Half-Life | '91 DS 318iS Slicktop | Track & Weekend Warrior

[ak-]

This sensor is before the thermostat right? How accurate is it when you have tuner studio up?
I have my gauge's sensor in the hose right after the thermostat and it's a 10-15*F cooler difference in tunerstudio.

[Digitalwave]

Finally making some progress!

Still lending a hand to Curtis in tuning the Condor Speed Shop E34 endurance race car. Finally figured out that the car is out of injector duty cycle... explains the momentary hesitation up top.






Saw an '84 henna car in the junkyard. Car wasn't even in an accident. Sad to see. Someone cut the roof off, so I am guessing it was a slick top car.






Got some Hoosier take-offs for free at the track, they've got a weekend or two left in them. 245/40-17 for the E36 and 205/50-15 for the E30.






And finally, got some good work in on the E30 this week. The head is finally coming back together. I cleaned the pistons and block, and I clayed the piston to head and piston to valve clearance since the head was decked. Both were safe and in spec, but next time the head is decked I am going to need to go up to the +0.3mm head gasket.










In order to simplify the cooling system even further, I got rid of the line from the block back to the thermostat housing that previously looped into the throttle body heater. I had already deleting the t-body heater, but was still running the line. M12x1.5 bolt in the block, and I tapped the t-stat housing for an M12x1.5 stud to close the port.











Install the new E32 25mm master cylinder. Made a huge mess of brake fluid everywhere. I bench bled the MC which was well worth it.









Deck prepped and ready for the new gasket. I initially cleaned the head bolt holes with brake clean and compressed air and thought that would be enough. After reading ARP head stud install tips, I chased the threads and I am glad that I did. They were much more dirty than I realized. I chased them twice and brake cleaned/blew them out twice. The ARP's installed like a breeze.






OEM head gasket used:






I had previously only ever installed these headers with the engine out of the car. I had not realized that they simply cannot be installed in the car with the head bolted on. The runners for cylinders 4-6 hit the frame rail and won't pass the exhaust studs. So after torquing the head on, I had to loosen and tilt the head to get the headers on. Live and learn (and glad I had ARPs so I could reuse them).






Finished the day with the head back on and torqued, and the headers on the studs but not fully bolted down yet. A productive day overall!






Lastly... parts back from the powdercoater. The purple looks super pink in this photo, but it's more of a plum purple in person (and in lower light). Gold metallic flake added in the clear. I'll get better photos when they are in the engine bay.

[Digitalwave]

Looonnngggg overdue for an update. After my last track event, the head gasket leak was clearly getting worse. Lots of coolant streaks on the block under the headers. It was time to pull the head!

It has been slow going since then. With the holidays and being busy with work, not a lot has been done. It took about a month for me to pull the head, then it sat for a month before I brought it to the machine shop. It's been there for about 7 weeks now. Definitely got delayed from the holidays.

The head checked out okay, but the valve stems were very worn. It is getting a valve job, new stems and seals, new eccentrics, back cut valves, minor valve bowl porting, and the surface refinished. It should be done next week.

A couple weeks ago I ordered all the parts I need for reassembly. I will be using an OEM +0.3mm head gasket with ARP head studs. I also had the headers re-ceramic coated at Jet Hot, and had some more parts powder coated purple while I was at it.







Mmmm coolant streaks:





Started disassembly:




Put a little pressure on the tensioner to release the timing belt and it sheared right off. This no doubt would have failed eventually. It was a cheap Uro part. Learned my lesson there... the new one is OEM.





Decent amount of carbon build up on the pistons and the intake valves. Not sure if it will help much, but I am going to add a catch can to the VC breather when I re-assemble.
















My tuner (@varg here on r3v) and I have surmised that my running rich when the car is extremely might be fuel injector heat soak. After trying soooo many other things, this is another ditch attempt at fixing that. I have wrapped the injectors and fuel rail in DEI heat wrap.











When working on the intake manifold, stupid me realized that I had 2 gaskets on the vacuum port on the VC side of the IM. Doh. One was really stuck on there, it looked like it was part of the cap.








Headers and mid pipe back from Jet Hot:





Took an afternoon to help the Condor Speed Shop E34 endurance car get dyno tuned. It is running Speeduino, pretty cool. Car made good numbers. The dyno was borrowed from Performance Tech, an insane SFL race shop that races IMSA. Got to see a variety of LMP cars, one of which is racing at Daytona this very weekend!

















$40,000 brake job. Pictures don't do justice just how huge these are.











Then... I did a thing.





Then... a friend did a thing (the silver one). Shop got full again, fast.





Washed the E36 and started assessing it:





Tore out of a ton of wiring from an outdated data acquisition system that was in the car, and it was starting to look a little better.





We organized and cleaned up the shop:











Picked up some 15x8 ET22 Kosei K1's for the E30. Going to run these on the track with Spec E30 take-off slicks.





Since I bought the E30 from the original owner and it had every record/receipt since day one, I have kept up with that:





So a little bit more info about the E36. A friend of a friend had it in his race shop for several years. He was going to re-build it and race it, but started racing Mustang's in American Iron instead. It is *supposedly* a Bimmerworld-built car. It has definitely been ridden hard and hung up wet. I got it for a song. Plan was to part it out, which I may still do, but I'm going to see if I can get it up and running on a tight budget. If so, I might keep it for a while and learn how to drift with it. I've always wanted to learn how to drift, but I couldn't bring myself to enter an event with my E30.

The E36 has a very nice roll cage, tied in to 4pts of the rear subframe, braced in 2 positions on each side of the front strut towers, NASCAR door bar, SPA fire suppression system, built diff with Rogue finned diff cover, solid aluminum AKG bushings through, AST 5100's with Hyperco springs, true coilover in the rear, Vorshlag camber plates, Stoptech 4 pots in the front. Car came with a lot of spares, 2x M52's, 1x S50, and 1x ZF tranny.

The S50 looks pretty beat, and there is known-running, low mile M52 in the car right now, so I am going to wire that up and get it running with the M52 since it will be much easier and cheaper.

On the E30 front, I have a new 25mm Master Cylinder to install. Once the head comes back next week, I have everything I need to start re-assembly. I hope to have it back on the track for the NASA season opener in February at Homestead.

Until next time...

[jeenyus]

looks super flat through those corners! This car is next level.

[s14brent]

great shots man! love your car!

[econti]

Can't fit a bias valve?

[Digitalwave]

And here are the photos from Spectoberfest. The photos come care of Carlos @ Condor Speed Shop, who set up the event, and Ed @ Tuner Classics, who was the event photographer. The rest of the photo set can be seen here:

https://www.condorspeedshop.com/page...-bmw-meet-2018


















This is easily now one of my favorite photos of my car:







You can see the coolant streaks on the block in this photo:

[Digitalwave]

Time for a little update. Honestly, haven't had much time to do anything on the car. This fall has been very busy. I have gotten to the track a couple of times. Besides doing normal track prep (brake bleed, bolt check, that kind of stuff), not much to report other than some new tires (Dunlop ZIII's to replace my worn out ZII Star Specs).

Unfortunately my head gasket is leaking. It's seeping coolant externally, underneath the headers. It's not mixing coolant/oil, thankfully. It wasn't looking too bad, so I ran it at Sebring for Spectoberfest a couple weeks ago. It got worse during the event, so I am going to need to fix it before the next track day.


Here's a couple photos from the August NASA event at PBIR.












Got the car aligned when I mounted the new 225/45-16 ZIII's. Took a few pics under the car as well.










These ZII's were heat cycled out long ago

[jeenyus]

If you scroll through these pictures fast it's like a motion picture almost.
I'm envious of the hood. You almost can't tell it's vented.

[2mAn]

Lol! Him and I were evenly matched in the rain, but in the dry I was about 4-5 seconds a lap faster. That car is super nice though. It's prepped for endurance racing.

is it a 16V? 2L on Motronic?

[Digitalwave]

love the hood vents and the koogle parts, car looks great! sorry to hear about the hg!

Thanks! Not a big deal on the HG... it's just something I wish I had done the last time the engine was out of the car.

It made me laugh looking through those pics... heres a recap

-Oh Cool, MK2 GTI is hanging with him
*next pic*
-Uh oh, hes falling behind
*next pic*
-starting to pull away from it ...
*next pic*
-I think I still see him in the background

haha

Lol! Him and I were evenly matched in the rain, but in the dry I was about 4-5 seconds a lap faster. That car is super nice though. It's prepped for endurance racing.

lol sad

I read through the first two pages of this thread yesterday. Quite the journey here! Bummer about the brg car too. I love green e30s

Thanks! Yeah, honestly this week I was thinking about how I regret selling the BRG car. I wish I had kept it around to have fun as just a street car.

[wworm]

It made me laugh looking through those pics... heres a recap

-Oh Cool, MK2 GTI is hanging with him
*next pic*
-Uh oh, hes falling behind
*next pic*
-starting to pull away from it ...
*next pic*
-I think I still see him in the background

haha

lol sad

I read through the first two pages of this thread yesterday. Quite the journey here! Bummer about the brg car too. I love green e30s

[2mAn]

It made me laugh looking through those pics... heres a recap

-Oh Cool, MK2 GTI is hanging with him
*next pic*
-Uh oh, hes falling behind
*next pic*
-starting to pull away from it ...
*next pic*
-I think I still see him in the background

haha

[s14brent]

love the hood vents and the koogle parts, car looks great! sorry to hear about the hg!

[wworm]

Your car looks so damn good with the style 4s. I've been trying to sell the 318ti trailing arms I have but now I wanna keep em and pray for an m3 front setup to pop up when I get another e30 lol.

Happy to hear about solving the rich issue as well.