Insanity Train- iX Submarine/ Popsicle Resurrection

[4x4_e30]

Made some flow bench progress. With my current vacuum setup I am pulling 17 in H2O through a 2" orifice. Mock cylinder is printing now...

[4x4_e30]

I hate to be the one to rain on your parade, but that's the sort of thing that needs to be addressed immediately (although I get the sense the car was flooded a while ago), or you should start planning for a shell swap in the long term. I'm not even sure how you treat a car after it's been in salt water, I'm thinking it would need to be completely stripped and acid dipped.



Nevertheless, I'd like to see it resurrected.

She's had severe rust issues far before I owned the car. It pretty much rains here 8 months straight then it's freezing/ snowing the rest of the year. The salt water was just the icing on the cake. Nothing a grinder and por 15 can't handle. IDK if you've seen my previous iX, but cosmetics are of no concern to me. I'll drive it till it folds in half, then weld a cage in.

Edit- Updated my parts list because I can't sleep and have nothing better to do

Supertech Valves
$315 Shipped (Achillesmotorsports)

IE HD Rockers
$360 Shipped (Ireland Engineering)

VAC Valve Spring kit w/ retainers/ keepers
CAT CAMs 285*
$1025 Shipped (VAC)

Glyco Main Bearing Set
Glyco Rod Bearing Set
OEM Head Bolts
OEM Rod Bolts
Front and rear main seals
Goezte Piston Rings
Valve Guides
Elring Head Gasket Set
$600 Shipped (Pelican)

Megasquirt 3 + MS3x
$575 Shipped (DIYAutoTune)

ACDelco TPS
Innovate Motorsports LC-2 w/ Bosch Sensor
Yellowtop Injectors
MSD 8224 Coils
Taylor 8mm Spark Plug Wire Set (cut to length)
$480 Shipped (Amazon)

[rturbo 930]

I'm not looking forward to addressing the rust issue. In fact I don't even want to think about it at this point, as long as the subframes and doors stay attached I'll probably just rock it for now.

I hate to be the one to rain on your parade, but that's the sort of thing that needs to be addressed immediately (although I get the sense the car was flooded a while ago), or you should start planning for a shell swap in the long term. I'm not even sure how you treat a car after it's been in salt water, I'm thinking it would need to be completely stripped and acid dipped.



Nevertheless, I'd like to see it resurrected.

[Chrisbike]

Damn that was an adventure itself reading that story, I drove my iX on a snowmobile trail once, got really really stuck, surprised it made it as far as it did. People always make fun of snorkels but they serve a useful purpose.

also do you want to sell me that moonroof ;D

[4x4_e30]

Flow bench design is coming along nicely. Going to try and figure out how to setup my Arduino for I2C so I can hook up a differential pressure sensor and digital calipers to automatically calculate my CFM/lift. Also looking into running a servo to automatically adjust depression. If it gets too crazy I'll go with a manometer/ manual setup. I'm not too worried about getting a 100% accurate CFM reading, as long as it's consistent.The Ametek vacuums I'm looking at will pull 28" H20 @ 100cfm each. Hopefully I'll only have to run two.. I also have a 3D printer on the way to test out on the orifice plate spring loaded clickety assembly

Hope you plan to address the inside of the rockers, and any other hidden places that the salt water likely crept into.

I'm not looking forward to addressing the rust issue. In fact I don't even want to think about it at this point, as long as the subframes and doors stay attached I'll probably just rock it for now.

Starting to re-think my plans for the motor. As awesome as it would be to have a head that flows 200+cfm with a beastly cam and more displacement, it's a logistical nightmare and I actually want to finish this damn thing. Probably just gunna stick to a 2.5l, mild cam, supertech valves and shoot for some good low-mid lift CFM

Here's my list so far, if ya'll have any suggestions please let me know-

Ebay Injectors -$150
Megasquirt 3+ MS3X Expansion -$550
3x MSD 8224 Blaster Ignition Coil -$150
Misc. sensors, wires, connectors, and engine control stuff I havent thought of yet $500
VAC Valve Springs $350
VAC Stainless valves -$450
VAC Valve Guides- $120
Valve guides installed/ valve seats cut by local machine shop $100
Glyco Rod Bearing Set $100
Rods reconditioned- $100ish
Glyco Main Bearings -$100
CAT Cams 285 -$400
Elring head gasket set- $60
Goetz ring set- $130
Gaskets, seals, misc stuff I forgot, shipping costs $500
Clutch kit+ flywheel lightening/ resurface $250

[goarmy]

I don't know about this one..

[jeenyus]

Here are the pictures the Search and Rescue took of my car as I crossed the river. [emoji23]

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[rturbo 930]

Hope you plan to address the inside of the rockers, and any other hidden places that the salt water likely crept into.

[wworm]

holy smokes what a saga!
Glad someones hammering an ix this hard though. Should be fun with a bit more oomph...whatever route you may take to get there.

[4x4_e30]

jeenyus- Dayum.

As much as I blamed my friend for guiding me out there, I was the one behind the wheel going along with it. When I crossed through the first tide pool and watched the ripples coming in I should have known to turn around. But in retrospect, it was one hell of an adventure.

Black bears are the worst. Especially in the summer. Imagine hiking down a path through dense forest undergrowth for a mile in the creepy ass midnight dawn where its just light enough to make out the trail knowing there are at least a couple bears in the immediate area that already know you're there. Even a 10mm with hardcast bullets isn't going to stop one unless you get a vital shot. Good thing I had a drunk hypothermic friend to shove in front of me as a peace offering.hahaha

The parts car was in way worse of a condition than I had expected. Rear window busted out, hood off, trunk open, growing moss in the woods for a couple years. I'm leaning towards megasquirt then running my own wires for the lights, ABS, speedo, etc. Window regulators will be swapped out with a piece of pvc pipe with a V cut in the top, because race car.

speaking of salt water....

[zwill23]

Wow man, that is a wild story. Glad you guys made it out of that mess okay.

Is your plan to swap all the electrical bits over from the parts IX? Salt water is some nasty stuff.

Good luck with the salvage!

[2mAn]

a story that starts with a dozen beers, a glock and bears is going to be good

[jeenyus]

whoa, I wasn't expecting this story. It kind of reminds me of the first time I got my Audi I took the car on a "little drive" in an area that I "knew" with my gf on her birthday. We went through various rivers, had plenty of signs to turn back around and gtfo there, but I "knew" the main road to another canyon was just ahead. Well we got high-centered on about a foot of spring snow that had been melted and frozen many times over. No matter what I did I couldn't get the car unstuck. The next morning, after utilizing my cars heated seats to sleep on, my girlfriend and I hiked to the top of the mountain, got a tiny amount of reception, called home, got Search & Rescue to come and get my car.

turning back around and going home was also a task.

I basically baptized my car in the river two times.

[gnmzl]

Oh man, what a story! Good score on the parts car, too
In for what you are about to do with that submarine.

[4x4_e30]

The day I got the car:



Went on a midnight adventure with a new friend that "knew" the area. I'm no stranger to offroading in the iX, but this time I was in over my head. Quite literally. Misread the tides, instead of a slack we got the opposite. I drove out onto the sand bar and got stuck turning around. By the time I had dug the wheels free, lowered the tire pressure, and got turned around there was a 20 foot section of 3inch deep water separating me from the beach. Went to blast across, and the engine stalled out 5 feet from dry sand. At this point I was loosing my shit. Screaming, cursing, sloshing around in the tide I popped the trunk and got the spark plug socket tool, removed all the spark plugs, tried to crank. The starter was partially submerged in salt water and was boiling and smoking like crazy, engine still wouldn't turn. Screaming, cursing, sloshing around I managed to grab my Helly Hansen rain coat, a backpack, and the Glock 20. That's where I snapped the next pic. The homie kept his two 6 packs above water the whole time, which ended up saving our lives later. Keep in mind this is SE Alaska, 50 degrees and raining, 3 miles from a road and 15 miles from cell reception, midnight on a weekday. There is NOBODY out here, we've both been sloshing around in the ocean while being rained on, and he's wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. It was the perfect storm for hypothermia. We got to the beach and assesed the situation. He decided to pound two beers, I decided I was going to hike back to cell reception and GTFO. I seperated the dry cardboard from the six packs into a dry pocket in the backpack, then started hiking back through the bear infested trail, Glock in hand.

We got back to the road and started making our way to Eagle Beach, which was where we would get cell reception but hopefully see a car before that. About 5 miles down the road my friends condition started to deteriorate. I don't think the beers helped him that much. He was stumbling around, murmuring nonsense, and kept saying he wanted to go to sleep. So as we're walking I found a really nice semi dry dead branch that had gotten stuck up in the branches. Lots of little twigs on it and about a 2" main stem, 6 ft long. I found a good spot under the canopy of the forest next to a spruce.

I don't know if any of you have tried starting a fire in the rain, but it's not very easy. I'll give him credit though, as I was staging my upside down fire, he managed to put together a "California fire" which was just your basic stack of twigs and some tinder. Doesn't work that great when it's raining though. It burst into flames, and at that point my friend shut down, he didn't wake up until we were rescued. His little fire burned for about 20 seconds before smoldering itself out. My upside down fire worked perfectly, and in about 15 minutes I had self sustaining fire going so I could go hunt for more fire wood.

The homie had passed out a couple feet from where I built the fire, so I rolled him over until he was about a foot from the flames. I made a decent pile of dry-ish wood, and was finally able to settle down for a minute. I was pretty angry at him and myself at this point, but also worried about him being hypothermic and whatnot. A piece of wood exploded from the moisture and a flaming chunk landed on his chest. Part of me wanted him to wake up, and the other part wanted him to burn a little for convincing me to go out and sink my car. I let it burn through his sweatshirt, and he didn't even flinch. LOL. We were both steaming like crazy so I wasn't too worried about hime freezing to death. I started thinking of Bear Grilles and what he would do (lol again) so I went around and found some bedding material to chill on.

2 hours later the first car drove down the road. My friends wife noticed we didn't make it back so she sent his friends out looking for us. Just imagine some lanky looking white guy jumping out of the woods and waving you down in the middle of the forest at 3am... Luckily they knew who I was.

I went home, took a hot shower, slept for an hour then got the recovery effort going so I could retrieve the car at the next low tide. Headed back out to the sand bar with a Land Cruiser and straps. To my amazement, a tractor owned by a Christian camp a mile away had already started to tug my car out. After thanking him 100000 times I got behind the soggy wheel and he dragged me back to the parking lot. The rest as they say, is history. My friend recovered, said he didn't get feeling back in his toes until noon the next day.













I found another iX owner that had a parts car in his backyard. He needed the trans for his car, so I got the car for free as long as I pulled the trans for him. Crack free dash/moonroof time!!!!!









So a couple months later and a whole lotta hustle, I have secured funds for a rebuild. Now the insanity begins. $5000 to start rebuilding a M20, and now that I have the funds I'm having the hardest time deciding which direction to go. Stock rotating assembly? Forged pistons? M54B30 rotating assembly with the pistons machined to match squish/ achieve 11.5:1? I can't decide. So for now I will concentrate on the head and go from there. Current plans are to build a flow bench, use my AMC head and raise/ fill the ports, +2.5mm intake valves from RHD, bigger valve seats, change the valve guide angle to center the valve in the seat/ better curtain area/ rocker ratio (definately not stealing other peoples ideas here, haha) CAT cams, possibly their billet rockers if I can find a source.. I have full access to a CNC machine shop, and a engine machine shop across the street. I'm hoping this time with a little cash backing me up, I can graduate from bench racing/hopes and dreams to reality.