Project Armo "330i" M-tech 1

[Skarpa]

Looks good!

[Skarpa]

Vanos, timing chains and camshafts installed. The camshafts I have are regrind M52 units that I came by for a cheap price. The profile is 252° x 9,6mm. I measured the base circle diameter to be 2 mm smaller than original. I wanted to make sure the lifters get oil at zero lift with the reduced base circle so I measured the cam trays and lifters and did a little drawing.



The ground profile seems to be the maximum possible without modifying the cam trays. And that wouldn't really make sence with these camshafts when there are much better options to start with if you want more aggressive cams. Anyway, the oil supply for the lifters seems to be ok. As a test I timed the cams to factory settings and measured the valve lift at tdc with a dial gauge.



The valve lift seemed to be around 0,5 mm for both cams. I've been told that a good overlap for mild tune cams is 1mm - 1 mm at tdc so I took that as a target and started clocking the cams. The adjustment is pretty sensitive and there's quite a lot of hysteresis especially with the intake cam. After a while of going back and forth I got the the valve lifts to 1,05 mm for intake cam and 0.95 for exhaust cam and decided to settle with that. I'll re-check the timing once the engine has been running. And regarding that, I sent the ecu to Pazi88 to have him make the initial tune for the engine.

[Skarpa]

I cut off the brackets I made for the E36 rear seatand fabricated a center fixing point for seat belt locks.




I wanted to use a brand new nut for the threaded part of the bracket but UNF 7/16" x 22 is such an exotic thread here that I wasn't able to find one. It's possible that there's a mistake in the ETK and the size is actually 7/16" x 20 but I didn't check it. I just drilled off a seat belt bracket from a fellow hobbyist's car and used the captive nut from that.






The cross member I made is a bit lower than the original one and has a smooth bottom surtface so I was able to weld the bracket to its bottom face as the original brackets without hitting the rear subframe. I'll probably need to make a small kink in the brake hard line to clear the bracket but it shouldn't be any problem. In M3 the bracket attaches to the side wall of the cross member like this:


Thanks to fellow hobbyist for the picture. It wasn't easy to find a photo of that spot for reference.

The sheet metal under the rear seat is a bit bumpy due to making rust repairs, welding brackets for E36 rear seat, cutting them off and welding seat belt bracket there instead but no one will be able to see it anyway. Now we are back to the spot where I have no welding left to do one the body. We'll see if the plan holds this time.

[thedivision]

Great work as always. Were you able to try out the 325ia drive shaft when you had the transmission in the car?

[Skarpa]

Great work as always. Were you able to try out the 325ia drive shaft when you had the transmission in the car?

Thanks! I kinda forgot to do it and had dropped the engine before I had the rear subframe and diff in place but my own estimations and measurement to the support bearing as well as information found online tell me the drive shaft will work but the center joint will be extended out a few centimeters more than in stock so it's not absolute perfect.

[thedivision]

Have you matched up the flanges? The 37bz has a 96mm guibo, the 325i shaft might be 76mm.

[Skarpa]

Have you matched up the flanges? The 37bz has a 96mm guibo, the 325i shaft might be 76mm.

Yeah, E36 325i typically have 76 mm guibo but 325iA has 96 mm guibo. (and much shorter drive shaft)

[Skarpa]

It's been a while since last update but this project is progressing on it's glacier-like pace as always. Lately I've just been working on some laboursome fiddling with not much to show. At least not until it's a bit more ready. In the name of reliability I was going to replace the starter motor and the alternator with new parts but I was talked out of it because apparently the aftermarket units are often of poor quality and original starter motors are no longer available. I had a bit more thorough look at my parts. The alternator is actually pretty fresh-looking Valeo so I'll assume it's in working order. It's not that difficult to replace anyway even when the engine is in the car. The starter is a different story being buried under the intake manifold. I decided to overhaul the starter and bought brushes, solenoid and a bendix for it. I took apart the starter just to find out that the spare parts didn't fit. There are a handful of different starter models for these engines and this one was a different kind.




Pazi88 sold me a working starter with the correct part number and I got things started. I took apart the starter, cleaned and inspected all the parts and straightened the commutator surface in lathe.




Replacing the bendix got me scratching my head for a while because of the cryptic retaining ring. It consists of a round wire ring that goes in a groove in the shaft and a housing that goes around the wire ring and holds it in place. I managed to take off the retaining with not too much difficulty but trying to fiddle it back together was a different story.




This is how I did it in the end: Slip the housing on the shaft, put the ring in the groove, slide the housing next to the wire ring and support the whole assembly from the housing with a bearing puller, tap the wire ring into the housing one end first and then going around the whole ring.





I blasted the aluminum part of the case with glass beads and scuffed off the surface rust from the other parts. In my workplace we're not allowed to put mild steel in the blasting cabinet to avoid contamination of stainless parts. Then it was time to reassemble with fresh grease in all the right spots.







Then I gave the starter a coat of paint. I believe it will continue to serve for while.




As a side project I refurbished a set of RC090s and sold them to fund the main project:

[Skarpa]

Regarding laboursome fiddling, here's what I've been working on lately. Going for S50 ITBs leads to a lot of fitment issues under the intake manifold. I tried to document it pretty well in case someone is interested. Here's some of the clutter:


Pipe for the heater core points straight to the plenum. The expansion tank pipe hits the ICV hose and the plenum support. The plenum support hits the engine mount. In addition to those I still need to fit the ICV, dipstick, oil separator and the wiring loom with the tray. I started with the easiest ie. the dipstick. I needed to keep it out of the way of everything else and with a little bending it found it's place behind the alternator.





Next I fit into place the plenum support. I needed to cut off a little fron the bottom end and make a raiser for the fixing bolt.






Then I cut up the coolant pipe and reshaped it.


To get the pipe lined up properly while mocking it up and to make it easier to weld, I made a sleeve that fit snugly over the pipe. An old beat up bike handlebar was just the right diameter to use for the job.





I made a hose connector for the rear end of the pipe in the same diameter as the heater core connectors. Other changes included shortening the pipe in front of the expansion tank branch about 15 mm and rotating the rear part a little to clear the plenum support and the ICV hose.



Next I made a bracket for the ICV.


The wiring loom support required some cutting and bending to create space for the ICV and the breather hoses.


Most of the stuff fits nicely in place and received a coat of paint:




The last thing to tackle was the breather/oil separator. I don't want to use any catch can that requires constant draining. The S50B32 oil separator system works fine and is pretty flexible in placement. Only drawback is that it's meant for an engine where the breather outlet as well as the oil sump are in the back of the engine while I have both in the front. I started to work by making an oil return connection for the sump:


This kind of cyclone-type oil separator needs to have the oil return below the oil surface level in order to work correctly so I made a short return pipe and press fitted it to the hose connector. Then i drilled and tapped a hole in the oil pan and glued to hose connector in place with some RTV.



The best fit for the oil separator seemed to be above the engine mount. It's a bit lower than originally. Time will tell whether it causes any problems.




I actually made a bracket for the separator but failed to take into account all the things that need to be mounted in this area so it doesn't fit in place after all. I guess the separator will work just fine dangling from some hoses. Now the engine is pretty much ready to receive the wiring harness. If anyone has any informative pic about what each plug is for, I'll be glad because the previous owner pulled off the wiring harness without marking any of the plugs. (M52 single vanos)

EDIT: Nevermind, I just remembered I have another wiring harness that I pulled myself, with all the connectors marked.

[gnmzl]

Good work, man! You make it look like a breeze, but we know the work that hides behind those tweaks.
Thank you for sharing and keep going at it. Car is gonna be sweet!

[Skarpa]

Good work, man! You make it look like a breeze, but we know the work that hides behind those tweaks.
Thank you for sharing and keep going at it. Car is gonna be sweet!

Thanks!

[Skarpa]

I was going to run the valve cover breather hose straight down from the connector, behind the vanos solenoid but I came to conclusion that even though it would be possible, it's just too cramped up with the vanos hose and wiring. So I had to think of something else:





I turned a couple of other parts as well in lathe. I'm getting the hang of this.







However I didn't end up using the reducing double hose connector thingy. There just wasn't enough room for it. I pushed a short length of steel pipe inside the thinner hose to keep it from collapsing and tightened the bigger hose over it with a hose clamp. There's no fear if it wiggling lose since the oil separator or the hoses have absolutely zero room to wiggle. I threaded the wiring harness on the engine and swapped the coolant temperature connector for the instrument cluster to one suitable for E30 sensor. For the M52TU /M54 crank position sensor I got a factory-made mini wire loom from Pazi 88. You just plug it to existing connectors and it robs the 12V power from the vanos solenoid.

I got the ancillary belts in as well. Earlier I was missing the idler pulley at the alternator bracket and without it the belt was too long. I guess the early M52s came without that idler but it's better to have it.


There's not too much left to do before I can wire the engine to makeshift test rig and see if it starts.

[Skarpa]

Now the body is primered in all the areas that I've worked on and is ready for seam sealer. It was surprisingly big job and I used a good chunk of my summer holiday on that even though I'd already primered most of the underside before. It would have made sense to media blast and primer the whole body in the beginning of the project.











Of course the shop has such great surroundings that it's not a bad place to spend your holiday:


Ps. Take care and mind the sharp edges while under the car.

[Skarpa]

A few months have passed since the last update. Progress has been somewhat slow but still there. I got the ITBs and the plenum finally installed. The breather hose connector on the plenum required some modification since I'm using a bit larger hose.





It starts to look like an engine. There wasn't room for the O2 sensor connectors in the original location so I cut open the rear end of the wire housing and brought out the connectors that way. I think I'll need to make a holder for those.



The body is almost ready with seam sealer. There's still a bit of work left in the engine bay and the trunk but not too much.

[mjweimer]

Great update. Chassis is really coming along and I bet you can't wait to get it into paint....and nice touch with the valve cover.


MJ