Kevin325i build thread

[Kevin325i]

Well now that I've got some free time on my hands I figured I could snap a couple pictures and have some sort of documentation for my new car to look back on my new project.

July 2010, I blew up my turbocharged Dodge Caravan for the last time. I stated after I built the engine that if there was ever a situation that required the removal of the engine again I was done. It had been simply too much time, money, and effort to have a drag car, err minivan. It had also become so impractical that I couldn't use it for anything more than a project.

At the end of it's life the minivan had the following:
Forged crank, eagle rods, wiseco pistons, custom 8v head, he341 turbo, etc etc. The van ran a few 14.0 at 100mph with me short shifting it because a low impedance injector problem with my Megasquirt ecu so it was a whole different animal with the other injectors in it. It lifted the head on a 30psi 4th gear pull and washed down cylinders 2 and 3. The bores we trashed... time to move on.




The same day my buddy and I were driving up the road from his house and spotted a 1998 328i automatic for sale at a gas station. The sign in the window read "Mechanic's Special" there was really no other option when I saw that. I had originally planned on taking it easy and not spending any money on a project as I'm just a broke college student. However fate has a strange way of working itself out sometimes. I've always wanted to build a completely impractical autocross/street/DE e36 and now was my chance.

We picked the car up the next day and got to work.




Progress has been slow for the last year. With school and my commitments to the Formula SAE team at UW-Madison there hasn't been much time to get a whole lot done. However in the last month since the end of competition I have been able to get a little bit done.

First I got the head off and replaced the gasket with a .140 mls. Also along the way installed a m50 oil filter housing, s52 cams, tec3r, zf manual transmission, lightweight flywheel, fx400 clutch, new oil pan gasket, valve cover gasket m50 intake manifold and technique tuning exhaust manifold.

Got the cold side piping fit up and ready to go.




Next I tried to focus on the slowing down part of the car and also trying to make it handle. I've got an entire M rear end and front end to go along with my rusty but still good ground control coil over/ koni sport shock combo of my 325i.

Yes I painted all four calipers red.. It's my one ricer vice. I like red brake calipers




Here's some more shots of how the car sits right now hoping to get the subframe reinforcements welded in and have the chassis all back together for a rolling car by the weekend.







Next on the agenda, fixing the turbo e36 inlet issue with a custom piece..




Setup, something like this:
6262 .83 T3 v band housing
Tec3r
m52 with s52 cams and m50 intake
3" exhaust, 38mm Tial open dump
M drivetrain with poly bushings in just about everything
and a little bit of corn burning majik, I do live in WI afterall

More to come this week, I hope..

[milKt]

Welcome
and keep us posted with progress. Looks like a fun ride there, ey?

[Corky325]

Looks good, would be nice to see you at an autocross event.

Also, did you end up getting any of that stuff from ted?

[mcoupemindy]

I wanna see vids of the turbo van.

[FastrTHNu]

I wanna see vids of the turbo van.

+1

[biglou911]

I wanna see vids of the turbo van.

+1
there were 2 that ran 11s here in detroit

[Kevin325i]

Looks good, would be nice to see you at an autocross event.

Also, did you end up getting any of that stuff from ted?

I ended up finding another forum member selling parts and coming to madison.

I'm trying my hardest to have the car sorted for the Miller Park event.

I wanna see vids of the turbo van.

+1

+1
there were 2 that ran 11s here in detroit

I've got a couple drag race videos. I'll see if I can dig them up.

The setup in the van before it let go was a pretty quick combo. With traction it would have easily been a high 12 pass. Weighed in around 2800 lbs never any dyno time with it though but somewhere in the 380whp range. I actually mounted a set of et streets for it the day I got the cylinder head off and found the bad news.. They've got about 100' on them if someone wants to pick up some 14" DRs.

[Kevin325i]

Well it's been awhile since I've updated but I'm still around and a lot has happened with the car.

Welding the subframe reinforcement plates.




Elbow on the turbo outlet




Finished product for now






I got the car up and running a couple months ago around 14-15 psi. Ran decent at first then a few tweaks to the tune brought it up to snuff. When everything was working well I adjusted the boost up shooting for 18-20 psi. Ended up with 18 psi before the 750s were running out of DC. Upped the base pressure and dropped an Aeromotive 340 pump in and called it good.

Since I live in WI I'm getting ready to put the car away and enjoying the now working turbo e36 before the first snowfall. Pull through 4th gear and there's a slight hickup just as I was letting off. Check the logs and everything looks fine. It also ran fine at part throttle for a little stint so I filed it in the back of my mind. Starts right up today just fine. Let the car warm up and as soon as cylinder pressure starts to build ( 5000rpm 200kpa) it just breaks up.

Back in the garage plugs 5 and 6 come out with a heavy coolant smell and a decent amount of chalky white all over them. Oh well I hadn't really expected the MLS to hold for long. I was already planning on a simple 2.8l build this winter.

The car is now sitting under it's cover while I search for a cheap 2.8l..

[mcoupemindy]

Nice to hear it is / was running. And glad to hear you didn't expect the MLS to handle the 18 psi of abuse. That must have been a rocketship with stock compression other than the MLS.

[Corky325]

Ohh, i see why. I would give my buddy ted a call, he usually has a 2.8 for cheap.

[Kevin325i]

Nice to hear it is / was running. And glad to hear you didn't expect the MLS to handle the 18 psi of abuse. That must have been a rocketship with stock compression other than the MLS.

It was certainly very quick. First and second gear were useless.

Ohh, i see why. I would give my buddy ted a call, he usually has a 2.8 for cheap.

I'll give that a shot, really only looking for a block right now. Probably end up doing a simple build for the 500hp range since the clutch and fuel system won't be up to snuff and I'd like to be able to do track days with it.

Right now the plan is pretty open.

CR: 9.5-1 (I've had good luck with wiseco, probably something form them)
~84mm bore
O-ring block with factory gasket
Eagle rods
Crank???

[Bianca98]

Hey Kev, I just check CL in Minneapolis not 5 minutes ago. There were several 528s and a few 3 series being parted. if you head this way for anything, let me know. I would love to meet up.

[Kevin325i]

Well I got the car out of storage a few months ago but haven't had any time to tinker with it for awhile. I also picked up another m52 preemptively to replace the one in the car if I need to.


After a little bit more troubleshooting I found the car still had good compression numbers and the only smoke it produced was a little bit of oil burning on start up and idle. After it drives it's fine. I'll chalk it up to turbo oil drain issues.

Pulled the plugs again and no smell of coolant this time after just a short trip around the block and still an ignition breakup issue. I gapped the plugs down to .022" and it runs just fine again. It's sort of a strange thing to have suddenly occur as the car was running fine but I'll take what I can get. For the time being the car is up and running again.

Since I've got the other engine I can take my time and build it. Probably turn the power down out of the stock one until I get the new engine together and then see what the setup can take.

[Fender13Bender]

Nice work!

[1980corvette]

is the intercooler piping below the subframe?

[deek10sn]

Nice to see another Wisco turbo e36!!! Ever think about running @ Road America? Dells for carshow this weekend just down the road from you as well! Good luck with the build!
Derek

[Kevin325i]

is the intercooler piping below the subframe?

Yes, the hot side piping runs under the subframe. I tried clocking the turbo and even with the cut short and welded on cast 90* I couldn't fit it over.

I run a reasonable ride height on the car and it hasn't touched anything (yet) so I'm not terribly worried about it. There's a pretty good chance that I'll make some time to redo the piping eventually and go over the subframe.

[1980corvette]

Yes, the hot side piping runs under the subframe. I tried clocking the turbo and even with the cut short and welded on cast 90* I couldn't fit it over.

I run a reasonable ride height on the car and it hasn't touched anything (yet) so I'm not terribly worried about it. There's a pretty good chance that I'll make some time to redo the piping eventually and go over the subframe.

I've been trying to read through threads and find how you can run the intercooler piping over the subframe on a bottom mount setup.

when I start my build I would like to get mine over and really don't mind if I have to delete the A/C in the process, never really use it anyway even in this Los Angeles heat.

[Corky325]

I've been trying to read through threads and find how you can run the intercooler piping over the subframe on a bottom mount setup.

when I start my build I would like to get mine over and really don't mind if I have to delete the A/C in the process, never really use it anyway even in this Los Angeles heat.

I thought to run it over the subframe you just need to get a costume engine mount. Like this one:

http://www.racersmarket.net/index.ph...hk=1&Itemid=93

[Kevin325i]

Well it's been awhile since I've updated this. I'll try to remember what's happened.


The engine is still in the car. I drove it for a little bit when I had the chance the summer of 2012 but my time was mostly spent chasing a fairly large oil leak from the rear of the cylinder head. I'm going to blame it on some poor surface preparation for the block. The rear area of the block didn't really get as much attention as it needed when I originally installed the mls head gasket. Because of the oil leak I was only driving the car every now and then and sorted out some little driveability issues here and there.


The most notable issue came up when I attended a private drag strip rental on street tires. The calibration had been established around trying to get the turbo spun up and making power relatively aggressively. This was great for screwing around on the street and pulling through the higher gears but it left a lot to be desired when it came time to get the car off the line. I produced some high 12/low 13 passes at mid 120s for trap speeds with dismal 60' times localized around 2.6s.

Through some negotiations with Ding I traded the painted DS wheels plus some BBS wheels for a square set of d force LTW5s.




Winter was coming again and my final year of college wasn't looking like I'd have much time for the car so I moved the vehicle further north to a friends shop where it sat for a year before I touched it again. I had always hated how loud the second summit muffler made the car so I picked up a Dynomax VT hoping that installation of that would help my problem. I spent a few days at the shop working on the endurance racer Festiva and also reworking the exhaust system.

Here's a couple pictures of well, really just some pretty minimal progress to remaking the exhaust system. You can see the burning oil/ dripping on the downpipe.






The other engine is coming in handy. It's apart and I'm in process of cleaning and reassembling everything. Hoping to put together something that doesn't leak oil so I can daily drive it at a minimum. The rest, well we'll see what happens.

[Kevin325i]

Finished up the exhaust system and tied in the wastegate to the downpipe. Also made an intake with the new motor mount installed.

Rear section of exhaust tacked together






Finish welds




New front section of the exhaust. Came out a lot nicer than the pieces that got thrown together last time




New wastegate location and tie in to downpipe






New motor mount and intake










Waiting on a set of pistons for the bores to get finished up. Other than that I've got about everything I need to get the engine back together.

[Kevin325i]

Got the machine work finished up and engine started going back together without much fuss. With the head gasket and the machined head and block I should be right at about 8.8:1 compression ratio but need to take a final cc measurement to be positive. Still waiting on the brackets for mounting the oil pump pickup tubes then the oil pan will go on. Need to pull the other engine from the car to get the s52 cams and trays installed. Hopefully I'll get everything together and the car running before the snow falls this year. I've been contemplating going back to 91/93 octane for the time being, the fuel system is inadequate for anything more than about 500whp on e85 so I could make similar power switching at this point since I'm not really taking advantage of huge cylinder pressures. Plus it's a pain taking the car anywhere when you're not sure if you can get e85.

At this point I figure 500whp running around at some track days will be more that enough to put a smile on my face. I do have a good upgrade path later in that I could change cams, turbo, exhaust, intercooler, and fuel system to make tons more power (and fail lots of driveline components) if I so desire. For the time being this will be fine.

Setup for those who haven't been following along:

m52 block 85mm bore
m52 crank
TRM/ Wiseco 85mm piston
JE Cutring .063
s52 cylinder head +1mm intake/ exhaust valves (supertech SS intake, inconel exhaust) supertech valvespring kit/retainers/ seats, new guides, welded rear coolant port near cylinder 6
s52 cams
s54 oil filter housing, oil pump, pan
TT Manifold
6262 t3 .82, v band discharge
2.5" hot side, 3" cold side intercooler piping
3" Exhaust, magnaflow resonator, dynomax VT mufler
Tec3r


Now onto the pictures


Block painted with high temp flat black paint. I didn't want anything flashy, just something that wasn't rust colored and would hold up.



Pistons and connecting rods.



Pistons on the rods



Installed



Cylinder head, +1mm intake and exhaust valves



Modification of cylinder head for #6 'issue'



Another of the coolant port



Head gasket set on the block



Well how's that supposed to seal anything?



Oh I see what you did there



Closeup of cutrings



Cylinder head installed and torqued, s54 oil filter housing mounted



s54 Oil pump installed

[iRodD]

Very nass...

[M3poseur]

Very smart man by going with the cutrings. It's a no brainer for me, cutrings is the only way to go to seal up the combustion chamber. The cutrings is so much superior over stock thin flimsy folded metal firing ring with rounded edge. Especially on m5x oem stock gasket where the firing ring is not even round! I've seen too many stock gasket fails where the firing ring is pushed out or burnt through between cylinder.

It's nice to see an old post revised with great update. Looking forward to a great result.

[UltimateAutoM3]

Very smart man by going with the cutrings. It's a no brainer for me, cutrings is the only way to go to seal up the combustion chamber. The cutrings is so much superior over stock thin flimsy folded metal firing ring with rounded edge. Especially on m5x oem stock gasket where the firing ring is not even round! I've seen too many stock gasket fails where the firing ring is pushed out or burnt through between cylinder.

It's nice to see an old post revised with great update. Looking forward to a great result.

My stock s50 took a shit between cylinders 4 and 5, four weeks ago, good thing i already had the plan to go FI, did the gasket 3 years ago/10,000 miles... BEWARE OF Victor Reinz oem head gaskets

Sweet build! my pt 6262 gets here next friday