latest 2.1 m42

[tim_s]

So, over the past few weekends I've been building another engine! After reading hoshy's thread thought i'd post up the details. Old engine in my car had done 35k miles and both due to some wear in the small end bushes (crap engine builder) and wanting some new mods (arp rod bolts, mls H/G, lighter flywheel, metal engine gaskets rather than paper, new engine mounts and sump), I decided it made more sense to build another engine re-using my old crank and shells. So engine mk2 project!

New forged pistons:



Custom MLS HG, total seal rings, ARP rod bolts etc



Old engine out:


Crank ready for complete bottom end zero balancing



New 6kg f/w:


Parts ready for re-assembly!


Engine being built! I was pretty worried about breaking rings fitting them to the block as they came from the States, so getting a replacement would be a pain, plus I'd had them all gapped and matched up to each cyl, so had to be really cautious!:








bought an upper sump from hoshy to replace my original because the threads for the lower sump are shot, but after an hour's cleaning it was still nowhere near as clean as mine, so I kept the original, added studs locktited into the sump.

sump i bought (after some cleaning!!!):


my original sump


studs:


engine in (on new mounts)


After a few teething probs (snapped bolt at oil filter head to inner timing cover gasket), exhaust manifold leak (forgot to do up a stud), leaky thermo housing (replaced by new part from dealer), air leak from injector seals), I'm now running in the engine. The car was off the road for 3 weekends in total, one wknd removing engine and waiting for the balancing to be done (crank had to be removed from old engine), one weekend of fitting engine, one wknd of finishing touches and test runs. I've done around 200 miles so far on it, needs an MOT shortly but a bit worried about the emissions on the new engine with the rings still bedding in! I've just sold my catcam inlet cam to kev to replace it with a slightly more tame one, the old one didn't give an acceptable idle, so am on a standard inlet cam for the moment until the replacement is delivered. Should be here in a few weeks, then mapping to complete! Still hoping to make the 'ring in october, but may have to be sensible and not drive on the ring itself but protect new engine! Apparently need to run on mineral oil for the first 3k miles. I've got to drive the car as much as possible and iron out all teething issues!!!
final spec is:
2093cc
11:1 CR JE Forged pistons, total seal rings
fully lightened and balanced
ARP rod bolts, custom oversize MLS head gasket

other spec:
serpentine belt, coil on plug
late spec cyl head with +2mm valve throats, 3 angled seats, skimmed 0.2mm to give even higher CR
259/10.4 catcams
megasquirt 2 extra

I'm looking for 200bhp/165ft/lb+ (i.e. more of both than s14 320is, and lighter and stronger engine) and perfect idle/daily driving manners on the standard inlet, will set redline at 7,250rpm which is conservative for the bottom end but will be appropriate for the cams/inlet.

[snooka]

keeping an eye on this topic
looks sweet, i've founded this one some weeks ago... but it's only a Hartge cover
it's still only 1800cc

http://cgi.ebay.de/Hartge-Motor-Ausstel ... dZViewItem

love urs

[e30bmlover]

good work tim.

[Alex]

keeping an eye on this topic
looks sweet, i've founded this one some weeks ago... but it's only a Hartge cover
it's still only 1800cc

http://cgi.ebay.de/Hartge-Motor-Ausstel ... dZViewItem

love urs

i want that for my IS

[tim_s]

Thanks guys! That hartge one appears to have a 72mm crank, i.e 316i crank (i think!)! Probably not even 1.8!!! It's not fully counterbalanced either! a lot of money for a nice cover and some painted parts imo!

[jaffro]

how much does this kind of build cost??

[DanThe]

I'm looking for 200bhp/165ft/lb+

That would be a good NA 4 pot if you got 200hp

[tim_s]

Yeah fingers crossed Dan! My last one did 183bhp, this one's got 20cc bigger capacity, better rod ratio, a higher CR and should have better compression due to the totalseal rings, stronger cams (183bhp was on kent regrinds, now on catcams), better exhaust manifold and a few other tweaks so hopefully should see the extra 20hp or so needed to be over 200bhp. The map needed some work when I got 183bhp too, had a bit of a flat spot at 6k. Need to get some miles on the engine first though! What did yours put out t'other day then?!

Jaffro, cost depends on how far you go, and how much work you do. I did really well when I bought bits from the States due to the exchange rate, would cost more now

[henryjones]

"2.1 318is, MS, LPG. 183bhp, 162ft/lbs"
with ITBs?

[GrindCulture]

Very nice, you doing any mods to lighten the valvetrain?

[Turbo-Brown]

Really hope the rings have bedded in well for you Tim. After 200 miles though, they'll have done all the bedding in they're going to.

Top work there dude, love the clean sheet approach

[ShepsEvo3]

Nice one Tim, looking good... will watch with interest

[tim_s]

"2.1 318is, MS, LPG. 183bhp, 162ft/lbs"
with ITBs?

Nope, standard inlet. That was on old engine and kent cams too. New engine and stronger cams now.

Very nice, you doing any mods to lighten the valvetrain?

Nothing too exciting. Lighter lifters, single valves and the 6mm valves. Most weight saving is in the pistons (at least 100g each lighter iirc) and the flywheel.

Really hope the rings have bedded in well for you Tim. After 200 miles though, they'll have done all the bedding in they're going to.

Top work there dude, love the clean sheet approach

Yup, hasn't exactly gone to plan, and you're right about the rings. cyl 4 was oily. JE/TEP screwed up and sent me mismanufactured oil control ring rails on this cyl. The end gap was way excessive, and not picked up on when I had the chap who bored the block do the ring end gaps. d'oh. £100 for another set of rings and a partial rebuild later and the engine is much better. Sadly it's not perfect. Cyl 4 still is a touch oily on the plug, and compression is up a bit (I guess the oil is sealing the bore). I didn't deglaze or rehone the bore on cyl 4 because the honing marks looked way deeper than on cyls 1-3. I'm guessing the first few hundred miles on the dodgy rings has lubricated the ring against the cylinder and glazed the surface, so this new set hasn't bit in very well. Going to see if it settles at all, if not deglaze or rehone the bore on this cyl. I have spare rings. Bit of a pita to have to pull the cyl head and the sump again, be nice to get it perfect though. I have to pull a lot of the cyl head stuff to fit a new cam soonish anyway, so can beast it on a weekend. Head gasket and rod bolts are re-usable, so no major drama.

[tim_s]

Nice one Tim, looking good... will watch with interest

Cheers Paul, hopefully get her on your rollers soon

[hoshy]

Oh nice one Tim. Have only just seen this. Sorry that upper sump didn't work out for you in the end. Now I really wish I hadn't sold it cos it cost me 40 for a replacement from ChrisW when I did my rebuild. Typical

Anyway - how's no.4 getting on now?

[appletree]

How come your not running your ITB's, i would have thought that the standard throttle body and inlet would have been startring to get restrictive at the type of power your running now. Is it just for the drivabilty side of things?

Nice build and love all the shiney bits

[ShepsEvo3]

Yup, hasn't exactly gone to plan, and you're right about the rings. cyl 4 was oily. JE/TEP screwed up and sent me mismanufactured oil control ring rails on this cyl. The end gap was way excessive, and not picked up on when I had the chap who bored the block do the ring end gaps. d'oh. £100 for another set of rings and a partial rebuild later and the engine is much better. Sadly it's not perfect. Cyl 4 still is a touch oily on the plug, and compression is up a bit (I guess the oil is sealing the bore). I didn't deglaze or rehone the bore on cyl 4 because the honing marks looked way deeper than on cyls 1-3. I'm guessing the first few hundred miles on the dodgy rings has lubricated the ring against the cylinder and glazed the surface, so this new set hasn't bit in very well. Going to see if it settles at all, if not deglaze or rehone the bore on this cyl. I have spare rings. Bit of a pita to have to pull the cyl head and the sump again, be nice to get it perfect though. I have to pull a lot of the cyl head stuff to fit a new cam soonish anyway, so can beast it on a weekend. Head gasket and rod bolts are re-usable, so no major drama.

Tim, you don't get much luck do you Here's hoping that #4 cylinder beds in with time And I look forward to seeing it again.

[tim_s]

How come your not running your ITB's, i would have thought that the standard throttle body and inlet would have been startring to get restrictive at the type of power your running now. Is it just for the drivabilty side of things?

Nice build and love all the shiney bits

Cheers Matt! Um yeah pretty much laziness and driveability. My ex used to drive the car a bit so the standard inlet made sense, it's easier to drive on single TB lol!!! Also the TBs were too noisy on cruise on the motorway. Now a friend bought the TBs off me (they were for sale on here a few wks ago!! bargain!)and they're not listed on my insurance policy. Might put some on again at some pt, we'll see!

Yup, hasn't exactly gone to plan, and you're right about the rings. cyl 4 was oily. JE/TEP screwed up and sent me mismanufactured oil control ring rails on this cyl. The end gap was way excessive, and not picked up on when I had the chap who bored the block do the ring end gaps. d'oh. £100 for another set of rings and a partial rebuild later and the engine is much better. Sadly it's not perfect. Cyl 4 still is a touch oily on the plug, and compression is up a bit (I guess the oil is sealing the bore). I didn't deglaze or rehone the bore on cyl 4 because the honing marks looked way deeper than on cyls 1-3. I'm guessing the first few hundred miles on the dodgy rings has lubricated the ring against the cylinder and glazed the surface, so this new set hasn't bit in very well. Going to see if it settles at all, if not deglaze or rehone the bore on this cyl. I have spare rings. Bit of a pita to have to pull the cyl head and the sump again, be nice to get it perfect though. I have to pull a lot of the cyl head stuff to fit a new cam soonish anyway, so can beast it on a weekend. Head gasket and rod bolts are re-usable, so no major drama.

Tim, you don't get much luck do you Here's hoping that #4 cylinder beds in with time And I look forward to seeing it again.

Lol nope! Well, having said that I pulled the plug on no4 the other day after it had done the london-bristol run and it was clean, no sign at all of any oil consumption on it Compression was still up about 8% (cold - was being lazy!) compared to no2 though (didn't check t'others either!). Any thoughts? I'm thinking a bit more driving can't do it any harm! Meant to give you a buzz about it all as i figure you've seen most things, but on hols now... Will catch you when I'm back!

[tim_s]

Oh nice one Tim. Have only just seen this. Sorry that upper sump didn't work out for you in the end. Now I really wish I hadn't sold it cos it cost me 40 for a replacement from ChrisW when I did my rebuild. Typical

Anyway - how's no.4 getting on now?

lol no worries, im a picky sod, only noticed when I pulled my other one, would have probably cleaned it up and used it if i didn't have such a clean one

[ShepsEvo3]

studs:

"Every little helps" eh Tim?

[papercutout]

Liking this, just put up a thread in technical help and was told you have a look for you!
Thread is here:
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... c&t=116557

Got various questions (of course). Whats the exact spec of yours? What crank and pistons have you gone for? What work have you had to have done to them/engine for them to fit? What management are you using? What would you recommend going for?
You get the idea, I want a write-up on what to do as a good M42 upgrade basically (cos I'm lazy and forget/lose stuff if its not written down spot on).

Thanks, and congrats on it all, looks great, sounds great! Got it on the rollers yet and are you still going to go to the 'ring?

[tim_s]

Liking this, just put up a thread in technical help and was told you have a look for you!
Thread is here:
http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... c&t=116557

Got various questions (of course). Whats the exact spec of yours? What crank and pistons have you gone for? What work have you had to have done to them/engine for them to fit? What management are you using? What would you recommend going for?
You get the idea, I want a write-up on what to do as a good M42 upgrade basically (cos I'm lazy and forget/lose stuff if its not written down spot on).

Thanks, and congrats on it all, looks great, sounds great! Got it on the rollers yet and are you still going to go to the 'ring?

Thanks! There's loads of different things you can do to the engine and ways you can go about it, my last engine was done completely differently to this one, and this build was only carried out to make a few changes to the spec and because the old engine had some wear on the small end bushes after a ring trip.
Think most of the details are pretty much covered here or on previous posts. The crank needs the nose shaved down and a new keyway created. the pistons are 87mm. I'm using megasquirt for management. Is debatable whether it's the best option, I like it now it's in, but I think for an easy life if I did the whole thing again I'd book the car in to Paul and have him fit a UniQ!

Anyway, Cyl 4 seems to have finally settled down now . There's no evidence of oil use anywhere now, I've not checked compression recently though to see if that's evened out too. I have an engine noise (mb exhaust manifold) and dodgy idle (maybe related to first issue) to fix, then she should be sorted, I've also fitted the new inlet cam and carrier this wknd. I didn't make ring trip no 2 this year cos the car wasn't in good enough health.

[ShepsEvo3]

Tim, hows this coming along now?

[rix313]

Looks loverly

[tim_s]

hiya paul,
going ok ish. Is bloody quick, noticeably quicker than the last one. My bro bought an m3 evo today and we expected it to absolutely nail mine but with him not really wanting to use his much above 6k rpm before we've tinkered with it a bit, mine was keeping up just fine. Would like to get both of them on the rollers, reckon his evo is down a bit although no fault codes etc and feels good when you're in it. Don't know if the last guy was being an idiot and running it on 95RON, will reset the adaptation values now it's on super. I know a few of us wanted to head to yours soonish, was it this fri pete went in with the new FMIC on the s4?
I'm still a bit unsure about my engine. I can't get a consistent decent idle which is a bit weird, may be an air leak or something but not looked in much detail yet. And I've still got an annoying but not terribly worrying engine/exhaust noise which goes away sometimes, I need to get it sorted. might be fannymold, i had to put it on with old gaskets due to bm not supplying the gaskets I'd ordered! not sure about oil consumption as yet, no sign of anything nasty on the plugs, did have a leak from timing chain tensioner (replaced the washer ystrday so should be sorted), also recently switched from running in on mineral oil to the usual synthetic oil, think it may be drinking a bit, changed oil this morning in bristol, seemed to have dropped a bti when i checked it in london but might have jsut been as it worked its way around the engine. it's not smoking and it does have loosish piston-bore clearance so it's prob ok. thinking of giving ant a buzz to see if he's keen to finish all the odds and sods off, not sure if all is well or not, compression on cyl 4 is still a bit higher than other cyls (about 230psi rather than 215-220 on other cyls). ultimately it's going pretty well though I guess, I'm just short of energy with it. prob taking it to bruges in 2wks time, planning a couple fo track days and a ring trip too. got plenty of other bits i need to sort on it too, need a new IS lip and front suspension.
hope all is well with you, will call you shortly when i feel engine is settled enough to get on the rollers and get it properly mapped!

[ShepsEvo3]

Hi Tim, the compression thing is strange.. 230 is a high figure, but would be nice if all four was up with that one

I think you'll find it will use the synthetic oil more than the mineral, especially if the clearance between pistons and cylinder wall is on the outter limits. I have found this on a few cars I've owned in the past. They use synthetic, where mineral and semi-synthetic seem to last the distance.

The E36 evo, nice car, but I have had several on the dyno, including the 3ltr which give very varied results. They usually go real well, and ultimately should leave your 2.1 behind especially on the motorway I guess. I suspect yours is going well though and would give any M3 a run for its money.

I havn't heard from Pete atall. A mini meet like the last would be good.... maybe I could get a few more up on the same day and have some fun?

I want to chat to you sometime soon about a special 2.1, but it looks like I may have someone who wants my IS, so not sure what I am doing now. I may have a white IS lip too. I will check.

[tim_s]

yeah all a bit strange! I wouldn't mind you taking a peak at it sometime for me and get your thoughts, I'll call you. The compression thing is weird, examined everything really closely when I last pulled it to rehone that cyl, all cyls look pretty identical. When I had the probs with cyl 4 I put new stem seals in (only in that cyl) cleaned up and relapped the valves (again only on that cyl) while there, would've thought that would have negligable impact though. I wonder if they'll even out - cyls 1-3 have now done about 3k miles, mb a touch more, cyl 4 has done about 1k, but I last compression tested it when cyl 4 had done about 500 miles. Think when I last compression tested it it was 218 on cyl 2, 229 on cyl 4. didn't do the other two as was being lazy! Anyway all not the end of the world, the car's driving pretty well other than the noise and the dodgy oscillating idle. I just went and checked the oil out of interest, it's a bit of a downhill slope here but showing above the max mark and done a few hundred miles today, so think it's pretty much all good.

Yeah the e36 Evo must be a bit off-song, the pair of us were scratching heads a bit there! Think the fact that I was using the IS as intended and he was showing a bit of reserve might have had something to do with it.
2.1 stuff sounds interesting as does a white lip, my car looks shite without one! was tempted to buy a new one off the stealer if it comes in black, reckon that would look alright!

[ShepsEvo3]

Tim, I've posted up about todays little meet on the BMW owners forum, but I just had a thought about your poor idle. It didn't do it when the AFM was removed and infact idled much higher then. Maybe the AFM flap is swaying open/closed on idle and maybe more pronounced with the cams you have fitted now? Maybe the IACV is working overtime to unsucessfully sort it out?

So, Early M3 power with the standard M42 inlet system and 200cc less... can't be all that bad

[Karan]

Wow just read this awesome work tim

[Gunni]

tim don´t you have megasquirt running the engine or what are you using?

[tim_s]

Tim, I've posted up about todays little meet on the BMW owners forum, but I just had a thought about your poor idle. It didn't do it when the AFM was removed and infact idled much higher then. Maybe the AFM flap is swaying open/closed on idle and maybe more pronounced with the cams you have fitted now? Maybe the IACV is working overtime to unsucessfully sort it out?

So, Early M3 power with the standard M42 inlet system and 200cc less... can't be all that bad

Cheers Paul! With the AFM removed motronic thought it had no air going through it, so increases the idle pulsewidth, hence the idle speed increase. Am going to try another idle valve though, think it's got to be worth a punt. She's always idled ok at about 1200rpm, but that's no good!
Thanks for yesterday, was good to have you look her over, really happy that the compression has evened out, and the power/torque is really impressive! Have had a look at a few other m3/320is rolling road printouts, seen a few of m3s not as strong, and the 320is is 190bhp/155ft/lbs, so i'm really happy - nearly an extra 20ft/lbs of torque out of mine. Be interesting to see what it'd make on throttle bodies and proper cams...
Where's this thread you put up then?

Wow just read this awesome work tim

Cheers dude, and your sylvia looks mean as hell in that other thread Where can I find out the latest on it, pm me a link! hope you're keeping well.

tim don´t you have megasquirt running the engine or what are you using?

Yup is running megasquirt, but have the AFM in place so I can do testing on motronic sparks and idle control as and when necessary. TBH it's pretty redundant as I never use motronic sparks, and the motronic idle control is rubbish for my application at the moment!

[GrindCulture]

They are seriously impressive figures there Tim!

[Gunni]

Tim do you have a .msq of your setup?
And perhaps a log if the idle ?

[hoshy]

Did you fix the air leak yet Tim? No point in buggering about with idle til that's done.

[rix313]

Got any pics of your fly wheel? I managed to get mine down to 8-9kg but didnt take anything off of the back