'84 318i 'LTW' Lemons Race Car with M42

[downforce22]

Its been a while since I updated this with the holidays and everything. After getting the brake line together, I found one of the brake lines was clogged so we had to find new fittings and fab up a new brake line which was eventually done but not complete because the stores were closed due to the holidays when I was working on it.

So we had to run a new line to the brake proportioning line and ultimately got it put together and bled. With that done the next hurdle was the steering column. Since the later steering column and steering shaft were used to allow for the regular ignition switch and setup, we had to mount the steering differently. I had grabbed the later style steering column support bar that mounts on the transmission tunnel but there was not a mounting boss for in the early chassis. A friend came over with his welder and we modified the steering column to make that work but also to allow it to be removable.

I forgot to grab photos of that but that has been mounted and now the steering column is solid. It just might need some padding to prevent any sort of knee bang hazard on the right side.

With that done, I was informed the momo seat was on back order until february. I decided to keep pressing forward and found a decent deal on a sparco pro 200 qrt and pulled the trigger. That came in and an older 2004 model sparco pro 2000 came up on facebook marketplace for $100 so I got that for the passenger side. You can buy seat covers for old models so eventually I will probably get it in black for that seat, but for now it is ok as is and I still need another harness for the passenger but don't want to spend the money on a really nice one. I set about mounting those in the car. I got the passenger side pretty easily but the driver side has been tough with space limitation and proximity to the roll bar. I also had to mount the seat slider for the driver side. I have it installed but have mixed feelings about the setup depending on the height of our drivers.

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I also was able to score another M42 right after the new year. For $400 that government stimulus was great for a 120k mile engine, trans, ecu, exhaust, and driveshaft.

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With that and the correct m42 fan blade and clutch, I finally got to work mounting the radiator. The early cars have lower radiator mounting points by about an inch so it couldnt mount like the later cars with the rubber bar on top. My solution to this was a pair of rubber swaybar bushings I had been incorrectly sent a few years back. I believe they were e36 size and too big for the e30 so I cut them in half and turned them sideways. This allowed the bushing to wrap about the original rubber radiator mount, set in place, and lift the lower radiator support by a half inch. No pictures but with that I could mount the radiator and drill a second hole for the top support piece. I do need to fina another rubber as there is only one now, but with 2 the radiaot rwont move and I installed the fan and shroud.

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The car is almost ready to drive now, just need another hole drilled in the seat and we can start to get the roll cage welded up to meet safety. I am planning to work on it next weekend and do a test drive. We had our first team meeting about the race and are planning to run the 2021 September Lemons race at HPR. I still don't know if it will be a two day race of a 24 hour race, but either way we are tentatatively planning to make it to that race. That leaves about 7 months of preparation from the race.

Until then, I updated the list of things to do:

- Install rear axle nuts
- Mount relays on firewall in engine bay
- Repair headlight switch (currently is not working right)
- Replace/ install windsheild seal
- Check steering alignment
- Mount battery hold down
- heatshrink/insulate the exposed master power cutoff switch metal
- Get a rearview mirror
- install roll bar padding
- Install fire suppression
- Weld floorboards/ add spreader plates to roll bar main hoops
- Install rear swaybar
- install front swaybar mount
- install driver seat racing harness
- finish mounting blower motor/ cover plate on firewall
- weld gas pedal to floor board
- patch all holes in firewall

optional
- install skid plate
- Install z3 steering rack
- Install Power steering

That's all for now, test drive next weekend I think.

[downforce22]

Since the last update there has been some work done to the car.


- Installed rear axle nuts
- installed exhaust and add rear hangar
- Repaired headlight switch -- we may have just messed the power supply to the switch, had to add a fuse to power this circuit but was able to with a single slot fuse block and all lights are working
- front steering alignment
- Installed rear swaybar
- installed front swaybar
- installed driver seat racing harness as well as passenger harness
- finished mounting blower motor/cover plate on firewall


I got my hands on a front strut bar. This should suffice until possibly later adding the convertible stiffening plates.

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The engine has had some running problems and has been down on power, so I took a look at the fuel system. It turns out this pump wasn't hooked up which may have killed the external pump. After cleaning this and wiring up the pump correctly, the external pump was also replaced.

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With that done it is starting to look like a car.

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The collector plates came so I got those installed and have collector insurance set up as well. That was a pain because they didn't want to insure a car that wasn't 'restored' whatever that means.

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So then we had a test drive, but the brakes don't have much power. I thought maybe the 25mm master was too big, but after a swap of the master it still has the same problem. Here is a quick video from the few miles testing and around the block.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibiDvDwGFU8

I sourced a 325ix booster and that allows for future engine swaps due to the size with relationship to adjustment of the pedal arm/clevis. Removing this bracket moves it closer to the firewall but it appears it will fit right up with only minor adjustment of the power steering reservoir (which isn't currently hooked up).

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The m10 318i didn't come with a rear swaybar but the provisions were there and I was able to score some swaybars from an eta that a guy replaced so this should be a small rear bar that couldn't hurt handling. Here is a rear view of the trunk floor without the spare tire and with the small case diff. This is really more of a lighter duty setup, which according to metric mechanic has about 10% less drivetrain loss as compared to the medium case 188 mm diffs.

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I also added some bling to my plate so people know its a true lemon.

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Next up is a lapping day in a couple of weeks so things are coming together. This weekend I hope to swap the brake booster and solve the brake problem. I have a few other things to fix but want to test the car for a few miles before the lapping day. I will be trying to make some on board videos as well.

[downforce22]

Brake Booster was replaced with a 325ix booster/master/ reservoir. It was nice that it was a direct plug and play swap with just a bit of bending to the brake lines and cutting the cap off from the automatic reservoir. I test drove the car and it was running good. Unfortunately I ran into problems with the internal pump. The filter sock was starting to separate and let fuel into the filter which must have gotten clogged with rust particles. Internal Pump was dead. It was already a foot in the grave so this was no surprise. It had to be towed home.

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I found the cheap import direct fuel pump from O'Reilley for $42 and with an $8 strainer dropped that in after draining the tank. I also got some berryman B12 to dump into the tank and figured we could cycle the rust through the tank and swap to a new filter before the track day.

Stopped at my friends place who has a lemons e28 I raced last year while racking up 100 miles on the car the week before the lapping day. Also the day before lapping I added a wink rearview mirror which was awesome on track.

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Then I had some eye brows and put those on just to see how they look at the lapping day. The e28 showed up as well.

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The car ran great, until it didn't. I swapped the fuel filter when we got to the track and after a couple laps I was getting fuel starve, There was so much crap in the tank it was cycling through the strainer and into the filter clogging it up. The morning sessions were plagued with that problem. We swapped out filters and intermittently 'cleaned' them with gasoline, shaking them to clean out the junk. You can see the fuel on the ground from pulling off the line and the brown mess is what came out of the filters and was left after the fuel evaporated.

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I have some more photos and some onboard footage to go through but initial driving impressions are pretty good. The brakes worked great with the stock 325ix master. During the bleeding process with a pressure bleeder the reservoir separated in half slightly. The res still help the bottom half of fluid and I ordered the 2002 style remote mount reservoir to replace it. As it turns out the 325ix reservoir costs $250!!! Just the plastic reservoir! So the brakes help up well and the hawk pads and wilwood calipers worked great aside from some excess dust from the HT10 pads. I have been looking into alternative pad options to prepare for the race today and am considering PFC 01/11 for fronts or the Hawk DTC 50/60 compounds. I have PFC 08 with stock e30 discs in the rear and that brake proportioning valve to adjust balance.

Options appear to be

Raybestos ST47 - https://www.porterfield-brakes.com/P...ctManufacturer $100
Hawk DTC-50/60/70 https://www.buybrakes.com/hawk-perfo...42g.490-dtc-60 $130-$150
Porterfield R4-E https://www.porterfield-brakes.com/P...tManufacturer= $130
Wilwood H Compound https://www.pegasusautoracing.com/pr...sp?RecID=28612 $37

And some specs on the calipers

https://www.wilwood.com/Calipers/CaliperProd?itemno=120-9706&appid=0

The tires on those SSR wheel were manufactured in 2001 and early 2002 so with them being 20 years old I wasn't sure how they would do, but they held up great all day. The advan yokohams 032R I believe are an 80 treadwear. With a wider 225 width Hankook RS4 with 200 treadwear, maybe they will be similar. Either way the problem with the car is the handling. It oversteers coming out of turns and the front squats a bit too much. With the rear lifted up the back end doesn't have enough weight and seem to be hopping or skipping through the turns as if the tires have too much grip and not enough force pushing them into the ground.

We believe the rear springs are either too stiff, the fronts are too soft, or the rear is lifted too high. The car also has decent power but seems a bit slow compared to my other 318is with longer gearing and a lightweight flywheel. I brainstormed some options about what could be limiting power and came up with this:

- Fuel Filter partially clogged/ Fuel Strainer partially clogged
- Stock ECU without a chip
- Catback and muffler exhaust could be restrictive
- Stock heavy dual mass flywheel
- Fuel System/Injectors could be dirty from the rusty gas tank and need cleaned

Here is a quick video showing what it was like on track.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKCvWD_jUDU

And then tragedy struck going into turn 1.

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I luckily had a stock e30 shifter lever and we were able to throw that in and drive the car home 70 miles from the track. I started a list of spare parts that would be useful if anything were to fail at the race next time. Ill spend some time on more photos and video and get that posted soon.

[2mAn]

Love the wood trunk floor

[downforce22]

the best part about the wood trunk floor is it is removal and allows easy access to exhaust hangar, swaybar, rear springs, and diff.

I made another longer video onboard where you can see the driving characteristics of the car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k5xWcCraFk

Theme is coming together and we are still planning on running the september race which was announced to be a full 24 hour endurance event. It seems a little risky for our debut to be a during a full 24 but I think we have a pretty good team and I am hoping nothing catastrophic happens to the car. The spares list is pretty substantial for most components we will have spare parts and I will get a few spares for the trip as well. I am thinking of logistics between drivers and crew, sleep, day and night stints, fueling, and experience on track/ in race conditions. Still more to dial in but small progress adds up so we will keep plugging away. I am unsure when the next day to work on the car will be but I might drive it back to my house and work on some small things like the safety requirements as I can.

[tschultz]

Playing with some paint job layout concepts to match our theme:

[paynemw]

I vote 11 or 9

[downforce22]

So since my last post a lot has happened and it is time for an update. I started a new job, have been training and running a lot and knew I would have limited time to work on the car in the month of July. So in June we got to work.

First up was the suspension from the last lapping day needed some work. We put the soft rear springs back in the rear which also lowered the rear and used some stock e28 springs with about 2 coils cut up front to stiffen it. We played with spring pads but ended up with only 1 to keep it lower in the rear. With so little weight in the back it really still sits up a bit high. At the same time we took the front pads out and replaced them with raybestos st-43 which were in stock. The hawk ht-10 were just wearing too fast for an endurance race.

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I added the remote brake reservoir from the 2002 and we looked at mounting the battery solid and taking care of some of the required safety items.

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Much Better and it drives better too.

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I had some eye brows and my brother had an e24 valance so we looked at flipping it upside down and test fitting to make an aggressive aero kit.

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Here is a cool rolling video (click the link below)

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Then I went to my friends and we looked at increasing the size of the main hoop spreader plates to be a minimum 25 square inches and welding our front floorboards into the chassis. They may have just been held on by one stud through the frame rail so far. We also mounted the fire suppression bottle behind the passenger seat.

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Next it was theme time. After discussing it we decided on the #42 which represents our friend's team, the #21 e28 535i (us being double their number) and the lovely M42 engine. It also works with out theme which is the 42 hours of melons. A play on words for our team that sometimes gets things "mixed up." We did a quick sand on the paint to rough it up for primer and hit it leaving some of the more major imperfections under the surface paint.

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As cool as the terminator grey car was, we have better themes to provide.

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No race car is complete without a huge wing. The aluminum bumper flexes some so we have more work to do but it gives a cool effect.

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Along with roll bar padding, a gas pedal was bolted through the smooth floorboard with a door hinge, I got skateboard grip tape to give some traction on the floors. Then my brother drove it home for July to get some miles on and to continue work. We have still been dealing with some junk in the fuel tank so more miles to clear that through the filter is good. First up was some accents on the 'seeds' to give them some depth and some accents on the yellow for a better transition. Also color match the eye brows to the theme.

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My brother added to the spoiler for full effect and also color matched the theme. I had ordered some LEDs for driver change at night and he got those installed. We planned to do some other LED to make it easier to see the car at night on an unlit track.

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The center console that was 3d printed was sagging in the heat so he reworked that too.

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The front brakes were doing most the work so the proportioning valve was moved to the front brakes so we could get more power to the rear.

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And one more with some garden edging front splitter. We are about 8 weeks out and things are coming together. We added a 6th driver to the team and we will continue dialing in the car. Before the race I plan to replace the fuel sock and fuel filter as well as get the tires mounted on the motegi wheels and replace the odometer gears so we can track the mileage of the car. Stay tuned.

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[moatilliatta]

Juicy.

[tschultz]

With less than one week until our debut race with 4 new Lemons drivers and the unproven car, I'll give an update:

After the paint job we believe we have given the car a name, Melony


Ted has been busy with commitments since we painted the car in late June and I brought the car to my place to do some additional work. We have been fixing items on and off and putting a few miles on it leading up to our full 24 hour race this weekend. The neighborhood kids rode over on their bikes and commented on the car parked out on the street. They thought it was a cool car! So far a lot of kids have enjoyed the theme and the paint job just because you don't see that sort of thing out driving on the streets.

Here's where it has lived the the past two and a half months. Got an in car clock set up and it has GPS, ambient temp and some other variables that may or may not prove useful for the race
20210814_130914 by t sz, on Flickr

In testing the GPS system out, I took the car up to 80MPH but felt the rear wing was still a bit too wobbly. Mainly, the Aluminum bumper was flexing forward and back, meaning the wing would move an inch or two. Additionally, it wasn't laterally supported enough. So with some scraps, I thought this up for wing support. We can tighten it by twisting the brackets back to pull the cables tight. With the GPS, we have verified it up to 98MPH which is at or close to our top speed on the track we run
20210821_122727 by t sz, on Flickr

Here was the wing originally with the 'secondary element' (door frame wood scrap) mocked up
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But we had a few safety requirements which needed to be addressed, including the battery tie down. There isn't a lot of space here to fit, but here's what I came up with:
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Wiring of the center console. Quickly realized these should be labeled and did that while things were apart for the fire suppression install. You can see the skateboard grip tape which works great BTW
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Emergency flasher wiring for reference. The connector crumbled
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Headlight switch wiring for reference also
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Metal patch bolted into place. This is the driver's wheelwell where rocks and air would make their way into the cabin while driving
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Found a cheap replacement short shift lever for the one that broke at the track day this past spring. Here it is compared to the stock one which is our back up
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Conduit around the exposed soft fuel line. You can see the filter which we have been changing out as it fills with sediment. We need to undercoat some the metal after the floorpans were weld reinforced but I didn't get to it yet
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Drilled out the fuel filler flap. Hoping these holes will improve our air escape from the tank vent
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Tested internal pump to verify it was still working after finding sediment in the (new last year) lift pump sock. Put a new one in in August.
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I guess I didn't get any good photos of the fire suppression system. But the first pull is near the driver's knee. The second is located on the passenger front intake vent where that hole is.
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Here are the nozzles in the engine bay
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We knew our lighting would be important at identifying the car at night I set about an illuminated number for the car.
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It's pretty visible at night and matches the theme well:
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Decided we could come up with a way to add underglow and try it out

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I decided we could try out similar lighting on the front airdam/splitter (garden edging).
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I didn't feel bad drilling some holes in the plastic and holding this in place with zip ties. I thought it was red, but later found out it wasn't after wiring it up
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The Green is bright. Bright enough to see in the dimmed rearview mirror like a fog light or angel-eye. The affect it gives in somebody's mirror should be somewhat intimidating to other drivers
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At least it should serve our purpose on track from a distance
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I then changed the gears in the odometer so we can track our distance on the car/engine. So far I think we have driven it close to 1000miles since last year. We changed the gears at 487 on our trip meter and missed about 350 miles tracked.

We regrouped this weekend to do a fluid change and put another 150 miles on the car. We still found junk in the fuel filter and identified a small brake fluid leak. Oil change, coolant flush, diff fluid change among a few other items.
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Replaced that fuel hose. It was cracked and leaking at the first full tank fuel up in June
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Tow marking required by the rules
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Maybe ted will have a few additional updates from this past weekend. I'll just leave this photo here of my grandma admiring our work with the theme
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[roguetoaster]

Seriously good stuff, and while sweet OEM+, or epic swaps are neat, this is what makes E30s truly cool.

[downforce22]

Thank you for posting the update Tom and Rogue for the comments.

We got some work done and stickers on this past weekend and are finalizing our race preparations this week. There is quite a bit to do to get ready for a race like this. I liked the look with no decals but it still looks good with decals. Here are a few sunset shots from the other night and some progress photos during the decal session.

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We test fit the race wheels and tires, falken trak lite 2.0 with hankook ventus rs4 225/45/15. Wheels are 10 lbs each and tires are wide and sticky. We will run the ssr type c tires on test day this friday. (they are dated 2001)

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Will be trying to get some video from the gopro and camera this weekend as it goes by during testing on friday.

[downforce22]

Last weekend was race weekend. We loaded up and my brother brought his 1600 loaded in the trailer and we used that for the home base over the course of the weekend. I drove my 325ix, my friend drove the 318 and we made it to the track.

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(Click for Video)
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Testing went fine on Friday.

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We even made it through tech inspection. They didn't even care the car went through tech with 60 treadwear tires (the rule is over 190) and gave us stickers and actually took pictures of it because they were promoting their yokohama sponsor for the road mangler series. We were entered in a drawing to win yokohama tires. They gave me two options for the classing, Either A class with 0 laps or B class with 6. I didnt quite understand how the e28 team I raced on last year that finished 8th made it into B class with zero laps but took the B class and we were starting 6 laps down.

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Friday night had a night session and the car went out for night driving. We ran it down low on fuel in hopes of emptying the fuel tank to filter the rust. The car ran down until we were fuel starving and we pitted. In the morning I drained the last gallon out of the tank and replaced the now filthy fuel filter. Fired it up and we were about ready for the race. We swapped to the race tires and wheels with new Hankook Ventus RS4. We found out the in tank fuel pump was overfilled spilling fuel onto the ground when we put about 13 gallons in it. This is the 84 318i with the smaller fuel tank. So we set to trying to see if the o ring seal on the in tank filter wasn't fully sealing. As we wrapped that up, we hoped we had it sealed up. At 10:45 a few cars moved in line for grid so I went to move the car there before the 11 am drivers meeting. As I went to fire it up, it just cranked and cranked, no start. We went to the drivers meeting and had about 30 minutes before they sent the cars on track for the race. Getting back to the car, we diagnosed the external pump not working and I got the replacement out. My brother installed it and we were able to fire the car and send it out to the track at the trail end of the 69 cars.

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It was a record setting weekend with temps near 100 degrees so everything was a bit more difficult that usual. The temps at this time of year are usually around 80 something as the high. The green flag went and we went racing!

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This was the start of lap number 2. Pure chaos it seems out there on track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqvOBdajRfA

Some on board from a miata pitting across from us. You can follow our car around the 57 minute mark for a split second

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTmCa4lqDt4

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We moved up to 38th place before we started to have problems. We pressed on with a driver change but had more problems.

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We pulled onto the track in this video at the 48:18 minute mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGAQQCDMW3Y

Also pulled out on track here at the 51:10 minute mark, riding along on the top of the pinto I think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4DlMh-EYWw

It would be ok but then lose power and come back. So we thought maybe fuel filter but it didn't look dirty from the brand new one installed that morning so it wasn't quite fuel starve. Over the course of the next few hours we would get a good few laps and then the problem would persist. We pitted more than we were on track. We tried the following repairs to have the same result after a couple of laps, power cut out and back in.

- Replaced idle valve hose which was loose and thought we fixed the problems
- Crank Sensor (replaced)
- AFM (replaced)
- O2 Sensor (unplugged)
- TPS (unplugged)
- Coil on Plug conversion back to Coil Pack and M42 wires
- Replaced in tank pump strainer
- Replaced in tank pump
- Removed exhaust and tryed to clear up the cat which we thought may have been plugged
- Removed fuel injectors and cleaned them with a 12v battery and compressed air (during the race - we did this on another e36 m42 fuel rail but the injectors are different and do not fit in the e30 m42 intake)
- Swapped ECU to a spare one
- Found a hole in the FPR vacuum line and replaced it with new hose
- replaced fuel filter multiple times as rust collected

Photo of cat modifications (it sounds good without a rear muffler and resonator though!

20210911_154225 by t sz, on Flickr

Fuel injector cleaning

20210911_142430 by t sz, on Flickr

I think we were in the pits more than we were on track.

20210911_155635 by t sz, on Flickr

Coil on plug to coil pack conversion

20210911_170909 by t sz, on Flickr

The sun went down on our in tank pump change and we went into the night

20210911_211255 by t sz, on Flickr

We got black flagged once and my brother came in twice for a black flag when he was not in trouble.

Screenshot_20210912-190214_Instagram by t sz, on Flickr

Apparently at some point one of the plastic fuel filters cracked and we got black flagged for leaking fuel. They only allow a 2 strikes and you are out policy though.

Also as we were waiting to refuel we saw what looked like sparks coming out from the back of the car around. We saw it again and ultimately pulled the car into the cold pit after the refuel. We found the exhaust mount on the rear was not connected but not scrapping anything. Then I noticed exhaust hangar connected to the trans mission was hanging down to the ground. We removed that and sent the car back out.

As I went out around 10:40, it seemed the car had full power and I came up to turn 8 with no power and the car rolled to a stop.

They found a fuel leak and I knew our night was done. I got towed in and the hose clamp to the fuel filter had come off so fuel was spilling out onto the ground.

20210911_211255 by t sz, on Flickr

This was when we found the hole in the FPR vacuum line and replaced it. It idled better than during the rest of the race and I decided since they didn't tell us we were done I would go back on track. Well after a second lap we were black flagged and our race was officially done a little after midnight. It seemed the car was running better than ever before and so we took it out on the highway next to the track but still had some hiccup and didn't go far before calling it a night. It was a weird hazy night and we found out there was a fire a couple of miles from the track causing the ominous haze.

The next morning we packed up early and were fresh from 6 hours of sleep. I had fallen asleep to the miata team my tent was next to doing a full 12:30 pit stop and work up to them doing a 6:30 am stop which was an interesting experience. We watching the rest of the race and got ready to head home.

20210912_093040 by t sz, on Flickr

imagejpeg_0_20210913_161612 by t sz, on Flickr

I ended up needing to drive the race car home and about 4 miles from the track the misfire came back. I put the hazards on and pulled to the shoulder, coasting to a stop only to have power come back. I made it another 55 miles back to denver before it totally cut out on a ramp onto the highway I-225. After a few minutes looking at the map, I tried to fire it again and it started up and I drove it the last 15 miles to my brothers place. I couldn't shake the feeling that the crank sensor was going back and spent time looking at the spare engine and pulling that sensor. We swapped it and ultimately took the car around the block without a misfire.

We finished in 60th of 69 cars with 123 laps (129 with the 6 penalty) for about 300 miles of racing. We kept trying to fix the car until we were kicked out for fuel leak problems. We didn't catch on fire or lose a wheel like some of the other cars out there. We tested our brakes, fuel system, wiring, driveline and engine and all of those systems appeared to be working great. It just goes to show the toll an endurance race takes on a car. We had the true lemons experience with an unproven car, wrenching, problems, fatigue, and resilience. We didfn't get the result w wanted but the race was still a success. The car drove to the track, race, and drove home from the track and all team members got some drive time and made it home safe. What more can you ask from a junker that was half in the grave a year and a half ago?

[paynemw]

I need to come hang out with y'all. I'm not far away from HPR.

[downforce22]

Its been quite a while since an update, so its about time for one.

After the race, the rusty gas tank needed to be changed. I got my hands on late model gas tank that didn't have rust. Getting this tank to fit was quite the chore laying on the garage floor.

Rear wheel bearings were done late last fall as preventative maintenance on those old trailing arms.

Next up was a test day where the car kept shutting off despite driving to the race track under its own power. I determined it to be fuel starve from the left hand corners. it wasn't transferring to the fuel pickup side of the tank.





The fuel pump setup needed to change. Since the later tank doesn't have the crossover tube under the driveshaft. The internal siphon system didn't seem to be working right and i read multiple threads about the e30 setups getting fuel starve on long left hand turns. HPR is a right hand turn heavy track. The solution was to use an m42 318i fuel pickup assembly on the passenger side with the main fuel pickup going to the fuel rail. A low pressure pump was added to the driver side where the regular fuel sender goes and that pickup goes to the high pressure pump on the passenger side.




Found a homemade adjustable lexan rear spoiler on craigslist. Got that repainted and installed to add some weight and downforce to the rear end.










The wiring to the old fuel pump burned up and the switch broke. I replaced both of those and put it back together with heavier gauge wire to the main pump.

- Installed wideband oxygen sensor (AEM)
- Installed diamond plate trunk floor with a few screws
- Installed new offset front control arm bushings
- Installed z3 steering rack
- Installed new z3 inner/outer tie rods
- Installed new front control arms
- Installed stiffer front springs (Turner J-Stock)
- Installed new kyb front shocks
- Ordered m42 lifting point bracket from m42 section of this forum




At the lapping day it kept shutting off randomly. We tested relays, ecus, wiring, and nothing seemed to solve the problem. After all of that, the car sat quite a bit as the summer was booked up for me and the car was an hour drive away. This past weekend was time to work on the car again. I had started looking into the problem and the car would start and the randomly run or shut off and not start without moving. The thought was to bypass the fuel pump relay and run the pumps to see if the car would start. With the pumps running when cranking, the car still would not start. Checking for spark, it was apparent the start signal was sending spark to the coils. Despite this, I disconnected and cleaned all engine grounds to ensure that was not an issue.

This isolated the problem to the engine side of the C101 connector. It seemed either the main relay or the fuel pump relay were not working right. Despite switching them again and switching the ecu, that did not change anything.

I was ready to swap the engine harness. When I started poking around under the hood, I found the CPS clip was inserted but not clicked all the way in. I inserted it and the engine fired even without the afm all the way tightened on. It was time to test the car and so that meant neighborhood testing. On the second test drive, the car shut off just like at the lapping day, so the problem wasn't solved.

So this was good because we could isolate the issue since it was happening again. After playing around while the car was running, it turned out that fiddling with the main relay caused the problem. So the problem is with the connector to the main relay somehow not having a good connection. Swapped that and so far so good.