The Delphin Rat

[Hallen]

My mechanic looked at the car and decided it was getting a lot of blow by and it was most likely the rings and maybe the valve stem seals. He wanted $3000 to do the job.

I got in contact with the PO and got some further details. It was nice of him to help out.

It seems the engine had been "rebuilt" prior to his buying it. He then found a problem with it. The person who did the rebuild had left a metallic clamp of some sort in the plenum and it had gotten into the #6 cylinder. The PO's dad pulled that piston and replaced it with the rings. The piston and rings are of unknown manufacturer, but most likely are BMW. The piston had been damaged by the object.

At the same time he had the head pulled off and got the valve seals done and the head machined to flatten it out and he had the cam ground.

The #6 spark plug is definitely the least fouled of the bunch, but it is still getting some fouling.

So, whoever did the rebuild before has screwed something up, didn't replace parts like they should, or really didn't know what they were doing.

I am borrowing an engine hoist and engine stand from a friend. I will start work this weekend on pulling the engine out. I will take it apart and see what we have. I am guessing the block needs to be honed and I will probably have to go up a size with the rings.

No. Before you ask or before you say it, no. I am not doing a stroker or a swap. I will replace everything that I need to replace and I will do the job right, but I am not going to spend a ton of money on this. Plus, I have other reasons for not wanting to make it a stroker.

We'll see though. If the block is unrecoverable or is so out of round that I have to go up a size in pistons after it is honed, who knows? Maybe I will have to explore other options.

Depending on how much everything else costs, I might also look at getting the head ported a bit.

Wish me luck:D

[Hallen]

Latest Post

Well, I haven't posted in a while because I have had most everything on hold because of my job situation. I did make a post about the second track day in the car and I posted some video from the first track day.

The upshot is that in one 20 minute session, I lost around a quart of oil. That is way too much to lose. In high g corners, I could be starving the pump for oil and then things would really get bad. Plus, if it was leaking out of the car, I would be oiling the track badly.

I did take the car down to my mechanic to have him clean the engine up some and to take a look. He is pretty sure that it is blow-by at high revs. This means that the rings are bad. The oil fouling on the plugs is extensive and happens quickly when I am driving hard. He can't see any evidence of a major leak of any kind.

So, I might look at doing a poor man's rebuild. Drop the pan, pull the pistons, check for clearances and any other problems, put new rings on and new rod bearings and call it good.

The sad thing is that the PO claimed to have had the engine rebuilt before. It had less than 30k miles on it. He said there was a problem after the first rebuild that he had done at a shop, so his Dad re-did parts of it. Well, since nothing else was done right on the car, I guess I shouldn't have expected that the engine rebuild was done right. However, there could be something else going on in there that no rebuild will fix. We'll see.

I still want to try and get a few more track days in the car before the end of the season, so I think I am going to try and get it fixed quickly.

[Hallen]

Cool! Out on the track, you can really start to see what brilliant little cars the God's Chariot really is.

[AlarmedBread]

Very cool, I've enjoyed watching your build and reading your blog. Hope you get the little problems sorted out. I finally got my delphin out on the track for the first time last weekend aswell in what sound like similar conditions. Such a fun car, I can't wait for the next schools. :)

[Hallen]

Two new entries on the blog...
Finishing Touches

Track Day 2 (the first for the Rat)

[Hallen]

Well, the car hit the track for the first time yesterday.
Wow, what a fun car to drive. I will do a more detailed writeup on the blog later on... probably this weekend as I will be out on business travel for the rest of the week.

Unfortunately, I was unable to run the last session, which is a shame. I didn't get any good video of the dry session so I was hoping to get some on the 4th session. But, the car was losing oil at a prestigious rate.

I noticed after the second session that the oil was down to the bottom mark. I had topped it off before I left home. I used the remained of that quart of oil to get it back up to the top mark. After the third session, I was back down to the bottom mark again. That is almost 2 quarts used up in one 20 minute session.

I didn't seem to be burning oil. If I were burning that much, I would be leaving a huge smoke cloud behind me. The car is definitely running rich though. It will belch out black smoke when I get on the gas.

I didn't burn any oil that I could detect on the way home. The oil level didn't really drop any. So this leads me to guess that the g loads on the track are part of the equation. There was some oil puddling under the car, but it wasn't huge, about 2 inches in diameter after an hour on the asphalt. I am thinking maybe the oil pan gasket is bad and when I am cornering hard, the oil spews out there? Any ideas from anybody on this? I will post this question in the track / autocross section too.

The rich fuel mixture is probably due to old injectors. I might try some seafoam to see if that helps. I have the stock ECU in the car. The PO had a ProFormance eBay chip in it before which I removed. The spark plugs looked OK before the track day when I put in new stock ones. I have not checked the plugs yet and probably won't get to it until this weekend.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Thanks!
....

Srry to hear the bad news. I went thru a similar situation. Been jobless the last few months, it's put all the projects on hold.

[Hallen]

Thanks!

I got the car back from the mechanic today. I had him pull the flywheel and pressure plate back out because of the nasty vibration the car has. It turns out that both were badly out of balance... pretty much what I figured.

Not all the vibration is out of the car and it is still noisy as hell. But the worst of it is gone now. I think most of the rest of the vibration is just due to the nearly solid engine and transmission mounts.

I will be taking the car up to Portland on Monday for its first track day. I am looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, it might be the first and the last track day for the car.. at least with me driving it. My position at work has been "eliminated". After 15 years at the same company it was a bit of a shock especially since my products are still selling fine considering the economic conditions. It is just internal politics causing the problem and has nothing to do with me... except it was my job. I will be working there for the next few months and then I either have to take a demotion and move to Colorado, or hit the streets. The Delphin Rat may have to be sacrificed if that is the case.

Nice work so far

[Hallen]

I am still having vibration problems with the car. Read through my blog post (linked below) and let me know if anybody has any ideas. It might just be me getting used to the new stiff mounts, but I think it is a bit more than that.

I hope to get the car out on the track in the next two weeks but if this vibration keeps up, I am not sure I can do that.

All Shook Up

[Hallen]

Minor update:
I just got the car back from the shop. The new clutch, resurfaced flywheel, new throw out bearing, all the seals and the rest of the shifter linkage new stuff is all installed.

The clutch feels good and there is no more whirring throw out bearing sound. The shifter feels pretty good. The throw is short and tight, if still a bit notchy.

The car is still quite loud. The shop owner thinks it might just be the exhaust echoing through the frame because of the new hard urethane engine and transmission mounts. There is that one exhaust mount that bolts tot he back of the tranny at the rear mount. That one might be causing most of the noise.

It would be nice to reduce the noise levels some, but it is not imperative. Maybe new rubber exhaust hangers would help? Anybody have any ideas?

[Hallen]

looks like a nice project :) i take it you didn't make it to that track day on the 9th? any other events planned? or not yet?

Yes, I did make it to the track day on the 9th. I even have a video up on the blog now. But it wasn't in the Delphin Rat. I used my daily driver, the Silver Sloth (my E46). It is actually a very good car and holds its own on the track, but it is the puniest of all BMW's of that vintage.

There are two new posts up on the blog. The Rat is now road worthy. I took it out for a bit of a drive and shot some video. The video is posted up on the blog... enjoy:D

RATtle and Roll

PS
Pay no attention to the speedometer. Watch the little crystal thingy on the mirror. It is a good indicator of the g load. I think I am going to replace the crystal with the bitch clip I pulled off the transmission.

[SR20Fastback]

looks like a nice project :) i take it you didn't make it to that track day on the 9th? any other events planned? or not yet?

[Hallen]

Still enjoying following your buildup, FYI. Just because we don't reply here doesn't mean we don't visit. :)

Tim

PS Lots of people run without the little bolt to hold the disc in place. Especially since you have studs I wouldn't worry about it as long as you're convinced there's no other issue.

Thanks for the info. I wondered if I could get away without the bolt. I was thinking that the lug nuts would center up the rotor when they were tightened down. It is really odd that they loosened up though. They were most definitely torqued down. I always use a torque wrench. I guess I will be double checking from here on out.

I won't know if there is any other damage until I drive it again. I doubt there is anything more there than what I found. The one stud was loose too though. I will lock tight it again and see how it goes. I suspect it was the one I had to pull back out to adjust the parking brake tension.

Thanks for the other comments guys. I write the blog for my own enjoyment but it is nice to know that others find it at least somewhat interesting.

[AlarmedBread]

Nice build blog, thanks for sharing. :)