E30 M3 minor rust repair (few finished pic's)
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- jamie-o-connell
- E30 Zone Newbie
- Posts: 141
- Joined: Sat Sep 29, 2012 11:00 pm
just read this from the start ( took a few hour's ) you are a ledgend
i remember seeing the car at a meet a few year's ago down by tipp cork direction ( i was in the m5 with the father ) the car looked mint then so i cant wait to see it now
i remember seeing the car at a meet a few year's ago down by tipp cork direction ( i was in the m5 with the father ) the car looked mint then so i cant wait to see it now
Awesome mate!
You forgot to mention how it soundsFinto_316 wrote:Seeing pictures is one thing, seeing it in the flesh and sitting in it is something else!

With all the components now in place we could move on to the next stage
of making a new engine loom to connect everything up. First step was to
disect the original loom and map it all out. Although the majority of
components being used on the new management system are different to
the standard set up, theres still a few that are original and I wanted to see how
they were originally wired up, plus a wanted to see how the bright folk at
Bmw went about powering up the loom too. The other main reason for
mapping out the original loom was to see exactly how the engine loom
connects to the body loom at the main C101 connector plug, as the new
loom would require this "interconnecter" to be used as well..........

took a fair while to draw it all out, but it was time well spent as the diagram
really helped to get my head around how the original loom was powered up.
The reason the pic below is a little out of focus is to hide the half gallon of
Tipex on the diagram..........


Once I understood how the old loom worked it was possible to move on and
draw up the blueprints for the new loom........

Next step was to obtain some fresh wiring for building the new loom,
so a quick trip to the local automotive wire specialist was in order..........

You could spent an absolute fortune buying dozen's of reels of different
colour electrical wiring from electrical wholesalers to build a loom,
or, save a fortune by dropping into the local scrapyard and pulling a
complete loom out of something fresh. It's a while back now, but as best
as I can remember I pulled the full body loom from a two year old Audi
estate car to re-use building this engine loom.........

First bit to get some fresh wiring was the injector plugs. Although the
new injectors were being wired up the same as the old ones
I wanted to avoid reusing any 20 odd year old wiring............




The upside to using mostly Bosch items for the various sensors around
the engine is they almost always use "junior power timer" plugs for
connections, which are very easy to source. Just typing "junior power timer"
in Google gives plenty of options..........



Each component around the engine gets it's plug wired up, connected,
and then the indivdual run's of wires are bunched where possible to give
the loom better strength..........


each individual run of wiring is heat shrink protected until it rejoins
the main loom body........

of making a new engine loom to connect everything up. First step was to
disect the original loom and map it all out. Although the majority of
components being used on the new management system are different to
the standard set up, theres still a few that are original and I wanted to see how
they were originally wired up, plus a wanted to see how the bright folk at
Bmw went about powering up the loom too. The other main reason for
mapping out the original loom was to see exactly how the engine loom
connects to the body loom at the main C101 connector plug, as the new
loom would require this "interconnecter" to be used as well..........

took a fair while to draw it all out, but it was time well spent as the diagram
really helped to get my head around how the original loom was powered up.
The reason the pic below is a little out of focus is to hide the half gallon of
Tipex on the diagram..........


Once I understood how the old loom worked it was possible to move on and
draw up the blueprints for the new loom........

Next step was to obtain some fresh wiring for building the new loom,
so a quick trip to the local automotive wire specialist was in order..........

You could spent an absolute fortune buying dozen's of reels of different
colour electrical wiring from electrical wholesalers to build a loom,
or, save a fortune by dropping into the local scrapyard and pulling a
complete loom out of something fresh. It's a while back now, but as best
as I can remember I pulled the full body loom from a two year old Audi
estate car to re-use building this engine loom.........

First bit to get some fresh wiring was the injector plugs. Although the
new injectors were being wired up the same as the old ones
I wanted to avoid reusing any 20 odd year old wiring............




The upside to using mostly Bosch items for the various sensors around
the engine is they almost always use "junior power timer" plugs for
connections, which are very easy to source. Just typing "junior power timer"
in Google gives plenty of options..........
Each component around the engine gets it's plug wired up, connected,
and then the indivdual run's of wires are bunched where possible to give
the loom better strength..........


each individual run of wiring is heat shrink protected until it rejoins
the main loom body........

I've relocated the engine loom relays to the centre of the bulkhead
as opposed to their original home behind the coolant reservoir to
keep the wiring runs as short as possible...........

and while some of the wires coming back off the engine head
for the relays and C101 connector shown above, the majority of
them are heading back inside to the ecu.....


To help keep track on proceedings and prevent brain melt
each wire is coloured in on the diagram after it's installed........

and a little note is kept of what colour wires have been used for
what circuit to avoid using the same colour wire for two different
circuits, which should help with any fault finding many, many years
down the line, he said, optimistically.......

While the majority of wiring used came from the salvaged Audi
loom there were also a few bits that had to be bought individually
such as the screened wiring for the crankshaft sensor.........

The crank sensor sends a very sensitive signal back to the ecu
and with so many strong electrical fields around the engine
(alternator, starter, ignition coil) it's quite possible that if we were
to use just standard insulated wiring to the crank sensor this signal
could pick up a lot of interferance.
So, the solution is to use screened wiring. What you see below is
actually high grade microphone cable, and when you peel back the
outer insulation you come across a copper sheath........

under which is a layer of aluminium foil......

as opposed to their original home behind the coolant reservoir to
keep the wiring runs as short as possible...........

and while some of the wires coming back off the engine head
for the relays and C101 connector shown above, the majority of
them are heading back inside to the ecu.....


To help keep track on proceedings and prevent brain melt
each wire is coloured in on the diagram after it's installed........

and a little note is kept of what colour wires have been used for
what circuit to avoid using the same colour wire for two different
circuits, which should help with any fault finding many, many years
down the line, he said, optimistically.......

While the majority of wiring used came from the salvaged Audi
loom there were also a few bits that had to be bought individually
such as the screened wiring for the crankshaft sensor.........

The crank sensor sends a very sensitive signal back to the ecu
and with so many strong electrical fields around the engine
(alternator, starter, ignition coil) it's quite possible that if we were
to use just standard insulated wiring to the crank sensor this signal
could pick up a lot of interferance.
So, the solution is to use screened wiring. What you see below is
actually high grade microphone cable, and when you peel back the
outer insulation you come across a copper sheath........

under which is a layer of aluminium foil......

Last edited by x-works on Fri Nov 30, 2012 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
and finally, under that is the two wires we use to carry the
crankshaft signal....

The thinking behind the screened cable is any stray voltages
that are induced in the crank sensor wiring (which could cause
problematic interferance and confuse the fuck out of ecu)
will be caught by the outer copper sheath before it can infect the
main wires inside. The copper sheath is connected to earth inside
at the ecu, letting any stray voltages it has picked up pass off to earth
without doing any harm.
To add a little oil and coolant resistance to the screened wire, the full
length of cable used is covered with some resistant heat shrink..........

and because the buisness end of the cable passes reasonably close to
the exhaust manifold a little heat protection is added to prevent
barbecuing.......

One of the other things that needs a bit of thought aswell is making
each run of wire secure. A lot of wiring problems on engine looms
come from wires being loose and vibrating, leading to bad connections
or broken wires. While the wires in the loom gain a bit of strength and
security when they're all bunched and secured together, it's when they
break out of the main loom on their individual runs that potential for
future trouble can arise.
The arrow in the pic below points to one of the short studs used to bolt
a cover on to the end of the camshaft housing..........

the stud is removed and a slightly longer one installed in it's place,
being carefull not to screw it in to far where it could hit the
camshaft pulley........

once the longer stud is in place a normal flat nut can be used to
secure the cam cover in place.......

while leaving some more exposed thread too mount a P clip on
which helps secure the wiring heading to the ignition coil........

Underneath the ignition coil is another little bracket made up to
utilize the 3 front bolts from the cam housing......

crankshaft signal....

The thinking behind the screened cable is any stray voltages
that are induced in the crank sensor wiring (which could cause
problematic interferance and confuse the fuck out of ecu)
will be caught by the outer copper sheath before it can infect the
main wires inside. The copper sheath is connected to earth inside
at the ecu, letting any stray voltages it has picked up pass off to earth
without doing any harm.
To add a little oil and coolant resistance to the screened wire, the full
length of cable used is covered with some resistant heat shrink..........

and because the buisness end of the cable passes reasonably close to
the exhaust manifold a little heat protection is added to prevent
barbecuing.......

One of the other things that needs a bit of thought aswell is making
each run of wire secure. A lot of wiring problems on engine looms
come from wires being loose and vibrating, leading to bad connections
or broken wires. While the wires in the loom gain a bit of strength and
security when they're all bunched and secured together, it's when they
break out of the main loom on their individual runs that potential for
future trouble can arise.
The arrow in the pic below points to one of the short studs used to bolt
a cover on to the end of the camshaft housing..........

the stud is removed and a slightly longer one installed in it's place,
being carefull not to screw it in to far where it could hit the
camshaft pulley........

once the longer stud is in place a normal flat nut can be used to
secure the cam cover in place.......

while leaving some more exposed thread too mount a P clip on
which helps secure the wiring heading to the ignition coil........

Underneath the ignition coil is another little bracket made up to
utilize the 3 front bolts from the cam housing......



Once it's fitted in place the crankshaft and temperature sensor
wiring now have something to be secured to as they travel across
the front of the engine........

As each sensor gets plumbed in it's not long before the loom is
starting to grow in size..........


Finally, once all the wiring is in place, the next step is to remove
the loom as a complete unit, but, before it comes out, some red tape
is used to mark where the individual branches peal off the main loom...........




Once thats done the loom is pulled and strung up on the wall.......

all the wiring is then seperated out while removing the ranom bits
of tape that were holding the wires together during installation
(being careful not to disturb the red bit's of marker tape)..........

and then resit them all neatly together.........

the main body of the loom can then get it's final wrapping while
using the little red bits of tape to help identify where each smaller
branch leaves the main loom ..........

The main loom body is wrapped with self amalgamating tape.
If you haven't come across it before it's basically a rubber like tape
that isn't sticky, instead when you stretch it, it sticks to itself to create
a water tight bond around whats inside.......

'tis good stuff.........

Next item to get wired in was the little MAP sensor we fitted earlier.....

a wee hole drilled in the plastic......

a little bit of wire, heatshrink and the correct 2 pin junior
timer plug attached........

pop the cable back through the hole in the plastic with the
aid of a rubber grommet to ensure she doesn't start to chaff
down the line..........

which allows us to move onto the next item, the C101 plug........

This is the connector located on the engine bulkhead where the
engine loom and body loom connect to each other. There's
various wires in the standard engine loom that aren't actually
needed to run the engine, such as the wiring from temperature
gauge on the dash to the sender on the engine, the feed from the
alternator warning light down to the alternator, the trip wire from
the ignition switch to bring the starter to life and a few more.
As such these wires don't need to head back to the engine ecu,
instead they split off from the engine loom up at the bulkhead and
and are wired into the engine loom side of the C101 plug.
And when the loom is installed for the final time this half of the
plug will be screwed into the Body loom side of the C101 plug to
carry the little wires on the rest of their journey..........


If you find yourself rewiring a C101 plug and are wondering what
the various part numbers for the different pins and stuff required are,
then this lad fairly nailed it in his helpful guide.........
http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=154876
With all the wires snuggly wrapped in there final resting place the loom
is roughly refitted into the engine bay and the the ecu's wires are fed
through their hole in the firewall.........

before each items wires (ecu, lambda controller, lambda & oil pressure
gauges) are dummy run and loosely secured so we can trim wires to their
final length and segregate them to individual bunches.....

once thats done the loom can come out for it's final time (thank fuck)
to have it's connector plugs attached.......




a wee hole drilled in the plastic......

a little bit of wire, heatshrink and the correct 2 pin junior
timer plug attached........

pop the cable back through the hole in the plastic with the
aid of a rubber grommet to ensure she doesn't start to chaff
down the line..........

which allows us to move onto the next item, the C101 plug........

This is the connector located on the engine bulkhead where the
engine loom and body loom connect to each other. There's
various wires in the standard engine loom that aren't actually
needed to run the engine, such as the wiring from temperature
gauge on the dash to the sender on the engine, the feed from the
alternator warning light down to the alternator, the trip wire from
the ignition switch to bring the starter to life and a few more.
As such these wires don't need to head back to the engine ecu,
instead they split off from the engine loom up at the bulkhead and
and are wired into the engine loom side of the C101 plug.
And when the loom is installed for the final time this half of the
plug will be screwed into the Body loom side of the C101 plug to
carry the little wires on the rest of their journey..........


If you find yourself rewiring a C101 plug and are wondering what
the various part numbers for the different pins and stuff required are,
then this lad fairly nailed it in his helpful guide.........
http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=154876
With all the wires snuggly wrapped in there final resting place the loom
is roughly refitted into the engine bay and the the ecu's wires are fed
through their hole in the firewall.........

before each items wires (ecu, lambda controller, lambda & oil pressure
gauges) are dummy run and loosely secured so we can trim wires to their
final length and segregate them to individual bunches.....

once thats done the loom can come out for it's final time (thank fuck)
to have it's connector plugs attached.......



Last edited by x-works on Fri Nov 30, 2012 5:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ahhh the grunt coming from the carbon airbox is pure classJozi wrote:You forgot to mention how it soundsFinto_316 wrote:Seeing pictures is one thing, seeing it in the flesh and sitting in it is something else!


BMW e30 325i Sport-88-Diamond Shwartz

These little bunch of brown and black wires were the
various earths that needed to be secured to bare metal of
the chassis somewhere around the ecu. I'll freely admit to
being in the typical red blooded male catagory when it comes
to reading installation instructions, only ever read them when
the item your attempting to assemble starts to go on fire.
However, when it comes to installing Ecu and instrument earths
it's worth making the time to double check the fitting instructions.
Although all these earth wires are only returning spent voltage back
to the battery negative pole through the chassis, alot of them don't
like sharing the same ring connector to bolt them to the chassis.
And, out of jealousy, will sometimes start to fuck with each other
leading to all sorts of wierd and wonderful problems.
Most decent made products usually give some info on how to treat
the earth connections, worth reading to avoid the voodoo shit.......

Last little connector was for all the wiring traveling to the oil and
lambda gauges in the dash switch panel.......

Should the switch/heater control panel have to come out again
somewhere along the line it's a lot easier to disconnect a plug
than undo a clatter of wires.
And thats about it, engine loom was done........

Only other thing to add was the heavy gauge wire to feed the
starter and alternator which would sit along side the engine
loom when she goes back in.........




Once back in everything gets connected up for the final time,
including the main power feed for the whole engine loom which
I've tapped off the remote battery connection on the bulkhead........

relays and fuses get hammered home.........

Relays are, main relay that powers up pretty much everything
on the loom via the 20 amp fuse beside it, the fuel pump relay,
and the final fuse is a litte 5 amp job to protect the lambda sensor
controler from melting should it take on suicidal tendancies.....

which was the final step in building the engine loom. There was some other
wiring that needed to be addressed in the engine bay before the job could
be signed off on though. The earth straps........

Alot of the various sensors and stuff used on the engine (including
the starter) will use the engine itself as an earth path for the voltages
return route to the negative pole of the battery.
(All positive voltage wants to do is flow from the positive pole to the
negative pole of the battery, it's inherently lazy and will always take the
shortest route offered to it. Your just putting sensors and electric motors
in it's way to get some work out of it as it makes it's journey.)
As the engine and gearbox are rubber mounted, and as such insulated
from the cars metal chassis, the need arises for some earth straps attaching
the engine to the chassis and giving a route for the voltage to make it's way
back from the engine through the cars chassis to the negative pole of the
battery. As standard, the M3 came fitted with 3 engine earth straps,
the 2 pictured above and another one detailed below.
The original earth straps were starting to show their age a little, and as a poorly
connected, corroded or broken engine earth strap can cause absolute mayhem
with a cars electrical system it was decided to make up some new ones.
The first one (smaller one in the pic above) attaches from the engine bay
battery shelf to a bolt on the cover at the back of the cam box.......

The second and main one, (fat one in the top pic) attaches from the drivers
side chassis leg......

to the engine sump pan.......

and the third one is just to earth the alternaor to the engine block
(as the alternator is rubber mounted to the engine).......

And that was pretty much the end of the wiring.
There was just one or two other small jobs to complete
before we could bring the engine to life.
Will try get the next bit up for tomorrow, think I've a shite
quality vid (as usual) here somewhere of her on the rolling road as well.
Till then..........
including the main power feed for the whole engine loom which
I've tapped off the remote battery connection on the bulkhead........

relays and fuses get hammered home.........

Relays are, main relay that powers up pretty much everything
on the loom via the 20 amp fuse beside it, the fuel pump relay,
and the final fuse is a litte 5 amp job to protect the lambda sensor
controler from melting should it take on suicidal tendancies.....

which was the final step in building the engine loom. There was some other
wiring that needed to be addressed in the engine bay before the job could
be signed off on though. The earth straps........

Alot of the various sensors and stuff used on the engine (including
the starter) will use the engine itself as an earth path for the voltages
return route to the negative pole of the battery.
(All positive voltage wants to do is flow from the positive pole to the
negative pole of the battery, it's inherently lazy and will always take the
shortest route offered to it. Your just putting sensors and electric motors
in it's way to get some work out of it as it makes it's journey.)
As the engine and gearbox are rubber mounted, and as such insulated
from the cars metal chassis, the need arises for some earth straps attaching
the engine to the chassis and giving a route for the voltage to make it's way
back from the engine through the cars chassis to the negative pole of the
battery. As standard, the M3 came fitted with 3 engine earth straps,
the 2 pictured above and another one detailed below.
The original earth straps were starting to show their age a little, and as a poorly
connected, corroded or broken engine earth strap can cause absolute mayhem
with a cars electrical system it was decided to make up some new ones.
The first one (smaller one in the pic above) attaches from the engine bay
battery shelf to a bolt on the cover at the back of the cam box.......

The second and main one, (fat one in the top pic) attaches from the drivers
side chassis leg......

to the engine sump pan.......

and the third one is just to earth the alternaor to the engine block
(as the alternator is rubber mounted to the engine).......

And that was pretty much the end of the wiring.
There was just one or two other small jobs to complete
before we could bring the engine to life.
Will try get the next bit up for tomorrow, think I've a shite
quality vid (as usual) here somewhere of her on the rolling road as well.
Till then..........
With the wiring finally finished there were some other small bits to take
care of before we could fire her up. As detailed earlier we were adding a
digital oil pressure gauge to the dash and this gauge would need it's own
sender unit to read the oil pressure and send the info back up to the gauge.
As the new gauge unit up on the dash was also going to be triggering the
low oil pressure warning light on the dash cluster we could remove the low
oil pressure switch and fit our sender unit in it's place.
However, the S14 is a notoriously "buzzy" engine and shakes the shit out
of anything bolted to it over it's lifetime. This usually isn't the ideal
enviroment an oil pressure sensor like's to live in, so, in an attempt to
prevent the sender from going prematurely tits up, we've remote
mounted it.
A few fittings and some flexible pipework attached to where the old
oil pressure switch used to be on the oil filter housing.........


allows the new oil pressure sender to live a more peacefull life mounted to the chassis leg instead.........

Final item worth mentioning before we finish off on the engine is a little
mod done to the breather system. The breather system on the M3 and
more or less any engine that was fitted to an e30 is a fairly straight
forward affair.
Inside the engine, no matter how "super duper" your piston rings are at
sealing up the cylinder bore, you will always have some small amount of
compression sneaking by and getting down into the sump. As this
pressurised air makes it's way past the piston rings down into the sump it
mixes with the oilly mist down there that has been created by the crank
spinning over at warp speed.
This pressurised oil mist has to be gotten rid of otherwise the pressure
would build and start bursting it's way out past oil seals or working it's
way back up into the cylinder again once the compression stroke has
finished. The way it's dealt with on the S14 engine is with these little
collection of pipes and a plastic chamber..........

The front timing chain cover on the S14 is basically a little hollow chamber
at the front of the engine that connects the sump to the cam box, so,
the pressurised oil mist makes it's way up this hollow chamber into the cam
box on top of the engine. At the rear of the rocker cover theres a breather
pipe attached to vent this build up........

This breather pipe (yellow) feeds the oilly mist down into a plastic
seperator chamber bolted onto the side of the engine (blue).........

The seperator chamber uses some voodoo shit to seperate the oil from
the air, after which the liquid oil is fed back down to the sump via the
red pipe and the air is fed back into the intake system via the green pipe.
And everyone goes home happy.
Well not exactly, in reality some of that oilly mist often ends up making
it's way back up the green pipe and into the engine to contaminate that
lovely fresh air coming in.
With the amount of ball ache we've gone to trying to get some premium
fresh extra air into this engine to make more power I'll be fucked if I'm
going to start spraying oilly mist in there too.
So, the solution, vent that green pipe to atmosphere rather than recirculate
it back into the engine.
To do this we'd need a new green pipe.........

See that? Formula one technology that is........

Bit hard to see the actual pipe when refitted to the engine........

care of before we could fire her up. As detailed earlier we were adding a
digital oil pressure gauge to the dash and this gauge would need it's own
sender unit to read the oil pressure and send the info back up to the gauge.
As the new gauge unit up on the dash was also going to be triggering the
low oil pressure warning light on the dash cluster we could remove the low
oil pressure switch and fit our sender unit in it's place.
However, the S14 is a notoriously "buzzy" engine and shakes the shit out
of anything bolted to it over it's lifetime. This usually isn't the ideal
enviroment an oil pressure sensor like's to live in, so, in an attempt to
prevent the sender from going prematurely tits up, we've remote
mounted it.
A few fittings and some flexible pipework attached to where the old
oil pressure switch used to be on the oil filter housing.........


allows the new oil pressure sender to live a more peacefull life mounted to the chassis leg instead.........

Final item worth mentioning before we finish off on the engine is a little
mod done to the breather system. The breather system on the M3 and
more or less any engine that was fitted to an e30 is a fairly straight
forward affair.
Inside the engine, no matter how "super duper" your piston rings are at
sealing up the cylinder bore, you will always have some small amount of
compression sneaking by and getting down into the sump. As this
pressurised air makes it's way past the piston rings down into the sump it
mixes with the oilly mist down there that has been created by the crank
spinning over at warp speed.
This pressurised oil mist has to be gotten rid of otherwise the pressure
would build and start bursting it's way out past oil seals or working it's
way back up into the cylinder again once the compression stroke has
finished. The way it's dealt with on the S14 engine is with these little
collection of pipes and a plastic chamber..........

The front timing chain cover on the S14 is basically a little hollow chamber
at the front of the engine that connects the sump to the cam box, so,
the pressurised oil mist makes it's way up this hollow chamber into the cam
box on top of the engine. At the rear of the rocker cover theres a breather
pipe attached to vent this build up........

This breather pipe (yellow) feeds the oilly mist down into a plastic
seperator chamber bolted onto the side of the engine (blue).........

The seperator chamber uses some voodoo shit to seperate the oil from
the air, after which the liquid oil is fed back down to the sump via the
red pipe and the air is fed back into the intake system via the green pipe.
And everyone goes home happy.
Well not exactly, in reality some of that oilly mist often ends up making
it's way back up the green pipe and into the engine to contaminate that
lovely fresh air coming in.
With the amount of ball ache we've gone to trying to get some premium
fresh extra air into this engine to make more power I'll be fucked if I'm
going to start spraying oilly mist in there too.
So, the solution, vent that green pipe to atmosphere rather than recirculate
it back into the engine.
To do this we'd need a new green pipe.........

See that? Formula one technology that is........

Bit hard to see the actual pipe when refitted to the engine........

Last edited by x-works on Mon Dec 03, 2012 6:34 pm, edited 7 times in total.
She still connects to the plastic seperator at the same port but instead of heading
for the inlet manifold she does a drunken u turn and makes a b line for the
gearbox bellhousing..........

and then runs down by the bellhousing to the underneath of the car.......

as she passes by, a little plate covers the now empty original crank sensor
holes and also secures the pipe......


The thinking is the air passing underneath the car will carry any
fumes off into the atmosphere. The tree huggers should love that one.

The little filter on the end of the pipe is absolutely essential by the way,
it does sweet fuck all, but it looks good and thats enough to keep the
nice people at the yearly car test center happy, bless them.
So that was it. There was no avoiding it any longer the car was ready
to be brought to life. Unfortunately I don't possess the actual brain
power required to programe a blank ecu to be able to run an engine,
so, off she went to some engine tuner's to work their magic.
Looking back it probably would have been nice to get some footage
of the engine coming to life, unfortunately I was too busy crossing my
fingers and toes that the engine wouldn't splatter itself all over the inside
of the workshop while being flogged on the rollers. I have though,
managed to get some footage of her doing a power run at another rolling
road recently.
If you've been following this thread for a while you'll probably be used to
the fact that I own a fairly shite digital camera, and, I'm fairly shite at
using it too, so it should come as no suprise that despite my best efforts
the video footage in this short clip is also reasonably shite and has the
look of something that may well have been shot using an
electric toaster rather than a camcorder.
What can you do.......
[youtube][/youtube]
for the inlet manifold she does a drunken u turn and makes a b line for the
gearbox bellhousing..........

and then runs down by the bellhousing to the underneath of the car.......

as she passes by, a little plate covers the now empty original crank sensor
holes and also secures the pipe......


The thinking is the air passing underneath the car will carry any
fumes off into the atmosphere. The tree huggers should love that one.

The little filter on the end of the pipe is absolutely essential by the way,
it does sweet fuck all, but it looks good and thats enough to keep the
nice people at the yearly car test center happy, bless them.
So that was it. There was no avoiding it any longer the car was ready
to be brought to life. Unfortunately I don't possess the actual brain
power required to programe a blank ecu to be able to run an engine,
so, off she went to some engine tuner's to work their magic.
Looking back it probably would have been nice to get some footage
of the engine coming to life, unfortunately I was too busy crossing my
fingers and toes that the engine wouldn't splatter itself all over the inside
of the workshop while being flogged on the rollers. I have though,
managed to get some footage of her doing a power run at another rolling
road recently.
If you've been following this thread for a while you'll probably be used to
the fact that I own a fairly shite digital camera, and, I'm fairly shite at
using it too, so it should come as no suprise that despite my best efforts
the video footage in this short clip is also reasonably shite and has the
look of something that may well have been shot using an
electric toaster rather than a camcorder.
What can you do.......
[youtube][/youtube]
Last edited by x-works on Mon Dec 03, 2012 6:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
So, did we manage to find a few more stray horses during the
engine rebuild?
Well it appears we did, exactly how many is a little hard to say.
You may or may not already know this, but the simple fact is rolling
road read outs from different places are practically impossible to
compare.
This doesn't matter to much if you intend using the same rolling road
for all your future tuning, as each new run should be reasonably
comparable to the last, allowing you to see what gains your modifications
have made. However, as we never had this M3 tested on any of the
following rollers while the engine was in original spec, it's hard to put
an exact figure on the gains made.
To illustrate the point here's the print out's from the 3 rolling roads the car
has been on to date..........
rollers A: max bhp = 265
: max torque = 188

rollers B: max bhp = 258
: max torque = 234

rollers C: max bhp = 252
: max torque = 191

So depending on whether your a glass half full, glass half empty, or a fuck
the glass gimme the whole bottle, type of guy, we seem to have made a
gain of between 55 to 65 horse power over the standard 195bhp engine
the car started with.
The truth of the matter is, for me, max bhp figures are for car magazines
and tv motoring programes, they tell you very little about how an engine
feels like to drive.
Since the bulk of the engine tuning has been completed (still some small
bit's to tidy up), I've wasted no opportunity in clocking up as many miles
as I can behind the wheel.
To date I've managed a little over 9000km and I absolutely love the engine.
It pulls reasonably well from low down, which is handy in everyday traffic,
but find a clear stretch of road and leave the boot sunk a little longer and
the engine really comes alive.
The sound of the airbox alone makes every bit of hardship and hard earned
(borrowed) money spent on nailing this engine together worthwhile.
It truely is a crying shame that theres no (relatively speaking) "cheap" way
of going about fitting an airbox to these engines (when you add up the price
of the box itself, the stand alone or piggy back ecu required to dump the
airflow meter and the rolling road time required to dial in the correct fuel
and/or ignition settings). That being said, for me anyway, the induction
sound the airbox has added to the car is without doubt my single favorite
modificaton of the whole build.
Theres a beautiful change in tone when the engine heads north of 5000rpm
and for a brief moment your in your own little tarmac rally,
right up untill you spot the white van parked up ahead and have a brief shite
attack while you wonder if it's a Gatso van taking a Kodak moment of you
and your little pride and joy to accompany the fine and 3 penalty points for
speeding.
I'm going to leave it at that for now. For the final update I'm trying my best
to get some decent pic's of the finished car, and, if I can manage not to
electrocute myself with the camcorder I'll try and take a quick vid of the
car in motion that doesn't look as if it was shot with an electric tootbrush.
Till then.........
engine rebuild?
Well it appears we did, exactly how many is a little hard to say.
You may or may not already know this, but the simple fact is rolling
road read outs from different places are practically impossible to
compare.
This doesn't matter to much if you intend using the same rolling road
for all your future tuning, as each new run should be reasonably
comparable to the last, allowing you to see what gains your modifications
have made. However, as we never had this M3 tested on any of the
following rollers while the engine was in original spec, it's hard to put
an exact figure on the gains made.
To illustrate the point here's the print out's from the 3 rolling roads the car
has been on to date..........
rollers A: max bhp = 265
: max torque = 188

rollers B: max bhp = 258
: max torque = 234

rollers C: max bhp = 252
: max torque = 191

So depending on whether your a glass half full, glass half empty, or a fuck
the glass gimme the whole bottle, type of guy, we seem to have made a
gain of between 55 to 65 horse power over the standard 195bhp engine
the car started with.
The truth of the matter is, for me, max bhp figures are for car magazines
and tv motoring programes, they tell you very little about how an engine
feels like to drive.
Since the bulk of the engine tuning has been completed (still some small
bit's to tidy up), I've wasted no opportunity in clocking up as many miles
as I can behind the wheel.
To date I've managed a little over 9000km and I absolutely love the engine.
It pulls reasonably well from low down, which is handy in everyday traffic,
but find a clear stretch of road and leave the boot sunk a little longer and
the engine really comes alive.
The sound of the airbox alone makes every bit of hardship and hard earned
(borrowed) money spent on nailing this engine together worthwhile.
It truely is a crying shame that theres no (relatively speaking) "cheap" way
of going about fitting an airbox to these engines (when you add up the price
of the box itself, the stand alone or piggy back ecu required to dump the
airflow meter and the rolling road time required to dial in the correct fuel
and/or ignition settings). That being said, for me anyway, the induction
sound the airbox has added to the car is without doubt my single favorite
modificaton of the whole build.
Theres a beautiful change in tone when the engine heads north of 5000rpm
and for a brief moment your in your own little tarmac rally,
right up untill you spot the white van parked up ahead and have a brief shite
attack while you wonder if it's a Gatso van taking a Kodak moment of you
and your little pride and joy to accompany the fine and 3 penalty points for
speeding.
I'm going to leave it at that for now. For the final update I'm trying my best
to get some decent pic's of the finished car, and, if I can manage not to
electrocute myself with the camcorder I'll try and take a quick vid of the
car in motion that doesn't look as if it was shot with an electric tootbrush.
Till then.........
Last edited by x-works on Mon Dec 03, 2012 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- Royalratch
- E30 Zone Addict
- Posts: 4921
- Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2006 11:00 pm
- Location: London
Damn. The end of an era.
-
- Married to the E30 Zone
- Posts: 9757
- Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2005 11:00 pm
- Location: With Ceiling cat, watching you masturbate.
Cliffs on thread please?
Park up, take assunder, rebuild, fill with petrol, drive.
- dirtee-herbert
- E30 Zone Regular
- Posts: 327
- Joined: Sat Apr 23, 2011 11:00 pm
- Location: Keighley, West Yorkshire.
Just read this whole thread
(Took me almost 4 day on and off)
I'm amazed at your work, I'm sure the cars a real credit to ya.
Inspiring stuff, more info than any manual I've ever read.
(Took me almost 4 day on and off)
I'm amazed at your work, I'm sure the cars a real credit to ya.
Inspiring stuff, more info than any manual I've ever read.
-
- E30 Zone Addict
- Posts: 3685
- Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:00 pm
Go away and read the whole thread properly this time. Then come back and explain how this car is comparable to a 'standard M3'...Tanveer wrote:she shines like glass, well worth it, and probably easily worth the 20k-30k some dealers flog a standard M3 for, just my opinion.

i have just sat and almost read this whole thing and all i have to say is bloody well done than man, attention to deal and time and effort put in is massive.
im currently wanting to change the roof skin on my track slag but iv been putting it off for a rainy day haha.
thumbs up my good man. (that sounded weird)
im currently wanting to change the roof skin on my track slag but iv been putting it off for a rainy day haha.
thumbs up my good man. (that sounded weird)

6pot wilwoods front
4pot Porsche rear
89 E30 stripped running a 6speed V8
Twin Turbo M60 in progress