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Thread: E36 M3 RallyCross build!

  1. #276
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    Amazing build Sir, very inspirational.
    How I wish to see some pictures with your car.

  2. #277
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    Well everyone, I pretty much let this thread die when I was busy doing the motor swap, and then the Photobucket debacle happened, and it's taken me a while to devise a proper long term solution for hosting my pictures. Anyways, let's do some updates! I had my share of problems after installing the motor, so I want to detail the resolutions of them before dumping a load of pictures on you.

    The first problem I encountered were the four fuel trim codes. I had marked my primary O2 sensors when I installed them in the manifolds, but I somehow got them mixed up when plugging them into the harness. When I swapped them around my idle immediately cleared up and the fuel trim codes never came back. Lesson learned, and now my markings on their wires are much more visible. This also cleared up my rough running issues, where sometimes the car felt like it was bogging and then recovering.

    The next problem was the intermittent starting. I first checked the wires going to the starter, but they were all tight, so I eventually remembered that I had installed the BimmerWorld clutch stop. Sure enough, on their site they mention that it can cause starting problems if not adjusted correctly. My problems were two-fold: the stop had worked its way loose, and had come up too high, which kept the pedal from depressing the clutch switch button. However, even after I got it nice and tight, it still looked like it wasn't fully depressing the switch, so I glued a stack of pennies together, then glued them all to the back of the clutch pedal. This allowed the pedal to fully depress the switch, and my starting issues haven't come back since!

    The next issue was getting the cooling system to burp correctly. After it was all said and done, the solution for me seemed to be revving the motor to 3000-4000 rpm for 10-20 seconds a few times while up on ramps. Previously, I had only revved it to 2000 rpm for 5-10 seconds a few times. It seems that wasn't enough to really get the coolant moving around, and after increasing the revving speed and the duration of revving, I have not had any problems burping coolant. I ran some Evaporust cooling system cleaner through the car because the passages looked pretty nasty compared to my old motor, which involved doing two full fills with just water after running the cleaner to really clean everything out, so I certainly got lots of practice burping the system. It's now back to running 50/50 BMW coolant, and everything is running smoothly and cool!

  3. #278
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    I put together this car almost two years ago, but due to all sorts of headaches, I've probably only put 3,000 miles on the car. It has only made it to 4-5 rally-x events because of all the problems. Well, I found a new problem to add to the list. After an event two months ago I was doing a post-race inspection and noticed that one of my AKG 95A (their softer compound) diff bushings had cracked:





    I was pretty confidant that I had done my homework before buying all the parts for my car, and common forum lore had me believe that because the diff is not a stressed member like it is on the E30, and that I could combine different stiffness bushings for the diff and subframe without worrying about problems like this. IIRC my aluminum subframe bushings are from BW.

    I called up AKG about the broken bushing and they told me they are incompatible with aluminum subframe bushings and that they would not help cover any cost of replacements. I mentioned that if they were so sure of this incompatibility, it sure would have been helpful for them to clearly put that information on their pages selling these products so as to avoid problems like this.

    The woman I spoke with said I could TRY to keep using the aluminum subframe bushings and replace my diff bushings with the much stiffer 75D material, but said the best bet would be to use the 75D in both locations. I assume I will have to drop the entire rear subframe to do the diff bushings, right? So it wouldn't be that much more effort to replace the subframe bushings while it's out.

    What are your thoughts on all of this? Am I overlooking anything? I'm pretty sure I don't want to run aluminum diff bushings since this is still mostly a street car. Would you just run the 75D in both locations? I generally like AKG and their products, but I'm open to other recommendations.

  4. #279
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    mslevin is offline Have you checked RealOEM? BMW CCA Member
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    I'd go with AKG 75D in both- that's what I have in my (mostly track) car and it doesn't ruin it on the street or anything. I've always been weary of aluminum bushings for reasons like this. IMO, unless its a full-on racecar, some amount of movement through bushings (even as minimal as it is with basically-delrin 75D) is generally better for the long term health of the car.

  5. #280
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    Quote Originally Posted by mslevin View Post
    I'd go with AKG 75D in both- that's what I have in my (mostly track) car and it doesn't ruin it on the street or anything. I've always been weary of aluminum bushings for reasons like this. IMO, unless its a full-on racecar, some amount of movement through bushings (even as minimal as it is with basically-delrin 75D) is generally better for the long term health of the car.
    Cool, thanks for the feedback!

  6. #281
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    I think Nerptech sells aluminum diff bushings. I think that would be a lot easier than dropping the whole subframe. I also don't see the correlation between the subframe mounts and diff mounts. any movement between them are separate. Cornering loads on the subframe don't effect the diff and diff movement has no relation to how much or how little the subframe moves. maybe I'm missing something.


    IG: dimitriantoniou

  7. #282
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    I run the AKG 75D bushings for diff mounts with aluminum Turner subframe mount bushings. So far no problem. But it's not a rallycross car, it's autocross. YMMV. However I did notice a BIG increase in diff noise with the switch from Powerflex purple subframe bushings to aluminum.

  8. #283
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    So, who's ready for my much-delayed wrap up of my motor swap? I finally got my website up and running, and with it being about 10* outside recently, and the garage hovering around freezing, now is as good of a time as any for some big updates. Let's go!

    So, to remind everyone of what brought on the motor replacement, I did compression and leak down tests and confirmed that cylinder 4 had bad rings, and 5 and 6 were on their way out too. Cylinder 1 had a helicoil holding the spark plug in, so that cylinder couldn't be tested since the helicoil came out with the plug. When driven hard, the motor was going through about a quart of oil every 100 miles, and the idle wasn't super smooth. Add to that the fact that I couldn't get the coolant system to burp properly, I figured it was time to install a fresh motor. I found one here on the forums, and since it looks like I never posted the info on it, here is the FS ad for future reference;

    ================================================== ===================

    Miles: total 169,150
    at 135,00 I did a top end rebuild, new head gasket, total head rebuild with VAC valve springs , INA lifters, BMW valve seals, cleaned valves and hot tanked head. Also installed N54 exhaust studs

    M50 manifold conversion using Bimmerworld conversion kit
    bimmerworld intake elbow (traction control delete)
    stock pink top injectors
    stock MAF
    Beisan systems VANOS rebuild and anti-rattle kits
    Riot racing cams
    INA lifters
    VAC upgraded valve springs
    BMW valve seals, head gasket set, head bolts ect.
    oil pan gasket
    welded oil pump nut
    this was all done at 135k miles

    5k miles ago:
    Saleri water pump (Saleri is the factory supplier to BMW)
    80*c thermostat
    aluminum thermo housing

    I did a top end rebuild when i decided to do the Riot Racing cams. You pretty much need to strip the head down and new lifters are recommended. It was much easier to do with the head off the car so i removed it and decided to do the valve seals, lifters, cams, Beisan VANOS and other related parts all at the same time. I did the M50 Manifold at about 100k miles or so, made with a home made kit, i went with bimmerworlds conversion kit when i did the head, just made it easier. The engine seems to like the 15w-50 much better than the 10w-40 i was using before. no rattles with it, idles smooth.

    Last compression test I did was about 5600 miles ago (July 2016), according to my records it was #1 175 #2 180 #3 175 #4 175 #5 170 #6 180

    Using 15w-50 it only needed a half quart per 2500 miles.

    ================================================== ===================

    So, all in all, sounds like a pretty healthy motor. Time to get busy! Josh (Irish44j) was nice enough to come over and lend a hand with both the removal of the old and re-installation of the new motor. Thanks again Josh!



    Some of this is going to be out of order, due to the hectic nature of the project and the long delay in posting it up, but it's all here.

    I was curious to see what would happen if I cleaned the AC condenser, so I bought a can of cleaning solution from Home Depot and a fin straightening kit. I spent all of one minute trying to straighten fins before I got bored and stopped. The cleaning stuff certainly got some crap out, but I'm doubtful it was anything meaningful.





    I did a lot of cleaning during this project...











    In the end, I think I used my old IACV because after cleaning it was just a tad bit smoother than the one that came on the new motor.

    More to come!

  9. #284
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    Jumping around a bit, let's talk clutch stops. Before I did the motor swap my clutch pedal had the normal side to side play they all have, and I was intrigued by the idea of a clutch stop. I decided to go the Home Depot route and make my own to see how well it would work. I got an M10x1.5 30mm bolt from HD along with some thin anti-skid pads and put it in the car. The clutch stop felt great....when my pedal actually went down straight like it's supposed to. But due to the side to side play in the pedal, it would often slide off the side of the stop, rendering it useless. Okay, fine. At least I knew I liked the idea of a clutch stop, I just might need to spend $20 to get one that's a little bigger. Needless to say, my thin little rubber pads disintegrated after a few days of driving, so something more heavy duty is going to be needed.



    So I broke down and bought the Bimmerworld clutch stop, and it's a lot beefier than the junk I had in there before:



    All was well, except after I got the new motor running, I was having intermittent starting problems. Turns out the BW clutch stop had backed out a bit and wasn't letting the clutch switch depress all the way, preventing the car from starting. Even after snugging the clutch stop back down, I could see the plunger for the switch wasn't getting pushed down all the way, so I decided to improvise. I super glued a bunch of pennies together, then glued them to the arm on the pedal, then reinforced the whole mess with some RTV. Some 6 months later and it's still holding nicely, and I haven't had a single problem starting the car since!





    Due to a variety of reasons, I decided to buy a whole new clutch/flywheel kit since it didn't look like my old clutch had much life left, and my flywheel had some nice hot spots on it. I ended up going with a "SACHS-STAGE 2 HD RACE CLUTCH KIT+CHROMOLY FLYWHEEL" from Ebay for about $465:

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/SACHS-STAGE-2-HD-RACE-CLUTCH-KIT-CHROMOLY-FLYWHEEL-92-98-BMW-325-328-M50-M52-E36/152674996828?hash=item238c23925c:g:Av8AAOSwBahVGfP z&vxp=mtr

    It came with new bolts, a Sachs PP, some disc, and a 14 pound Chinese flywheel. My old clutch/flywheel setup was likely an earlier version or variant of this kit. My old flywheel didn't have the holes in the center, which meant it weighed about 2 pounds more than the new one. Also, while the pressure plates had the same part number, the new one wasn't painted blue like the old one. The reason I went with the "Stage 2" kit versus Stage 1 was that all the stage 1 kits had unsprung discs, and I didn't want that, so I had to go with the stage 2 kit. They also offered kits with aluminum flywheels, but I wanted to stick with steel.









    The kit came with a throw out bearing, but it was no-name Chinese junk, so I bought a nice Sachs unit to install instead:



    I even bought the recommended spline grease:



    And while I was in there (famous last words...) I replaced the old clutch line with this fancy one from BW that deletes the clutch delay valve:



    And bought a new OEM slave cylinder. BW shipped me a Febi by mistake originally, so I was able to compare the two when the correct OEM one arrived.



    And since these parts looked pretty tired, I got a new OEM clutch fork/arm, TOB guide tube, and spring:


  10. #285
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    While you're at it, change the release arm/clutch fork pivot pin.

  11. #286
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    Quote Originally Posted by jakermac View Post
    While you're at it, change the release arm/clutch fork pivot pin.


    While I had everything out, I decided to freshen things up a bit. First up was the transmission that was covered in oil and dirt.



    I covered up the vent hole:



    And got busy with purple power and my plastic wire brush drill bits:









    I splurged on a brass clutch arm pivot pin:



    It's a little tough to see, but the pivot arm was really worn down on both ends. The throw out bearing guide tube was also scored pretty badly.



    Lubed things with white lithium grease....





    And finally put on the spline grease (not shown):


  12. #287
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    Moving on to the exhaust work, I decided to stay with the OEM manifolds rather than try to cobble something together to work with the cheap-o shorty headers that were included with the motor. They would have needed a custom pipe fabricated to work with the OEM cat section, so I decided to keep it simple and stay stock. The "new" motor also came with stock manifolds, which still had the original studs in them, while the manifolds on my car had the studs replaced with nuts and bolts. I decided to use the manifolds that still had studs, so I got busy cleaning up all the flanges and bungs.









    I decided to delete my SAP, so I got block off plates from Turner.





    I picked up a set of the shorter M54 manifold studs:



    And got them installed:



    When I disassembled the car, I found that one of my muffler hangers had broken off, taking a piece of the muffler with it:



    Thankfully, Brian (who did my rear shock towers) was kind enough to help me out and weld on a new hanger:





    The tips were looking pretty nasty, so I cleaned them up real quick....







    Since I was going to have to paint the new metal to keep it from rusting, I decided to strip the whole muffler and do the whole thing. Much of the paint had chipped off all over it and it looked pretty dumpy. Thankfully my angle grinder and a flap wheel made quick work of the paint removal:



    I know I wasn't supposed to, but I couldn't help but smooth out some of the welds....



    I cleaned everything up...



    Got it ready...



    And painted it:





    So that muffler hanger ripping off one side put a lot of stress on the other hanger and its attachment points to the car. Namely, one of the studs on the body sheared off, leaving me with nothing to properly attach the hanger to. See the one towards the back of the picture:



    So I bought a threaded sleeve-like thingy and a bolt. I then cut the head off the bolt and assembled them with a bunch of red Loctite:



    It wasn't pretty, but at least I had a stud I could use. I upgraded some of the hardware for the hangers...





    One of the hangers had ripped, so I bought a new one from BMW. They are much stronger than the aftermarket ones, as seen here by me squeezing them. BMW:



    Aftermarket:



    I had to make the hole bigger to allow the sleeve to pass through:



    My car was also missing these reinforcement brackets, so I picked up a used set:



    Almost ready to go:



    It works!



    One of the smaller hangers further up had also failed, so I got a new one of those and new gaskets:



    And proceeded to install a used factory muffler that I picked up for a good price. I wanted something quieter to use during the winter, and I'll put the aftermarket one back on for race season.

    Last edited by 95maxrider; 01-21-2018 at 08:53 AM.

  13. #288
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    man now i want to redo all my exhaust gaskets and hangers... Looks good, love the attention to detail and documentation.

    Do you have alignment trouble with your aftermarket muffler and mid pipe?


    IG: dimitriantoniou

  14. #289
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    Quote Originally Posted by e30 394 View Post
    man now i want to redo all my exhaust gaskets and hangers... Looks good, love the attention to detail and documentation.

    Do you have alignment trouble with your aftermarket muffler and mid pipe?
    Thank you! It's nice knowing my exhaust won't rip off when I go over the next bump! Compared to other cars I've owned, the lack of exhaust hangers on the E36 is a little surprising, but that last one for the muffler is pretty damn beefy, so I guess that makes up for it. No flex sections either! Then again, this is the only car I've ever owned that doesn't have a tilt steering column or intermittent windshield wipers, so I probably shouldn't be surprised....

    As for the aftermarket muffler/pipes, I don't remember having any trouble, but I haven't reinstalled it after painting, so it's been over a year and my memory is foggy on that. I'm not sure what brand it is as it came with the car and has no markings on it. Why do you ask?

  15. #290
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    Quote Originally Posted by 95maxrider View Post
    Thank you! It's nice knowing my exhaust won't rip off when I go over the next bump! Compared to other cars I've owned, the lack of exhaust hangers on the E36 is a little surprising, but that last one for the muffler is pretty damn beefy, so I guess that makes up for it. No flex sections either! Then again, this is the only car I've ever owned that doesn't have a tilt steering column or intermittent windshield wipers, so I probably shouldn't be surprised....
    My wipers automatically switch to intermittent when I come to a stop. Do yours move continuously?

  16. #291
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    Quote Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
    My wipers automatically switch to intermittent when I come to a stop. Do yours move continuously?
    Oh sure, they slow down when I stop, but I can't choose the "in-between" speeds.

  17. #292
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    Another side project of the motor swap was the leaky gas tank. The car had been smelling like fuel for quite some time, but I had been too busy dealing with whatever the current calamity was, and never got around to figuring out what was going on with the tank. Well, with the car out of commission for a while, I had time to investigate. This was the first sign of a leak:



    Clearly, fuel was leaking out (this was all from the driver's side of the tank), and dust was sticking to it. I popped off the cover under the back seat and was greeted by a mess of dried gunk:



    With the motor already out of the car, I couldn't exactly turn the car on and see where it was leaking from, so I replaced the usual suspects. The pump/cover on the PS was nice and clean, so I knew I didn't have to worry about that side. First up was a new piece of fuel hose:



    I also got a new gasket for the cap since the old one looked a little messed up:





    After installing new fuel line hose clamps, I dusted the area to help track down any future leaks.



    Not long after I got the motor running, I smelled fuel and was greeted by this:



    The leak appeared to be coming from the "inside" of the cover, and not the large round gasket I had replaced for the cover. Was the new hose bad? Was the hose clamp not tight enough? What's happening here? After much trial and error and cleaning, I found a potential cause:



    So I drove 2 hours to go pick up a new/used pump thingy:



    No cracks this time:



    Oh, and while I was in there I replaced the fuel filter again...



    Thankfully, after replacing the pump thingy, the leak was gone. Hallelujah!

    ==========================================

    Moving on to the interior, I picked up a set of aluminum gauge rings off Ebay for $30 and installed them. They're nice





    ==========================================

    Moving back to the motor now, the "new" motor's oil pan was leaking pretty badly, so I wanted to install a new gasket while it was out of the car. But I had also been scared by forum lore about the potential for the S52's oil pickup tube to break, and given the rough conditions of rally-x, I figured a new pickup tube wouldn't be a bad idea. Apparently the pickup tube from the 2.8 Z3s (and possibly others) is reinforced, so I decided to get one of those while I was in there (famous last words...). But of course, I didn't stop there, oh no. I came across a good deal for an oil pan with a VAC baffle already installed. I've also read about oil starvation in these motors in track conditions, and while rally-x might not generate a ton of lateral g's, while I'm in there......

    Thankfully, the previous owner of the pan had it cleaned up really nicely:





    For whatever reason, this is how the inside of my "new" motor looked, which didn't inspire confidence:



    I double checked that the oil pump nut had been tack welded like the PO had said:



    The hardware was pretty nasty...



    So naturally I had to clean it up:



    Here's the stock S52 pickup tube:



    And the reinforced Z3 tube:



    The o-ring for the dipstick tube was destroyed...



    But I had planned ahead and had new ones on hand:



    And after careful application of some RTV, the bottom of my motor was reassembled, clean, and (hopefully) durable.





    I slathered some RTV on top of the o-ring to make sure it didn't pop out or allow any dirt (rally-x is kinda messy) into the pan:



    Last edited by 95maxrider; 01-25-2018 at 09:52 AM.

  18. #293
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    I like it that you look fo a better solution for each issue that crops up. BMW seems to learn from their engineering failings and with a little research, better parts are available.
    now I wish you a happy reassembly and a trouble free racing season.

  19. #294
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    As mentioned earlier, my clutch pedal had a good bit of side to side play in it, which wasn't a great feeling. After doing some reading on the subject, it sounded like just replacing the bushing didn't always solve the problem, as another pivot hole in the pedal can wear out and lead to play. Since new pedals are less than $30, I figured it would be a smart thing to take care of while I was doing the job. I'm glad I did, because I sure as hell don't ever want to work on these damn pedals again!

    Here's the old pedal on top of the new pedal. You can see that the bushing had already been replaced, and yet there was still slop. Why? Check out how oblong the center pivot hole is on the old pedal compared to the new one:



    Yeah, I'm glad I replaced the pedal! I bought the Oilite bronze clutch pedal bushings from Ireland Engineering:



    As well as a new return spring. I wasn't sure I needed one when I placed the order, but again, I'm glad I did, because when I went to disassemble my pedal I realized that the return spring had disappeared somewhere along the way and needed to be replaced. With little cheap parts like this it's better to be safe than sorry!



    And here it is with the return spring installed (along with new rubber thingys):



    After straining my neck for many hours trying to wrangle all these tiny little things back together I finally got it all in, but when I gave the car power my brake lights stayed on, even without me touching the pedal. Turns out the bracket the holds the brake pedal switch had gotten bent or something during the struggle, so I had to smash it around a bit until the brake lights behaved normally. With a brand new pedal, bushings, and clutch stop, I must say that operating the car has gotten much more enjoyable. Hooray for the little things!

    ===================================

    Moving back to the motor, let's talk about rear main seals. The PO of the motor said he had replaced it a while back, but I knew how hard the job becomes once the motor is back in the car, and since it was sitting there all nice like on a stand, I couldn't stop myself from installing a new one. Rather than pay a lot more for a pre-assembled RMS (that includes a new metal section) I just bought the new seal and had to figure out how to properly install it. The Bentley book mentions a product called Curil-T, which isn't super easy to find, but Ebay saved the day.



    While I was in the area, I figured it was also a good idea to replace the pilot bearing. This of course required more tools, which I was quite happy to buy. Tools are toys for adults, and I'm most certainly still a child on the inside. Since I didn't know which tool was going to work best in this application, I bought two cheap ones:



    I had to drop the motor off the stand to do this one, so an old Hoosier stepped in to help:



    First I got busy removing the old pilot bearing:



    The old one was definitely worn out, as evidenced by free spinning and a good amount of noise. The new one got to hang out in the freezer before installation, which made it quite easy.



    Naturally, I cleaned up the cover plate:









    Then applied the Curil-T:



    Smushed it in there....



    Made sure it was nice and flush:



    Super-cleaned the block:



    And reinstalled:



    So between this and the new oil pan gasket, I feel pretty good about future oil leaks! After 4-5 months of driving it's still bone dry, so I'm quite pleased by that!

  20. #295
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    Back to the interior! To get easier access to the clutch pedal I wanted to remove the driver's seat. Due to the extremely tight conditions of the Recaro seat and the homemade/E28 brackets, the seat was pretty much stuck and wouldn't slide forward or back. This prevented me from removing the front two seat bolts, which forced me to disassembled the seat from the bracket before I could remove anything from the car. This motivated me to make the seat and bracket fit better in the car, which led to the following work.

    The seat belt receptacle/bracket was making contact with the trans tunnel, so I smashed it around until there was some clearance:



    This is part of the seat belt assembly on the B pillar, which was right up against the seat bracket so I trimmed off those two little nubs sticking out from the bottom:



    I also had to do many rounds of trimming with the Dremel to get the B pillar cover to fit with the seat installed. Oh, and I trimmed out a section of carpet to allow more room for the seat bracket:



    The seat brackets had excess material that was getting in the way, so that got trimmed off as well:





    You can see the evidence of past fights between the seat bracket and B pillar cover, but now things at least fit. They might not be pretty, but they work! I can now actually move the seat forwards and back, and up and down. Before, with all the clearance issues, it was stuck in one location, so this is a huge improvement!



    =================================================

    With everything out of the car, it was a perfect time to refresh the shifter and figure out WTF was going on with the rear shifter bushing:



    Well, it was kind of dead, so I bought a new one from Garagistic:



    Yeah, the old one was doing pretty much nothing:



    Everything got a thorough cleaning:





    New front bushings from Garagistic:



    All new OEM parts....



    Assembling....



    Turns out I have the first gen UUC short shifter from like 1999, and their current DSSR doesn't fit the old model (they're on V3 now), so I was left wondering what I could do about getting a DSSR in there. Turns out there's a guy named Ben (badwella) on R3VLimited who makes custom (and normal) DSSRs, so I gave him the measurements for my old shifter and he sent me a custom DSSR for something like $45 shipped!



    It came powder coated with all the hardware, but I did have to do some trimming to get it to fit over the shifter. I'm pretty sure this was due to the custom nature of my setup, it doesn't sound like the normal ones have any problems. It sure looks nice now!



    Replacing that busted rear shifter bushing made a big difference in shifting! Shifting does take some effort, but once the trans fluid is warmed up a bit, shifts are so tight and rewarding! All play is gone from the shifter, and it's just wonderful! However, while before I had some trouble getting the car into 5th gear (I've got shifter lean due to worn detents), I now have no trouble going into 5th, and LOTS of trouble getting the car into reverse. I really have to struggle with that, and when it's cold in the morning I pretty much have to use both hands to get it to go into reverse. Sometimes if I don't jam it in there real good it pops out of reverse, which is quite unpleasant when it happens. Oh well, I'll trade nice shifts to 5th for poor shifts to reverse!

  21. #296
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Herndon, VA
    Posts
    625
    My Cars
    98 M3/4/5, RIP 528e
    Alright, we're getting close to being caught up, don't get too excited now!

    There was a generous helping of old oil all over the front of the motor, so even though the valve cover gasket had been replaced with the head gasket 35k ago, I wanted to do it and just be done. I like things clean, can you tell?

    When I pulled off the VC I noticed that it was missing the intake cam cover that I saw on my old motor, so I installed my old one on the new motor:





    My old VC had a crack in it which I successfully repaired with some QuikSteel, but the new one was crack-free, so I cleaned it up with some Purple Power:





    Much better....





    A little black RTV later and I was back in business!


  22. #297
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Herndon, VA
    Posts
    625
    My Cars
    98 M3/4/5, RIP 528e
    Alright, let's get this motor back in the car!

    I took my cheap-o Ebay clutch/flywheel combo to a machine shop to have them balanced. Seems like the flywheel was well machined to begin with, as it didn't need to have any material taken off to be balanced. The guy marked the spots on the clutch and flywheel for where they are balanced together, so that's where I mounted them up:



    I had to re-do the wiring for the electric fan:



    This silicone hose for the M50 manifold swap didn't like staying tight on the CCV, so I put a little red RTV in there to make sure there are no leaks in the future:





    I replaced the rubber throttle cable bushing with an aluminum one from Garagistic:



    I removed my cruise control a while back since the aftermarket steering wheel doesn't support it...



    My buddy Patrick had this nice set of leather parts for his E36 that he never used, so I got them for real cheap. I'm not sure where they're from, but they are so much softer and nicer than the old stock stuff!





    Hello, my lovely E28 shift knob...



    The old foam things on the side of the AC condenser disintegrated during disassembly, so I got some weather stripping and replaced it so try and keep the air going where it needs to:



    Earlier, I had swapped over my nice new Stewart water pump, OEM thermostat, and OEM plastic housing to the new motor.



    I also replaced some underdrive/lightweight water pump pulley on the new motor with the OEM one from my old motor:



    I immediately noticed that the insides on the new motor were all brown/gold, where my old motor was nice and clean looking:

    Old motor:



    New:



    Old:



    New:



    There was also some nasty brownish residue inside the radiator, so I decided to try some Evaporust Thermosure to clean things out. This stuff smells terrible, but damn if it doesn't seem to work!



    After!



    Brown residue gone!



    There were many rounds of burping and flushing, trying to get air pockets out of the system. Eventually, this came out:











    To fully get the Evaporust out of the system, you need to do two or three fill-ups with pure water. Eventually after driving with each for a while, the stuff finally starts coming out cleaner...



    It was a PITA, but it does seem to have worked! Even the ends of the radiator are nice and clean now. Oh, and in my desperation to burp the cooling system, I followed the advice of a few people and drilled a tiny hole in the top of the thermostat to aid burping:



    Hose fittings on the new motor needed to be cleaned up...









    I had bought new coolant hoses when I bought the car, but never installed this one going to the firewall. That leaves the other one as the only hose I haven't replaced on the car.



    I sent out my old injectors to be cleaned and rebuilt while I had time. One of the injectors that was on the new motor had lost it's pintle cap somewhere along the way, which probably wasn't good. Another fell apart when I removed it from the rail.



    Flow chart!



    Both new and old motors had M50 manifold swaps, so I got to choose between the Bimmerworld kit and the M50manifold.com kit. I liked the M50manifold kit better, so that's what I went with.



    This guy from the new motor was missing its retaining tab/clip, so I used my old one:



    Oh, and while the motor was out, I cleaned up the engine bay with some Purple Power. It's the best!













    I even cleaned up all the grounds on the new engine harness:





    And this guy too...





    The difference between my old, clean oil filter cover and the filthy one from the new motor had me a little concerned about what had been happening inside my new motor...







    It of course got a new filter...



    And after spraying a ton of brake cleaner in it to clean out the gunk, new crush gaskets and tape for the oil distribution block:



    The previous owner strongly recommended that I use Mobil 1 15w-50, which is rather difficult to find...



    I also picked up a new/used foam DME cover and plastic caps since my old one had seen better days....





    Holy crap, it's back in!



    Had to use some RTV to seal up vacuum leaks in the area....



    It's been something like 6 months now, and after I figured out how to burp the damn thing, it's been running like a champ since! A local guy tuned a spare DME for me to take full advantage of the M50 manifold and cams, and also kept it from throwing a code for the deleted SAP and also raised the idle to 900 RPM. It's working great so far as well!

  23. #298
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Latvia
    Posts
    8
    My Cars
    94 320i
    Poor gold! ) Awesome Sir! What's the power figures with remapped DME together with cams and M50 manifold? How many degrees those cams are? I can't wait for newest videos in rally-x events.

  24. #299
    Join Date
    Dec 2014
    Location
    Des Moines, IA
    Posts
    1,051
    My Cars
    '97 M3/4/5.0

  25. #300
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Location
    Herndon, VA
    Posts
    625
    My Cars
    98 M3/4/5, RIP 528e
    Quote Originally Posted by allmotorguy View Post
    Poor gold! ) Awesome Sir! What's the power figures with remapped DME together with cams and M50 manifold? How many degrees those cams are? I can't wait for newest videos in rally-x events.
    Thank you! I haven't dynoed the car, so I don't know exact figures. The cams are made by Riot Racing, so they are just factory regrinds. As far as I'm aware they won't release specs on the cams, but they are similar to the Shrick 264/256 cam. Supposedly give 15+ whp on a dyno. M50 manifolds give something like 10 whp, but lose torque. Between the two, plus the tune, I don't think it's unreasonable to think the car is making something like 270 at the crank. So around 225 whp if everything is healthy. But I still should do a compression and leak down test.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
    Great pics!
    Thanks man!

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