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Alive, Well, and Turbo'd in NY

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    #31
    No....




    I started cranking it at the shop while on the lift. It coughed once, but no start. I asked the guy standing by the engine bay if he smelled fuel. I didn't. He didn't either. So I get out and look under the car. Bingo, the fuel was leaking from the high pressure line before the fuel filter. No big deal.... So we roll the car out to be towed, but I'm ambitious. I'll fix it in the parking lot I say. So I grab the traditional diamond-style jack from the Subaru. I start jacking up the rear by the fuel line with the jack on the subframe piece surrounding the diff. As soon as the rear tire left the ground, the whole car moved for a quick second. Then it moved again......right off the jack. The jack went right through the fuel tank, and there went 13.5 gallons of precious 93 octane fuel.

    I had to call the fire department.... 3 Fire trucks, 4 Fire SUV's, and 2 Cop cars (WTF!!) came to my "rescue". No fire, just fuel everywhere. Then they told me I had to call a truck so they could lift it into the air so they could air chisel the tank. ORRRR they had the AUDACITY to say they were going to TIP MY CAR ON IT'S SIDE. This was NOT a joke! He was completely serious! I nearly knocked his fat a$$ right out of his stupid fireman pants. They ended up bringing a floor jack to the site, and they started lifting it up between the jack points right on the flimsy vertical metal ridge along the bottom!! I told them they CAN'T jack it up there, and they were like blah blah blah, stupid fireman talk. I told them that they can pay for the damage then. He ignored me and they pulled me back.


    So yes, they bent that little ridge. Luckily that was all the damage done. Had it towed home, and ordered a new gas tank.

    Comment


      #32
      Had to remove the exhaust, driveshaft, exhaust shields, rear seat, fuel pump, and various fuel lines to get the job done, but done it is. That thing was in there pretty tight, but can be removed without touching the subframe. Out with the old, in with the blurry


      The new tank did not come with this piece


      Which I twisted pretty good trying to take off. Thankfully I was rescued by a r3v member who happened to have the part. I wasn't ordering a new one. The cheapest one I found was over $80!!. I paid half that for the used one including shipping, and I was on my way. I also installed a new fuel filter while I was at it. Old one wasn't very old, but it was kind of rusty, so why not.

      I switched garages, installed everything.....again, and tried to crank it again. (battery is very dead so it was annoying to try and start it all these times). Nothing. Is it getting fuel? I started taking off a high pressure line and sprayed myself with fuel....so yes. Spark?? I switched back to the old coils and wires (I did a COP conversion), cranked again, nothing. I pulled a plug and reinstalled the COP kit. I tested all 4 coils. All got spark.

      Reinstalled that and then it hit me. Check the fuel rail. I had the fuel feed line connected to the return line on the fuel rail, switched it, sprayed fuel everywhere, and waited until the morning to start it. Hooked up a jumper box, and crank, nothing. Try again, won't even crank. Not enough power. Fine, I'll get a new battery. Go to Wal-Mart where I got the last $h!tty battery for like $60, and they don't stock it anymore. Autozone?? $130...UGH. Fine, 1 in stock. NOPE! Not on the shelf. "I can have it in by 6pm from our warehouse". Fine. 6:30, no call from them yet, I was driving by so I stopped in. Nope, still don't have it, and not receiving any more shipments for the day. WHAT!? So I decide to drive to their warehouse, and I also decide to splurge an extra $25 for 3 additional years of warranty on the battery, and get a 10% discount for the hassle. Great.

      Install battery. VROOOOOOM! Whoops, throttle cable stuck on something. Fix that and yesssssss, it runs!!! Terribly.... Huge sucking noise, I must have an enormous vacuum leak.

      Yep.


      I had the brake booster w/check valve running to the nipple under the throttle body, so I plugged that and connected the vacuum line to the above nipple (as per advise of JakeB who has been a HUGEEEEE help in the various calamities of finishing the car).


      BAM, she purrs like a kitten. A ticky kitten, but such is the way of the m42.

      Comment


        #33
        I took many many videos of trying to start the car so I could capture the first start but I gave up haha. So I just have this small video of it running.



        And yes it did die at the end, I can't remember why. Anyway, I forgot to mention the other vacuum hose routing I used. I deleted the TB heater plater, installed a new plastic coolant pipe thingy under the IM with a new o-ring. I used silicone vacuum hose (12mm IIRC), and connected a line from the brake booster through a straight line check valve from ECS (wish I would've used the 90 degree elbow one, but oh well) and to the IM. I used a larger vacuum hose (can't remember the size) for the ICV to the nipple on the charge piping, and for the crankcase vent.... That's where it got complicated. I didn't want to vent to atmosphere, so I went to Home Depot and picked up one of these:


        Took a total of 9 brass fittings to make it work, but it came out nicely!

        I drilled a hole into the silicone coupling from the charge piping to the AFM on the turbo inlet, and stuck a fitting through with threads on one side, and a hose-thingy (technical term, I know...) on the other side.


        Connected that to a hose which connected to a 90 degree elbow, then to the out-end of the "catch can"

        Comment


          #34



          But back to the now. After bleeding the coolant system and such I noticed several leaks. I HATE LEAKS!!!!! To recap, the whole project started as a fix for an oil leak from the profile gasket. That leak appears to still be there. I will know for sure tomorrow. I also had an oil leak from the oil feed line for the turbo from the back of the engine. I disconnected the line from the turbo, and cranked it down further on the back of the engine, and reconnected the other end back to the turbo. Fixed that one. My power steering fluid leaked as well. It always seeped, probably from the used e36 rack, but not this bad. I didn't get new crush washers so that could be it. It appears to be coming from the lowest banjo bolt off the pump.

          Then I also noticed coolant leaks. I had this one:


          Which at first looked like a leak from the head gasket, but was pretty clear it was from the hose on the head after looking at this pic. That is the bypass hose used between the nipple on the plastic coolant pipe previously mentioned and the nipple on the block (which is significantly smaller than the nipple on the coolant pipe). I used 5/8in heater hose to make this bypass, and it was leaking. I removed the TB and got in there with a 6mm open end wrench to clamp it down more (impossible to find a 6mm wrench for sale at all, let alone by itself....I had to buy a whole set just for this one wrench for this ONE occasion). That worked too.

          I also have some sort of mysterious coolant leak from the back of the engine that doesn't ever leak when I look, but when I come back and look under the car, there's a pretty sizeable puddle right under where the tranny meets the engine. I can't see anything wet back there... But I'm going for my first drive to a shop tomorrow so that HE can find the leaks, and so that HE can fix them, cuz I HATE them. And tracking them down is far from my specialty haha. (I spent years and lots of time and money fixing the wrong stuff chasing the oil leak that my guy found in like 15min....)

          Comment


            #35
            Anyway! On to the gauges. I have an Innovative Motorsports MTX-L wideband, a VDO oil pressure gauge, and a mechanical VDO boost gauge (reads up to 25 PSI ;D). I installed the oil pressure sender using the unused opening on the oil filter


            I used a generic gauge pod from Summit, which had a carbon fiber overlay . I don't like A-pillar gauges, and I don't want to eliminate the air vents, or the space between the climate control and ashtray, so yes...it's an out-of-place-looking above dash gauge pod.


            So I painted it flat black......which apparently turned out to be gloss black. Oh well. Here's all the gauges as they sit now. Upside-down...


            I tapped into the fuel evap line for the boost line, and ran everything through the firewall by the ECU harness.

            Now one thing I didn't realize was that the dash has a metal infrastructure. Impossible to get at with a drill while the windshield is in place, so I used a dremel. Luckily my dash is has more crack than Lindsay Lohan, so I wasn't too worried about cutting into it. But the hole was not perfect for having the boost gauge closest to me like I wanted, so I had to route it around and cut holes in the back of the pod to run the boost line. Again, not the prettiest thing, but it works.


            Really tough to see in this pic, but you can see the hose running behind the pod from one side of it to the other.

            Comment


              #36
              Got the gauges all done, and the interior put back together, I'll post pics later.

              I went for a few drives after that, the car runs pretty smooth while driving, but is a little lumpy on idle, but does smooth out after about 10 seconds or so, and if I hold a constant rpm like 2K, it seems to be hesitating every second or so. Seems like a misfire. Despite that, I drove it nearly 200 miles yesterday and didn't have a single problem. The ABS light comes on occassionally for some reason, maybe I missed a connection....

              And not sure if it was reading correctly, but while cruising, the econometer was reading over 40mpg, but I'll wait until when I fill up to know for sure and be excited about that.

              I also have some rubbing going on. Pretty sure it's mostly from the front right splash guard in the wheel well which has been trash since day 1 (bits of it were broken including some mounting tabs) and I never bothered to fix it because it never gave me a problem. Well......I guess it's time to fix it. Since I also rotated the tires, the rear now has more meat on it, and it's hitting the fender pretty good. May have to make some adjustments.

              Can't wait to hit it in this car! 300 more miles to break in the clutch, and they can't go fast enough.

              Comment


                #37
                Finally back!! So much happened and I'm a long winded writer, so I'll try to keep it short. Also I'm not very entertaining at 2am...sober at least. Once the clutch was broken in, I was able to give it the beans, and that unfortunately started a "2 year" project. The AFR's were all over the place. Sometimes super rich, and often dangerously lean. So many many hours were spent as well as much $$ chasing the issue.

                As well, the turbo kept lifting itself off the exhaust manifold. I tried different lock washers to no avail. I even sourced nordlock washers, and didn't get quite the right size at first, but figured it would be fine, and of course it wasn't. Didn't matter anyway, because the problem lied with the brass mounting nuts which were too soft and melting under the heat. Order stainless steel nuts and properly sized nordlock washers, and BAM. Fixed.

                Then I drifted


                That impact broke the infamously weak subframe engine mount tabs, so it was time for a new subframe. Picked one up, cleaned it up, added in reinforcement tabs for the engine mount tabs, and installed.



                It also broke my e36 rack, which was garbage anyway, so I was happy to replace it. In went an e36 m3 rack.


                So then the car sat for the winter. Things went to shit at my work, so commission fell and I was broke. Got a new job and late that following spring, I sourced some replacement bodywork, and gave it to a shop. A good time later, I had her back. She still ran like garbage, but at least she looked right again.




                I picked up a 2004 WRX Wagon 20G to daily, and got to work on the e30's running issues. I took apart the intake manifold probably 6 times to aimlessly replace practically brand new gaskets hoping to find the vacuum leak I suspected I had. It did push me to buy the badass phonelic IM spacer though. Long story short, the hose from the TB to FPR was missing. It wasn't in there when I took the ol' girl apart, so I had no idea a hose was missing in the first place

                The leak was found about 2 weeks ago, and then some issues with the spark plugs arose, so I replaced those, and now FINALLYYYYYYYY I'm breaking it in at 8psi. Feels awesome, but is pretty loose in autocross. I picked up a cabrio front sway to help with the oversteer, and may likely throw some super sticky tires on the back for events.

                Vids to come. She doesn't run 100% yet, and has some kind of annoying vibration around 4K I'll look into, but I couldn't care less right now because it finally works after 2 years, and that's all I've wanted lol

                Comment


                  #38
                  Pic whoring post.

                  Gauges as promised 2 years ago


                  Also swapped out the airbag wheel finally for a Momo Competition Wheel (haven't bothered with the horn button yet). Also got a Snap-Off quick release for the wheel because racecar



                  Cruise to opening day of Watkins Glen






                  It's good to be back
                  Last edited by 16v_e30; 04-29-2016, 11:55 PM.

                  Comment


                    #39
                    Haha entertaining read mate.

                    All the little dramas in a project add up especially when you document them.

                    Comment


                      #40
                      Looks good!

                      Comment


                        #41
                        lol the cops came

                        Turbo M42 Build Thread :Here
                        Ig:ryno_pzk
                        I like the tuna here.
                        Originally posted by lambo
                        Buttchug. The official poster child of r3v.

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                          #42
                          The issues still continue a year later. The vibration around 4K rpms only got worse, and in my last oil change of the car last August or so, I had some party oil! More glittery than your mom was on her clubbing night in the 80's. Soooo even though the car runs okay, I decided to stop driving it, and whenever I regain the motivation on it, I'll be ripping the motor back out, and likely replacing it with a (hopefully) less troublesome m42. Over the years, I've replaced practically everything in that motor and refused to stop leaking oil, and refused to run 100%. At this point, it's easier for me to get motivated about swapping in a different m42 than it is to work on this one anymore.

                          To pick up the slack in the racing department, I picked up a stripped out '87 325is with an s50 (I know, I know....that has 24v, not 16). It's a blast, but there can be no escape from unreliability for me... 2 weeks after I bought it, the head gasket went. But there'll be more on that in its own thread, along with the journeys its already taken me on.

                          My upcoming move will allow me more opportunity to work on my cars, so hopefully it won't be too long before I can begin wrenching on this little car again - I miss her. :puppy:

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                            #43
                            Dang dude the e30 gives you no breaks. In for more updates

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