Pikes Peak Int. Hill Climb Turbo E30 Build

[SeatTime]

Holy god. This is unbelievable. I almost got my motor out today and I feel like that's making progress.

Next time I'm debating whether to go out to the garage, I'm going to check in here and get some motivation!

[thedean]

What did you do on the block/head surface to prep for the MLS? What O-ring mat'l did you use and what size? Any pics of the process?

Are you controlling Vanos with your Megasquirt? Care to share you wiring diagram?

I'll be following most of the same steps except in a e36 chassis.

Thanks,

Michon

[R3Z3N]

Here's the slide from an oncoming shot!

[turge]

Subscribed. Looks good so far man. I wish I had the time and money to take on a project like this.

Also I see you are going with the Caswell approach with a $500 e30. Very nice. :up:

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 2

[Jalves619]

Love this build.

[team9]

Serious pucker moment at 8:20 in the video!!! Nice save

[rfields]

Aero PM imminent

[Zodow]

Serious pucker moment at 8:20 in the video!!! Nice save

Yea it was sketch for sure, would have been kinda embarrassing had I just slid into the mountain. I watched your Chasing The Dragon Hill Climb video, looks fun! car sounded good :)

[Zodow]

Engine Time!

So the main guts of the engine are all stock.
Block is from a m50
rods/crank are from an m52(should have just got an m52 from the beginning)
stock oil pump just rebuilt
e34 m50 oil pan

First thing was to check out the pistons being as all this stuff was a junkyard special it needed some cleaning and I opted to do it myself instead of having the machine shop do it.

Nastyness




I tried all kindsa stuff to get this carbon build up off,
What I ended up using was this stuff

Berrymans Chem Dip


Works well and pretty fast. Smells kinda strange so use it outside or with a mask, and wear some gloves!
I would soak it for about 30 mins and clean off the stuff that loosened up and repeat.

I have seen that ATF works as well, might give it a shot next time and see what works best.

Got them all to look like this in a day.


It really helped to check for cracks and such


Next was the oil pump. The stock pump was fine for my needs, I just wanted to make sure it had been rebuilt. I didn't find too much info on all this but its pretty easy to do, I believe the bently or haynes manual tells you how to do it.
Im really glad that I chose to do this cause there was some build up off junk forming inside.

Heres a shot with it disassembled. I ended up replacing the spring, and the rubber o-ring on the plunger piece.


Just make sure there isn't too much wear on the rotating parts and all should be well.
Here are some part numbers from pelican parts.
Spring - 11-41-1-706-809-M9 (its used for a few things other than the oil pump)
o-ring - 11-41-1-722-837-BOE

some guys also replace the c clip that holds in the plunger and spring in the pump, I didn't but it wouldn't hurt. Sorry dont have the PN. Also I did the oil pump "saftey trick" by drilling through the oil pump nut when it was torqued to spec and wrapped a bit of stainless steel wire around it to make sure that nut cant come off.

Sent the block in to have it honed, decked and o-ringed.

I used copper, .041 can't remember depth off the top of my head. Gotta find my notebook.

Some cosmetic stuff.




arp's




If you get your block decked be sure to give the machine shop the timing chain cover as well, I didnt (another doh!) and had to improvise with a sheet of sandpaper taped to my floor and some elbow grease to take it down.


Parts! I ordered a good amount stuff from Autohausaz. The free shiping over 50 helps a bunch.
Got new main/rod bearings, rings, seals, timing chain, tensioner, oil pump chain, etc...


The Haynes manual has most all the clearance and torque specs that you need as well, the bently was pretty limited on this stuff.

Crank thrown in, just had it polished. Was all to spec as well. Make sure and have a helper to put it in.




The head had been recently worked on by a performance shop in Denver. This was the head from the s50, and the guy I had bought it from had replaced the valves with 1mm oversized ones, new springs and retainers as well as having it decked so I just checked the best I could and made sure it was as clean as I could get it.


.120 mls


Looking more like an engine :)


I stuck with the stock lifters, just decided to get the gunk out of them. I soaked them in some acetone or alcohol to try and loosen up the junk that builds up inside of them. After letting them sit I would squish them down and out would come crud, repeat until no more crud came back, then soaked them in oil and test them to make sure they were okay. found a few that needed to be replaced and found good ones from one of the heads from the junkyard. I still ended up with one lifter that was noisy, so next time the cams come off ill look for it.


Lifters back in :)


Cams back in, they are hollow so be careful taking them off and putting on. I didnt use the special tool, just try to find the sweet spot that isnt stressing the cam and tighten bolts slowly and not all on one side, etc.
I like to use redline synthetic assembly lube if your curious.


The haynes manual even has an instruction how to make a tool to hold your cams at the right position for the timing and vanos instal.


Clutch and flywheel f1racing stage 3 kit with a 10 lb flywheel and rated at 487hp and 435ft/lbs. Works well other than a little noisy when feathering while starting to move, I dont think its broken in yet.
I suggest getting a slave cylinder from an e36 325i instead of an m3 one as the bore is larger and works better with heavier clutches, so they say. Felt great to me :)


Engine awaiting car

[Zodow]

What did you do on the block/head surface to prep for the MLS? What O-ring mat'l did you use and what size? Any pics of the process?

Are you controlling Vanos with your Megasquirt? Care to share you wiring diagram?

I'll be following most of the same steps except in a e36 chassis.

Thanks,

Michon

No special sauce on the mls just a clean decked block and head, I did not control vanos, more on that when I get to that stuff.

[team9]

Yea it was sketch for sure, would have been kinda embarrassing had I just slid into the mountain. I watched your Chasing The Dragon Hill Climb video, looks fun! car sounded good :)

I do love Hill Climbs!!! Its just something on a different level than being out on a track. I hope to be able to do Pikes Peak in the next 5 years. That would be the ultimate!

On another note, I'm sure you'll cover this when you get to it, but why did you only run 225's? With 400hp, I would have thought you might have gone bigger.

[Zodow]

Wiring, Turbo, and weight reduction

Well one of my least favorite parts of any car is the wiring.

One large hurdle I had with the engine bay wiring was the fuse box location.
In the picture you can see part of my cage goes right where the fuse box was.
so my solution was to cut the wires extend them and resolder them all together. Quite the pain when there is 41 wires going to the fuse box from the engine bay(not every single one needed but most were)


Grrr... I used little tags to number them as I cut them because there were a few of the same color wire. I tried to recycle as much of the unnecessary wiring from the car.


Here's where I relocated the box when I finished the soldering, note we moved this up about about an inch cutting into the dash for a bit more leg clearance.

As you can see I went with the stock dash which is cracked to hell, pain in the arse to get it back in, hopefully next year I can make a carbon fiber one.

Here is the c101 adapter in progress


Mostly all finished


For the guy who asked about the wiring diagram. I used a junkyard c101 and e36 connectors from the junkyard so at this point im unsure of what years etc. they are from so this might not be of much help. Please download the etm for the year/model the e36 engine harness you have came from and your e30's year/model etm and check off that everything you connect is right, it takes some time because the some of the manuals are hard to search but you dont have to wonder whether the car will catch fire or what not.


So I had been on the fence for several months whether to turbo the car or not before the engine was built. It all came down to budget and tuning, I knew I really needed one to be competitive on the mountain. The options were to go with a higher compression s50 or turbocharge an m52.
It all was decided when I found the turbo that I was looking for.


It was a low mileage GT35r .82 a/r that popped up on the ebay for 600 shipped. Not the deal of the century but good enough to get me started in time.

Next came the exhaust manifold(good and tight/blunttech) and the wastegate(tial mvr), Picked the combo it up used for 550 shipped I believe.




Megasquirt 2- I probably should have forked the extra cash for the 3 to do datalogging on the runs. Might go for something else next year.


Heres a better pic of the intercooler just sitting inbetween the frame rails.
Ebay cxracing 31"x12"x3"


Tight...




Another dilemma was how I was going to route the intercooler piping.


Fix






Start of the down pipe 3"




Routed wastegate dump back into the pipe, gonna change this for next year I think.


Braided stuff going on


Stuff back from the welder(I dont own a tig.. yet!)


Polycarbonate windows cut out and taped to spray a black border on the inside.




Lotsa ways to attach them, I used large head rivits
[IMG]hhttps://scontent.fapa1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/12264_10151247107234898_1743622172_n.jpg?_nc_cat=1 04&_nc_ht=scontent.fapa1-2.fna&oh=b9a3e43483c76223d4aaeb1221f38bab&oe=5D63F 532[/IMG]

More weight reduction!
Stock hood with brackets is around 51lbs! So my buddy Skylar helped once again with composite stuff.
We decided to do a positive copy of the hood, which isnt as clean or the exact dimentions of the hood but hell its a race car!

First thing is something to act as a release agent, one cheap way to do it is with packaging tape.

This would be terrible if you were just making a mold as it leaves lines everywhere from the tape overlap. But worked well for what we did.





We did one layer of fiberglass, then a layer of coremat, then a layer of fiberglass.

Vaccumbagged this part.




Second lesson is if you want to vaccum bag something even in the middle of winter in a cold garage use the normal hardener not the fast stuff... by the time we had got all the layers together vaccumbag set up it had mostly set up and we didnt get much epoxy out.

Had to sand the beast for a while to get some of the ripples out.


Used some epoxy filler to help fill in the imperfections, then sanded that all down to a decent paintable surface.


My buddy Jon helping fit the new hood.


added some Styrofoam to the bottom section for strength, this helped alot



Final product weights 7.5 lbs as compared to 51 :)

Most of the stuff that came off the car was weighed, (fairly accurate scales) Here's a list that I made.

[widebodye30]

Awesome build... Nice craftsmanship on cage as well;)

[rturbo 930]

Nice work! The cage looks awesome. Making your own FG hood is pretty sweet too. Looks like you get shit done.

I'd love to hear more about the 240z, since I, too, have a '71 240z (though it needs a shell swap).

[Zodow]

I do love Hill Climbs!!! Its just something on a different level than being out on a track. I hope to be able to do Pikes Peak in the next 5 years. That would be the ultimate!

On another note, I'm sure you'll cover this when you get to it, but why did you only run 225's? With 400hp, I would have thought you might have gone bigger.

Well the hoosier a6 225/45/15 's are larger than an average 225. I believe the treadwidth is about 9 inches on em, not sure what the tread width is on your 255's but its probably close-ish. I had no major problem putting the power down(minus some suspension errors) or bite when it came to the course for the speeds I was at last year. If I turn up the wick then I might be worrying about traction, not to mention the rest of the drivetrain..lol

As far as going bigger it mainly comes down to rim choices for larger tires and $. I could upgrade to the 275/35/15 and find a custom deal for 15x10's or go with diamond racing and have a 10~11 inch tire :) with heavier rims :(.
Another option is going above 15, but unless I have stupid power and get a dog box or something, beefy axles and a beefy driveshaft it would be a ticking time bomb. Alot of guys were running 275's or bigger so it sure is tempting though...