my build thread, e30 with a 9 inch

[PEI330Ci]

Sorry to hear about the ECU troubles, I hope this one works out for you.

Who is your technical support contact for the ProEFI?

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Sorry to hear about the ECU troubles, I hope this one works out for you.

Who is your technical support contact for the ProEFI?

[someguy2800]

I don't know what the guy's name is, I have just been emailing the tech@proefi.com address, but the service has been excellent so far. The other day we were exchanging messages at 9PM on a saturday.

[Robocop]

^even though i only have ms2 all that right there makes me want to stay the frick away from ms3/pro.
the price isn't even there anymore like it used to be. no more bang for the buck.

[Laminar]

MS3 is still a good deal - the diy kit w/ MS3X is $555 for 8+cyl full sequential injection/ignition plus all of the other features like flex fuel, table switching, boost control, etc. Once you start playing in the $1000+ range you have a lot more competition and probably some better options.

[someguy2800]

^even though i only have ms2 all that right there makes me want to stay the frick away from ms3/pro.
the price isn't even there anymore like it used to be. no more bang for the buck.

MS3 is still a good deal - the diy kit w/ MS3X is $555 for 8+cyl full sequential injection/ignition plus all of the other features like flex fuel, table switching, boost control, etc. Once you start playing in the $1000+ range you have a lot more competition and probably some better options.

I have no issues with the MS1, MS2, and MS3 ecu's and also Vems which is closely related to the legacy megasquirt stuff. They are all still very viable options and unbeatable at their price point. I wouldn't touch another MS3pro with a stick though.

[Laminar]

I feel you on the lack of support. We’ve been begging for PWM fan control, hardly an obscure feature, with no response. It feels like there’s a total or one or two volunteers even bothering with development at all, and then only in their free time.

[E30s50dude]

https://youtu.be/5MskdlCZLLI


Check this guy out he’s working on PWM fan function on this n54 CAN bus set up. Meant to be completely universal pretty cool if you ask me. I believe he’s on here but for sure r3v under the same name.

[someguy2800]

https://youtu.be/5MskdlCZLLI


Check this guy out he’s working on PWM fan function on this n54 CAN bus set up. Meant to be completely universal pretty cool if you ask me. I believe he’s on here but for sure r3v under the same name.

The ECU I have now does PWM fan control without any external modules.

[vollosso]

LMK how you like that new ecu.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[someguy2800]

Okay I am going to try to pick this back up where I left off in 2020.

I did get the car running on ProEFI 128. Its a very capable ecu but it is the least user friendly thing in the world. Has ran flawlessly though in the limited amount I've actually ran it.



I also got rid of the IGN1 coils and went to Audi R8 coils which have also worked out great for me



For the engine I left it largely unchanged except for the valvetrain and the harmonic damper. I switched over to a new damper from my friend Travis at GDM Engineering. The two of us worked together to design this setup so I got the first production prototype to use on my car. This is the same damper unit that they use on 2500 hp 2jz's



I did end up replacing my old cylinder head with one of the fresh ported non vanos head I did. Basically the same port job as the old one.





I also swapped out camshafts from the vac cams I was running previously. I wanted something with more lift and a dedicated solid lifter profile so I reached out to Enem cams in Sweden and gave them the specs I was looking for and they found a cam profile from another motor that was exactly what I wanted. They custom made me a set on a pair of M50 vanos blanks. These are 276/276 duration and 11.5mm lift with a .008" solid lifter lash ramp. They have since added them to their catalog with the profile Z13



With the intent to turn some more rpm I also upgraded valve springs. Previously I was running stock non vanos valve springs to as high as 8500 rpm but I wanted to run over 9000 so I went looking for some springs. I decided the stock outer springs were adequate so I sorted through about 50 stock springs to find a set of 24 that had the highest seat pressure.



I found a set of inner springs for a Honda from Cat Cams that would works as a new inner spring with the stock parts so I got a set of those from europe.



When I tested them on a spring tester though I found they did not match the advertised specs so I had to machine some spacers on my lathe to go under them. This brought the seat pressure up to 92 lbs compared to the stock NV springs which are about 78 lbs. Still using all the stock NV parts except for the inner springs



Next big upgrade I bought a set of billet intake runners also from my friend Travis at GDM Engineering. To save some money I bought it without a plenum and then made my own from sheet aluminum.





Its hard to find an angle to photograph this that does it any justice, its pretty wild.













Initially I wanted to do a centerfeed plenum because I think that keeps some of the BMW aesthetics to the engine bay, but I changed my mind because front feed ended up saving a lot of room in the engine bay











I had it cerokoted black by a local guy.



To go with my fancy new hole in the fender I made a new dump pipe with a air operated cutout valve in it.



I really really don't like loud cars on the highway and I was unhappy with my old 4" exhaust both in how much drone their was at highway speed and how terrible the ground clearance was, so this was the solution to both that I came up with. The dump pipe has a butterfly valve in it that shuts the dump pipe under normal driving conditions, which then directs all the exhaust out the 2.5" exhaust under the car with 2 mufflers. When the extra flow is needed the ecu automatically opens a mac valve which puts compressed air from my boost control system to an air actuator to open the fender dump. It works awesome and the car is very quiet now with great ground clearance.



I could not find a low profile muffler quite like I wanted to go in the center of the car so I decided to just build one. I wanted a 2.5" straight through muffler that is only 2.5" thick.



I bought a perforated stainless tube off ebay and got some stainless sheet cut at my local steel supplier



And then I packed the void space with stainless steel pot scrubbers. Trailer park magnaflow



and welded it all shut







Next a new intercooler. I could not get a core the size I wanted to I got 2 garrett 8x18x3.5" cores and welded them together.

\

I also got a new Griffen radiator core and built the intercooler and radiator together as a unit with a 17" derale fan





One more modification. In an effort to get faster spooling out of the dump truck turbo I built a quick spool valve integrated into my existing turbo manifold.

Here is the existing manifold before modification



And here it is after. The idea is to route all 6 exhaust runners into just one half of the twin scroll turbine housing to build backpressure and get the turbo spooling as fast as possible. Then when the turbo spools and starts making positive pressure the boost pushes the wastegate open to let exhaust go through both sides of the turbine housing. At the same time I also changed out the exhaust housing from a .90 AR to a 1.20 AR. Spoiler, it did not work at all.



One of the biggest reasons I went with Pro EFI is so that I could run a drive by wire throttle and have the ECU integrate throttle control into the traction control strategy and also get functioning cruise control through the ECU for long highway trips. I also feel that drive by wire is safer because I have seen a lot of cars get stuck wide open throttle in accidents after the cable or pedal gets pulled when something gets smashed. I decided to use the electronic throttle pedal from a GMC Accadia because it fit pretty well.



I also used the throttle body from a GMC accadia 3.6L, which is like 74mm bore.





One more change, a friend of mine gave me a set of 275/60-15 Nitto's so I found a cheap set of wheels on ebay and put those on the car in place of the now ancient 325 gen 1 Mickeys Thompson's.



Okay so I got the car done the day before the roll race event I was trying to make it to called Powercruise in August 2020. I did a boost leak test the day before and found no boost leaks but did find I had air going from the intake into the cooling system. It didn't display any symptoms of a blown head gasket so I just decided to pretend I didn't see that and go racing. I spent that night and most of the next morning trying to get the E-throttle to start and idle smoothly. I still didn't understand the software so I chased that around in circles. Finally I took it out for a drive at about 10 am and did some pulls into boost for the first time and tuned the fuel map on some backroads. Luckily proefi is very easy to tune and has excellent fuel compensations so that was easy unlike everything else in proefi. I could not get my exhaust cutout to shut off due to a firmware bug so I ended up just leaving it open at all times.

So I drove back home and put it on the trailer and went right to the event. I did some pulls working up on the boost and everything was working okay. I have a dome control boost system on the car so there is a compressed air tank in the trunk and the ecu has one boost solenoid to let compressed air into the top of the wastegate and one to let compressed air out, and a pressure sensor so that the ecu can target a certain dome pressure. I'm not sure when it happened but somewhere along the 2 day event the solenoid that lets air out of the wastegate dome got unplugged, so at that point the wastegate just had 60 psi of compressed air on the top at all times plus a 21 lb spring. My boost gauge only goes to 30 psi so its basically just on or off. I was tired of computers and was having fun so I was not looking at datalogs. Unknown to me until a few days later but I was running like 40ish lbs of boost all the time on the 2nd day of the event and it never missed a beat. The wastegate was pinned shut so it was literally just making whatever the turbo could put out, which was like 38-45 lbs depending on RPM. Anyway the car worked awesome and it took probably 10 or 15 runs with the wastegate pinned shut and lived so that's pretty cool.

This is the only video I got from the day. We were rolling from like 40 mph and I let off at around 1100 feet or so due to hitting the rev limiter in high gear.



In that video I think I had the rev limiter set to 9000 rpm which I was hitting right at the start of the run. According to the ECU data the predicted mass airflow was still going up at 9000 rpm so I think it really wants more. With the old M50 intake manifold it made peak power at 7800 so the short runner intake and the cam combination is working really well together.

I never dyno'd it with that combo but in a 1320 foot roll race it was hitting the rev limiter at 165mph about 200 feet before the finish line so figure around 170 mph trap speed. Was probably making somewhere around 1100 whp at like 3400 lbs with a 200 lb passenger.

(Correction, after reviewing the in car video it was around 170 mph at the 1000 foot mark which is around 1300 whp).

It was spinning a little at lower speeds but above 100 mph it wanted everything the turbo could make. I really felt like it needed another 200 or 300 whp at least up top which will bring us into 2021

[Nutzy]

Epic update, Perry! The car sounds beastly!

[someguy2800]

So soon after that I parked the car and took it back apart for 2 reasons.  After having some time to think about it and reviewing the data and doing some math I was not happy with the car for 2 reasons.  Firstly I thought the car would feel nuts with that much power but it didn't. I could tell from racing it that the 1100 ish whp range is not where I wanted to be and that I would need to make more like 1300 or 1400 whp to really be where I want to be with the car. That conflicts with the other thing that I wasn't happy with which is that the spool time on the S476 was terrible. It wan't too bad with the twin scroll manifold, M50 intake, and .90 AR exhaust housing, but it was a dog with the quick spool valve and 1.20 AR housing. The quick spool valve did not work at all. The car was extremely lazy until it would make enough boost to open the valve and then it took off like a rocket. I really want to get back to a setup that starts making boost under 3000 rpms though as I miss it for drivability when just driving around town stoplight to stoplight or just passing on the highway.

So I set a goal for a new turbo system. The goals were I wanted to have enough airflow to be able to make at least 1500 whp and I want it to be able to make boost at 3000 rpm or earlier. There is no possible way those two goals can coexist on a single turbo without a ton of nitrous, or even parallel twin turbos. I had briefly considered just getting my own nitrous refill station to put in my shed and a G42-1400, but I think that would probably only make about 1250 whp through an auto and I don't want to be reliant on nitrous. So that leave doing a positive displacement supercharger with a big turbo blowing into it, sequential twin turbo's, or compound turbos.

I considered doing something like a kenne bell twin screw with an 88 or 94mm turbo blowing into it, but I did some math on the temp gains and the drive pressure required to drive a supercharger with 20+ lbs of boost blowing into it and the parasitic losses would get pretty nuts trying to get up to 50 or 60 lbs of boost. I also talked to kenne bell about it and they thought there is a good chance the rotors would get hot enough to seize. So the next thought was to do sequential twins with two 64ish mm turbos. I though perhaps 2 EFR8474's and use the one way valves off some of the sequential turbo audi diesels from europe. The problem I figured would be to package it all in the engine bay so I thought maybe I could put all that under the rear seat of the car where the gas tank used to be. Third option was compound turbos with a 88 mm atmospheric turbo and a 62-66 mm high pressure turbo. I think both systems would work well and I think I could package both of them, but I eventually decided to make the decision based on weight balance. I would like to keep the weight balance over like 53% in the front or the car will just want to do wheelies worse than it already does. So I put some ballast in the car to approximate what the weight balance would be with the compound turbos in it and corner weighed the car and this is what I got with me sitting in the drivers seat.



I did not realize that the car had that much rear weight so that pretty much made the decision to do compound turbos in an effort to keep the weight in the front.

I scored this GT55r with a precision gen2 88mm cold side on ebay for an unbelievable price and bought the Forced Performance 3794r next to it locally off facebook.



The GT55 actually fit really easily in the engine bay



After some more thinking about how I wanted to run the wastegating I decided to get rid of the FP3794r and get an EFR8474 to use as the high pressure turbo. The reason for that is they make a t3 internal wastegate housing for the EFR, so using that as the bypass around the HP turbo will save a lot of space and complexity and external joints in the exhaust system.



To illustrate, this is the routing of how everything in the compound setup will work.



This is what I envisioned for placement of the HP turbo.  









Of course the first thing to do with a $500 turbine housing is to cut it up.

[Nutzy]

Aaand then you ratchet up the epic post factor by like 10!

I am guessing you've seen this video of Shane T talking about compound turbocharging on an SR20?

https://youtu.be/1pV_tLbZY0A

135psi of boost with 135psi of backpressure! Try that with a single!

[someguy2800]

Aaand then you ratchet up the epic post factor by like 10!

I am guessing you've seen this video of Shane T talking about compound turbocharging on an SR20?

https://youtu.be/1pV_tLbZY0A

135psi of boost with 135psi of backpressure! Try that with a single!

Yes I have. I am really hoping I can keep the back pressure 1:1 up at like 50 or 60 lbs of boost. With my S476 the back pressure was lower than boost up to about 30 psi, but by 45 psi of boost the back pressure was about 60 psi.

[someguy2800]

Okay so I got the turbo setup pretty much done in april 2021 and then ran into a little snag. I took the oil pan off the motor to install a 2nd oil bung and I found antifreeze residue under one piston in the pan, and some more crusty residue in the same intake and exhaust port turned out that head was cracked. (remember the boost leak tester putting air in the cooling system before I went roll racing?)



Not a big deal, I have other heads. I figured if the head has to come off I better take the bottom end apart to check everything over. Bearings looked fine.





Still using rod bearings from 1993



One thing I did notice is the woodruff key in the harmonic balancer hub was beginning to shear in half.



I was curious if this could be addressed by just hardening the key to prevent it from shearing so I did a test to see if the keys are a hardenable alloy of steel. I took a new stock key from BMW and hit it with a cold chisel and as you can see the chisel easily cuts right into it.



Next I heated up another key orange hot with a map gas torch and quenched it in motor oil. After quenching I hit it again and the chisel doesn't even make a mark in the key, it just knocks some of the back carbon residue off the surface. There is actually no indentation in it at all from the chisel, you can't feel the mark with your finger. I may have to drill the crank and damper hub and pin it in place with piece of drill rod or get the keyway in the crank machined to use a full length key instead of a half moon, but I am going to try simply hardening the stock key first as I prefer to try the simplest approaches first.



The hardened factory key was actually hard enough to destroy the cold chisel



After popping a few pistons out I immediately noticed a problem that was about to send a rod through the block. All of the wrist pins were bending.







All 6 wrist pins were either seized in the piston or in the rod bushing and had to be pounded out with a hammer and punch. Unfortunately all the pistons and rods were destroyed. I am glad I caught it before it blew up and destroyed everything but that did leave me without a rotating assembly to use. I was planning on upgrading soon because I knew those piston pins were not designed for the amount of power I was making.

I do have a spare motor put together in the car right now to do some testing with, but I will be building 2 new race motors to make some real jam in the car. I'll leave that to another chapter but here is a preview.

[et89]

Very cool Perry! the compound setup is pretty epic. wonder how that will work out!
I love the way you just "do" things (stuff like the woodruff key etc.)

[R.Thomas]

Great use of fundamental principles of engineering and materials. Keep us posted on how the compound setup performs.

[PEI330Ci]

Fantastic update!

Is the damper hub "interference fit" onto the crank hub?

I've never seen damage to the key on any of my ATI damper installations, but I haven't been running over 1000hp either!

No surprise on the wrist pins...I think you caught that at the perfect time. Dmitry has the custom DLC coated set I had made for my "big HP" project in 2010....they are pretty stout.

[someguy2800]

Fantastic update!

Is the damper hub "interference fit" onto the crank hub?

I've never seen damage to the key on any of my ATI damper installations, but I haven't been running over 1000hp either!

No surprise on the wrist pins...I think you caught that at the perfect time. Dmitry has the custom DLC coated set I had made for my "big HP" project in 2010....they are pretty stout.

Yes it was .0009” press fit I believe.

[JOMARO]

Cant wait enough to see those compounds spinning :-)
I ll probably harden my woodruff key too

[dkech]

What pistons-rods combo when this happened?

[someguy2800]

What pistons-rods combo when this happened?

When the wrist pins bent? That was eagle rods and off the shelf wiseco pistons with upgraded pins. Neither the pistons or the pins were designed for the power I was making

[dkech]

When the wrist pins bent? That was eagle rods and off the shelf wiseco pistons with upgraded pins. Neither the pistons or the pins were designed for the power I was making

So what wrist pins will you use now custom?

[someguy2800]

So what wrist pins will you use now custom?

A shorter length and thicker wall thickness.

[OezyB]

Hey man, very cool update, i follow your thread for a long time, keep up the good work 😉😎
I would suggest to put as big of a wastegate as you can into the exhaust manifold that feeds the turbine of the large turbo because the exhaust volume will need to be relieved, otherwise the exhaust is kind of trapped before the small turbine and the pressure will moon.

I would also suggest to think about an aftercooler between the compressor outlet of the lp turbo and the inlet of the hp turbo, or at least measure the Temps there, the heat there could create a problem for the compressorwheel of the hp turbo.
There is a very good multiple years long thread from Kevin jewer on yellowbullet (if i remember right) regarding compound turbocharging a 4g63 mitsubishi. You can find very good information on this topic there, he tested very much and made very good results.
I think he put two wastegates between the exhaust manifold to bypass the small turbine of the hp turbo so the exhaust can flow freely directly into the big turbine after the small turbo is spooled up so there is no restriction.

I think Shane t did the same on the 3 turbo compound setup (billet sr20 engine or so).

I am very interested in compound turbocharging, but was never able to do it unfortunately.. Too many projects 😉