NOTORIOUS VR's E36 328is turbo build

[NOTORIOUS VR]

Well the weather played ball this weekend, unfortunately I didn't end up where I wanted to be due to one little stupid part. But I guess that's just the name of the game sometimes.

Saturday morning, I cleaned up the deck of the block and laid out the head stud tapping kit from Perry for closer inspection. The kit was very impressive, he even included a brand new starting tap which is a nice touch. Also took the time to watch his Youtube video, basically making this kit fool proof.




I taped up the deck and also removed the dowel pin. Also after looking at the included tools with the kit I noticed the long reamer and drill wouldn't be able to clear the cowl area by the firewall with the engine in the car. Obviously I didn't want to remove the engine, so I removed the cowl for the blower motor, that gave me the clearance I needed to get at the last two stud holes.





I pretty much just dug right in, and let me tell you not once during the whole process did I curse or swear or be unsure something wasn't going to go right. Perry's kit was just downright badass. He certainly came up with an amazing little tool to let anyone modify their block easily and safely. Very, very impressive to say the least! Well done Perry!





Here you can see the difference between the stock 10mm ARP2000 (left) vs the S54's 11mm ARP2000 (right):





After doing all the holes wanted to really clean up and degrease the deck and pistons



At that time knowing that cyl 6 saw some detonation, I inspected a little further, it's clear #6 got hot... have some light ring marks on the back of the wall, and light pitting on the top of piston 6, you can also see in the pictures the heat ring on the intake side.

The car didn't have any major blow by before I pulled the head, but it's clear cyl 6 isn't in the best of shape. That said, it's going back together as is and it will just have to hang on. I will probably trim back the ignition advance on cyl 6 as well to keep things sane back there even though I have a head that is no longer increasing in CR as from 1-6.




Pulled the exh. manifold studs (short M54) from my old head because there's a few studs on the new head that are too long to work with the turbo manifold...



After that I decided to tackle drilling an extra coolant temp sensor hole in the side of the new head for my aux Speedhut gauge. Punch, drilled in 3 steps and tapped with 1/8-27 NPT tap.






After that I pretty much called it quits for the night and cleaned up the garage and tools... and just looked at my turbo sitting there on the bench waiting to scream back to life.... I just thought I can't wait to get the head back on tomorrow!



Also that morning I met up with a local turbo E46 M3 guy selling a complete E46 OEM oil cooler kit, so housing, lines, and heat exchanger. Continuing my theme of addressing all the things about the car thermally that I didn't think was up to par. The OEM E46 M3 stuff seemed like a good way to deal with the oil part of cooling since it also has a thermostat to avoid cooling the oil too much and not burning off the condensation/water in the oil when it's cooler out.



Back the the garage and first thing's first, I "clearanced" the strut tower a little more since the DP would hit/rub it sometimes, also I had some gold foil I wanted to get on there in that area.. although it's more bling than function it also helped hide the ugly areas of that strut tower from the messaging.



After that I wanted to clean off the new E46 M3 oil filter housing, it was seriously disgusting/dirty... some elbow grease using a dish pad and WD40 and it came out looking nice and clean... and taking out the oil filter that was in it also with a bunch of bearing material it's clear that the guys motor took a turn for the worse.





Then it was time to mount the turbo manifold to my head in preperation of getting the head on the car today... Unfortunately the studs in the new head just didn't want to budge so instead of breaking something, I cut 3 studs down with a hacksaw instead, and installed 2 short ones in the holes I was missing studs... that worked just as well...




This is where things take a wrong turn... I started to unpack all the new parts like timing guides, seals, etc... first the big lower guide no problem... then I go on to put the smaller lower guide... SNAP!

The lower retention clip breaks clean off, and the top pin wouldn't go in any further... I took it off and had a look from the back of the guide, Febi didn't correctly machine the top hole for the guide so it got stuck and also pulled the guide up causing tension between the pins. Not willing to deal with a broken guide after coming this far I called it quits until I can get a new one today (Mon.) hopefully and this time I will be prepared (also I will not be buying Febi anymore if possible). Funny enough the 3-4 year old Febi replacement I put in when I first built the motor was also not machine correctly in the same hole, it just wasn't as bad and still slipped on.

So F&CK u Febi and your non-existant quality control.






Then it was lunch time!



And I just tinkered with a few small things like how I'm going to mod the E46 M3 oil filter housing for the larger banjo bolt, and rework the turbo feed and sensors etc. Cleaned up the garage and hope that my buddy can get me a new short timing guide for today.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

Mini update...

Got another guide yesterday, so after work I got right back to work...

guides, timing chain and front cover back on and sealed up, head on, 11mm studs tightened down to 105 ft lb (that was a workout!) so that thing shouldn't be going anywhere.



Cams in...



All timed up and buttoned up, WP, thermostat, etc all on and that would be it to call it a day...





Still have to deal with the new E46 M3 oil filter/cooler setup... and cooling system, WG control lines to be made out of hard line, and tons of little things that will eat up lots of time as usual.

Hopefully have it fire up on the weekend if everything else goes as planned.

[chikinhed]

Re torquing is not fun with the 11 mm studs. Looks great.

[Butters Stoch]

Awaiting results on Z4 master.

[someguy2800]

Re torquing is not fun with the 11 mm studs. Looks great.

I forget, did you use the tool from me? I know there have been a few people that did it some other way.

[pbonsalb]

Someone sell an M12 to M14 banjo bolt for this purpose. I retapped the S54 housing instead. Looks like you enjoy tapping and it's free.

[chikinhed]

I forget, did you use the tool from me? I know there have been a few people that did it some other way.

I had the machine shop do it when I built my engine.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

Someone sell an M12 to M14 banjo bolt for this purpose. I retapped the S54 housing instead. Looks like you enjoy tapping and it's free.

Yeah... about that... something things just can't go right.

I got a tap from a co-worker, drilled and tapped... the TAP mangled the threads in the housing..

at first I thought I did something wrong, so I went to one of my buddies to see how we could fix it... he spun a solid piece of alu. on the lathe, drilled it, and then tapped it using the same tap... same thing happened... did it twice making sure to stop every 1-1.5 turns... same thing.

We later used the S52 banjo to check ever side of the taps thread pitch, looks like one side is slightly off and cutting off/partially rolling over the freshly cut thread.

The tap (from a cheaper kit) just cost me a bunch of headaches. I"m off to buy an M14x1.5 tap today myself to get this fixed.

Going to mill down the longer of the two bosses, then weld on an alu. bung with the right M14 thread.

[pbonsalb]

Is there room to timesert? People fix oil pans with them, but maybe they would not work with oil pressure?

[NOTORIOUS VR]

Is there room to timesert? People fix oil pans with them, but maybe they would not work with oil pressure?

Yeah not sure if I'm willing to take the chance, that said I'm fortunate enough to have lots of great fabricators as friends and we will surely fix it to be as good as or better than new. Just a piss off that something so simple had to go wrong in the first place.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

Update time!

Will start off with the oil filter housing disaster... Tapped with a bad tap (visually seemed ok), with not much wall thickness left I gave it to a buddy of mine, we whipped up a bung on his lathe real quick and fixed the housing for me while I was busy helping another friend of mine wiring up an air cooled 911 turbo engine. It's a nice surprise as it was just before the long weekend and I really wanted to try to get the car back together!

Porsche pics..

[img]https://s5.postimg.org/z72bg633r/IMG_20170415_165031.jpg[img]


Oil filter housing repair. The repair looks worse than it is in the pictures, the oily cast is a real PITA to weld with pin holes popping up all over the place. My buddy also kept the reinforcement ridges so it looks bulkier than it is.







Decided to test the wrinkle black on the oil filter cap, turned out pretty nice:





Had my alternator rebuilt as the bearings were noisy, good thing I did, the slip ring was basically shot. Everything else was good though!





Since I had the cowl off from tapping the head and I had extra gold tape I decided to strip the ugly and damaged foam sound insulation from it. That was a pita lol



Then painted it because well, it would probably start to rust on me if I just slapped the gold tape on it. Unfortunately I spaced on taking pics after I put gold foil on it, although there are some pictures later that will show it kinda when it's installed.




Of course after fitting the E46 M3 oil filter housing I wasn't aware that the power steering pump wouldn't just bolt on. So I had to get some bolts, and made spacers out of nuts and washers to get it all together and lined up.

[img]https://s5.postimg.org/zbwvycvnb/IMG_20170414_204844.jpg[/img

I then stopped by my friends shop - SEM Motorsports to use their lathe and get him to weld a gusset to my China rad as one support was very weak.

First off I machined down the fitting I got for the -12 AN breather line I will be using. It wouldn't fit in the VC, and I also didn't like the hex part on the fitting I thought it would look out of place. So I machined it down.










Marco @ SEM welded in this gusset so I don't have to worry about it bending.




Meanwhile another friend of mine Rob @ RS Autosports helped me out with a fitting dilemma on a long weekend to get the oil pressure and temperature sensors on the motor, this was difficult because the length of the oil temp sensor placement was a PITA. We ended up welding on a steel tube on a tee to extend it to clear the length.







Then it was a matter of starting to just put all the things back together... easier said than done... I was starting to get tired and it's been a long few weekends... This holiday weekend it was late nights every night.









Sunday rolled around and while it was a nice day, working along for the most part and long days is taxing, I was starting to lose steam but the end was near and really wanted to push to get it together and hear the first start.

The E46 M3 OEM oil cooler lines (aluminum thin wall) were a real pain in my d*ck... Some how after bending them in multiple places I managed to get the installed and clear everything well enough for now until I can order the adapters and line for converting to AN.




Nose panel on and zip tire racing mods to hold the oil cooler heat exchange in place...






IC mounted..




And skipping ahead a bit the car fired up, no leaks running round...

Unfortunately my whole ordeal with the rattle noise is still there. But the car runs great and I've missed driving it, not to mention that I've forgotten how fast it is even on low boost/WG pressure after months of driving a slow car lol.



And here it is at home, and I've been driving it since to make sure it get's its shake down period. So far so good, not a drop anywhere and also all the temps are nice and cool. No pressure in the cooling system, etc. Everything seems to be perfect so far!



Few things on the list that have to be taken care of, I need to make a properly coolant expansion tank ASAP. And I need to redo the aux. gauges sensors, silly me I put pipe tape on all the connections so the sensors are not able to pull a good ground from the motor causing erratic readings. I also want to tackle the oil cooler lines, and make proper brackets for the exchange (as much as I like the zip ties lol) and also get my OBD1 VC on with the larger breather and a catch can.

Once that is done I need to get my uprated tranny mounts in and address the fuel system so I can turn it up!

[pbonsalb]

I bought my S54 OFH years ago when supercharged and I had higher oil temps. I use the AN adapter fitting and capped it. Before installing the cooler, I went turbo and the engine ran cooler. For street use only, I don't think a cooler is needed. 7 years later, I still have not installed the cooler. For track use, anything to help with the thermal load on a high power car is good.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

I bought my S54 OFH years ago when supercharged and I had higher oil temps. I use the AN adapter fitting and capped it. Before installing the cooler, I went turbo and the engine ran cooler. For street use only, I don't think a cooler is needed. 7 years later, I still have not installed the cooler. For track use, anything to help with the thermal load on a high power car is good.

With the S54 housing's thermostat I shouldn't have to worry about any of that. If it was good enough for an NA S54, it's certainly going to help with a boosted M/S5x motor, with the added bonus of more oil in the system.

This time around I wanted to make sure there was no excuse to have to rip anything apart to re-do cooling stuff.

So the biggest rad, Stewart WP and oil cooler made it on the to-do list

[Matutino]

After a full rebuild and all the new parts you still have the same rattling noise?
I wonder what could be since you replaced most everything

[NOTORIOUS VR]

After a full rebuild and all the new parts you still have the same rattling noise?
I wonder what could be since you replaced most everything

You and I both

Only thing left is that spur gear in the middle of the intake cam.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

Well car has been on Daily driver duties since being put back together and it's been rock solid and running better than ever... except of course for the stupid plastic VC that always leaks in the same damn spot.

So hurting back be dammed, on Saturday I made sure that I got the Magnesium OBD1 VC on...

Ported the CCV opening as best as I could with the bur my buddy had and I was cautious as I didn't want to go through the top of bottom as it is very thin in some spots. It's around 1/2" now (slightly bigger than -10 AN)... looks a little small looking though the -12 fitting inserted... I'm hoping it will be enough I am planning on running a CC pressure sensor to gather some data eventually as well.





Then it was time for the Wrinkle paint... of course I didn't have time for it to be sitting around for 24 hours to cure, so after we devoured a package of spicy Lamb skewers (Speducci), I let the freshly painted VC bake at 200F for an hour...







Got it installed and am just loving the look of it vs the plain jane plastic junk I had on before...






Sunday was a warm and sunny day so I met up with a few friends a local car show/gathering... about 2000 hp sitting in this pic between the 3




And a roller of my friends 620whp turbo E30 cab



Next up, coolant expansion tank, oil cooler AN line conversion and bracket for the heat exchanger.

Then fuel system and WG line plumbing to the boost controller and install the Aquamist.

[E36 HateR]

Nice! Finally making progress, ive been much morr motivated lately.

[jakeE36325]

I really like how you shaved down the AN fitting so that it fit the valve cover. If you ever want to make another I'll buy one. I'm kind of surprised there is no aftermarket solution for the magnesium VC's.

[dburt86]

Ive been meaning to comment on this for a while.

A. Looks great. Glad to see it coming back together
B. I had a big turbo miata on the dyno the other day with hard lines for the gates, and the first hit, one of them broke because the gates vibrated more then the rest of the hotside. Just something to think about when planning out hard lines.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

I really like how you shaved down the AN fitting so that it fit the valve cover. If you ever want to make another I'll buy one. I'm kind of surprised there is no aftermarket solution for the magnesium VC's.

I mean, in this case it was just some random fitting pulled out of a box. Not sure what it was actually from in the first place lol

Ive been meaning to comment on this for a while.

A. Looks great. Glad to see it coming back together
B. I had a big turbo miata on the dyno the other day with hard lines for the gates, and the first hit, one of them broke because the gates vibrated more then the rest of the hotside. Just something to think about when planning out hard lines.

A. Thanks! It feels great driving it again!

B. I'll keep that in mind, although I have tune more than a few cars with hard lines for WG control without issue. Also in my case, I only plan on doing hard line between the two gates themselves (top & bottom), for the boost controller and compressor reference I plan on using braided line instead. So far so good though, I did a sloppy line between the gates just for the bottom and it's working fantastic.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

So in my quest to find out why the hell my engine makes this rattle/chain noise and also why it runs like poop at low load/rpm, I decided to do a compression test a few weeks back just to get that out of the way. I knew that 6 might be a little lower (and it was) because of the det that occurred, but I was confident it was still going to be health since the car has no other issues and all the plugs look great now.

Plugs 6-1:


Compression test results:


Installed a brand new set of Bosch Audi R8 coil packs just to be sure (and make them all match):



This past weekend I also swapped my injectors out with my buddies turbo E30 just to rule that out as well... no change.

I'm still convinced this is a mechanical issue, the buzzing/rattle noise, the strange VE map down load (when hot), etc.

I'm thinking my next move is to source a set of lifters, as it's the only thing left that is original/hasn't been changed since the beginning.

If I break it down in my head:

• Valvetrain noise after warm up only when oil is up to temp enough for pressure to drop
• No noise and car runs different when oil is cold (ie. high oil pressure all the time - 50+)
• Car runs/drives great above 3000 RPM (again when oil pressure is 50+), also VE table is normal at higher loads, etc.
• VANOS on/off doesn't make a difference in chain/rattle noise or wacky VE down low.
• It's not the bottom end causing the issues, it's not spark or fuel related (injectors or fuel supply)
• Head is new, valves are new, cam gears are new, tensioners are new, guides are new
• 3 VANOS units later (with one of them going into my buddies E30 working fine) - it's still not the VANOS unit.
• Car runs nails when kicking the shit out of it

Thoughts?

[Butters Stoch]

I get a rattle on decel at low rpm. My thoughts is that the heavy valve springs are slamming shut.
I'm going to just believe this cause I don't want to pull it apart.

[NOTORIOUS VR]

I get a rattle on decel at low rpm. My thoughts is that the heavy valve springs are slamming shut.
I'm going to just believe this cause I don't want to pull it apart.

While there "might" be some truth to that, in my case it's more advanced causing me driveability issues, issues with tuning, etc

[E36 HateR]

If it only does it when the oil pressure is lower after vehicle is warmed up, why not try thicker oil to rule that out?

20w50?

[chikinhed]

I get a rattle on decel at low rpm. My thoughts is that the heavy valve springs are slamming shut. I'm going to just believe this cause I don't want to pull it apart.

If valves are slamming shut, you are getting valve float - not likely. The more probable reason for the noise with the stiffer valve springs is the backlash between the intake cam gear and the Vanos gear or the Vanos gear and the sprocket or both. The cam is slowed down by the valve springs while the valve is opening and is sped up by the valve springs while closing making the gears contact each side of the gears.

Your noise could be lifters, heavier oil might confirm that. Heavier oil may also reduce leakage past the chain tensioners.

Jaker had some noise. IMHO the chain was slapping against the guides, smashing them, then it ate a hole in the front cover. All of which was hard to see while everything was installed. He still has noise.