EvanB wrote: Is camping allowed at Summit Point? I just checked the distance and it is only 6.5 hours from me. Not too bad if I decided to make a weekend out of it and come down for an event.
If you are able to get in early enough on Saturday (before they shut the gate) I have seen people camping out before.
So Shawn I hear a rumor that you might put your carpet back in and move to PR next year? Trying to re-class for nationals or something (since you're obviously winning MR pretty easily)?
Also that Roberto may bump UP to MR in his RX with Gorka driving the rally Audi next year.
There is a good chance my car will have the carpet back in next year. What car/class I will be running is hard to say. But having it completely legal for PR would leave some options open.
Of course another thought is just strip everything out of it and go completely MR 
Ok, so here we go. After opening up the timing chain case I decided what the hell, let's just do a full refresh now while I'm in here....
So off comes the head!
Now let's look at some points of interest:
Valves....pretty gross
now cleaned up somewhat
cylinder heads were even worse. Took me a couple hours of scrubbing and cleaning to get them nice.
Cylinders look pretty good though.
after
now to look at the infamous M42 timing case issues:
profile gasket is definitely getting some coolant back behind it.
and coolant passageway pretty gnarly as well
but unlike others I've seen, it's not a bad casting or eaten away much, so that's good
on the other side no pitting either
lower timing case needs a good cleaning
staging for more work, gotta order some things
also washed the subie and didn't wash the e30 :)
That engine looks pretty good! I think you have a winner.
I'll get my Spitfire build thread started up here in the next day or so, so that you can see what your old bullet mirrors are going onto.
Press on...
Winston wrote: That engine looks pretty good! I think you have a winner. I'll get my Spitfire build thread started up here in the next day or so, so that you can see what your old bullet mirrors are going onto. Press on...
excellent! I just put the GT6 in the back shed to give myself garage room to do this and other projects, so that may be it for the car for the nice season. I didn't really drive it much as I've been so intent on the e30 and the few things left on the GT6 are things that are either major pain in the ass or $$$ cost. So if I can get this swap all sorted in the next few months, I'll bring the GT6 back into the garage and do some winter work on it perhaps.
I defeintely need the inspiration your thread could provide!
per Spencer Sheckells, a "broshot" to prove I'm actually doing some work and not just on the internet all night. Yes, in a white t-shirt working in the garage. This won't end well.
so got a couple things in the mail today. This after bailing out of work to play in a charity golf tournament with a buddy and my uncle (who, incidentally, has a truly excellent BMW 2002).
if you haven't figured it out yet, black is kind of my color haha...
now, on to the mail..... the first, you probably won't be interested in but I am pretty excited about.
the second, is the rest of the crap that I need to put this engine back together (other than a few remaining timing components that I need).
So, the plan will be to do just that this weekend. New HG, head bolts, a few random gaskets and seals I forgot to get last order, new water pump (with metal impeller), and front crank seal.
I know there have been some complaints about the Victor Reintz head gaskets here and there (and 10x as many people who have used them with no problem) but they seem mostly on 6-cyl cars and mostly with guys who are boosted. And as we all know on the internet, if 5 people have a problem with something they will post it 1000 times and convince 1000 others that that thing is "bad," whereas if the other 95 people don't have a problem with that same thing, they won't post about it....because nobody posts about something that is working corectly :) So, the VR head gasket is half the price of OEM so will give it a go and see what happens. This isn't my daily driver so if I need to re-do it, that's not a big deal.
I also plan to use copper sealant on it, which I think will alleviate any possibility of minor outside leaks (which I don't think will be an issue anyhow on a stock-power M42).
So...more when I do more...
irish44j wrote: per Spencer Sheckells, a "broshot" to prove I'm actually doing some work and not just on the internet all night. Yes, in a white t-shirt working in the garage. This won't end well.
Are you Ben Affleck's stunt double?
LOOOOL
funny, never gotten that one. I always get Mike Mussina (former Orioles/Yankees pitcher) and several friends' wives always say "young George Clooney" (which I don't see at all, but it's good so I'll take it anyways :) )
Finally got everything prepped enough to do the HG. Since this is the budget/beater car I really didn't feel like having the head skimmed, but my engineering edge showed that the head is flush and smooth, no signs of warping so I'm not real worried about it (famous last words).
Prepped the head gasket with copper make-a-seal spray so it will take care of any surface imperfections (none that I saw) and seal better.
fitted, with new timing case and profile seals
got the head on and torqued everything down to the specified torque + 90 + 90 degrees. On the last turn some of the head bolts felt tighter than others, but I guess I'll just trust the method rather than my arms. Should I re-torque to a higher value?
That done, I drove out the old crankshaft seal on the timing case and put a new one in using the wood-and-hammer method :)
So on to the water pump. When removing the old pump one of the bolts had sheared off in the hole (or it was already broken by the p/o, not sure), which is pretty inconvenient.
So I drilled it out and re-tapped for an M8 bolt (vice M6)....pretty easy in the aluminum anyhow.
no problemo. Fit the water pump. lubed the seal to help it in, and then started slowly tightening the three bolts (cross-pattern) to seat it. Unfortunately, even with minimal force, the housing cracked. This really pisses me off, honestly. The amount of force being put on the bolts evenly was truly minimal (using a little 1/4-drive ratchet!), and the housing casting should be strong enough to overcome the o-ring resistance, especially when lubed up well as it was. The I drilled out the hole in the housing slightly to accomodate the M8 bolt, and it doesn't appear that had anything to do with where the housing cracked (about 2" away on the adjacent edge). I'll note that the whole piece didn't break off - it just cracked. The whole piece came off once I pulled the bolt back off.
So now the dilemma.....the pump is on there and sealed well with the other 2 bolts. I don't see any particular reason why the lack of the third bolt would cause it to come loose or lose the seal, honestly.......so I COULD just leave it as is and see how it works out. IDK. I hate to do all this work only to have to pull the pump later on with it on the car. Chances are I'll just order another one....$50, I'll survive. But still annoying.
ittle crap tonight, it's a bit slow.
First, dumped all my oil pan bolts and timing case bolts into a nice bath of Dawn and degreaser to clean them up. Worked nicely :) I know, very exciting....
Then thought about how my garage is slowly being taken over by kid and baby stuff....
On to little things, literally. My tachometer hasn't been working for a couple weeks, after it was reading a bit off before that. Not that I really need a tach, I've been driving stick for 20+ years, but still nice to have, and I hate it when things don't work.
Everything else in the cluster works, and the circuit board batteries were recently replaced so that's not the problem. My guess is the wiring or plugs are bad someplace, but pulled it open to check everything and to put dielectric grease on all the contacts that I could find..
While I was in there I did a modification to the "fuel economy" gauge that basically just shows me getting 5mpg when on the gas and 40mpg when coasting most of the time, lol..
this is a bit more accurate, I think
That's a good mod.
Damn, I get kind of bored between events......Worked a bit more on the M42, nothing photo-worthy, mostly just cleaning up stuff, figuring out parts I still need to find, etc. Had the TV with the Skins game on (lost) and radio with the O's game on (lost), so a disappointing sports day while working outside, but at least the weather was perfect.
Also put the gauge cluster back together (tach still doesn't work....) and spent about an hour cleaning up the wiring under the dash, since random wires would on occasion just drop down near my feet.....
my daughter....er.....helped.
she wanted to drive
and she wanted to do something on the car. So with a giant box of ski/snowboard/car/outdoorsy stickers I have accrued over the last decade of working at a ski shop and working on cars, we had some fun....
because rallykar....
Sorry to hear about the sports teams. You should become a Nationals fan, they're doing pretty well this year 
Well, at least the O's are still a game up in the wild card race.
Great to get the kids involved in car stuff, even if it's halfheartedly sometimes. I like the rollbar stickers; you guys did great! I was disappointed that my new $300 Simpson helmet didn't come with any stickers...
Ugh....Nats. I live in northern Va so we get all the DC radio/TV. I can't even listen to either sportstalk stations here right now, because it's 3 hours of Nats over-analysis, even on days when there is no game (or wasn't one the day before). DC sports fans are so bandwagon....A couple years ago nobody cared about the Nats and they'd get 10k fans at "big" games. A few years ago nobody cared about the Caps either (I mean...NOBODY). Now everyone in this area walks around with Nats and Caps gear and talks about them like they are lifetime fans.
I will have to get an O's sticker for the rallykar since the next event will be right around the time playoffs start :)
Lexy is into cars to some extent - when we walk she tries to identify every car we pass or read its name (she's 4 1/2!), and loves playing around inside my cars.....and also she will read GRM before bathtime and try to identify all the cars in it (which is hard sometimes in GRM, even for me haha). She also likes racing vids on youtube. We'll see how that turns out, because she's also in to princesses and ballet and other uber-girly things :)
irish44j wrote: We'll see how that turns out, because she's also in to princesses and ballet and other uber-girly things :)
Take her to an auto-x event where they allow kid karts to run. We have about 4 who run regularly in the Philly region with one girl who been doing it for years now, starting with FJC and moving to FJB last year. She's now almost as fast in her FJB kart as her mom in her parents' F125. It's a hoot to watch them run although some guys still bitch about how much they slow down an event (no cars can be moving in grid while the kids are running).
No progress since I worked almost 75 hours last week (ugh)....
But Scott Johnson, who runs his e30 out in Indiana rallycross/autocross, did send me some stickers from his team, in exchange for a couple of ours...Because rallykar = stickarz....
his ride:
Hopefully will score up the last few parts I need to finish the M42 reassembly in the next week or so. Then I'm going to look for an e36 radiator (possibly an aluminum one) and m20 expansion tank, since I'm not going to use the failure-prone M42 radiator (at least from what I hear).
Also once the engine is all ready to roll I'll tackle the transmission and make sure everything looks good :)
ok, kind of slow on updates here as we approach the next event about 9 days away now. Then the last one is the second weekend of November. Also I've decided to run the one-off event that Susquehanna SCCA is putting together the week after that up at some dirt oval-track raceway up in Pennsylvania. Will be a kind of longish drive in mid-November, but I want to get some work in on (hopefully) a different surface/layout, so it's worth it for me.
So a few things: 1. A photo of SCCA Nationals popped up on my facebook page of cars in the paddock during tech inspection this morning. And what do you know, an e30 front and center. I looked it up and that's Doug Largent from Missouri region, running in stock RWD. He is the only e30 there. The rest of the RWD cars consist of a couple of Porsche 924s, 4 or 5 Miatas, and 4 or 5 RX-7s. Total field of over 100 cars.
photo courtesy of SCCA:
Got a bit of my own work done today. The secondhand header I picked up cheap had two studs missing and two of them rusted/broken off. So I took the grinder to them, grinded down the heads and popped them all out.
My daughter helped out by finding random tools and stuff in the garage and "fixing" them with zip ties....
And in the spirit of last night's presidential debate, let me put my own candidates into the ring:
Can't wait for next Sunday, going to be a good time!
Hell yeah. Too bad you guys won't have the new suspension on. We'd better not lose to any of the newbies though
Since I'm heading out of town for a couple days, got most of my gear packed up for this weekend's rallycross. I'll have a co-driver this week as a buddy of Jim Spoth (who is one of the 4 drivers of the SR/PR 325e that runs with us) is coming down and wants to try something different than his automatic Saabaru that he brought last time. So hopefully everything goes well, and it will be nice to be able to see my own car in action for once :)
In the meantime, after a month of trying to find the last few timing parts I need to close up this engine, I finally just said berkeley it and ordered them new (new main chain guide, new chain, and a few other little things I need). So those should be in later this week.
Also today received a package with a set of Ford Mustang Type 3 injectors that will be replacing my nasty OEM ones (btw, I have a bag full of like 15 OEM injectors, if anyone needs some - they will need new seals/pintle caps). The Ford injectors have new o-rings and pintle caps on them and hopefully will work fine. The "word" is that these have a better fuel spray pattern than the stockers due to the four spray holes (vs. 1). Who knows, but rebuilding/cleaning/new hardware on my old ones would have cost nearly as much as these did, so doesn't much matter if that's true or not anyhow.
Will post again after the weekend, where I"m coming in tied for 2nd place in MR class with Gorka Arrieta (driving Roberto Moreton's RX-7). Looks like Shawn has 1st locked up for the season (also in an RX-7), so last two events will be a battle for runner-up. Gorka is on brand-new rally tires now, so it will be an uphill climb - will have to hope for dry-hardpack conditions to have a reasonable chance!
(hopefully Shawn will chime in here with his thoughts as well as to the course/tires/etc, since he may see it differently from me)...
Well, another event in the books. This was one with a big collection of RWD cars (9 in MR, 6 in PR). The frontrunners in MR (Shawn and Gorka in the RX7s and myself) all kind of got screwed with multiple water truck passes right before our runs. The large contingent of other MR cars today (mostly e30s, an MR2, and Shawn's co-RX7 driver) were farther back in the order (thanks to rankings), so they got to run the course after we had dried it for them, lol. Price for points I suppose :)
After a short morning session due to timing equipment issues (we only got 3 runs).... out of 9 cars, class leader Shawn was sitting 5th, I was sitting 7th, and Gorka (who I'm tied for 2nd in season points with) was 3rd, I think. Shawn's co-driver Scott Lentz was in first, and a couple of the e30 newbies were up in the top as well. Shawn and me, in particular, had DREADFUL first runs directly after the water truck. Both of us had 4-5 cones and bad times in addition. I'll note that Shawn and I are on identical Yoko rally tires with identical wear (from the same set!). And we did close to identically bad on that run. Gorka, on the other hand, started behind me and got to watch the two of us look like idiots in the first section (all grass and mud, all wet). So that and his nearly-new rally tires that still had nice square tread blocks, and he stomped both of us on that run and there was no coming back, basically. We were both 15-20 seconds back after ONE run. Gorka was driving great today as well, and also apparently figured out an issue the RX7 had been having, and gained some power. Yay....
In the PM the course was dry and I was clawing my way back toward the top, running close to Shawn and Gorka and getting a lot back from the other e30 guys in particular. But then the water truck came again.......TWICE. And on each of those I fell farther back. For the afternoon I also took riders on 5 of my 6 runs, and I always tend to drive sloppy with riders it seems. But whatever. I knew Gorka had 2nd for the season locked up and I have 3rd locked up, so why not just have a good time now, lol.
Final standings had Gorka in 1st (first time Shawn's been beaten all season), Shawn's co-driver in 2nd (he was on pretty much dried-out terrain most of the day), Shawn in 3rd, Chris Nonack in his V6 MR2 in 4th about 12 seconds ahead of me in 5th. I did manage to beat the 4 other BMWs in MR, so at least there's that. But Pat Henry (first-timer at rallycross, but a good driver at other motorsports), was pretty damn close. Again though, the other e30s were running behind us in more dried-out conditions so that did help them to some extent. Will be interesting to see how close/far everyone is if we get a all-dry event next time out (fingers crossed).
standings for the event here: http://www.wdcr-scca.org/RallyCross/ResultsRX/WDCRRallyX62012101412/tabid/1751/Default.aspx
--
In other interesting things....one of Jim Spoth's friends co-drove my car today. He usually drives a Saabaru (stock). So we could run opposite groups he ran in PR class (he won't get season points for it though). PR ran in ALL dry conditions so were much faster than MR today, and he beat me by over 80 seconds total in my own car, haha....I thought he looked damn fast.
That said, the conditions made me expect that. What I was MORE interested in was how close he could get to PR class leader Roberto Moreton. Mike finished only 12 seconds back of Roberto on the day. Pretty good for first time driving a car totally different from what he usually drives. This is good, because word is that Roberto is moving to MR next year (stripping his interior). So this tells me that Roberto is about as fast as Gorka. And with my engine swap and hopefully fresh tires I can pick up some time next season.
Gorka is apparently moving to mod AWD in a vintage Audi rallycar of his, and Shawn may put interior back in and run PR (so I've heard) but who knows what the RX-7's will be doing next year. What I do know is that there's a good crop of e30s (and the e28) and it looks like we will all be pretty competitive with each other in MR and PR classes. I have a feeling the SR guys may also bump up to PR/MR next year too.
more later, with some pics and a few other (hopefully) interesting things.
As an addition to the above ^^ I was pretty surprised at how close the other e30 guys were to me today, even if they did have somewhat dryer course than I did. Since I've autocrossed against Pat, Nick, and Jason for years I had an idea on what to expect on their skills, but for first-timers they really drove impressively in the other BMWs. All of them were on brand-new snow tires, and all of them are 6-cyl cars with considerably more power than I have, which I think really helps them close the gap even without a season's worth of experience......which makes me a bit worried about once they get the experience and still have that power too. And Pat and Nick know how to build cars to a purpose, so they'll do it just as well as I (in my opinion) have.
All in all, this puts extra impetus on getting the M42 into the car this winter, and then try to wring some extra power out of it with a chip and whatever else I can do short of FI. At least that will get me on a level-ish playing field in terms of power with them, since I'm sure they'll do many of the same setup things that I did with the suspension/etc (or already have) so I will really need that power next year once they get more of a feel for the courses and gravel/dirt driving. It's gonna be fun next season. I'll note that Spencer and Stuart run fairly close as well in their M42-powered car that has lousy suspension and older snow tires.....and they'll upgrade it as well, no doubt.
ALSO pretty happy they were close, on the other hand. I didn't want them to come out and do badly, decide they didn't like it or that it wasn't worth it. So hopefully they stick with it and we'll have a fun season next year going back and forth (with or without the RX-7s).
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