always trying to make it lighter and faster
^^former build: http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...-neglected-M3/
current build: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...car-build.html
instant grams: doktor_b
Turbo housing started. Ground off all the high spots, ribs and numbers.
Finished polishing this finally!
Last edited by unnatrl; 06-03-2017 at 12:27 PM.
Boost activated cutout is hooked up. Been waiting for a bung to be welded into the intercooler pipe. It works great. Stays closed under normal driving, but opens in about 1 second when you go wide open. The boost comes on substantially harder and it maxed out at 8.5 psi (6.5 psi before the cutout). I'm pretty happy with 8.5 psi on 7lb springs. The increase in noise is almost negligible when the cutout opens. You know it's open, but it isn't annoying. The turbo whistle is still louder. Highly recommended mod for you guys with turbo cars.
Last edited by unnatrl; 06-09-2017 at 10:52 PM.
Cant wait to see this thing in action man nice build
As always, I've been having fun.
Warmer weather seemed to be causing oil pressure to be a little on the low side at idle. It would dip below 20 psi after a few hard runs (at idle in gear). There was never any noise, just a low reading on the gauge. Changed oil to 15w40, swapped oil pump again (shimmed the spring .120), swapped to a different oil, brand new GM sending unit, etc and had basically the same results. It suddenly occurred to me to check the sensor info on the Holley system. The oil pressure was scaled .5-4.5 volts, but max pressure was 200 psi at 4.5 volts. The OEM GM sensor is a 0-130 psi sensor. Once it was rescaled correctly the hot idle pressure sits at 25 psi, cold start is about 43 psi. I would like it to be a little more when hot, but this will work. On a wot pull it makes 65+ psi (when hot, prob 75+ cold). I may still try some 20w50 to get a little more viscosity when hot, but all seems well.
Also got the air filter completely setup behind the drivers side bumper. No pics as you can't see it. My brother sold his Ecoboost F150 and let me have the giant filter off of the aftermarket intake he had. It barely fits. I was running a small AEM dry filter as a temporary setup. There is no question that an appropriate sized filter is absolutely necessary. The boost lag was horrible with the AEM. It's almost instant with the Ecoboost filter. I may be imagining it, but the car seems to drive better with the filter (compared to no filter).
I've also been working on idle tuning. The car has been inconsistent in this area. The auto tune feature of the Holley seemed to be more trouble than help. It's still a work in progress, but the injector minimum opening time appears to be the culprit. At 1ms minimum opening time it was dumping way too much fuel. I have it down to .6ms. So far, the auto tune has worked the way it should. Tip in throttle drivability is 80% better as well. It was intermittently surging at idle when slowing down or sitting at a stop, this is much better too. My research says .6ms is probably lower than what the injectors can actually function at, but it definitely made a difference. They are an older set of low impedance 96lb. They flowed at 1.5% of each other when I had them checked out. At 7.5 lbs the injector duty cycle is 34%. Plenty of room for more boost.
Edit a/c stuff:
Also revisiting the a/c hoses. The sleeve adapting the evaporator hose did not work. The BMW line is a standard barrier #12, the GM side is a reduced barrier #12. If you are new to a/c like I am, this is gibberish. I had no idea what a reduced barrier vs standard barrier was.
The #12 standard barrier has a larger outside diameter and the same inside diameter as the reduced barrier #12. An array of new fittings, hose and ferrules are on the way. When this works, I will post what the solution was.
If all of the above wasn't enough, 2 more engines found a home in my garage. My wife's coworker is moving out of the area and decided to part out his jeep project. Picked up a complete 6.0 and a 75% complete 5.3 for $400. Now I have (2) 5.3's, (3) 6.0's and an LS1. Beginning to think I have a problem.
In all reality, it was too good of a deal to pass up. My brother has a 97 Jeep Cherokee that's probably going to get the latest 6.0 as a heart transplant. Novak was awesome when they helped me with my a/c bracket. We will probably be buying a bunch of stuff from them for his project.
Last edited by unnatrl; 06-27-2017 at 10:11 PM.
We now have cold air! The solution for the hoses was actually quite simple. In the end, the BMW evaporator rubber line was cutoff and replaced with reduced barrier #12. An inline splice with R134 port took care of connecting the GM side to the BMW side (GM used reduced barrier hose). The replacement ferrule for the BMW side had to be open up slightly on the i.d. to fit over the evaporator hard line (wouldn't slide all the way up to original position). It crimped on without any problems.
The smaller line going from the compressor to the condenser also got new rubber hose. It's #10, went standard barrier here. The standard barrier doesn't bend as much, this helped get the shape to clear my catch can and intercooler tubing without linking the line. I did use e-clips on this hose at both the BMW and GM hard line to help retain the new ferrules.
The e-clip is is pushed onto the hard line and the ferrule slides over it as shown in the picture below.
A little better visual with the ferrule crimped.
I charged the system with the Autozone R134 cans. Made sure to add some PAG oil too.
At idle, out side temp 86*. Haven't yet had a chance to drive it and see how it does. The compressor doesn't work off of the IHKA yet, has to be hot wired until I can get my canbus adapter to work properly.
Looks like my last post about a/c working was deleted... we will try this again.
A/c is blowing cold air. It was quite the learning experience. If anyone wants details, let me know.
Still have to get the IHKA to communicate to the compressor so it turns on via the snowflake button. I have a canbus adapter that should take care of this.
The car does run much warmer with the a/c on at idle or low speed. It usually sits about 197*, with air on it is close to 225*. This isn't all that out of the norm for an LS. The heat under the hood did cause the plastic coupler for the hood release cable to get hot and pushed the metal sleeve through the coupler. I'm going to install a set of louvers to help alleviate some of the heat. It was really interesting opening the hood without the release cable. Hopefully this helps keep coolant temps down at idle/ low speeds as well. I'm not excited about louvers. On the other hand, a few installs I found pics of actually look pretty good. We will find out soon!
Previous post still shows for me.
always trying to make it lighter and faster
^^former build: http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...-neglected-M3/
current build: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...car-build.html
instant grams: doktor_b
I know a few of you guys follow Sloppy Mechanics on FB. For those that don't, the main guy has an LS swapped Colorado that's just stupid powerful. He did a comparison of the MS Gold box and Holley Dominator. It's up for debate on which is a better system, that's for another time and place. Matt posts a lot of his tunes for other people to use as a starting point. I finally decided to upload his tune with a few small changes (58x, 96lb injectors and removed nitrous). My car starts and runs so much better. It's almost embarrassing, still unsure of what I was doing wrong here. The power is unreal. I think it has more power on 7 psi than when I blew it up on 14 psi. The turbo definitely spools way faster, it's almost instant. It also drives really nice. I was experiencing some surging and randomly the engine would shut off at low speeds and not want to start without throttle input. Thats gone now. One wide open pull was enough to feel like I should park it for tonight, boy was it fun!
Hood vents arrived!
While this isn't normally my cup of tea, they look pretty cool. I'm not sure what gauge metal they are cut from, but there is zero issue with hood flex after the install (had to cut some bracing on the bottom of the hood). The actual louvers are installed on the under side of the hood and the trim ring goes on top. It makes for a really clean install.
Vents laid out in the general install location. I considered many places, but settled on this. The under hood bracing and proximity to the radiator had a lot to do with the final location.
Measured the hood and marked center from left to right. Traced the inside of the trim ring that bolts on top as well as the bolt holes.
Used painters tape to protect the paint. The cut was about 1/16" outside of the lines for the trim ring. The slightly larger cutout makes it so the trim ring completely covers the original hood sheet metal.
1st one installed
Both installed
Underneath, still needs a little cleanup and touch up paint on the cut edges.
I'm trying to decide if I want to paint the vents the same color as the car or Powdercoat them semigloss black. Suggestions are welcome!
Completely agree. I hate scalloped vents! These are the least obnoxious way of doing something along that line that I could find. The actual vent is just about level with the hood line. They aren't subtle by any means. They are more subtle than the type that rivets right on top of the sheet metal.
My buddy tried to convince me to do this... (borrowed pic btw). I almost punched him in the throat.
My brother is going to photoshop the vents in black and body color. Hopefully one of them make it easy to decide what color. Right now black seems like the correct choice.
Ugh i wanna see how this drives hahaha
The car is a heavy boat and it drives great. In comparison to my E36, this thing is a dream. It's incredibly stable, controllable and tame. When you hit the skinny pedal it goes like hell. There is very little tire spin. It's the only car I've built that will plant the tires more often than it spins. This could change with more boost, time will tell. My assumption is that it makes about 550-580 rwhp on 7lbs. More power is almost useless on a street car. That being said, a set of 12lb wastegate springs are sitting on my bench. One of these days.
A/C update-
When the clutch was hotwired it was building excess pressure (couldn't cycle). This caused the pressure relief in the compressor to blow off. Obviously the system can stay this way...
Step one was to get the snowflake button functional. I bought an adapter box from Gpeterson a while back (it's supposed to intercept the can message and convert it to analog). It seems there was some miscommunication here. PM and Emails to straighten this out have gone unanswered. I'm not amused after spending 275.00 on this. If anyone is doing an S54 swap into an E30 or E36 this is what you need. It's for sale!
Enter round 2. Thaniel set me up with one of his kbus to analog adapters. He was awesome at asking exactly what I wanted and needed. We exchanged several emails to iron out the details. The adapter arrived a few days later. It still needs to be installed, but I'm confident it will do exactly what I asked.
A different pressure switch (threads right in to the stock '00 drier) was purchased as well. This has a high and low pressure shut off so the compressor will cycle correctly.
To simplify things, the wiring will be completely stand alone. It should go something like this: Thaniel's module -> High/low switch -> Holley -> Relay -> AC Clutch. This will allow the Holley to bump idle speed and cut the compressor at wot.
Just need time to put it all together!
Haven't had much time to work on the car in the last few weeks. Finishing a kitchen and bathroom remodel takes way too much time and $!!
Aside from that, I got a phone call out of the blue about a car I regretfully sold a couple years ago. It looked like this then...
I started working on it and quickly discovered more rust than I knew how to fix. After buying new 1/4's, tail light panel, filler panel (between trunk and rear glass), door skins, front fenders, etc I decided to sell it. A guy that owns a body shop and loves "saving" old muscle cars bought it.
Progress pics
Anyway, the body guy sold it to a different guy(Charlie) who had always wanted to build a '67 Nova. He collected a ton of parts for it and found out he has cancer. The outlook is not good for him. Charlie has offered the car back to me. It's more than I want to spend, but a whole lot less than what these cars are selling for (especially an SS car). My wife looked at me and said when are you picking it up. This will require some downsizing on current projects. Not sure what will make the cut and what won't just yet. It's a tough choice between (2) E36 M3's and the E39.
The entire car is painted and needs to be assembled. It will most likely get the drivetrain out of the E39. I hate to scrap this build, but the Level of "want" for the Nova is way up there!
Last edited by unnatrl; 08-07-2017 at 03:36 PM.
I would without hesitation.
always trying to make it lighter and faster
^^former build: http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...-neglected-M3/
current build: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...car-build.html
instant grams: doktor_b
A few more. It's a little dusty. Can't wait to get it home!
Agreed. Do it without hesitation. E39's are awesome but they are everywhere. Hard part is out of the way: you have the approval of the "Boss"!
S.F.
My brother and I have been thrashing on his Jeep (98 XJ). Started pulling the 4.0 on Thursday morning. This is where it stood last night, including a wasted day on Friday driving 5 hours round trip to Summit Racing for parts.
Engine (6.0), trans (4L80e) & stock NP231 t-case with adapter are all bolted in. Accessories are hooked up (except a/c lines) and battery is relocated to cargo area. Radiator hoses and heater hoses are done. Rear driveline is done. Engine harness is basically done aside from a few connections. Need to modify the throttle cable and transmission shifter and finish wiring (hook up keyed power, fan trigger wires, ground and fuel pump). This is one of the easiest engine swaps I've ever done. The power steering hose from the Jeep even screws right into the GM pump. Have to love that!
Last edited by unnatrl; 08-14-2017 at 10:47 AM.
Finally got the chance to look at the Nova today. It was a complete hack job. Not the best thing to discover after driving 5 hours, but stuff happens. Needless to say, I didn't buy it.
always trying to make it lighter and faster
^^former build: http://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/sh...-neglected-M3/
current build: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...car-build.html
instant grams: doktor_b
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