M3 Touring conversion number 2 - UPDATED 02/08

[Brianmoooore]

I've never successfully bled an E30 clutch from dry in one session. The fluid seems to get full of microscopic bubbles.
Leave it a day and bleed it again, and all is well.

[Jhonno]

Better do mine again then..

[Jhonno]

Matey wants £5 more for a master cyl than you paid

[ian332isport]

Matey wants £5 more for a master cyl than you paid

Dan,

I did finally find that 25mm Audi cylinder we spoke about a while back. I know you want a 23mm cylinder, but it would at least get you mobile.

Ian.

[old_skool]

I've never successfully bled an E30 clutch from dry in one session. The fluid seems to get full of microscopic bubbles.
Leave it a day and bleed it again, and all is well.

Thanks Brian

You are right, the fluid does cavitate a little. I bled it on my own and was a little bit of a fiddle too, which didn't help - the brakes were more successful as I used a pressure bleeding arrangement. I tried to pressure bleed the clutch but couldn't get the input pressure low enough to stop emptying the clutch reservoir so fast! I'll have a go with a willing helper tomorrow whereupon I can manually nip up the bleed nipple at the right moment.

I also filled the gearbox with ATF on my own, seeing as one of the boys had nicked my gearbox oil syringe to take onto a job (to pull through an oil supply on a boiler) I had to resort to 'other' methods using a length of hose and a funnel from the top of the engine bay! The joys of motoring

Matey wants £5 more for a master cyl than you paid

Jhonno,

I warned you he was dodgy

[ian332isport]

I had to resort to 'other' methods using a length of hose and a funnel from the top of the engine bay!

It's not just me then

[old_skool]

I had to resort to 'other' methods using a length of hose and a funnel from the top of the engine bay!

It's not just me then

I thought I was being inventive too

[Jhonno]

Matey wants £5 more for a master cyl than you paid

Dan,

I did finally find that 25mm Audi cylinder we spoke about a while back. I know you want a 23mm cylinder, but it would at least get you mobile.

Ian.

this is what im trying to sort.. No scrappies round my way had any in..

Only bout 5/6 weeks till it hits the road hopefully..

[Jhonno]

I bled my clutch on my bob.. Good thing i have long arms is all i can say!

[ian332isport]

[this is what im trying to sort.. No scrappies round my way had any in..

Only bout 5/6 weeks till it hits the road hopefully..

Your welcome to it if it will help

[Jhonno]

Oooo it may well do! I will be in Brighton Fri next week, and then for the week after that..

I didnt read your 1st msg properly last time.. Clicked now! Yeah if its sitting there it will be a massive help to get me underway.. Also may run a 25mm anyways as im looking to uprate the brakes a little (ie bigger caliper)

Do you want any beer tokens for it?

[ian332isport]

Do you want any beer tokens for it?

Nah, you can have it

[Jhonno]

Cheers dude! I'll give you a shout when im down!

Daemon, what throttle cable have you used?

[old_skool]

I used the E36 M3 cable. Fits ok into the pedal box with a little bit of a stretch and fiddle (to stop it from coming out you need to spread the lugs on the clip slightly - you'll see what I mean).

I shortened the cable by cutting off the plain end and redrilling into the end (1mm drill ) and then resoldering and crimping it in. The throttle stop on the bodies is in exactly the same position as the pedal stop now it's adjusted.

The outer sheath is fine as it is. Buster moved the bracket back on the throttle bodies, Ian had his shortened professionally. The choice is yours.

[buster]

I made a duplicate braket,but made it longer.Then used the standard m3 cable.
My clutch bled ok.The bite is near enough in the middle.Its got a racing clutch though and is quite heavy.Hoping i can maybe fit a servo to it.

[bigpimpin]

I made a duplicate braket,but made it longer.Then used the standard m3 cable.
My clutch bled ok.

Me too, got a longer version of the standard bracket made up.

[ZedOne]

Next job is to trailer her up and then I'm off to BTB on Monday for the trial fitting of the group buy manifolds.

Loaded and ready to go!

One camera shy Dameon and one camera shy ZimmerBimmer......the death of a Nasty Nankang whilst loading and the M3 Touring is waiting for its visit to BTB

This felt like one of the very few moments when it wasn't pi$$ing down yesterday!

LOVELY motor there mate and a stunning amount of work gone into it....

.....now that 'spare' S50 lump would look jsut as good in a Malachite Touring!

[ste]

Great work Dameon. I'm sure my ABS is the reason for my wooly brake pedal. Would love to know more about how you tricked it.

[old_skool]

Death to the Nankang!

I loaded it a little quick going onto the trailer at an odd angle and blew out the rear tyre on the trailer latch. Was a good tyre too but never mind. Paul changed the wheel in about 60 seconds with us goading him on. Larf.

It was very nice to meet Bruce (ZedOne) for an old guy he is very charming and makes a fine cup of tea.

Well, the car is now there in the safe hands of BTB, after a death defying drive up there in monsoon conditions. They are hoping to have it ready for me to collect for Friday. I have to say I'm not sure which Friday they have in mind though....

Whilst I was there I had a quick look around at the test manifolds and the jigs that have been made to fabricate the systems on. Very impressive stuff indeed.

Great work Dameon. I'm sure my ABS is the reason for my wooly brake pedal. Would love to know more about how you tricked it.

Cheers Ste,

I feel a mini technical article coming on re: ABS servos. I wanted to be careful as to not really encourage anyone to mess with their ABS too much for fear of them killing themselves. I will finish preparing some notes on how I did it and then do it again with the oversight/pre-press supervision of Wing Commander Moore. (just to make sure I won't blow anyone up).

If I can, I'll try to have it finished for Gaydon.

Fingers crossed I can't see any reason why It won't be done now.

[SPADGE]

You have far too much time on your hands Dameon
Got to say your doing a cracking job of the red one but what halted progress on the blue one????

[tbmw]

looking good dameon, cant wait for the final pics

was in your neck of the woods today

[old_skool]

Quick update, with full and final update this evening.

I picked the car up from having the exhausts made and have to say I am very happy with the result. I'm not sure whether or not it might not be too loud but we'll see. The quality of the welding and the fabrication is absolutely superb, words cannot really describe!

So I have a list of final jobs that need doing, little niggly things which I'm going to work through today and hopefully finish off. I have to work out the wiring for the Lambdas and wire them up to new probes, move a coolant pipe that's on the exhaust, as well as the throttle cable which has decided to live on No.6 pipe, do the tracking, adjust the headlights, then a general shakedown; Loads of little things to do. So I'm off to get on with it......

So, pics tonight then. Maybe even a soundclip/video

[Jhonno]

[Jon_Bmw]

After this BTB debacle I want some pictures to see their greatness. I know it is going to be amazing, just how amazing is what I want to know.

Super cool, Should be a driver by next weekend?

[appletree]

Get them pics up i want to see todays progress

[Simon]

Looking good so far, eagerly awaiting the next update!

[BadDave]

Get them pics up i want to see todays progress

+1

[old_skool]

Ok then. Sorry I didn't post last night. Things went horribly wrong and I ended up working on late then drinking my self into oblivion into the wee hours (more later)

So, as you know the car went to BTB on Monday. Lost in Northampton!



I left it there and collected it Friday.

Here are a few shots of it from underneath, taken at BTB on my phone camera:







A load more random pics of the exhaust from underneath taken back at home. I'm sorry they are not really revealing but there is simply nowhere to get the camera into. They really are that tight. When you look at them you cannot understand how they did it.




















I didn't have the Lambda sensors when I got the engine so after a lot of research on Lambdas and how they work I came to the conclusion that I would use EVO sensors as these are Zirconia sensors the same as the 3.0ltr M3. The part numbers are all different but that is down (mostly) to the plugs on the lambdas and the cable lengths.

I did a lot of research at Lambda Power Clicky and all four wire Zirconia sensors appear to operate the on the same values. So I cut the plugs off and hard wired it all in. Obviously I could have paid £240 for new sensors from BMW

Lambda wiring made up:



A random pic of the underside of the E36 PAS pipe for Ian's perusal:



There were a few more small problems that had to be addressed, like the throttle cable was touching the manifolds as well as my new silicone header tank hose. This involved a little re routing which was relatively straightforward apart from having to remove the plenum for what seemed like the 100th time!

After a few small checks I took it for it's first drive out.

I was totally blown away by the way it drove "straight out of the box" the handling was a little wobbly but soon settled down, the brakes worked well and most importantly it pulled like a train. The temperature was staying stable, the oil temp was good. All too good to be true. That was until I got back.

The fuel pump started squealing and the car developed a misfire sounding like a 5 cylinder Audi. enter drinking into oblivion mode

After consultation with my peers (Lord Moore, Viceroy Haynes) I woke bright and breezy and proceeded to do a fuel pressure test on the car. Soooo, I connected a jury rigged fuel pressure gauge like so. Don't try this at home kids....






Hmm, fuel pressure was fine and the misfire soon manifested itself again as the engine warmed up. This was the point where I looked at the engine and remembered every one of those little wires that I had cut and rearranged and started thinking "Which one of those do I think it could be that's causing the problem - will I ever find it, will this ever end?" :insertvisacardhere:

After some lateral thinking and a phone call or two to Mr. H, it was judged to be a spark problem, maybe a coil pack going down, or a bad plug.

To my surprise, I removed the coil packs t find an array of shite oily muck and a splash of water here and there:





After a wealth of cleaning, checking and reassembly it now runs perfectly. Talk about a huge sigh of relief!

Kudos to Mr. Haynes whose devotion to methodical fault finding is to be applauded

Next job is to change the diff as the current diff is a joke, 3500rpm at 60mph! Get the A/C connected and gassed follwed by a few small jobs here and there.

To quote Gordon Ramsey....."S50 Conversion.....DONE"




More to come next week!

[d6dph]

You made it sound so easy!

Very nice work Dameon. Now lakeside is on the 14th, Do I save you a space?

[gareth]

top work as usual, nice one!

i'd be interested in the details of this:

Looking at the way it was wired over a coffee revealed a method of triggering the three servos and running the ABS motor in sequence . So I chopped another ABS plug off a spare car and set to work making a wiring loom. With a few simple modifications I was able to energise the motor and servos which did the trick. This enabled me to pressure bleed the system effectively. The dealer can stick their ABS scanner

as you know i'm having problems bleeding the abs through on my car and still have not tracked down the fault that you were helping me with a few monts ago!

[BadDave]

top work as usual, nice one!

i'd be interested in the details of this:

Looking at the way it was wired over a coffee revealed a method of triggering the three servos and running the ABS motor in sequence . So I chopped another ABS plug off a spare car and set to work making a wiring loom. With a few simple modifications I was able to energise the motor and servos which did the trick. This enabled me to pressure bleed the system effectively. The dealer can stick their ABS scanner

Would be interested in the details/wiring info
Little wiring diagram wouldn't go amiss

[old_skool]

Guys, I do have info on this but need to collate it and put it to Ian beforehand. The last thing I want is for someone to get bent just because I have done something that may screw up the ABS - I hope you understand.

[BadDave]

Guys, I do have info on this but need to collate it and put it to Ian beforehand. The last thing I want is for someone to get bent just because I have done something that may screw up the ABS - I hope you understand.

Not a problem
Keep us posted

Cheers

[gareth]

Guys, I do have info on this but need to collate it and put it to Ian beforehand. The last thing I want is for someone to get bent just because I have done something that may screw up the ABS - I hope you understand.

no worries, mine is still on the drive so is unlikey to get bent in any case!

i have a spare abs loom lurking too

keep me posted if you remember please?

[old_skool]

Gareth, If you take the pump apart a little bit you'll see how I did it! Just apply 12v to the three solenoids and to the pump motor in a sort of sequence. This just shakes it up and helps to bleed it.

Wasn't rocket science, I just wanted to make sure that I was not going to kill anyone with the information should it be posted in a tech article with pin numbers and a description of how to do it!