KaiserRolls

If not needed by anyone else, I'll take it...because racecar. 😁  

Chassis harness is done and 99% functioning. There are small things to correct, like fogs and low beams control wiring is wrong and I need to move some pins around in the bulkhead connectors. 
Fuel lines, flex sensor etc is done i just need to mount the fuel filter.
 
ECU is mounted and one of the bulkheads is terminated.
Will finish second bulkhead and engine harness sometime this and next week. The goal is to start the engine this month. 
 
I cleaned the motor, slapped new gaskets including a headgasket and it should be ready to go. This thing sat for 4 years behind my shed. Damn chipmunk lived in the motor and stored bunch of chipmunk food in the head port. 
 
Hopefully everything cleaned fairly ok. I will pull this motor anyway and drop some forged goodies over the winter. 
 
I welded drain plug and turbo drain  and oil pan is now ready to go.
My arp flywheel bolts from bmw m10 are a bit too short. I will need to replace with 28mm bolts.
Also the tilton hydraulic throw out is 2mm too long and I will need to swap the TO piston for the shorter one. 
 
 
 
I got the steering shaft mocked up with some woodward u-joints. Will finish it once i get the e36 column in final position.
 
I decided to not run the motor NA and go for boost. I got the intercooler setup and i have a log manifold from my friends Volvo. The cylinder spacing is spot on i just need to redrill the flange for m42 bolt pattern.  I got some green top injectors that should support 200-250whp which should be more than enough to test the chassis. 
 
I also pondered the idea of running e90 cluster in  my car. I got the arduino setup with can shield and was able to control most of the cluster. Cluster talks at 100kbs and maxxecu supports 500kbs i will need to setup arduino with dual can to translate the messages from maxx to BMW but that should not be a big issue. 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 


 

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

Just been enjoying the car and driving it a lot lately. Not too much more has been done unfortunately. Still working on custom interior work too.

Well this is just awesome….
manual e38 diesel 
https://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/cto/d/lakeland-1996-bmw-turbo-diesel-5speed/7626150772.html

 
Super cheap 335d!……in Florida 😑
https://jacksonville.craigslist.org/cto/d/jacksonville-2010-bmw-335d-sedan/7628025573.html
 
 

Exploring an alternative explanation first.
I had found a 50mm bolt in the paddock grass after coming in early from qualifying when the issues started. I couldn’t figure out where it came from or if it was mine. I was focused on a prior issue of rolling resistance from passenger front which was a brake pad sticking. Fixed that, drove it around the paddock and all seemed fine.
Went out for the race and as soon as I was going around 40 on the out lap the issues started again. Fought the car for about 7 laps and said this is stupid and came in. 
Watching my race video I can’t hear the noises from the rear I was hearing in the race. So not sure. Still kept looking for a diff just in case
Meanwhile I went through the car at home looking for other possible sources of the driveline vibration / noise.  Motor mounts were fine, trans mounts slightly loose, wheel bearings no play, diff noise no different than usual, driveshaft, CSB, all good.
But when turning the driveshaft I discovered I was missing a guibo bolt. Best guess is that it had come loose, got hammered a bit and had fallen out when I jacked up the front end to check the brakes. Helps to explain why the vibration seemed to come on all of sudden during qual.
 
All the other bolts were tight and guibo looked fine. Replaced the bolt and the lock nut with BMW parts and I guess we’ll see. No real place to test it except for on track in a few weeks. 🤷‍♂️
 

Found one, a 4.10. That said, should a 4.27 show up somewhere let me know.

Finally got the VANOS unit installed and the car buttoned back up. Decided to forgo the anti rattle kit and just do seals because it wasn’t making noise and I just wanted the car back together. Idled rough on the first start, but then shut it off and restarted and was much better. Powerband is now smooth again without the rubber band effect when VANOS kicks in, yo! and overall drivability is way, way better. Hoping to see some MPG improvements too!
 
Going to start driving this to keep miles off the E91, this still needs some things here and there but mostly minor stuff. Rear suspension work will probably continue to get put off, but 🤷‍♂️

Got underneath and found the transmission output seal(s) were toast (or so I thought). Fresh fluid was covering everything pretty heavily and had leaked enough that it made its way to the front of the trans tunnel from the spray and seepage. Trans was only down a quarter quart or so, so not thinking it did any damage but definitely had lost measureabke fluid amounts. 
 
New output seal went on pretty easy, and found when pulling it that the output nut was finger tight. No bueno. Output flange came off with only a mild yank. I’m guessing most of the leakage was from that, but decided to do the seals anyways while I was there. I drove a new shift shaft seal over the old one (nearly impossible to pull the old one out without the transmission out of the car) and was not able to get it fully seated but it only protrudes slightly and would be pretty easy to pull to replace if needed now. It’s now double sealed so should be OK. 
 
Fixed the windshield wiper rattle too! Turns out the bushings were fine; the rubber grommet between the linkage and body had deteriorated and was letting it knock around. Tightened the nut after removing the old grommet and the issue is gone. 
 
Finally getting to the VCG and VANOS job as well. Wasn’t able to get the flywheel lock pin through the block hole after an hour of trying, so I used the wheel hanger pin from the factory toolkit to make sure the hole is right where it needs to be and double checked off the crank hub timing marks. The cam lock blocks will also be used so I think I’ll be fine. I’m certainly not the only one to do it like this, anyon with a LTW flywheel doesn’t even have the alignment hole so they have to do it this way. 


Got the VC off without issue, and in the process realized the oil leakage was far worse than I thought. I knew about the oil in the spark plug holes, but the rest of it was a bit excessive. I’ll clean up the VC when it’s off and the block a little more once all the new stuff is back on so I don’t get crud in the engine. 










Looks pretty clean in there overall! Not bad for 130k and nearly 30 years. A bit odd that the rear cylinder cam lobes look darker, but nothing is grooved or scored at all so I’m not worried about it. The original M20 cam was far worse when I replaced that and it still was fine.

 
Going to pull the VANOS unit next week, rebuild with seals and an anti rattle kit as a preventative measure, and toss it all back in. This car is finally coming back together and getting some much needed love!

I guess I do have a little update here. Earl told me last week that he plans on moving the engine for this car to my shop as he is tight on space with moving. So having everything in the same spot again is forward progress! 

Yes sir alien engineering. 
Not totally sure if he keeps his eBay store up anymore, but he is super active on the boostede36world Facebook page.
 
mid post edit - looks like he has his own site now 
https://www.alien-engineering.com/product-page/alien-engineering-bmw-m50-m52-m54-s50-s52-solid-lifter-conversion-shims

This last weekend was the first fvscc event at USAIR. For this event they ran the layout backwards which was a first for me. They also usually cap the event at 100 cars, this one had 137. Ended up placing 1st in XSB and 3rd overall raw time. 
http://fvscc.com/results/2023_Summer/event2_raw.htm
 
here’s my fastest run of the day

gf brought out the e36 and ended up placing 19th overall

This last weekend was the first fvscc event at USAIR. For this event they ran the layout backwards which was a first for me. They also usually cap the event at 100 cars, this one had 137. Ended up placing 1st in XSB and 3rd overall raw time. 
http://fvscc.com/results/2023_Summer/event2_raw.htm
 
here’s my fastest run of the day

gf brought out the e36 and ended up placing 19th overall

This last weekend was the first fvscc event at USAIR. For this event they ran the layout backwards which was a first for me. They also usually cap the event at 100 cars, this one had 137. Ended up placing 1st in XSB and 3rd overall raw time. 
http://fvscc.com/results/2023_Summer/event2_raw.htm
 
here’s my fastest run of the day

gf brought out the e36 and ended up placing 19th overall

Yes sir alien engineering. 
Not totally sure if he keeps his eBay store up anymore, but he is super active on the boostede36world Facebook page.
 
mid post edit - looks like he has his own site now 
https://www.alien-engineering.com/product-page/alien-engineering-bmw-m50-m52-m54-s50-s52-solid-lifter-conversion-shims

USAIR is by far the most fun Ive ever had at an autocross, also the most scary haha. Awesome driving!!

Looks like this thing shreds. 
Car gets light in the front coming over that bend into the hairpin? (@ 0:21)

This last weekend was the first fvscc event at USAIR. For this event they ran the layout backwards which was a first for me. They also usually cap the event at 100 cars, this one had 137. Ended up placing 1st in XSB and 3rd overall raw time. 
http://fvscc.com/results/2023_Summer/event2_raw.htm
 
here’s my fastest run of the day

gf brought out the e36 and ended up placing 19th overall

This last weekend was the first fvscc event at USAIR. For this event they ran the layout backwards which was a first for me. They also usually cap the event at 100 cars, this one had 137. Ended up placing 1st in XSB and 3rd overall raw time. 
http://fvscc.com/results/2023_Summer/event2_raw.htm
 
here’s my fastest run of the day

gf brought out the e36 and ended up placing 19th overall

Prime parking spot. I had an awesome time at the Bavarian Classic car show today. 

 

These are much better than our collector plates. The blue and red is horrid.
Doing a vanity plate with a collector plate is also a nice option that we also do not have.
This is a great color combination as well.

That's definitely understandable... good luck with the sale and don't let anyone beat you up on the price, its a super nice car and worth your asking price all day in my opinion. Especially with those seats and wheels. 

Yeahhhhh. I have a major shift in family priorities right now. And I've seen too many pictures of e30s in accidents lately and it was getting hard to be comfortable with putting my three girls in there. It's not fun for me if they can't be a part of it. 
It was fun though. It was a cool car to build. Met lots of cool people. Excited to see what's next. 

Used the install of the new fan wiring as an excuse to Clean up a bunch of wiring for the MS3, gauge wiring, and other stuff I had been putting off as I hate removing all the interior stuff. Got it all buttoned back up last night. Tonight going to rebleed the coolant after putting in the new radiator. 


eventually I should probably have it aligned, but next up is making a mount for the MS3 as it’s just hanging out in the glovebox & making some type of heat shield to go in between the filter/engine Bay Area along the frame rail 

New CSF rad is in, re-did the foam in between the rad and the core support to seal up air gaps, replaced the tstat, replaced the ecu temp sender in the head, re routed the catch can line, got a new fan harness/relay that is wired as a ground switched setup - future MS3 triggering perhaps

earlier I mentioned I thought the fan was bad, but I think the mounts shifted and caused some binding between the shroud/fan. I tested the fan out of the car and all seems well (it’s a 2 year old SPAL pusher) just remounted a few brackets and gave it a touch more stand off from the radiator (1/4-3/8” standoff in case stuff moves around). 

currently have the glovebox and center console stuff out of the car to get some of the wiring cleaned up. Once it’s back together it will be more dialing in The tune/car