"JitteryJoe" If you don't mind me asking what was the power numbers looking like and what did the rev'ing change to? Did you do the work yourself?
Sorry, I don't have dyno numbers yet. The entire set up has just recently been sorted out. The engine was balanced during rebuild and freely revs well into redline. I'm running JE 11:1 pistons and Epic Motorsports Sport cams with race spring, stainless valves, M50 intake manifold, 24lb injectors, 3 1/2" MAF, ASC throttle delete, SAP delete, and wide diameter long tube stainless headers, mid pipe, etc. The tune is by Epic. The seat comparison says the car has lots more power, especially at the upper range. The short block and head was done by a local machine shop/engine builder that specializes in BMWs. They did the crank, rod & piston assembly and installation. I did the rest of the engine assembly. The entire suspension was rebuilt (by me). I'm running a JB Racing single mass steel flywheel. The machine shopbalanced the clutch assembly.The last little bit to do is to swap the current TB with a Dinan unit which I'll have to have someone else do because my garage has no room for the car right now (full of moving stuff).
Right now the car is in storage while I move (which has turned out to be an enormous pain in the butt).
I will post dyno numbers when I have them.
Last edited by JitteryJoe; 03-10-2020 at 04:49 PM.
Ahh ok. That's a lot of work and sounds good. Look forward to seeing the numbers when you have it available. I have yet to find a shop that does rebuilds for a decent price on my side of the world.
As for moving yeah it's a pain and probably one of things I don't enjoy on any level! Lol.
I had those same cams, and the motor wouldn’t run right with them. Epic was no help in figuring them out. Another forum member who I purchased them from said they did need to be adjusted slightly differently then stock.
I ended up removing them. It would be interesting to see how they perform.
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“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell
Block ready to be taken to the machine shop. Don't mind the excessive amount of Topo Chico in the pic.
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Biggest issue now is trying to find a place for all the parts in the garage. Already limited on space. Every time I need to work on the car I have to temporarily move things out in the driveway.
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Forgot about a picture I took of some old cylinder heads outside of a cylinder head machine shop. Mother of god those cylinder heads are enormous! You can see an old small block cylinder head in the pic for size reference. I am assuming they are some sort of big rig diesel cylinder heads.
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Decide what you are doing? You certainly got a lot of input.
In a bit of a holding pattern at the moment. Screwed up my shoulder recently and the MRI showed that the supraspinatus tendon of the rotator cuff is over 50% torn off the bone. Good times! Going to need surgery to repair it so I will be out of commission for a while after the surgery, at least with regards to doing any work on the motor. Had multiple shoulder surgeries in the past so nothing new to me.
In the mean time before I schedule a surgery date I need to get the engine and cylinder head dropped off to get the machine work done. And I am putting together a list of every single part, nut, bolt, gasket etc that I need so I can get the process of rebuilding this engine moving forward. I will post my list soon and see if there is anything I am missing or forgot about.
Ended up emailing back and forth with 515 Motorsports about my engine build and parts to purchase. It's great finding a shop where the techs are really into E36 BMWs! Planning on speaking with them in more detail over the phone and possibly in person to get their opinions on what components can be reused and what they recommend replacing base on their experience. Hopefully with that knowledge I can gain some clarity on this build.
If this helps with your decision I recently rebuilt my s50 with forged rods/pistons for turbo build and did cutring HG arp head studs and 3 angle valve job on my head with new exhaust valve guides.
I spent 900$ in machine work (hot tank,deck, hone, valve job) and $2100 in new seals,bolts,bearings, and rotating assembly. I put everything back together myself and the motor runs great NA even at 9:1 comp while i'm still braking in the new rings (turbo going on this summer) all together it was worth the money for a good 700+ motor set up.
Do the moto tune break in and you do get on it.
With a tune, low CR works fine. Probably down 4% in power.
[QUOTE=E85STI;30432600]Thank you for the feedback. Did you reuse the valves, valve guides, springs and lifters? Or better yet what did you replace on the cylinder head?
Good to know it still runs great even at that low compression. Not that you are getting on it during the break in.
Yes I reused everything from the head and the valve train, since everything was within spec I only had to replace the exhaust valve guides/ which were a few bucks and I got a 3 angle valve job with new valve seals to ensure the head was sealing perfectly. Motor had normal carbon build up and did not have any issues before I pulled the block apart. Engine had 118k before I rebuilt it, and I put about 20k on it over 3 years from when I did the swap out of high school before I decided to turbo it now.
I do get on the car to let the rings seat, I let the car idle at 2K rpm for 25 min on first start up and drive 25 miles on highway doing full throttle pulls to redline (7k) from 3-5th gear and let the engine rpms come down by themselves on deceleration with no rev matching. I did the same thing when city driving for another 25 miles before changing the oil running conventional non synthetic 5w-30 for the first 1k miles before I switched to 5w-30 synthetic and drive normal again. No smoking issues or leaks to date now it ready for the turbo in a few weeks.
This is the standard break in procedure we do at Acura for our engine rebuilds before we give them back to the customers. I just do multiple oil changes on my personal car in 250 mile intervals during engine break in, to ensure everything is staying free of any foreign debris. Which to some can be excessive but I like to do it as preventive maintenance before I go back to normal driving routine and my 3k oil change intervals. My car is running on flex fuel but full e85 at the moment NA with a custom 22rpd OBD2 tune NA.
Last edited by E30s50dude; 03-21-2020 at 12:12 PM.
Sub'd. Will be doing this soon.
E36 M3 journal https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...-Build-Journal
F80 M3 journal https://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sh....php?t=1734421
Miata K24 build https://www.miataturbo.net/build-thr...ine-up-105885/
Figured I would give an update to the thread. Life and family issues got in the way and I have unfortunately made zero progress from my last post. Hoping to get things moving sometime in the near future.
That’s understandable, please keep us in the loop when you do. Did you narrow down the brands/specs of parts you were going to use. For example, I want Supertech springs and retainers... but 67lbs or 80lbs seat pressure? Also, are WPC treated bearings worth it? What is the cost difference between reconditioning the stock rods vs buying brand new K1 or Molnar rods? I think new rods are $600 a set with ARP bolts. Wonder what reconditioned stock rods with ARP bolts cost.
So life has thrown me a few curveballs and I think I need to change my plans on this entire rebuild process. I have been throwing around the idea of just trying to sell the the entire car and components as is and just getting another car. One of the major issues happening is am going to need a couple more surgeries over then next 6 months which I am not looking forward to. I have owned the M3 for almost 10 years now and I have loved it, but I think it is time to move on. The car has rust that I don't want to fix and other things that older E36 models all need attended to.
I am honestly just burned out with it all right now. Maybe I can post it locally on Craigslist and hope to get 3k for it all, but that may be a pipe dream I don't know. Not sure, am I crazy not fixing it up and getting it in working order and trying to sell it as is? I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. It's always good to bounce thoughts and ideas off other E36 enthusiasts.
Last edited by E85STI; 12-17-2020 at 06:03 PM.
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