jc43089

Long time no post!  Zero to update! It's been sitting in my garage with a replacement engine and transmission right next to it.  I'm just never going to get around to putting it together.  It has a lot of replaced and nice parts.  Read through the thread for all of it.  It has some rust and will never be a show car but isn't really that bad.  It has so many replaced and nice parts, my intention was always to just use all of the parts on my arctic grey sedan someday.

Eibach suspension that works good.
Solid mounted rear subframe.
The whole rear suspension is gone through, adjustable lower control arms, M out ball joints top for outer top and bottom.  3.15 LSD (I think this was factory, in 93 the cold weather package came with heated seats and LSD and no traction control because it wasn't ready yet).
Custom exhaust sounds really good.
The engine in the car has a broken timing chain, replacement engine appears to be working, it came from somebody doing a swap.  I can't guarantee it works though.  The engine in the car has Stewart water pump, Dinan TB, new coolant hoses, newer starter, Dinan ecu chip, and some other stuff.
Comes with a replacement Getrag transmission from the same place as the engine.
Xbrace
 
Anyone interested?  It's taking up too much garage space and causing marital strife...  Make me an offer.
 
 
I bought a truck to replace my work van that is falling apart/also too small.
2020 Ranger XLT with 6k miles.  I was actually going to order a new XL very basic options but when I went in after selecting options with the salesman it rejected the order because they are apparently out of engines for 2023.  So I started searching used and found this one locally.  Complete with old man appearance package, chrome, running boards, etc.

Replacing the old Sienna.  It served me well starting my electrical contractor business.  But now it's rusted so bad the receiver hitch was falling off, the sliding doors don't open without the perfect touch, and it's very tight fitting everything in it.  Major pluses are that 10' conduit fit down the middle.  280k miles on it and it still runs great.  My parents bought it when it was a few years old with 60k on it so it's been in the family a long time.

 
Sorry I am a disappointment 😭
 
 

So as far the head I decided on leaving it fairly stock. As for right now I don't have plans of revving past 7k so it should be safe just running the stock valve train. The head I'm using was originally from a M50 vanos. The only difference between the head from a s52 and a M50 non vanos were the springs and retainers. I kept the springs matched with the cams I was running which was from the s52 so I needed to swap those over. I went ahead and installed all new valve stem seals at the same time.

Made myself a little tool for spring removal and installation. Not quite as nice as some of the ones you can buy out there but it did the job well.


Once that was complete I began reinstalling the intake and exhaust studs. For the exhaust side I reused the N54 studs from the previous motor for ease of installation. After inspecting all the holes I noticed one of them was missing half the threads in it, wonderful. So out came the Heli-coil kit.

Springs and new valve stem seals were in. Studs were all installed. Time to go on the motor.

For the head gasket I went with a stock thickness 87 mm Athena cut ring headgasket. I tapped in some new dowels and then test fitted the gasket first to make sure everything cleared and all the cut rings fitted properly.

Everything checked out good on the HG so before installing the head I popped it back off and ran a small bead of the right stuff gasket maker around the entire timing cover area. Most say it is only necessary to dab a little where the cover meets with the block but I feared since there was only M6 bolts compressing the head down in this area there was still a chance it could possibly still leak. I should also note that before installing the head I made sure all the pistons were all shifted to as close to the center of the bore as I could to avoid any valves coming into contact when the cams are installed.

Once the head was on I threaded in the rest of the arp studs using the moly lube provided and torqued them in three equal steps to 75 ft lbs.

Trays and lifters were about ready to go in and then I noticed this in some of the bores on the exhaust tray .

Some light scoring in these areas is typically normal but this was far beyond that which pretty much made them scrap metal now. Unfortunately the cam trays that I got with the M52 were different. One of them was for a M52 but the other was from a M50 non vanos head so that wasn't gonna work out either. Thankfully after some research I found that M52 and S52's actually use identical cam trays so I took a trip out to the local junk yard and luckily found an untouched M52 from a 98 528i with trays and caps that ended up being in great shape!

Since they were pretty heavily varnished I dropped them off at a local machine shop to run through a hot tank.
With those back and cleaned up I went through my two sets of lifters from the M52 and S52. The lifters from the S52 worked well for me in the last motor but they were also pretty scored up similar to the cam trays they were in and I was unsure about the ones from the M52 and how many miles were on them. So, instead of trying to clean those up and risking some of them still causing issues I resorted to just purchasing all new ones.

Sprayed all the new lifters down with some break cleaner and compressed air to remove the protective oil that they came covered in.

Before Sliding them in to the trays I dunked each lifter in some break in oil and compressed the inner piston a few times with my fingers tell the piston felt a little softer to compress. This was done to prime them with a little oil so they weren't dry on first start. After rubbing a little assembly oil in each bore of the trays I popped them all in.

I didn't snap any pics of the next part but the install of the trays and cams went smoothly. I dropped some assembly lube on all of the lifter tops as well as on the cam caps and bearing locations on the trays.
I then began installing all the upper timing components. When I was torquing down the four bolts that held the upper timing chain guide into place I was finishing up torquing down the last bolt on the back side to 10 NM when I felt that wonderful feeling of it come back lose again when I was just about torqued. Backed the bolt back out of the hole with broken pieces of threads attached to it. Out came the Heli-coil kit, again.

Covered and taped off all areas of the motor leaving only the hole exposed. While drilling and tapping the hole I had help with holding a vacuum right next to the hole to suck up any metal shavings.

New insert was installed and I got back to installing the timing components. This time everything was torqued down to the proper spec with no issue.

When installing the front cam sprockets a new upper timing chain was used. With everything timed correctly I got the vanos unit installed with a fresh oem gasket. Once that was all completed and all bolts were torqued down to spec I spun the motor around 720 degrees to make sure everything spun smoothly and nothing was interfering with each other.
Onto installing the valve cover and getting this thing closed up.

After the timing was complete I did start installing a lot of the outer parts and accessories as well.

Two things I added from the old setup included an upgrade to my crankcase breathing setup. The single oem port I was using on the old setup I felt was just not gonna be adequate enough so I purchased the catch can kit offered by SLG. The kit is pretty slick and comes with all the drill bits and taps needed for modifying the cover and plugging the factory hole as well as all the necessary AN fittings to install for the new catch can lines.
The other addition was the ignition coils. On the old setup I ran the original 20 year old obd1 coil packs. For the most part they worked just fine but they started showing their age when during an auto-x event they got heat soaked and caused the engine to misfire. Of course I didn't wanna run into that issue again so I either had to get a new set of oem ones or try something else. New set of coils would set me back close to $600 so I looked around to see what else was out there. Well sure enough I noticed quite a few other boosted e36 guys running coils out of a b58. I then came across a company called Tunertech that actually designed a full swap kit with custom brackets to fit the coils in the e36 valve covers and the necessary pigtails to splice into the harness to run em. The main advantages of running these coils were that they produce stronger spark energy over stock, allow you to run a looser spark plug gap resulting in smoother idle and the cost of the coils come in at around half the cost of the stock ones. Because of these advantages I figured it was worth the try. One other thing I really liked was the fact that these brackets position the coils away from the down pipe so I don't have to worry about any wires burning over time.

 
Up next:
Clean and prepare clutch, flywheel, and trans
Wiring for ignition coils
Re fabrication to the down pipe for new turbo

Ended up pulling the intake side to reshim 2 lifters, all back together & timed now
FCP order showing up soonish for some stuff that I either misplaced or never ordered. 
 

Rust free E36 coupe downtown.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/767855784657677/
 

I keep making progress so I'm going to keep posting some pictures. It's a lot of fun to go back through all of these pages and remember where the car was and where it's going. I've actually forgotten about a lot of the things I've done, changed, etc. 
Things went in the other direction the other night. Switched the ratchet from loosen to tighten. Body harness going back in freshly re-taped and loomed. 



Modified Porsche 944 brake booster. 


If anyone is looking for a tap and die kit, the Husky kit from Home Depot is awesome. And affordable. 

Larger master cylidner. 

I'm going to print a small spacer to go between the 944 booster and firewall. This one is flat on the back and it's pretty tight with the clutch master hose. 

 

I bought new connectors and terminals and have replaced the coolant level sensor and brake fluid reservoir wires and connector. Will do the same with the fuel pump connector and wires. The fog light and horn connectors both crumbled this time. I have new hella oe style horns that just use spades and found some fog light pigtails on ebay. The side marker light wires fell apart. Fixed one and will do the same on the other side: 


Still looking pretty clean in there. 

 

Like a clean pair of underwear after trusting a fart

So Road America plates came out, and I checked to see if I got my personalized option. The results are in!

I got my confirmation today!

Had a friend over the other day with his new drone. Convinced me we should take this car somewhere cool. Found a crazy place that reminds me of Mars 10mins from my shop. Spent about 3-4 hours there driving around and filming. Not sure when I will have all the footage edited, but man it was epic. Here’s some pictures from my phone. (Also I got stuck 🤣)


It rained last night, but here is the aftermath. 

Video of me stuck:
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That X3 stamping in the B pillar.  Sharp.

That X3 stamping in the B pillar.  Sharp.

New daily driver. 2019 X3 M40i. Damn this thing is a great little car. 
 
Time to clean up the F10 and list it for sale.

I also fully installed the Karbonious Air box over the weekend and got it tuned by HTE. The install was very easy straight forward. The most time consuming part was wiring in the new MAP sensor, but even that was not bad.
Overall, this is my new favorite mod on the car. This thing sounds INSANE. I watched so many videos before installing this over the years and nothing captures the sound properly. It sounds like the motor is sitting right next to you. I love it. The only cons I have noticed so far is a torque loss between 3-4500 RPMS. I have a dyno session Monday and this might get fixed, I am not sure. Even if it is not, it is very minor, and there is for sure a lot more top end power. Surprisingly, my gas mileage (as long as im not beating on it) is about the same as well. I got 31 MPG on the way to Final Bout over the weekend which is awesome with the $55 a gallon for premium right now. 
This car has evolved so much in the year I have owned it and is quickly becoming my favorite car I have owned.  
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.... Is this dial up or what?...

I've been making these cylinder head block off plates for awhile now and thought I would also offer them on WIBimmers for anyone who hasnt seen them. Stop shoving rags into intake/exhaust ports when removing intake/exhaust manifolds.
Right now offering them for M20, M50/52/54 S50/52, and S54. I also can make them for other engines for anyone interested.
$25 shipped for intake $35 shipped for intake/exhaust combo.  
 

Supertech Upgraded dual spring kit
Supertech Stock size exhaust valves
Supertech +1 Intake Valves
Supertech Single Groove Valve Locks
Supertech Valve Seals
Achilles Upgraded Valve Guides
Further head port work to accommodate and capitalize on the oversized intake valves

I'm looking forward to the re-tune on the dyno, last time my crank sensor was on the fritz so I was limited to 6100ish RPM depending on engine temp. With the new springs and such we will happily running it up nice and high in the revs without concern!

More pictures and videos when I'm back in the country tommorow but in short this trip is fucking awesome!  These trucks are extremely capable and regularly run the Baja 100 and 500.  Today we did 75mph on the beach then hit speeds up to 70mph in the canyons later on after crawling up and down massive ditches and mountain switchbacks.
It's through a company called Wide Open Baja and they are for clients who want a ready made team for Baja.  People like Patrick Dempsey, Will Turner and many more have paid to drive their cars and get the support team.  The support we had following us is the same team that supports the races and these guys fucking rocked!  They also do tours like this for people who want to try the trucks out in more of an adventure setting as opposed to full race.  Here's the truck we've been driving!

Transmission is welded on the outside. I will finish welding the inside tomorrow 
Bellhousing bolted to the block
 
 
 
Magic wand
 
 
All bolted together
 
And welded
 

 
 
 
 

This may have been the best 8 minutes of my life (usually it's only about 30 seconds...)

After more failed attempts at coding the B25 DME (kept having issues with connecting and finding the dme in the software), it was time to turn to plan b. Thanks to @m42b32 for having an extra MS43 DME and being able to flash it with everything I needed. Joe ended up putting the stock B30 tune, EWS delete and SAI delete on it and it worked like a charm. 
After a couple startups to see how things were going, the engine started running extremely rough and wouldn't idle. @B C ended up stopping over with his computer. We checked fuel injectors, good. Checked coilpacks, good. Nothing was obvious from the outside, so we plugged the computer in to check error codes. After translating a few we narrowed it down to the DISA valve. Turns out the plug wasn't fully seated on the connector. Plugged it in and purred like a kitten. Sweet! 
Torqued down axle nuts and crank bolt, bled the clutch a million different ways until it finally got all the air out, dropped it on the ZHP wheels and took it for a short "around the block" drive. All seems pretty good. 
Time to throw the front end back on, hood, fill AC install airbox and start daily it. 👍

Subframe and diff support sanded, treated, re-finished and revshift bushings installed!

🥰
 

Last week I test fitted the motor with the new pan. It looked cozy in there almost too ”sr20” looking when it sits straight. 
 
 
 
 
Two feet clarance in front of the motor for that 4” thick  intercooler or maybe ac condeser🧐

 

Its time for an UPDATE!
Holy shit has the past month been a stressful but rewarding in the end, so thats why I have been slacking on updates here haha
For starters the street tuning went well. There's still some touch ups the tuner wants to make which I'm fine with but the car rips pretty well!
20210526_200253.mp4
 
Here is the completed version for now. I made some delete panels for the rear diffuser, it turned out good enough lol.


And with the tune being safe to drift on that meant it was time for some testing at DD80 at USAIR.

 
The car did well, stayed cool the whole day even though it was not super hot out. The power difference is definitely noticeable although I still can't run 3rd. (Might have to consider playing with a different diff, but it does not hinder driving at all)



 
20210530_161118.mp4
 
The bumper fell off and got scratched to shit so that's lame but oh well lol.

 
The biggest issue that arose was the clutch was slipping once the car cooled down at the end of the day, not surprised that it glazed over lol. The current clutch was a FX "HD" kit with a single mass flywheel.
Now began the headaches....
We unloaded the car on Thursday and put it on the lift. Pulled the trans and installed a brand new FX stage 2 kit (e36 style without the self adjusting pressure plate).

While that went smoothly and the car was back on the ground and driving that Thursday night there was a vibration between 2k and up in almost every gear.
I ended up bringing the car home from the shop anyways. I then decided I was not okay with that vibration, so I jacked the car up and pulled the trans out on the following Saturday. 

I replaced the pilot bearing as I was ignorant and didn't do it the first time at the shop. I checked and retorqued everything without finding any true smoking guns.
I drove the car Saturday and Sunday and the vibrations still persisted. So Monday night I went back up to the shop and snagged Sam's old FX stage 4 kit since we know it is tried and true. 
Then on Tuesday I pulled the trans again and threw in the stage 4 kit. At this point I'm getting way to fast at this job lol had everything taken apart and back together in about 3 hours and 15 min hahaha


I then test drove the car on Wednesday and the vibrations were gone thankfully! I also should have mentioned that the vibrations happened when free revving so thats how I knew it was clucth/flywheel related.
 
Now the reason there was such a big rush to get this clutch situation solved is because we had a big event coming up at the Milwaukee Mile hosted by Track Day Direct.
In final preparations for the Milwaukee Mile event I added some seems legit garage axle spacers.


 
Now on to the fun!
We made it! 

 
The track was FAST and took quite a few runs to get the balls up to really send it. This was my first time drifting using 3rd gear and eventually I figured out how to set myself up to get back into second for the final turn, she didn't seem to have enough to let it eat in 3rd on the last turn but I would like to try again next time we are here.
Here are some photos! There was a night session as well and I will share a few photos when they become available!

 



Here's an in car. I really struggled on turn 1 and had to straighten and re-initiate into turn to but when I did that she absolutely ATEEE and thats where the speed came in! Super fun!
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And here is proably my favorite clip I have seen so far.
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All in all it was a great event. I learned alot and was able to put on a show too. 

 
I do have a few things I want to address before the next event hopefully. But summer and this season is off to a hell of a fun start!