Today's mapping

[Turbo-Brown]

Well, good and bad news really:

HUGE thanks to Ant for making the trip down to mine for the day!

We started off by rigging Ant's WBO2 sensor up to the car and giving the Emerald an output from the sensor. For some reason though, the Emerald threw a wobbler and started showing the throttle as being 97% open, even when it was closed.

So that problem was easily solved once we'd spotted it.

Went out for a drive and under certain circumstances, it wasn't too bad. Pulling away with some revs on and slipping the clutch wasn't a problem, but anything more sedate like engaging the clutch and then pressing the pedal caused some pretty violent lurching, no power and some pant brownage

Hills were also a problem so after a bit we went back home for coffee and a think.

Ant spotted that the MAP sensor was randomly subtracting fuel from the whole map depending on inlet vacuum which would explain why it was lean one second, and seemingly with the same speed and throttle position, it was massively rich the next, so all these settings were put to 0 and the new map loaded into the brain.

Started it up to do some work on the no load sites and see what's what, but after a couple of mins it started choking, exhausty smelling smoke started billowing out of the engine bay and it started running like a sack o' shite

Ant tries pulling plug leads to see if it's a sparking problem and sure enough, cyl5 isn't playing ball.

All the plugs come out, all are black, dry and sooty barring 5 which is black and piss-wet through. There's definately something wrong with cyl5 as it seems to pump more fuel out of the inlet than it takes in.

Anyway, plugs all cleaned up and back in, we start it up again but it's still running like crap (even after we've trimmed about 20% of the fuel out of the map) but this time the problem seems to be that the ECU reckons the throttle's half open!

Much head scratching later, we test the sensor with a multimeter and sure enough, it's buggered, giving a reading of about 1/2 the overall value it's capable of giving. To make matters worse, it's tucked away at the back of the head and removing it requires removing the rear set of throttles

SO, plan is to ignore that TPS and fit a new one where it can be more easily accessed.

What a bummer! Still, it's a move in the right direction now that the cause of the seemingly random timing and fueling alterations have been eliminated.

Have to say I'm hugely envious of Ant's extremely professional looking installation! If you just didn't know what you were looking at, you'd swear it left the factory like it! Then, there's the kick in the arse it gives! I've gone through two sets of underwear today due to E30s!

[glenn]

at least you've found the problem mate, now it's just a matter of fixing it, good luck.

[Jon_Bmw]

Cool now you know what at least one of the problems is now. That cylinder 5 plug problem sounds like a pain in the arse though. Good work FI boyos

Ant, what a legend driving quite a way i think to help a fellow turbo nutter, good effort.

[Ant]

Well, what a day, full of ups and downs

no idea what happened to that TPS though, V odd indeed, still, rough with the smooth etc.

As usual it seems we took a few steps forward and one back, but overall progrees has been made and next time we'll have nothing but good to report back

Cheers
for the Coffee Alex, ( and mum) gimme a shout once the to do list is empty again and I'll wing my way down again.

Nice to meet you and your folks Alex, cheers M8 turbo brown will rise soon !

[Turbo-Brown]

Aah, just been onto the RS website and after much searching, I've found this type under rotary position sensors.

By the looks of it, it's operating temperature range is -40deg to +130deg.

Now I remember seeing 110deg on the screen not long before we started pulling the plug leads off so I wonder if it didn't just cook in the heat, as the head was bloody hot and there's a coolant pipe just underneath where the sensor was mounted.

Sounds vaguely plausible to me anyway

Can't thank you enough for coming down Ant (and getting electric shocks from my car)!

[gareth]

glad to hear it's coming along.

would a simple aluminium heat shield fit near the sensor to stop radiated heat? or you culd try some thermal lagging stuff from demon tweeks?

my M30 is alive! though with no coolant, gearbox oil, prop, exhaust etc etc etc but it's alive!

we'll have to have a tally of of mad conversions on here soon when they're all done... there's a lot of mad E30s nearly built around the zone

[Turbo-Brown]

Waaahey! Not long to go now Gareth

Think where the TPS is at the moment, there's no escaping the heat really

It's bolted directly to an ali plate which in turn's bolted to a throttle body plate which is bolted to the head, so it's almost getting cooked from the inside.

Unfortunately it's also completely inaccessable so the dead one can stay there and the new one can go ontop of the cam cover where it's cooler and easier to get to

[Andy335Touring]

What about trying Emerald for a new TPS ?

http://emeraldm3d.com/em_pricing.html

[Turbo-Brown]

Picked one up from a mate yesterday (who's Emerald we're half way through installing) so I'm about to start attaching it to the new bracket.

Quite chuffed with it actually, made it some bronze bushes and everything!

[lentec]

Getting there then alex!

Wasnt it cyl No5 you was worried about spitting back? as a leaky/sticky injector will cause a wet plug?

My E30s now got a SORN on it
Until i find time between moving home, having a baby, fixing mates car, work,ect,ect.....

Soon as we start getting daylight in the evenings will get it done!

[Turbo-Brown]

Yeah it was cyl 5 that was doing funny things.

Really need to whip all the injectors out and see what they're up to, got one spare injector to try, mabey it'll smooth things out a bit too as it is pretty shaky at idle!

Is there much left to do before you're motoring again Len?

It's really wierd that pretty much the same map works for you but causes funny readings on mine.

[lentec]

Think the difference may be somthing to do with the 2.7 and constant boost!?

What needs doing:
Change rockershaft (again!) this time mesure it before fitting it.
Check cam at the same time if needed swop it for a spare 2.3 i have.
Change the oil & filter.
Tack new stainless bends for intake pipe (air filter side).

Does not sound a lot but to get to the rocker shaft involves taking off the supercharger and brackets radiator all intake pipes cambelt ect.

Ok ive done all this before but its getting time to do it. will see how this week falls together.

[Turbo-Brown]

Hooray!

The weekend's work in pictures!


The new throttle bracket (showing one of the bronze bushes I'm so proud of)


And the bracket with new TPS (thanks miamistu)

[Andy335Touring]

Nice work there mate, i wish i could some of the fabrication/engineering of parts like you, it would be handy(see below).

Have you tried to fire your car up with the new TPS ?

Talking of TPS.........

I've got to convert this (looks a bit like a flate blade screw driver) TPS spindle to the normal "D" shape to match my TPS or is there another TPS i can use ?

Dodgy picture time

[Turbo-Brown]

Think if I were doing that one, I'd make up a plate with a big hole in the middle for the spindle to pass through, and which bolts to those conveniently threaded holes.

Then make up a spindle adaptor which slots over part of the round shaft, has a slot in it to take drive from the flat, and then has the D on the end of the Emerald TPS.

And seeing as how I well and truely owe you one for keeping your air flow gizmo for so bloody long, can I give you a hand with making the necessary bits Andy?

[Andy335Touring]

can I give you a hand with making the necessary bits Andy?

Yes please mate, the help would be most welcome !!

I've got a little off cut of 20mm thick aly plate that i could make into a plate to fit on to the TB like you were saying, what i wouldn't be able to do is to make the little adapter thing ?

I'm not to sure exactly what shape the adapter would need to be but i've took some measurements to hope fully make things a little more clear ?



Sorry this is taking your thread O/T

[Andy335Touring]

Oh i forgot to say the measurements arn't going to be 100% accurate as my battery is dead in my digital calipers

[Turbo-Brown]

Hokey doke, how far out does the spindle stick from that machined face and how thick a bit of metal to mount the TPS on do you have?

The emerald TPS thing seems to take about a 15mm long D section from it's flat mounting face so ideally the screwdriver bit of the spindle on the TB there needs to be recessed a couple of mm under the plate to give us enough room to get from the 10mmdia shaft to the necessary 8mm

[Andy335Touring]

Hokey doke, how far out does the spindle stick from that machined face

The spindle sticks out 6mm from the machined face.

and how thick a bit of metal to mount the TPS on do you have?

I've got an off cut of 20mm thick aly plate to use if you think it's OK ?

[Turbo-Brown]

Sounds good to me, I'll knock up a drawing tonight just so we can double check dims and things

[Andy335Touring]

Top man, cheers Alex

[Turbo-Brown]

Right, I've assumed that the flat on the spindle (blue) is about 10mm deep.

The idea is that the salmony coloured bit is a press fit over the green bit and has a 10mm ID so that it slips over the spindle and keeps everything nice and central.

The slot in the green bit locates on the flat of the spindle, and then has translates to the 8mm dia shaft with 6mm 'D' that the TPS in orange needs

Will knock one up at the weekend and pop it in the box when I send the gizmo back

EDIT> Helps if I attach the piccy doesn't it

[gareth]

nice...

makes me wish my tightarse boss would pay for the assembly part of the solid edge license. i'd have to model that in one part file, i can't assemble things.

i love 3d modelling, everything i make for my cars get made in 3d first!

[Turbo-Brown]

did that in AutoCAD.

I've been learning SolidWorks, but thought it'd be easier and quicker to stick with what I know well (ACAD). What a pile of poop! Would've taken about 1/2 the time in SW, even with my basic understanding of it!

Never really got to grips with solidedge, though I was talking to a mate of mine who owns a precision engineering company last week about it. Think we must both be missing something as we both found/find it a bit of a pain in the bum

[Andy335Touring]

That looks bloody excelent, thanks a lot !!

Are you an engineer/designer by trade ?

Right, I've assumed that the flat on the spindle (blue) is about 10mm deep.

I don't know if it will make much differance but the flat bit is 8mm

[gareth]

i've moved from autocad LT (at a former employer) to solid edge V14 (current employer and home). i've tried a few others and find solid edge to be brilliant. it behaves a lot more like my designing brain thinks!

[Turbo-Brown]

Cheers Andy It says 'Project Designer' on my cards, but I'm really just a draughtsman.

We generally do glazed structures (check out the new weighing in room at Ascot when it's finished )

I'll knock a couple of mm off the slotted bit and that should hopefully fit nicely then

Gareth, guess our problems stemmed from the fact that we were trying to get things into Solidedge from ACAD which it couldn't do at the time so we had to convert things to DXF format

Ain't 3D great!

[e30_Turbo]

I did a C&G in Autocad at college, release 12 & 13 if I remember right, aprox 10yrs ago! ooops that long

Very jelous you guys get to use it on your "hobby" time aswell, Although you still can't beat a good old scribble on a fag packet for speed

Alex, did you get round to working out the flow rates of the M20B25?
I ask as my turbo efficiency is being called into question and I need to do some maths on it.

And does ANYONE know where I can get a SSteel exhaust made and fitted? NO-ONE around here uses TIG and so no-one wants to weld in some centre pipes for me, MOT is due soon and it needs doing asap.

Mark.

[Turbo-Brown]

I didn't work them out in the end no, would be interesting to actually measure one if we could.

If we could get a standard 2.5 with AFM and find out what resistance values equate to what air flow and do a datalog we'd be laughing.

The only calcs I've done assume that the engine has a Volumetric Efficiency of 85% which is a bit of a stab in the dark really.

What is it that you need welding Mark? I can do MIG on stainless, although I'd probably think twice about making another full system

[e30_Turbo]

I didn't work them out in the end no, would be interesting to actually measure one if we could.

If we could get a standard 2.5 with AFM and find out what resistance values equate to what air flow and do a datalog we'd be laughing.

The only calcs I've done assume that the engine has a Volumetric Efficiency of 85% which is a bit of a stab in the dark really.

What is it that you need welding Mark? I can do MIG on stainless, although I'd probably think twice about making another full system

I'll see what info I can put together re the flow rates, I think I've seen the info somewhere...google time.....

Welding wise, well ideally I'd like to cut out the centre box, manifold end needs cutting, bbox end is normal clamps. Then bend and fit some straight through pipes to replace the centre box, poss some spots on the manifold and downpipe but nothing major.
Everyone here keeps putting Ԛ£400 prices on about 4m of ssteel and a few hours work. If only I had a welder, could weld and somewhere to do it too.

Ramps, the tools and a day free I'd have a go myself but times starting to close in on me now.

Any further progress with yours? That Tps bracket is awesome.

[Turbo-Brown]

Bloody hell! Ԛ£400's a bit steep! Can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure I made my whole system (inc manifolds) for less than that!

Gonna bung the bracket back on first thing tomorrow (then make that adaptor for Andy) and cross everything that it works!

Gotta change injector 5 too and see if it makes things run a bit better, might be an idea to test them all properly too if I can think of a way.

I've got a pump and a 4cyl fuel rail and regulator kicking about, guess it's not all that wise to use anything other than petrol though through all the bits. Mmmmmm, dangerous!

[gareth]

Gareth, guess our problems stemmed from the fact that we were trying to get things into Solidedge from ACAD which it couldn't do at the time so we had to convert things to DXF format

Ain't 3D great!

3D rules!!!

i admit, the achilles heel of solid edge it translating to other formats. even importing 2D autocad dwg's or dxf's is frought with problems. often arrowheads end up several metres long and completely hide the drawing!

Very jelous you guys get to use it on your "hobby" time aswell, Although you still can't beat a good old scribble on a fag packet for speed

believe it or not, i can actually lay out and design something from scratch a lot quicker in 3D! once you can drive the program efficiently, it's a lot closer to how your brain works (well, mine anyway! ). if i need a part, i picture what i need in 3D so it makes sense to design that way, it takes more (brain) processing power to think of it all in several 2D views, that can only be done after the mornings 5th cup of coffee!

ooppsssss, off topic!

[Turbo-Brown]

Anyhoo, back on topic

Took the injectors and fuel rail off today to see if there might be something wrong with the injector for cyl5.

Dug out the fuel pump I've got for the GT6 and rigged the whole lot up using the old tank from the Triumph, 6 jam jars and the standard fuel rail.

Also made up a little loom from bits left over from the original 325i wiring so that all the injectors could be fired at exactly the same time.

So, set the pump going and nothing looked amiss, so I fired the injectors for a bit to see if they all flowed the same amount, which they did pretty much exactly

Had another go but this time looked a bit more closely at the spray patterns, which all looked to be much the same as eachother. However, when I switched the injectors off, No. 5 kept on dribbling fuel out! Not a massive amount, but not an insignificant amount either!

As luck would have it, I had another injector kicking about which, when tested, flowed the same amount of fuel as all the others so I really hopeful that it might run a little more smoothly at idle now that it's not getting great gobs of fuel into one cylinder!

Also mounted the new TPS and bracket and have reset the throttle pot alignment in the software so that it now goes from 0%.....to 100%, and then back again

Also found a probable cause of the overheating that caused the old TPS to melt, a blade on the fan had melted and sagged forward into the rad! Can't have done the viscous coupling any good spinning with the fan stopped!

[Andy335Touring]

A very productive day there by the sounds of it mate

I was stuck doing domestic chores today

Is the car running any better with the new TPS set up and the change of the duff injector ?

[Turbo-Brown]

Must admit I haven't tried it yet, still need to reconnect the lambda sensor so that I can start it up and quickly remove some fuel as it's WAAAAY rich at idle now that the MAP sensor isn't subtracting fuel based on inlet vacuum.

Anyway, it's raining now so I'm gonna make that little adaptor thing