M50 Turbo Winter Project

[SirMaxximus]

From the looks of your old gasket it looked like it was just about to blow anyways so this was a good call. Keep up the hard work

Thanks mate!

Slapped everything back together and did the first start up this weekend. Ran good, no problems! Ran it through a full heat cycle and burped all my coolant! All seems good No more timing cover leak which I'm very happy about!

Then I took the valve cover back off and did the retorque on the head since its recommended to do so after first heat cycle.

Since I had my leakdown tester home from work already I decided to do a quick leakdown just to see how healthy everything was still. I'd estimate this motors mileage over 200k, but everything looked pretty good visually when I had it apart.

And results were fantastic, less than 10% leakage from any cylinder!



I know I'm gonna have to advance the ignition timing a little bit now with lower compression, the question is how much really? going to start by adding a few degrees and going from there, my old ignition map was a conservative guess really. But I think most of these things start out that way! lol

[SirMaxximus]

Okay... its now the end of January and its absolutely freezing here in MN. -30f before windchill the last few days. A few new things in the last couple weeks.

1st: new condor motor mounts seem to give me slightly more space near the strut tower! all is good!



I re-wrapped my exhaust manifold.... but I used a little less up top which I now realized how close to my coil wires the exhaust is!.. So I made a quick heat shield.









Also! bought myself a new steering wheel! Renown 130R motorsport. Honestly I just disliked how large my old mtech1 felt... I really like how this one feels so far!



Before:


After:

[SirMaxximus]

Alright guys! It's been awhile since I've updated this. Car has been up and running awesome for the last couple months, retuned it and have it set around 16psi!

But as far as updates go heres some stuff you missed:

-New brakes all around
-Ebrake now works good!
-Switched from a Electronic boost controller. ditched my MBC.

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I quickly found out that my 7lb spring in the wastegate doesn't like to hold much higher than 14psi... pretty typical. If anyone is curious the Tial springs do fit and are pretty close in pressure rating if you fit them in a wyntonm ebay replica.



doing some testing and basic tuning.








So... I know how much everyone loves husco's.... I drive this car pretty regularly in the summer, to and from work and on the weekends especially. And the lack of armrest and cupholder has really been an annoyance to me.

But I honestly cant justify paying 200+ for a husco.... So i've been wrapping my head around different idea's. I have some friends a few hours away that work on volvo's, they basically have a volvo graveyard full of parts cars. I chatted with them about old volvo armrests/cupholders and we found a few that might work in an e30....

I ended up taking one from them from a 1994 volvo 850, and making a custom bracket to fit. I have more pictures of the process and will post a build thread of it so it can help others who wanna do something similar, but heres the finished product. Big shout out to my brother chris who did most of the bracket design and building. And to Tom and Sara who helped out from the volvo graveyard and hooked me up with it!
















In other news, I started at a new shop a few months ago, we do bmws / audi's / mercedes / lambo's and see alot of performance stuff. But as its been becoming summer we've seen alot of project cars and each tech is getting at least one project car each week. This was mine last week, 1980 VW rabbit diesel. I loved this car and thought it would share it! Hadn't ran in two years and it was just a gem to drive around!





Thanks for all the comments and help, stay tuned for more updates. Right now I'm just enjoying the car for the summer! i might still go do a dyno this year and see what its making power wise.

Next years goals: fatter tires and getting her more planted to the ground on launches.