High Altitude Supercharging

[ThaDoubleJ]

Driver's side, passenger side snugged up nicely. No RTV on the engine itself luckily, that would have sucked to clean up. I'm the worst at drilling/tapping holes on a 90, I have no sense of levelness or whatever you'd call it, the hole would be 27 degrees off and wallowed when I was done. Hoping to take it out tomorrow and see if those leaks are cured.

[ThaDoubleJ]

Can't get 80 in/lb (9 NM) on that bolt, just started spinning and 80in/lb is nothing. Gonna drive it and see what happens, but a pattern is starting to show itself concerning one of the shops the PO was using of broken bolts, copious amounts of RTV and stripped threads.

[ThaDoubleJ]

Half hour drive around town and I'm still dry under the gaskets. Didn't get into too much boost, pound or two, so I'm not sure if it'll hold up once crankcase pressures rise, that'll be my next check. I checked out the shop that did the work, and they have 5.0 stars on google. Every reviewer has about 3 reviews. Interesting...

[ThaDoubleJ]

Talked to Vortech, they think a 3.125" pulley will hit my 8#@6K goal. Anyone know of a machine shop that I can have it shipped to and faced? I have a friend with a lathe but he's super busy with work and kids.

Talked to a place called Vi.engineered, they're going to pie-cut-tig-weld me a dual exhaust with an X pipe, I'm going to pull the Dinan axle-back out.
How much exhaust system are you all running? I think mega thread indicates headers for you Philly, but I don't recall what you have after. Jim/Bussa, are you guys on single 3" from the trans back? I measured my primary pipes, 2.15" (or metric equivalent).
Kinda small I think.

Belly pan is oily and coolanty. Less oil, surprising amount of coolant. Gonna need to pump up the system cold to find the leak, looks to be driver's side but I don't smell any when hot, so I'm not sure what's up.

Going to push coil overs/tires/rims until next winter and just get this S/C kit wrapped up and hopefully Frank tuned this winter. I think I can get another season out of the Pilots and I'd really like to wait for the 5S to come out before I spring for new shoes.

Temps have finally gotten reasonable so I think I'll go for some high RPM rips tomorrow and see if that driver's side gasket springs a leak on me. Fingers crossed.

[JimLev]

Here's my exhaust. The pre-cats are gone.
Header33.JPG

Pretty sure the pipe OD was 2.75"
TIG5.JPG

The dead leg on the resonator with QTP added.
Duals.JPG

[philly98540]

My exhaust thread.

https://www.bimmerforums.com/forum/s...M5-Box-amp-Bar

[ThaDoubleJ]

Interesting, you guys are both making big ass numbers on single exhausts and even some stock components on your car Jim.

Thanks for the pics and links. Do you both have emissions in your states? Colorado just went to CARB level emissions and cats here. We're in so much trouble with the EPA due to smog in Denver that they're going to start selling some special (read: shitty) gas in the 9 counties near Denver. I live just south of a rural county, so hopefully the gas station across the road won't have it. The guy who's going to cut up the exhaust for me says my main cats are restrictive, is that the common thought? Can't have them with your longtubes I see, but I'm not sure about headers just yet for mine.

[philly98540]

I need to pass emissions every year here in PA. I have HJS heavy duty metallic cats that breathe very good as per my thread. You could do like Jim and do headers and keep stock lower cats. At your boost the flows are not crazy and stock cats should be pretty decent and pass emissions.

[ThaDoubleJ]

Hmmm...maybe I'll think about headers and larger piping someday if you can pass on 2 cats.

I took the car out and beat it like it owed me money. That Dinan axle back sounds pretty ferocious with an appropriate amount of exhaust going through it, I'll be a little sad to see it go, but I'll live with it. I did pull off a 2nd gear/tail out/Wavetrac active/90 degree corner that put a smile on my face. Mr WRX next to me pulled a U-turn and had to run home and change his skivvies. The car was very composed through that maneuver, I won't be on a YT video with a bunch of Mustangs.

Good news: Still dry under the VANOS solenoids. No fresh oil in the belly pan, but looks to be a bigger mess now on the passenger side.

Weird news: No coolant in the belly pan now, it's all on my driveway instead...

Bad news: When I got home I noticed I'd developed a mild cam lope. Scanner says P0011, looks like a cam on bank 1 or cam A is stuck advanced. Could that have anything to do with unplugging the solenoids for the gasket swap? I'd assume that'd keep them from advancing, not get them stuck advanced. They're both plugged in just fine, and I don't think I cycled the key at all when they were unplugged.


Edit: P0011 seems to be timing chain guides going bad or some wheel that is set incorrectly during a timing job. In November of 2018 at 113K (118K on the clock now) I'm seeing: Replace timing chains, guide rods, rebuild VANOS. For parts I see a timing guide rail, oil separator, timing chain kit, water pump gasket, alternator seal, water pump o ring, fuel filter, timing cover gaskets, guide rod, oil pan gasket, exhaust seal ring, air pump seal and some other misc parts. This was a 3000 dollar job done by a reputable indie shop south of Denver.

Edit Edit: The more I think about it, the more I think the car was idling funny the other day, burbling and popping a little bit. I chalked it up to an exhaust leak, pretty sure I have a small one at the headers. When I started it this morning, I don't recall hearing it, but I wasn't paying that close of attention. It wasn't loping, I'm sure of that. You can hear the lope in the S/C along with the exhaust note. I just went out to put it away and started it, still loping, took a metal rod and tapped on the solenoids, no change. This is weird.

Speaking of S/C noises, does the lash noise go away with smaller pulleys or is it 100% based on load vs RPM.

Drive - Check oil leaks - Scan new codes - Repeat

[JimLev]

No emission or safety checks in the county I live in. I could still pass emission test with the pre-cats removed.
If your guides were all changed 5K ago your trigger wheel is slightly off, probably was off by 3-4º and now it’s off my 5º which will shut down both vanos.
Clear the code and see if it comes back.
Your exhaust manifold is a lot more restrictive than headers. Tomorrow I’ll dig up a pic of the inside of the pipe that is just before the pre-cat.

[philly98540]

SC lash noise does reduce as rpm goes up. Mine is less noticeable with the 2.875 pulley and my idle was raised to 750 or 800 rpm’s iirc.

[JimLev]

When you cut off the pre-cats and look inside the tube this is what you'll see. Headers will improve the flow.

IMG_20190603_115113018.jpg

[ThaDoubleJ]

Roger, I'll clear the codes and see what happens. Quick search says I need to open some inspection holes and check some marks. If the timing is off, can that be adjusted fairly easily or am I looking at pulling the front off the engine? I've got a foxwell/schwaben doodad that so far I've just used as an expensive OBDII code scanner, does it have the ability to tell me if something is amiss other than the simple code?


I was just starting to have fun.

Thanks Philly, mine pretty much goes away at 1100ish so maybe it'll get a bit quieter with the 3.125

Those collectors look scary. Headers should probably be on the to do list. Hell, probably should have been since the beginning.

[JimLev]

You can adjust the trigger wheel by removing the valve cover and using a 24mm open end wrench.
I’ve only used my Foxwell once so I’m not sure of everything it can do.

[ThaDoubleJ]

I must not understand how VANOS works, I assumed the solenoids advance the cams, but after double checking the plug on the solenoid, clearing the codes and warming the car up the lope went away by the time I got into rush hour traffic....5 minutes maybe? CEL did not come back on. Do the solenoids retard the cams and advanced is their natural state? That seems counterintuitive since the car would idle poorly, have crap low end and fail emissions bad with advanced cams.

My coolant leak is only present when the car is ambient, once it warms up it goes away. I'm gonna sheeet kittens if it's the radiator, it's been through 2 of them already recently.

[JimLev]

The vanos advances and retards the intake cams using oil pressure. The RPM and load determine the cam position.
The trigger wheel is held to the center section of the vanos which is bolted to the cam.
The DME reads the trigger wheel position and then controls the oil pressure thru the vanos solenoid.

[ThaDoubleJ]

I talked to Vortech about my next pulley size, and they gave me some math that didn't add up at all. They say something is wrong with the car, I brought up altitude again, and without admitting it...they kindof admitted that they don't know what their S/Cs are going to do up here. I'm finding it odd that I can't get these answers. Even if 1% of the people in CO are car people, and only 1% of them put a SC on their car, that means there should be 560 aftermarket superchargers in Colorado. That doesn't take into account all the other states with high altitude nor the countless people who travel here to race at Bandimere, La Junta, Pueblo, High Plains...etc.

Anyway, I'm going to do the 2.87 and PPv2 and just have Frank tune it to 9PSI or whenever my injectors get sad and then have that set as my rev limit. If I only rev to 5500, so be it.

[H3adBussa]

I talked to Vortech about my next pulley size, and they gave me some math that didn't add up at all. They say something is wrong with the car, I brought up altitude again, and without admitting it...they kindof admitted that they don't know what their S/Cs are going to do up here. I'm finding it odd that I can't get these answers. Even if 1% of the people in CO are car people, and only 1% of them put a SC on their car, that means there should be 560 aftermarket superchargers in Colorado. That doesn't take into account all the other states with high altitude nor the countless people who travel here to race at Bandimere, La Junta, Pueblo, High Plains...etc.

Anyway, I'm going to do the 2.87 and PPv2 and just have Frank tune it to 9PSI or whenever my injectors get sad and then have that set as my rev limit. If I only rev to 5500, so be it.

Finally the plate! Good idea. Seeing the boost you were pushing at 6500 rpm I see no reason for you not to achieve your goals with a smaller pulley. There's a lot of boost to be had at the higher rpms, it really ramps up with the smaller pulleys.

On another note. Green giant injectors aren't too expensive. They're like $55 each at fcpeuro. I wouldn't go the route of having the injectors at max duty cycle.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[ThaDoubleJ]

Got the cam code again. The lope comes and goes, but I can feel it. Local indie shop wants a G just to troubleshoot. I'm going to pull the VANOS solenoids out and switch them to start, see what happens, maybe it'll switch to the driver's side and I can just replace a part. If not, I'll have to park it for the time being, medical bills are expensive.

[JimLev]

What’s your cam code?
Vanos solenoids will have their own set of codes.

[ThaDoubleJ]

P0011 - Over advanced cam on the passenger side as I understand it.

Guy at the indie shop recommended swapping solenoids before I bring it in.

Makes me nervous to pull that gasket bolt out again, I tried to find someone local with a known good solenoid but no luck and it's not a cheap part to take a guess on.

[JimLev]

P0011 is not a solenoid code, it’s telling you the trigger wheel is slightly off.

Here's some cam code info....
When you first start the engine the DME tests the vanos solenoids and wiring.
If they fail P0010/12 is set and the testing ends with the vanos disabled.
If they pass the electrical tests the DME checks the timing between the crank and the cams. If it’s off you get P0011/21. That also will end testing and disable the vanos.
If the first 2 test pass the cams are advanced, the DME looks for the advance, if it doesn’t happen in 4 seconds code P0012/22 is set.

[ThaDoubleJ]

They pretty much said the same thing, but with a $1000 quote just to investigate and the shop being an hour away, the tool is only 23 bucks and my time is free, so I'll give it a shot on the tiny chance. Just seems odd that it's never thrown that code until I touched that solenoid and started messing with things. If nothing else, it'll give me something to do. If it needs the trigger wheel adjusted, it'll be parked until April or so.

[ThaDoubleJ]

Coolant leak turned out to be a pinched o-ring in the upper rad hose, boiled it and it went back to mostly round, so hopefully that fixes it.

Where can I get the 2.87 pulley faced? Hopefully I can just have it shipped direct somewhere.

[philly98540]

Any machine shop or a buddy with a lathe can trim the hub to the correct dimension.