The Blunderwagon - 89 325iX touring 3.1L stroker

[DEV0 E30]

heck yes

[kronus]

It is now officially for sale

[litu]

Mmmmm, 3.1L stroker ix

[bradnic]

Oh man LOVE the stealth IAT install!!
great to see updates here

[kronus]

As is tradition, it is time for the semi-annual update.

Current status:




A lot of small annoying stuff has been getting sorted. In no particular order, I've
- swapped to a much better lower center section for the violet design edition driver's sport seat
- installed a new TRM 044 fuel pump
- swapped out rear door gaskets
- chased a front end rattle around for 3 months

The bigger project last year was getting the 3.1 stroker to run right, which it never did with the "markD startup tune" motronic setup I got with the motor. To resolve this, I could either try for a new one-off dyno tune, or go aftermarket. Given the general difficulty of finding both an AWD dyno (or pulling the front shaft) and a remote tuner who remembers what an M20 is, I opted for the latter and installed JakeB's (ClassicDaily) Turkey n' Cheese PNP unit. This was an absolute breeze to install, and Jake was a huge help with getting the tune dialed in. It's running much more smoothly, idling fine, and tracking AFRs more tightly than the previous Motronic ever could. Highly recommended.

To dial down the engine bay bling factor a bit, I opted for a stealth install. This consisted of two cute tricks:
- use a dual-vacuum-port intake manifold blockoff plate. This is a factory part, but I have no idea which specific M20 it comes on. A friend luckily had one on a car that was using only one of the ports.
- make a stealth intake by gutting an AFM, locking the swash plate in an open position, and adding a fitting for the IAT sensor in a plausibly "stock" location.





The only thing left to do is harvest a dummy pigtail to de-bluetooth my now useless AFM.


Sadly, I have been knocking out jobs very specifically to get this car ready for sale. I'm up to three e30s and an e24 now, which is just not smart at this point.

Until next year.

[econti]

Thing's hot. Wish they were more common

[downforce22]

a slightly more interesting update:

Julien explained to me that european E30s had a feature where opening the front doors would turn on the power window circuit and allow you to operate the windows without turning the car on. This, of course, didn't work in the blunderwagon, and neither did the dome light circuit. We tore into the kick panels to try to sort it out and found that the dome light contact switches had been crossed up with the tweeter wiring, gotten partially fried, and ended up a confused mess. Some editing later, both the dome lights and door-open window functionality works again.

A friend also had a set of E30 tweeters in his stash and contributed them to the cause, since the wagon was pre-wired for them and had front premium speakers installed for some reason. This is the first E30 I've had with working tweeters and it's better than I thought it would be.

yep the euro cars had wired in. You can roll down the windows or open the sunroof without inserting the key. manual window cars obvously didn't have this

[Holland]

2023 update!

F

Lol. I have a lot of catching up to do since I missed a lot of the 2010's on here.

[kronus]

a slightly more interesting update:

Julien explained to me that european E30s had a feature where opening the front doors would turn on the power window circuit and allow you to operate the windows without turning the car on. This, of course, didn't work in the blunderwagon, and neither did the dome light circuit. We tore into the kick panels to try to sort it out and found that the dome light contact switches had been crossed up with the tweeter wiring, gotten partially fried, and ended up a confused mess. Some editing later, both the dome lights and door-open window functionality works again.

A friend also had a set of E30 tweeters in his stash and contributed them to the cause, since the wagon was pre-wired for them and had front premium speakers installed for some reason. This is the first E30 I've had with working tweeters and it's better than I thought it would be.

[kronus]

2023 update!



lol

[2mAn]

2022 update!

Theres a few more threads that need 2022 updates also

[downforce22]

Nice thread on the e24, i need to follow that thread more closely along with this one. I met the guy with the beard (peter maybe?) who built the diesel 911 at last years 2021 HPR 24 hours of lemons here in colorado.

[kronus]

It's got 4:10 diffs, it was an auto car originally.

> Great that we finally got another update on the car :)

it's been a long pandemic! hoping to have a steady trickle of updates eventually. I've also been busy with an E24 project.

[downforce22]

neat car, hadn't seen this thread before. my stroker ix engine doesn't have a worked head but does have a turbo. i wonder how much that plays into the performance. What differential ratios does this car have? 3.91?

[D.Martijn]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IOMDVWA/ - Gtechniq C4

super happy with it. although, you can definitely feel your brain cells die when you inhale it. apply in a ventilated area.

Great that we finally got another update on the car :)

I used something similar on my iX Touring, Gyeon Q² Trim it's some kind of ceramic coating meant for plastics