E30 Zone

Been fiddling with these for a week now, so I thought I'd start a thread.

They're E28 M5 throttles complete with plenum chamber. I'm not expecting dramatic gains in power or sound with these as my car has a turbo, but hopefully better response - and they do look cool too

Downside is they may be a bit large, which will mean fuel dropout at low revs/idle and accordingly heavy fuel consumption - and probably less than regular pressure signal to the MegaSquirt which might cause problems

no pics yet (tomorrow hopefully) but so far the bodies are dummy mounted to the M30 head using an aluminium adaptor plate made up by Andy335touring before deciding to use a large twin TB instead.

these fit fine, but making the plenum fit has been a total nightmare. I already have the small diameter Golf mk2 brake servo fitted, but have needed all manner of mods just to get the plenum dummy-fitted. large cut out on rear corner (to be welded once i'm sure it's large enough), top heater pipe cut back and rotated 180 degrees, servo moved towards fusebox by elongating mount holes (as per Brian Moore's M50 swap) and rotated 180 degrees to get vacuum fitting clear of plenum. E34 oil filter housing removed (upside down E28 version required), dipstick tube bent. The plenum is so large it was pushing against the brake reservoir let alone the servo, so that's off too - maybe find a narrower one at the scrappy, maybe a remote one.

current state of play is TBs and plenum temporarily bolted in place and clear of everything, charge piping between intercooler and plenum in place. To do list is, er, long. get plenum cutout welded up, finish ports in adapter plate (the TB ports are a different chape to the ones in the M30 head), throttle cable bracket, seal up all manner of tappings and holes, sort out pressure signal for MegaSquirt/boost gauge/wastegate/dump valve, lots of other things I can't remember...

I guess this lot won't make that much difference on the turbo, but I reckon it might one day end up on a hot N/A M30 build. one day

Sweet toby, get some pictures rolling in. Sure you haven't got room to compound charge it too? you seem to have managed to fit an awful lot of stuff in that engine bay... Is it bigger than my ex e30 engine bay or something

Glad they are getting used rather than gathering dust !

Until Toby get some proper pics up heres an old one of mine

I reckon you'll see a bit of a gain for the same amount of boost with those Toby

Reckon you might have to run an Alpha-N and speed-density blend though (as I've got) to stop the MAP sensor going mad giving you drivablility problems as you say.

Get some piccies up dude!

Turbo-Brown wrote:I reckon you'll see a bit of a gain for the same amount of boost with those Toby

Reckon you might have to run an Alpha-N and speed-density blend though (as I've got) to stop the MAP sensor going mad giving you drivablility problems as you say.

Get some piccies up dude!

i hope not

what exactly is Alpha-N anyway

Alpha-N is a method of estimating how much air's going into the engine based on throttle angle and crank speed so for a given combination throttle angle(opening) and revs you assume that X amount of air is entering the engine and add Y amount of fuel accordingly.

It's just as much of a guess as Speed-Density really, where manifold pressure is used instead of throttle position.

However, you can't use pure Alpha-N with a turbocharged engine as for a given combination of throttle angle and engine speed, you could have absolutely ANY amount of boost so that's a bit of a disadvantage.

The other side to the coin though is that the vacuum in the runners fluctuates quite a lot, especially with ITBs so not using vacuum to determine load (i.e. running Alpha-N) is a distinct advantage as the load signal (throttle angle) is quite consistant and stable.

Another advantage is that it's pretty easy to detect acceleration / snap throttle openings running Alpha-N.

could those not be shortened a bit (cut and weld) to reduce clearance problems?

looks sweet though!

how hard is the adapter plate to get made ? i want to run this with open throttles on an n/a setup

Reckon you might have to run an Alpha-N and speed-density blend though (as I've got) to stop the MAP sensor going mad giving you drivablility problems as you say.

Toby is already on blended Alpha N dude

Toby, read some of your articles in ppc today, mightily impressed. i think i speak for us all when i say i await in drooling anticipation!!

Indeed, the turbo conversion's looking good, can't wait for the next issue of PPC, no doubt someone will be borrowing it for a look eh Dan?

Ant wrote:

Reckon you might have to run an Alpha-N and speed-density blend though (as I've got) to stop the MAP sensor going mad giving you drivablility problems as you say.

Toby is already on blended Alpha N dude

Sweet, most of the way there already then

Still gonna need a remap though

Well at least i'm not totally daft Ant... I knew there was TPS and MAP fitted, just not too sure what the MS does with the input

Gareth - not much scope to shorten, there's all the injector mount stuff on the other side which you need. it would be possible to cut the M30 inlet flanges off and the M5 TB flanges off and weld the M30 ones on, but firstly the injector mounts would be difficult looking at where they are on the M30 manifold, and secondly the six TBs would have to be perfectly in line which would be tricky - otherwise the throttle would stick.

ant2 - running just the TBs and trumpets should mean you have enough clearance to use an adaptor plate without too much trouble. Andy might be able to help more as he's got this one to its present state. but it's a large expensive slab of aly (20mm thick and it needs to be because some of the M30 studs clash with the TB mount holes and therefore need recessed bolts instead of studs) and there's a lot of porting needed in the plate to match the TBs to the head. it would sound gorgeous though...

found the SD card now, pics later

yeh thats the idea, i allready have a nice lairy cam for it (295 digree) and some open throrttles should make it go alot better

pics so far...











open trumpets



butchered plenum



Alex - yes it'll need remapping (the fueling needed some work before i started with these tbh, decided better to leave it until i'd finished fiddling )

Toby, - that is automotive porn!

That is going to be so crazy

dude

Looking good Toby

Now that should make some interesting (and pant wettingly good) sounds

decided better to leave it until i'd finished fiddling

there's aaaaaalways something new to add and then fiddle with!

You also need to clean up your engine bay, itԚ´s mighty nasty lookin

Gunni wrote:You also need to clean up your engine bay, itԚ´s mighty nasty lookin

Hey Gunni,

WTF is that comment for?

If you can't be positive or constructive don't bother posting.

He's fitting M5 TB's to a M30, can't you atleast find a decent question to ask?

What?
DonԚ´t take that so badly, I already commented on it about it would be crazy.

This clean the engine bay comment was ment as a light joke,
R E L A X

Toby you are mad. But I love it

Gunni would you like the engine bay to look nice or the car to go fast. I know which i'd go for. Adding bits from halfords doesn't count either.

Great start Toby

Are you getting the pleneum TIG welded up by a company like andy did with his throttle body?

comԚ´on
working in a clean enviroment just makes the job easier and more fun,

a man after my own heart
the never ending search for more power
good work, as ever mate
another thread i'll be keeping my eye on

Cool, have you done the recessed holes for the allen bolts ?

Hows the porting coming on ?

Very cool!

welcome to the club

Andrew

Demlotcrew wrote:
welcome to the club

Andrew

Is that a 4-cylinder club Andrew? I think I'm ok thanks...

Gunni... We're using the car in a regular feature in a mag called Scrapyard Turbo. If i clean it up (not that i would be remotely interested in doing so anyway), I'd probably get sacked.

your points are taken as intended (not very seriously!)

they look smart Toby but i think the hassle of the clearance issue arround the back of the plenum may not be worth the chew on.
They'd be a great upgrade on a N/A engine using MS running open trumpets.
I dont think the bit you have cut out will cause any problems because of the FI though.Have you moved the servo yet ?
I had to move mine over half an inch and extend the actuater lever on the brake mech inside where it joins to the servo.
I think andy should have used these on his with open trumpets and you should have used what andy is doing with the big ass throttle body as it would suit the turbo install better and no servo/plenum messing and Andy whouldn't need the plenum so no servo messing there.
Anyway,good luck

Toby_Unna wrote:Is that a 4-cylinder club Andrew? I think I'm ok thanks...

Theres nothing wrong with four cylinders, some of us dont want drag strip 10 min out of the door breakdowns.

Andrew

buster wrote:Have you moved the servo yet ?
I had to move mine over half an inch and extend the actuater lever on the brake mech inside where it joins to the servo.

I wondered about extending that arm, how did you do it, weld an extension on?

I think that's the way forward, mine's only moved 4-5mm atm. I take it you drilled four new mount holes? what did you do about the large central hole in the bulkhead that the servo face mates to?

Andy actually bought the plenum for his NA, decent cold air feed and a proper filter instead of foam sock filters is a better idea than open trumpets despite what they would sound like

Toby_Unna wrote: what did you do about the large central hole in the bulkhead that the servo face mates to?

toby,
i used a hole saw on a drill, for that hole, when we altered dips bulkhead for the V12