The can of worms 318i

[jeenyus]

that 5 series at the top of the page looks a lot like a modern Monte Carlo

[Nick_S]

This might be my current favorite build thread on here.

[LJ851]

Where the updates at ?

[E327IUTE]

Super nice thread, and an even nicer car. Looking for a car to do a K-Swap in the future. I started with Hondas and am relatively new to the E30 scene, but after my first I already know I want another.

[E30SPDFRK]

I am really intrigued by your oil pump setup. At first I was a little skeptical, but after looking at a buddies S14 and thinking through it a little more, it is starting to make a little more sense.

What are your plans as far as the sump and baffling? I am just curious since I will be going down this road shortly as well. I know the S2000 guys have issues with oil running up the timing cover under braking and have to do baffling to resolve it. Since K motors weren't designed to mount longitudinally they don't usually experience that in FWD setups.

My plan is to make a box with trapdoors surrounding the pickup, and a blocker to prevent the oil up the timing case. I found a Japanese article about k series baffling that goes pretty in depth about that issue, but google translate isn't working great so it's hard to decipher.

would you mind weighing that 6 speed trans when you get a chance?

97lbs for the ZF 6 speed. The Getrag 6 speed is 102lbs, the 5 speed ZF is 82lbs.

I keep coming back to this thread to look at the pictures of the oil pump. And that is pretty much perfect. I will be having to tackle this project this summer when I have vacation. Although your solution won't work for me, it gave me some other ideas.

From your pictures it looks like there is a good bit of room to move the engine forward or backward And that if you ran a subframe spacer you could run a tube up and over the subframe and put the pick up down into the pan. At least that is my plan at the moment.

What are your plans for intake manifold. I bought a use skunk2 that is supposed to be able to flip around without modification. I am excited see what else you do. Keep up the good work.

The engine is pretty far back, you could go another few inches back with dry or rear sump, but it's maybe 1.5" max. Forwards there's a ton of room, but why would you?

There's room for a tube on the drivers side as-is without subframe spacers; if you wanted to modify a subframe like the s54 guys do, you could do a rear sump pan.

I'm going with ITB rather than a manifold, I plan on making a plenum out of carbon similar to the DTM s14's.

that 5 series at the top of the page looks a lot like a modern Monte Carlo

Not sure how to take that, but I'm going to take it as an insult.

Where the updates at ?

Progress is going slow. I've gotten lots of things partially done, but not much has been able to be completely crossed off the to-do list. I'm still waiting on the engine from 4Piston (12 weeks quoted, it's been 24). Apparently they got swamped with Black Friday orders, but they tell me it's just about done.

I needed an a2 head to complete the cooling system, luckily my friend Amir had one sitting around not being used, and he let me borrow it until my engine gets here. I got a TracTuff upper coolant neck and instantly modified it.





I'm running the upper neck around the back and up the passengers side to the radiator. I don't like how the upper hose looks on miata's when they keep it on the drivers side, and over the exhaust is reminiscent of how s14's are.

Just enough room to run the pipe back here. There's an opening for a hose in the back so it doesn't end up being one huge piece.





This puts the upper radiator neck on the wrong side, and plastic is hard to modify, so CSF came through with an aluminum e30 M3 radiator for me. It mounts the same as the stock 318i radiator, but it's way thicker, cools way better, and the aluminum is modifiable. I need to find a supplier of silicone S bends, if anyone knows where let a brother in on that info.



So the upper neck is in the right place now, but the lower is still pointing completely the wrong way, so out came the angle grinder and welder.















I hate the polished finish on the radiator, I took some scotchbrite to it and dulled it up a bit, and I think it looks way better.



Unfortunately some crackhead liked how it looked too, and stole it out of the car when I went to lunch. CSF got me a replacement, but I haven't modified it again yet.

The 318i cooling system fill was in the radiator and the M3 isn't, so I needed a place to put a tank. Since I'm moving the battery out of the engine bay, that left the battery tray open. M3's mount them there, and I'm basically trying to make myself a cooler M3 here, so I figured that would work for me too. Someone left the vent off my battery years ago and it rusted the tray out, so I cut most of it out of the way. I had to make some mounts for the tank, and BMW kind of fucked up with their mounting location anyways (the tank rubs on the firewall cover and one of the bolts is super hard to get at), so I moved it further to the outside.

I had a small crack starting in the corner of the battery tray (I've noticed this on a couple of e30's with stiff suspension, seems like a weak spot of this chassis), so I welded it up first before strengthening it with one of the mounting points.











Took an idea from Bad Obsession Motorsports and made a tool to finish off the edge left after cutting the tray.



Worked pretty well. I had to weld 3 holes where my cut intersected them, and the weld didn't fold as well as the rest of the sheet so it got a little messed up around the outside corner.



I got a KTuned swivel thermostat housing for the lower radiator hose side, but I forgot pictures. I got some black silicone straight and bend sections too that you'll have to wait to see.

I need to have the throttle bodies so I can see what kind of clearance I have for the heater hoses, so the cooling system got put on hold. I moved next to the fuel system. Dropped the tank to change the hoses and in-tank pump.



36 years worth of gross.

318i in-tank pumps aren't available anymore, so I got a 325i one. It's different though.





So I swapped the new pump onto the 318i mount



Changed the hoses to e85 rated before sticking the tank back in the car



Stuck the Bosch 044 into the stock mount. Wrapped a sheet of rubber around it to take up the slack and to hopefully quiet it down a bit.



Made a mount for the flex fuel sensor







Decided the surge tank I made before is way too big, and I didn't like the idea of mounting it in the trunk. I'm going to make a smaller tank and put it just to the right of the sensor. I've got the fittings and the tank made, but I haven't stuck it all together yet.

Mounted the pressure regulator the the frame rail with some rivnuts.



I need to have the throttle bodies so I can run the rest of the hoses, so the fuel system got put on hold.

Moving from fuel to gas, I need to mount an e46 e-throttle pedal, so I pulled the old one out. It was a bitch.



I guess another thing that's different about the early cars is how the throttle pedals mount to the floor. Need to cut the mount off another car and stick it to my floor so the pedal can be mounted.





Since the throttle cable isn't in the firewall anymore, I cut the old one apart and made a plug to fill the hole



So onto the exhaust. I'm right down the street from Burns Stainless; they have a program they use to calculate the perfect header that I've used in the past with awesome results, so I gave them all the head and cam info and they told me what to get. They're extremely proud of their merge collectors, so I bought some 15° bends and made them myself. Still expensive.









Apparently I haven't taken pictures of them completed.

Got a Vibrant header flange, but the ports are oval shaped to match the head, so I made an expander to get the round tubing to fit.







Burns told me a 4-2-1 (4-2-X in my case) header would be best for my application, but the primary lengths they quoted are so short that it's proving quite tough to get it all to fit. I'm still working on them, hope to have most of it tacked together this weekend.

This is basically the only place the merge can fit and have the correct length to cylinder 1. Getting #4 into it is going to be interesting...



I needed a break from tubing after making the merges, so I started working on the harness. Ordered 700' of wires and all new connectors.

Actually, got some new rollers since the bottlecaps were bringing me down



Wires



I feel like every time I do something harness related I realize I need more parts haha.

Found this cool relay box online, made by Hella. Wired it for the main, fuel, ignition, and VTEC relays. VTEC runs off switched power, and my ECU outputs switched ground, hence the need for the relay.



The box is sealed, but I didn't want it in the engine bay. Decided to mount it in the glovebox next to the ECU, but it needs to be removable with the rest of the engine harness, hence the Deutsch connector. My ECU mount didn't allow room for the relay box, so I had to make a new one.



Rubber mounted the ECU this time since the new mount is thicker and stiffer that's what she said





Cover still fits!



Started running wires to the flex fuel sensor, but quickly realized the plug doesn't fit through the hole in the floor.



So I added a Deutsch connector there too. Also ran new wires to the 044, since it draws more current than stock. There is a second fuel pump relay down there to the right to provide more power to the bigger pump, switched on with the old fuel pump wires.





Was able to reuse the stock grommet through the floor :smallwins:





Harness from the DME back to the flex fuel sensor. You realize how quickly this shit adds up, this bit alone is probably $35



I need to have the throttle bodies so I can run the rest of the harness, so that too got put on hold.

And that's all I have pictures of. Unfortunately I don't have anything awesome to show off, and I hate posting about things I haven't finished yet, but I've crossed off a ton of small projects, and I get all sorts of PM's about this thing, so I wanted to give you guys something so you know I haven't given up yet.

[rzerob]

That sucks about the radiator. But it looks like it is coming together nicely.

I was remarking about the subframe spacers and how much movement you have because I am attempting the K24 into a 325ix. The front subframe is different so your solution won't work for me.

Keep up the good work.

[jeenyus]

Look at the similarity. Not sure why you'd take it as an insult.

Great work btw.

[efficient]

if you got cracks on the passenger side. check where the ac pipes come out of and youll most likely have some there too. i had the same cracks as you on the passenger side

[Griffin0163]

My plan is to make a box with trapdoors surrounding the pickup, and a blocker to prevent the oil up the timing case. I found a Japanese article about k series baffling that goes pretty in depth about that issue, but google translate isn't working great so it's hard to decipher.

Thanks for the reply. Would you mind PMing me a link to that Japanese article? I know David at Kmiata is getting close to finishing his kit. I'm curious to see what his oil pan setup will be as well.

I see you're sticking with drive-by-wire throttle body versus the normal B-series swap. What is your reasoning for this? More programability with the stand alone?

Anyways - very nice so far. I will be following this closely as I am about to dive into mine in the coming months.

[Rev Run D]

Thanks for the reply. Would you mind PMing me a link to that Japanese article? I know David at Kmiata is getting close to finishing his kit. I'm curious to see what his oil pan setup will be as well.

I can translate, would love to see thsi running!

[CTDRIVER86]

Nice Build! Would you consider making 2 motor mount brackets and cooling pipes? I'm planning to do a k-series build too in my e30.

[rzerob]

updates?

[E30SPDFRK]

I took a few months off around the holidays, I've been making progress but it's all small things that wouldn't make for an interesting post. Currently working on the radiator shroud/mount; I'm building a plug to take a mold from so I can make the final part in carbon.

The plan is to have it running in time to drive it to the picnic this summer.

[rzerob]

That is awesome. I will be patiently waiting.

[Mike36]

Here for some updates 👍🏻