My Update! (cable/dsl only)

[PiercedE30]

Ok, quick update from this past week.

Got my crankshaft in:



The car looks like it has hydraulics:

I put my old suspension on it and it looks like stock ride height with a motor in it, too bad there is no motor in it.

And a few pictures of our shop car:


Yes, that is a 5-lug swap. A closer pic:


Took us all of like 5 hours to do (once we had all the parts off of cars ready to go in).
I will be assembling my head this week (minus the intake cam) once my valve springs arrive. I will also be assembling the short block once it comes back from the machine shop. Then I get to order a head MLS head gasket from VAC and assemble the motor. The only thing after that is to order the Schrick intake cam and save up money for my ECU.

Jon

[PiercedE30]

Ok, got my non-cracked block back from the shop a few days ago. I also got it painted.




I got to checking my main bearing clearances today.




Here are my clearances:
#1 - 0.0015" (the worst)
#2 - 0.0012"
#3 - 0.0013"
#4 - 0.0010"
#5 - 0.0011"
#6 - 0.0010"
#7 - 0.0010"

Very good numbers. The recommended specs are 0.0008" (minimum) - 0.0022". The numbers are somewhat high since I was reading the plastigauge on the main cap side instead of off the crank, which would have showed the clearances to be a little bit tighter. I am going to be doing the rods either tomorrow or Monday, along with balancing the rods/pistons when one of the guys at work brings his scale to work for me to use.

Jon

[SandyEggoE30Girl]

My dad used to say (he was a Porsche person) "all the polishing on the outside is nice to the eye, but the polishing on the inside is what counts!"

Nice to see someone really taking time to build a proper motor for their car.
Kudos!!!

:up:

[PiercedE30]

Ok, got some cool stuff and an update for ya.

Installed my ARP Head studs:


Got a package in the mail:


I wonder whats in that mysterious box?
Let's find out:



New vs. Old:


Got my pistons cleaned off, took about 4 hours to get them looking this way using a degreaser, our parts cleaner bin, and scotch brite and a stiff brush:



Jon

[golde30]

wow. how much for the dual valve springs? i was contemplating them for a long time, then i ran out of time and my head came back from the machine shop with the stock springs:(

[PiercedE30]

you can get them for 550, I went with 3 day shipping which pushed it up to like 580.

[cahomey]

Mmm.... sexy....

[BUDNUNTA]

Thats a good price on the springs. What retainers did you go with stainless, hardened? I cant decide what springs/retainers Im going to use.
Great looking project. Whenits all done it'll look so good in that engine bay.



Hunter

[madjurgen]

Are you planning for boost in the future with the MLS HG and ARP studs?

[PiercedE30]

Hunter: Actually, it came with titanium retainers. Only one problem. Supertech doesn't make retainers for a NV top end. I think I may be able to have someone machine out the retainers to accept the 7mm valve stems and lockers, but I'm not sure how strong they would be. I am probably going to be selling/trading them for either stainless or hardened.

Madjurgen: MLS is going to be used because with an S50 crank, 135 mm rods, and M50TU pistons, the pistons stick out of the block by 0.9 mm, along with the 0.010" that was taken off the block. Therefore, in order to take up that space, and to get the compression down from 14:1 to 11.5:1 I must use a 0.11" HG. But no one makes them, only make 0.12" and 0.098".

Anyone know of somebody/company that makes custom MLS gaskets?

Jon

[SiGmA_X]

Hey Jon, this looks to be a very cool build :) For your MLS needs, call Cometic directly. Here's their contact info, and the number is 800-752-9850. It will run you ~$260 and take a week to make.

Have you considered using a Vanos head and getting a Vanos delete? I'm pretty sure they make Vanos deletes, and with the smaller valve stems, the M50TU head flows better.

[PiercedE30]

Sigma: Thanks for the info, that is what I was looking for. I thought about going with a VANOS head, but by the time I thought about it I had already had machine work done to the head and bought all new valves for the NV.

Also, if anyone is interested I just so happen to have a set of Ti valve spring retainers for a M50TU if anyone is interested then PM me.

[PiercedE30]

Update:

Set my piston ring gaps.
1st ring: 0.013-0.0135" across the whole motor.
2nd ring: 0.014-0.0145" across the whole motor.
Oil Ring: 0.0165" all the way across.
I used a set of calipers to set where the ring sat in the bore and to make sure it sat level so that I could get a good gap to measure.

Also, I was able to balance my pistons and rods thanks to a coworker allowing me to finally use his triple beam balancer.


Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics. I didn't take my digital camera with me.

The scale is SUPER accurate. It had marks down to the 1/10 gram, and if it ended up between 1/10th's, then I would try and get it to the half way point and say 0.05 or so.
I only had one piston that was really far off. But even then it was only out by like 2.5 grams which wasn't hard for me to take up.
I first weighed all the pistons, wrote down their weights, and then balanced everything to the lightest piston. They all ended up being balanced to 472.00 grams.
I also did the rods. I did them the same way as the pistons, just with a little bit of a difference. But needless to say, they are all within 0.05 grams of each other.

So, tomorrow I am going to be throwing the pistons and rods together and then checking my rod bearing clearances. Once those check out, I will be replacing the rod bolts with the news ones sitting in my parts pile, throwing the piston rings on, and then throwing the whole assemblies into the bottom end. Then it's all down hill from there.

Jon

[PiercedE30]

Just an FYI: if you replace wrist pin bushings on a connecting rod, you have to take the wrist pin and rods to a machine shop for them hone\bore out the bushing to fit the wrist pin.

[PiercedE30]

OK, time for another update.

Just a few pics of the block now:





Got my head assembled (finally, took BMW 2 weeks to get me my retainers) minus a few things:



Oil pump nut safety tied:



Few pics of the work I've done to the engine bay:






I wonder why I may have pulled the wiring harness out of the engine bay?




I'll have a few more tomorrow (hopefully) of my new radiator.

Jon