An Emerald in the Rough - 12/1986 Dinan M5

[brokecollegekid]

Wow this looks awesome. Can't wait to see it progress.

[downforce22]

Honestly, you read my mind. I think it would be fun as shit to go drive a few times, but I would rather the S38 in pure, NA form. The way the Dinan setups were, was a high compression, low boost setup. Sounds a bit like a recipe for disaster to me, but I'm always open for an adventure :)

whats not to love about a boosted s38? The local Lucifer's Hammer is pretty sweet.

[e30austin]

Thank you fellas. A minor update from today:

A local buddy of mine who has a Callaway turbo E12 and an E21 rally car on MS came by to have a peek at what was going on under the hood. Having just gone through doing a very similar install on his E21, he knew exactly what he was looking at and what needed to be done to make this work.

We came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with using the existing engine harness for a MS install, so we are going to go that route. He already has an MS3 box assembled and fitted into a Motronic box, so he can finish the wiring job that the last shop started and have that done. There are a handful of parts I need to buy (wideband, AFR gauge pod, boost controller, etc), but he plans to start on it the weekend after this upcoming one, so long as all the required parts we need arrive! Exciting news for sure. Hope to hear it run well for the first time in almost a decade.

[e30austin]

Time for a minor update...

About a month or so ago, AJ (ETA power) and I came to an agreement on what we should do as far as getting the car running. He donated (well, sorta) his already assembled MS3 pro box as well as a few day's time to sort out the wiring harness. There were a lot of loose ends in the car - lots of loose hardware, wiring splices, extra parts... I had zero idea what I was looking at, but luckily AJ dove right in and made quick work of finishing up the install of the MS system, all the random plumbing that was disconnected, etc.

AJ finished up the MS install and mounted the controller. At that point, we decided to try firing it. Hit the key and nothing. No power to main relay. Great. Tore the under dash panel off and discovered that there was some giant ass alarm system in there (circa 1995). I was sure that it had something to do with that. Ripped it all out and got it to crank, but no fire. Ugh.

Looked down at the fuel gauge and saw the light was on, so I ran to my closest chevron and grabbed a few gallons of 92. Filled the tank and heard it roar to life. Couldn't believe my ears. Pretty noisy, which was to be expected from a car that hadn't ran since 2009. Ran pretty smooth for a very very rough base tune. Let it warm up to temp and saw that it wasn't losing any coolant, nor did it have a misfire and it had quieted down quite a bit. Decided we would try taking it around the block. Made it about two blocks before the charge pipe blew off overall, ran and drove pretty decent. Old Dinan Bilstein shocks are pretty worn, Corvette brakes need broke in, shifter needs rebuilt. Didn't really beat on it, but it has some TurboXS blow off valve...loud as shit. That'll be the first thing to go...

The car is currently off getting tuned by a good friend of mine. I'm supposed to have it back by Wednesday. I'm currently in the process of doing a refinish on some staggered m systems I have and will hopefully have them on the car by the end of the week. 5erWest (like 5erFest but on the West coast) is this weekend and my goal is to have the car there! Don't see why not.

Videos when I get back home, because I can't post stuff from Flickr from my phone...

[parkerbink]

Congrats!


Great news!

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Thats awesome man. This is such a cool car. I need an s38 in my life

[delamaize]

[2002jm]

nice work

Looking forward to seeing this car at 5erWest!
jm

[2mAn]

Austin, you know I love to give you shit, so this time Im going to go the opposite way and say, FUQ YES! Congrats brother. Keep it Turbo, Keep it green. Glad to see that the M-Systems are going on, fans too?

[e30austin]

Austin, you know I love to give you shit, so this time Im going to go the opposite way and say, FUQ YES! Congrats brother. Keep it Turbo, Keep it green. Glad to see that the M-Systems are going on, fans too?

Lol. Thank you. I have yet to drive it except up the street to get fuel, so tomorrow will be an interesting thing. The green has to go, but depending on how I think the car drives with the turbocharger, the turbo very well may stay. M-Systems are naked, unfortunately. Been looking for a set of throwing stars for a while to no avail.

[e30austin]

And a first fire video for you fine people.

[hankolerd]

Congrats! I say keep it green!

[e30austin]

Well, this weekend was a complete success. Had a bunch of setbacks, but we made it to 5erWest under its own power and it did extraordinarily well.

I picked up the car on Wednesday from the tuner. About 30 min from picking up the car, I got a call that it had started running like total shit and he didn't know what was on. Drove it home and it was misfiring horribly. Great. AFRs were all over the place and it was trying to lean out under 3k RPM or when not boosting. Screamed bad fuel pump to me, but that wasn't it (little did I know).

Got under the car, to repair a turbo oil return hose at the block, when I noticed an odd sight. There was no exhaust gasket at the cat back. Zero. The wideband placement was right after the exhaust leak. Bingo. Got an exhaust gasket and the car ran beautifully. Did some more fine tuning, installed a TRE fuel pump and made it to 5erWeekend.

This is easily the fastest, most fun car I have ever driven. When driving comfortably, it is very refined and easy to drive. When I'm bored or need to pass someone, it starts boosting and will burn the tires in all five gears.

With the exception of some suspension quirkiness and old tires, it runs and drives fantastic!!! Big step in the right direction. Now to get any and all mechanical stuff sorted so we can move on to cosmetics next year sometime.

[parkerbink]

Great news!!!!

[LJ851]

it starts boosting and will burn the tires in all five gears.

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