|
after already owning a e30 bmw i always wanted another that i would drop a powerful motor into. having done recent work with dsm and lancer evo engines i decided the 4G63 is the engine of choice.
i bought an '84 325e that is in great condition.
it runs great, interior is clean, and the body is clean.
to do: i bought a 82-85 toyota supra non-turbo trans (W58-model) on ebay and picked it up in beloit, wi. i got the full clutch assembly with it. it didn't come with the shift lever or slave cylinder, though. it sounds like this trans can take 300-400hp and anything more than that is risking destruction. i bought an engine from a non-turbo '90 eclipse. it was cheap and local. this way i can continue with the project using this engine without having to spend 5 times as much on the turbo engine. i will do that when i am sure this whole project is going to work. there is a guy in ohio that created a bell housing to adapt the 4g63 to the W58. he is having 100 made and will be selling them. the parts to use with this bell housing are: toyota slave cylinder, mitsubishi flywheel, not sure about pp and disc. the toyota trans came without a shift lever, but i found one at a junkyard and saved some money over buying from ebay. the throttle body, mounted as it normally is, would be right against the firewall when turning the engine. even if there were enough room to work in the intake plumbing it would most likely be an airflow restriction. the fix is to move it to the other side of the intake manifold. then, block off the opening where it normally mounts. i used a hacksaw to cut the new mount/opening. then i sanded and further prepared the surface for welding by removing the aluminum's oxide layer with a stainless wire brush. i ordered a 1/2" thick piece of aluminum from metals depot. i drilled and tapped the 4 mounting holes for the throttle body. then, i used a metal/wood hole saw to create a 2.5" hole in the center. to weld i used a torch, mapp gas, and aluminum rods. it isn't as pretty as tig welding, but i was able to do it myself rather than counting on a shop to do it. the iac (idle air control) module is what allows a car run at higher rpms when starting from cold. the colder the weather the more useful this part is, but even in the summer it's useful for the first few minutes of starting a cold engine. the iac that is found in dsm's and lancer evo throttle bodies is called a stepper motor. it's the same type of motor that allows a printer's ink cartridge to move back and forth, accurately arriving at the right spot on the piece of paper. the version of megasquirt that i am building doesn't support this type of motor so i am blocking off the iac ports on the underside of the throttle body. instead of using the stepper motor i will use a fast switching valve that is controlled by pwm (pulse-width modulation) to bypass the throttle body. this type of iac is supported by the megasquirt and worked quite well in my turbo mustang project (ford uses this type of valve from the factory). so, anyways, i had a bosch valve sitting around from my previous bmw that i was able to mount to the rear of the intake manifold. there is already a barb in this area that i plugged it in to. it mounts up pretty well! i got the bmw engine out and have the dsm engine hanging in the bay. i assembled a megasquirt that i had sitting around. i still have to do mods to it to correctly interpret the cam/crank position signals as well as signal the coil packs. nothing difficult. since i'm waiting for the bell housing i went ahead and began wiring up the engine.
the last picture is of the valve train to an engine that the junkyard tried to sell me. their system said it ran ok when they received it. despite their strict refund policy i was still able to get my money back. connecting all the engine's sensors to the megasquirt using the jig i created during the evo project. so far so good... the tps, clt, fp relay, injectors, and cam/crank angle sensors all work. still have to wire in and test the coil pack ciruits. today i received my bell housing from Bill Hincher. i am extremely happy with how it looks and fits. if you're looking to rwd your 4g63 look no further. now, to find the rest of the clutch parts i need: mitsu: i made this shifter extension. random photo update. here is the first of two motor mounts. it is mostly 1/4"-thick steel with 3/8" for the plate that mounts directly onto the engine. i ran out of steel and didn't finish the other mount. i finished the second motor mount and the engine is now supporting itself. since i am making the trans crossmember i needed to find some bushings and came across this ebay store for urethane materials. eventually i will replace the crappy rubber motor mounts with urethane. the center of the flywheel has been machined to fit the toyota pilot bearing. i had the machining done by Nick at Mik Tool & Die in wauconda, il. here are the modifications made to the head in order to reverse the coolant flow from the rear to the front. after much research and forum-browsing i found a lot of good info from the project zero g forums--mostly thanks to Bill Hincher. since the mitsu thermostat is bolted directly to the rear of the head i had to find an alternate, more universal, solution to controlling the coolant flow. i remembered having to replace the thermostat in my 318i back in the day and i recalled it being completely independant of the engine and radiator so it could be used in any application with some clever plumbing. i ordered one from bavauto and it looks like it will work well when i get around to the plumbing portion of the project. also shown is a shot of the stock piston and the crappy rubber motor mount i mentioned in the previous update. since the engine is turned the original water pump inlet plumbing doesn't make sense. i guess i got lucky by finding a piece of copper pipe with a 90 degree bend at home depot with an OD very close to the ID of the water pump. all i had to do was decrease the OD a little in order to get a good fit. i brazed it on using the aluminum rods. adding barbs for the turbo and heater core will be easy. here are some shots showing the difference between 6-bolt pistons. the one on the left is the 7.8:1-compression turbo and on the right is the 9.0:1 non-turbo. the rods (not shown) are the same between them. while i am still working on the cooling system i also began building the exhaust. cutting relatively thin metal like this is a nice change after making the motor and trans mounts. this is as far as i got; still not sure how i'm going to route the 3" tubing under the car and i hope it doesn't hang too low. on my day off i finished welding the o2 housing / downpipe combo. also shown is the routing of the exhaust pipe-straight under the car. i still have to get more tube to finish the rear section. the flange that i used makes removing the downpipe very easy. after i got the exhaust as far finished as i could with the material on hand i relocated the relays and began upgrading the fuel pump wiring. i am going with 10 gauge wire in place of what appears to be 18 gauge. i have read that 255lph fuel pumps don't like to be starved of electrical current. intercooler mounted. full 3" exhaust without a cat, for now. muffler is a dynomax 17769 "super turbo" which is very quiet, but supposedly flows like a straight-thru, ricer, coffee can. here's the custom driveshaft that Bill Hincher made for me. i sent off a toyota shaft and a bmw shaft and i got back this combination of the two. the welding is absolutely amazing! i finished running the silicone and aluminum tubing from the turbo to the intake. the first time i ever did this and it's kinda fun... like building something out of tinker toys, i suppose. evo III 16g turbo. here are all the megasquirt "mods" i've done so far. i labeled some of them. some of the ones not listed include a fuel/boost/ignition-table switch that allows me to change to a different set of pre-programmed tables at the flip of a switch, cam angle sensor input, crank angle sensor input, and radiator fan control. other features i may add are launch control, flat shift, and possibly anti-lag. all of these operate off of the clutch pedal switch. new turbo and custom hoses installed. transmission crossmember. i started the car and ran it for 20 minutes and declared the cooling system to be working. the radiator fan is set to come on at 200 and turn off at 190. the thermostat appears to open around 200 degrees and the coolant temp is always betwen 190 and 200 so this seems good to me. after running the car i noticed the timing belt was very loose so i ordered a new timing belt and tensioner. as of this update i'm waiting for these parts to arrive. here's a shot of the alternator moved to the other side of the engine. this is perfect for rwd. i drove the car around for a total of about 50 miles, but due to coolant leaks i pulled the head off for resurfacing and a valve job at the machine shop. i got arp head studs and a metal head gasket waiting for the head to be installed once again. i can't wait! can you see the massive gas leak in the driveway? for the front air dam i will cover up the intercooler piping with black plastic. the opening on the drivers side has been trimmed up already, but i still need to put the plastic plate behind it. the paint i used on the air dam was some cheap plastic paint from the hardware store, but it matches pretty well! i also re-did the exhaust pipe in the area of the trans crossmember because it was banging when taking off in first gear. i got the head back on and the engine is running a lot better. the fuel maps are pretty close to being tuned, but i probably need to change the ignition maps. it definitely accelerates smoothly and has good power. i pulled the diff which lead to ordering a used (but in great condition) 3.73 limited slip diff to take over for the 2.79 open diff. the diff i ordered is setup for an e28 5-series so i have to transfer over the rear cover and axle flanges which is really very easy to do. the reason i pulled the diff in the first place was to remove the trans in order to put clips or something onto the throwout bearing in order to attach it to the clutch fork. the reason i have to pull the diff in order to pull the trans is because of how the driveshaft is setup. also, while i'm at it i re-routed the coolant exit hoses. i haven't tested it out yet, but it should work better than what i had before at the cost of exposing more coolant pipe/hose. who cares? it's going to work better! and be easier to work on! i also re-did the downpipe because the wastegate portion wasn't flowing well enough and caused uncontrollable boost creep. yet another thing, the trans was leaking from either the shifter extension or the rear main seal. i'm replacing the gasket for the rear main seal as well as making a gasket for the shifter extension housing. it can't leak now. some pics of my JM Fabrications custom RWD aluminum intake manifold. this is so nice looking that it's going to sit in my living room for a few days before i put it on the car. the intake manifold didn't fit very well with the stock e30 brake booster, but this isn't very surprising since the booster is very large. the diameter wasn't really the problem, but the width. after researching i found people fitting the geo metro brake booster (made by aisin) to their firewall when doing certain engine swaps with the e30. stock booster width = 4.5", aisin booster = 3". now i have to find a decent brake master cylinder that bolts to the booster. first i am going to try a master from a 96-2000 civic which has a 20.6 mm bore. the bmw master has a 20 mm bore. hopefully the fittings are the same thread or else i'll probably end up running new brake piping. also, i will have to find fittings to remote-mount the fluid reservoir since there's no room to fit it atop the master. to get the intake manifold to fit i had to cut the runners and re-join them with 45-degree silicone elbows. i think it looks kinda cool. unfortunately i will probably have to replace the radiator with a different inlet/outlet configuration because the inlet hose (top of the radiator) gets in the way of the intake hose right at the throttle body. all this just to have boosted brakes... a shot of the new coil pack mount and another of the brake booster, master cylinder, and custom brake lines. while i was at the junk yard a few weeks ago, checking out all the dsm's and e30's i could find, i noticed that the water outlet on the "rear" of the sohc head would work much better for rwd. the brakes are all ready to go. the only thing i'm waiting on right now is the water pump that i'm having a local shop weld for me. finally, i got the whole thing back together. i drove it around about 5 times today and never had any leaks. the newly welded water pump had 2 pinhole leaks that i used jb-weld (plus fiberglass) to repair. i'm also happy to report that the brakes work great! the pedal is on the firm side, but that's because the civic m/c bore is 7/8" (22.2mm) and the original bmw m/c is 20mm. having the larger m/c will keep the door open for a caliper upgrade down the road. sohc. well, it's been a while since i last updated so i'm going to list out the stuff i've done:
i haven't been doing much since winter made my garage cold, but i did manage to get a little done. i'm re-doing the entire engine wiring harness and making a relay mount. so far i've gotten the mock-up done out of cardboard, but will quickly finish when the aluminum sheet shows up. also, i found that the stock fuel rail could be tapped for 3/8" npt fittings so i am upgrading to AN fittings where possible. i've added an adjustable fuel pressure regulator, too. i'm keeping an eye open for a deal on some lightly used 650-700cc injectors to completely finish out the fueling system. i began removing the suspension since i have new shocks/springs coming. while i have the suspension torn apart i thought i'd tackle some brackets to fit the rx-7 turbo II calipers. i took some pics to compare the calipers - kinda makes the bmw calipers look like rear's. the relay mounting bracket is mostly finished. i still need to better route and contain the wiring. suspension goodies came in. i had to get a newer driver side strut tube because the original was way too rusty to even remove the strut retaining colar. the cabrio front sway bar is 21mm versus the 18.5mm of the 325e. i didn't bother now, but may switch to the m3 swaybar mounting tabs which would be welded onto the strut tubes. to be able to use the standard e30 brake lines, which use a bubble flare, a copper fitting has to be removed from the rx7 caliper. the rx7 caliper uses a standard inverted flare when the copper fitting is in place and works with bubble flare when removed. i enlarged the hole in the copper fitting slightly and ran a 8-32 unc tap into it. then pulled out the fitting using the tap. it works great... just gotta remove all the copper debris from the inside of the cylinder. here's the bracket, created out of .625" x 1.25" T3 aluminum. i decided to make an all new oil pan. i found a local metal shop that i got 14 gauge mild steel from. i got the pan all welded up and tested it for leaks by sealing and pumping it full of air. i had to fix about 8 leaks. since i wasn't going to put it on the car yet i decided to put oil in it as another leak test. this test is nice because it's happening while i do other stuff. and it makes use of this old oil i have sitting around. i have just under 8 quarts of oil in the pan, but have it filled a bit more than normal. i'm guessing it'll hold about 6.5-7 quarts of oil, but i'll know for sure later. the oilpan is about 4.5" off the ground. not sure if this is too low or what. from searching i see some of the swapped e30's end up being as low as 2.5-3" off the ground. i can always hack the bottom off and change the height if it becomes a problem, but i think it'll be ok. i bet it's still higher than my integra. i started questioning whether additional stress would be put on the exhaust manifold studs (and the aluminum head) by having the turbo flipped around. by flipping the turbo around it's now further away from the head and is going to better be able to leverage its weight. once these thoughts set in i knew i'd have to create a brace or my mind would never be at ease. the brace is tubular steel and connects to the turbo as shown while the other end is bolted to the bottom/side of the block. this should do just fine. |
