local guy on getting a new Koni SA shock insert for the front right strut, but his supplier is out of stock currently. Once I find out the lead time I'll either order from him or GC directly. On Sunday I'll also be trading the 3.15 LSD that I put in before the road trip for a 3.46 LSD with new bearings. The 3.15 is nice for cruising on the freeway, but the gears are quite long for spirited driving. I'm hoping the 3.46 ratio will be a better fit for both the track and the street.

[cleanasse30]

Good progress has been made the last few days! I removed the 3.15 LSD and traded that and my other blown 3.46 LSD for a used 3.46 LSD with new bearings. Amazon delivered a new koni shock insert, so I took the front right corner apart, cleaned everything and reassembled it. The suspension feels much better now, and much quieter too. I really like the 3.46 ratio as well. Cruising on the freeway keeps the engine right around 3k rpm which means almost instant boost when I need to pass someone. It also doesn't take 5 minutes to rev through the power band anymore which is great!

One thing I didn't like about the GC coils was that the top spring seat isn't secured to the spring during full extension. To alleviate that I ziptied the top spring seat to the top of the coil spring. I noticed that doing this has quieted the front suspension now while turning at low speeds. No more creaking and clunking!





Because of the road trip I hadn't had time to mount my gauges properly, they were just taped in place with blue painters tape lol. That was bugging me since my car looked ghetto fabulous so I ordered an Autometer guage mount off summit and mounted my oil pressure gauge in the crap tray area. My AFR guage is now in the spot of the OBC. The interior is coming along nicely :D



Next up is ordering some e36 m3 endlinks and making some e30 m3 style endlink tabs for the strut tube and welding them on. I'll probably order a new shock insert for the front left corner, clean and rebuild that as well and then get the car aligned again.

[KrautnotRice]

Great build thread, thanks for sharing. The detailed pics make it easy to follow.
Regarding your oil burning issue:
I'm no expert, but from what I've read the 2.7 eta piston rings are a low drag design. Many people that have boosted this block have reported oil smoke on deceleration after WOT pulls past 5000 rpm.
The '88 seta shared the m20b25 piston rings, not low drag and different from the eta.
Again, I'm no expert. Someone please correct me / chime in if I'm wrong.
Btw - nice score on those seats!

[cleanasse30]

Great build thread, thanks for sharing. The detailed pics make it easy to follow.
Regarding your oil burning issue:
I'm no expert, but from what I've read the 2.7 eta piston rings are a low drag design. Many people that have boosted this block have reported oil smoke on deceleration after WOT pulls past 5000 rpm.
The '88 seta shared the m20b25 piston rings, not low drag and different from the eta.
Again, I'm no expert. Someone please correct me / chime in if I'm wrong.
Btw - nice score on those seats!

Thanks for the kind words! I usually set out to take more pictures but get too into the project and only remember to take pics at the end lol.

But thats interesting about the eta rings, hadn't read that before but i wouldn't be all too surprised as the engine originally had a 5k? red line. Switching to the heavier weight oil solved most of the oil burn issues so I'm not too concerned about it anymore.

Not too many other updates recently. I had a scare where 5/6 of the bolts that hold the toothed crank wheel and accessory pulley backed out. This resulted in the car making some nasty clank-clank-clank sounds. I think my torque wrench might be out of calibration, or I misread the torque rating for those bolts. Luckily I caught it before any major damage occurred. Bolted everything back up using loctite blue this time and re-tightened the crank bolt since it was also loose . Then filled the radiator and drove it until I noticed there was a coolant leak... The o-ring on the coolant drain plug was marred up, but a trip to oriely's fixed that and its now back on the road running strong!

Since I sold some of the parts left over from the turbo swap I went ahead and ordered some garagisitic 95A poly engine mounts. I'll get those put in at some point, but i've been focusing on keeping my POS '96 Subaru Outback on the road... ugh

[cleanasse30]

Regarding your oil burning issue:
I'm no expert, but from what I've read the 2.7 eta piston rings are a low drag design. Many people that have boosted this block have reported oil smoke on deceleration after WOT pulls past 5000 rpm.
The '88 seta shared the m20b25 piston rings, not low drag and different from the eta.

I did some searching around and found this thread that supports your claim: http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?p=1141375

That thread has essentially convinced me that my issue is the ETA rings. So I guess I can either live with the oil burning on decel above 5k or rebuild either my 2.5L bottom end or the current 2.7L bottom end with new rings and bearings.

In other news, I installed the poly engine mounts and took apart and re-tightened the front left strut assembly. The gland nut on the front left was loose, not quite as bad as the front right, but still not good. The suspension feels much better now and the ride has improved :)

[cleanasse30]

microscopic update:

I have ordered some new parts, should get here end of this week or early next week.

Haven't driven the car since putting the engine mounts in, but the recent sunshine has given me the itch to finish some things up with this pile o poo so I can drive it again.

More to come

[cleanasse30]

Part 1/2 of the order



Dynomax UltraFlow 3" muffler and exhaust tip. I slipped the tip on my current exhaust and I'm not sure how I like the look of it... Might be able to place it a bit better with the new muffler, but we shall see. I went with this muffler because I want more exhaust sound than I currently have with my magnaflow oval muffler. This should be slightly louder without killing my ears on the freeway.

The next half of the order should get here today :P

[efficient]

Nice thread