1985 BMW 318 Stage Rally Build - 1988 Porsche 924S Street Build - Sequoia Build

da da da da ..... and slowly we move on. Searching around for some minor parts.

1. 02 sensor and the 4-wire plug (looks like Spencer has one for me) since the M10 o2 won't work.

2. rear shift console mount (also getting from Spencer, the OTHER rallycross local who has 2 M42s sitting around, lol).

3. throttle cable (the M10 one won't work, I don't think).

4. other small random stuff.

I went ahead and got a cheap HP power steering hose from rockauto rather than continuing to dig around for a used one or improv with the M10 one. Not a part I want to fail...so whatever.

Thinking about how I'm going to mount up the M42 radiator, and I may be able to use the M10 mounts and fab up a lower bracket to let them work. We'll see.

In the meantime, working on mounting up the Spal fan to the M42 radiator shroud (previously on the M10 shroud)

Also got in some delrin bushings for the shifter console where it mounts to the tranny. Rid of the mushy/worn rubber piece.

found some 4-gauge marine wire leftover from my trunk battery setup on the subaru, which will be good to make a few ground wires for the engine to chassis.

Also some guys are coming to buy all my M10 stuff tomorrow for their 2002 LeMons car, so it will get a new life in racing, which is nice. I'm basically throwing in a ton of stuff since I really won't need any of this M10 stuff anymore and am always short on space...

in good news, with one engine in the car, and one waiting to be picked up, I'm now down to 1 engine left in my garage and actually have some room to work again. Good, since I'll want the e30 inside soon ..... it's starting to get a bit chilly to work outside.

You're going to love the M42. It really is a fantastic motor.

Yeah, I did a few runs last year in Spencer's bone-stock 318is (on blown shocks and snow tires with a broken seat) and was amazed at how much more powerful it felt than my M10 car with rally tires and fresh suspension, especially out of corners.

Just hoping it runs well after all this work I've done on it, lol. Will see in the next few weeks!

Tonight's little project: try to install the M42 radiator.

Problems:

1. The M10 radiator sits on two rubber mounts that attach to the lower radiator support bar. However, the M42 lower mounts are on the sides, halfway down. They mount into side-brackets on M42 cars that are welded on. Here's a photo of SImon's M42 car. You can see the mounts at the corner next to the frame rails.

Well, the M10 car has no such brackets. I have no welder. I was going to improvise by bolting on some L-brackets and mount the rubber mount cups there, but I didn't see a good way to do this offhand.

Instead, the M42 radiator has the same "channel" on the bottom as the M10 does. So will use that with the stock M10 lower mounts.

That brings up problem #2: the radiator sits about 1" too low for the upper M42 bracket. The M10 radiator has a single bolt-on bracket (with rubber grommet) to secure it to the car. M42 has no such bracket.

So....after digging around random parts drawers, came up with a pair of poly bushings from the Triumph. No idea what they're for, but they just happen to fit on the "pegs" from the M42 upper mount. And they happen to be about an inch longer than the stock rubber bushings. Excellent:

so, with a bit of fitting, and a few zip-ties for extra security, we now have an installed, secured M42 radiator that is isolated from the chassis metal by rubber and poly bushings. And honestly, it's more secure than the M10 one was (which made it through the full rallycross season), so that's good.

While I like trying to improvise fixes like this (figuring them out is a nice challenge sometimes), this kind of thing once again drives home the point that I need to get a freaking welder one of these days, so I can do things like this "less ghetto." Oh well...

So a bit more little things today. I managed to run around and find some minor things, but still need a few parts before I can give the new engine a go.

Anyhow..

First to rig up the Spal fan off the other engine onto the M42 radiator. To do this, I used the OEM shroud, but cut it down to a lower profile (which leaves more room to work in the engine bay too). Then I mounted the fan the same way as I had on the other shroud - four bolts in the "tabs" through the shroud. Holds it very securely.

Fits nicely....everything is secure.

Then I needed to enlarge the hole for the ECU harness, since the grommet on the M42 harness is thicker than the M10 one. Was kind of a pain, but all done..

Also wanted to set up some ground wires for the engine and stuff, while I have some time to kill. For the main engine ground used some 4ga stuff I had sitting around. Bolted to a chassis tab (where the M10 ground was) and to the hole where the rear starter bracket goes (but which isn't there on any of my engines, oddly).

oh, and in case anyone wants a part number for the driver's side upper radiator hose...

one last thing: got a new shipment of decals for the team, for next season. I got a bunch of extras because I've been trading them with other e30 rallycrossers across the country (and in Germany) for stickers from their local team/club, just for fun.

irish44j wrote: So....after digging around random parts drawers, came up with a pair of poly bushings from the Triumph. No idea what they're for, but they just happen to fit on the "pegs" from the M42 upper mount.

how awesome is that? they're even color matched!

minor setback today. Got in the PS pressure hose I ordered from RockAuto. And it doesn't fit. In fact, it has a wierd "S" curve in hardline.

After some investigation, found that on RockAuto it's listed as for a 318i 1984-1985 AND 1991. But 1992 has a different part number. Cross-checked it with the manufacturer (Edelmann) and they list it the same way. Clearly a screw-up on their catalog. I did a quick check and it actually does fit the M10 engine setup (kind of), but definitely not an M42.

Anyhow, called RockAuto and they're sending me the right one and covering return shipping on the old one. It was a 5-minute wait on the phone, but the customer service rep was friendly and helpful.....so props to RockAuto. Also the guy said he'd call Edelmann and make sure they knew that their catalog was wrong.

From now on I'll look up stuff based on a 1992 318is, not a 1991. Maybe there was a '91 sold in Mexico or something with an M10, lol.

Kids are sick, so I'm chilling in tonight watching TV...

....and making some grounding wires out of leftover home audio stuff (GOLD PLATED!!!!!! lol) and some AWG8 braided wire that I bought long ago for some other project.

Yeah, white and red and gold. SO PIMP! Will use these for a head ground, and probably a secondary alternator ground, and whatever else I can ground, since we all know e30s can never have too many solid grounds to replace the stock ones!

That's better luck than I have had with rockauto. They always charge me for return shipping.

EvanB wrote: That's better luck than I have had with rockauto. They always charge me for return shipping.

yeah, the guy said he'd do it because it was a "catalog error" or something like that.

If I had just said "got the wrong part" I'm sure I would have paid.

The moral of this story is: when returning a part, just tell them that they have it listed for the wrong car in the catalog (thus making it their fault). In my case it was true, but who's to say in other cases

Today offloaded all the M10 stuff on some guys doing a LeMons build who plan to boost it. ALmost recouped my price on the M42 by selling the M10 stuff (of course, not counting all the refresh costs)

Managed to fit 2 engines, 2 transmissions, and a ton of other parts into a medium Hyundai SUV....impressive :)

Back to projects, did some wiring work on various things (including extending the wiring for the water temp switch/fan switch, since they're on the passenger side on the M42 rad, versus driver's side on the M10 rad)

Also finally got around to moving the charcoal canister. the original spot is annoying as hell....in the way of getting to steering rack, linkage, motor mounts, fuel filter, and various other things.

Here, next to the fuel filter:

I moved it to someplace where it won't always be in the way of everything....more or less where the OEM cruise control module (and ABS pump on later cars) is. I have to extend the hoses, but this should be a good logistical move I think..

today got the spark plugs in. Yup, they're spark plugs

then the challenge of getting the plug-to-coil wires oriented right, and then figuring out the ECU-to-coil wires. The first ones are easy, since they're labeled...

the other ones all have the same color wires, and are not numbered. So basically i had to try to figure out by the lengths and curves in the wires where they went. Hoping I got it right, guess we'll see if the engine starts, lol

So on to another small project tonight. The IACV on the M42 is in probably the most inconvenient spot ever. The hoses are hard to get to, and it's hard to get out once the engine and wiring harness are in. In the interest of making everything that could fail be EASY to get to if it needs to be fixed/replaced......time for a relocate.

Also inconvenient is that the "nipple" on the valve cover and the one on the intake elbow are one size, and the ones on the IACV itself are smaller....so can't directly take one size hose between the two.....thanks Germans!

The solution I found was to use two of the original IACV hose elbows (that are different sizes at each end) and use BOTH of them on the IACV, and then go directly to the intake elbow with one, and plug one to a longer hose to the valve cover (I used an old bushing center "pipe" as the connector piece for the time being, actually :) ).

Anyhow, this seems to work pretty well and makes it all easy to access if needed. Note in the pics below the ziptie is only a temporary holder for the assembly - I'm going to bad up something out of aluminum strip in an "S" profile so I can bolt up a permanent bracket. haven't quite decided where to yet though.

more evidence of the IACV's stock position being lousy. Was taking it out and looked at the VC and was annoyed that somehow got some red paint on there. Oops, my finger has been bleeding for like 5 minutes and there is blood on about 10 parts of the engine in that area, lol. Add that cut to the half-dozen others that are on my fingers from recent work on this car. Gonna feel great golfing on Wednesday, haha....

One other little thing....cut off the M10 airbox bracket. Kind of sloppy right now, just used some metal shears since the kids are asleep, but I'll grind it off completely later this week so I can attach the M42 airbox bracket that is being sent to me by someone.

got a few more little parts in tonight....the shifter bearing is one. Now I just need the rear mount bracket from Spencer so I can put the shifter assembly back on and hook up the driveshaft.

Also picked up a new boot, which is really a good design. Much better than my ghetto CV-axle boot that I used last year, lol.

Not exactly sure what these plastic ring things are though, that came with it....anyone?

also rerouted the main wiring loom to make it fit better. Nice that the fusebox has mount slots on all four sides for some reason, so I could mount it in a different location than stock..

what else......er.....still deciding on where to put the coilpack. I think I'm going to mount it in the battery tray, but we'll see...

And after digging around in drawers of random stuff, found some odd bracket (I think from an old Jeep roof rack) that just happened to be perfect for hard-mounting the IACV. Better than a zip-tie for sure :)

and some engine bay bling

Since this is a "purpose built" rallycross car why bother keeping the charcoal canister at all? I removed mine from the Miata which was my DD and saw no ill effects at all.

Also, I'm completely jealous of this build. I'm getting married on Saturday so hopefully I can start convincing my (soon to be) wife to let me get in on the action.

Fergj187 wrote: Since this is a "purpose built" rallycross car why bother keeping the charcoal canister at all? I removed mine from the Miata which was my DD and saw no ill effects at all. Also, I'm completely jealous of this build. I'm getting married on Saturday so hopefully I can start convincing my (soon to be) wife to let me get in on the action.

no idea, to tell you the truth. It has some kind of sensor attached to it, so I figured it should be in place. I'll have to investigate further. I want everything working, and then can decide what I can delete, I guess.

Congrats on your marriage. And if you're marrying her, you'd better be sure she'll let you play with the cars :)

Well she puts up with me putting money into the Genesis, an 89 POS truck and having a hardly running GTO in the garage. One more can't hurt right ;)

Fergj187 wrote: Well she puts up with me putting money into the Genesis, an 89 POS truck and having a hardly running GTO in the garage. One more can't hurt right ;)

RIGHT!

So today was my birthday (and I'm a decade older than this car still, sadly). Played hookie from work and went out and played golf with some buddies on a rare 55-degree December day here. For all the work I do on this car, golf makes me much more sore, lol.

Anyhow, when I got home had a couple boxes with some random small parts that I was waiting for to finish up some stuff.

Now the only things I'm really waiting on to have this engine ready to be started are the O2 sensor and rear shifter mount (coming from Spencer in baltimore, hopefully tomorrow) and mount brackets for the airbox and coilpack, coming cross-country from DJ.

For today's projects (for the 2 hours between golf ending and wife/kids coming home):

The replacement PS pressure hose came in (quick ship by Rockauto again to replace the one that was wrong, though I still need to send the first one back, lol...)

One would think that a PS hose that is going between two spots less than a foot away from each other would just need to be.....a hose.

But, of course, it isn't....It has to be all funky.

Anyhow, with some minor bending of hardlines and generally trying to fit it into tight spaces, finally got it in. I think I oriented it a bit differently from stock setup, but that's because with the charcoal canister relocate I have a bit more space to work with in there.

rack end

pump end

I also added some cut-up heater hoses to act as rub-guards in any place where various hoses are against or close to other things that could wear them..

After hooking it all up, added fluid and bled the steering system manually. Only problem: forgot to tighten down the lower pump banjo bolt when I test-fit it yesterday. So ended up with half a bottle of ATF on the garage floor :P

Got it all tightened up and re-bled. No leaks, but we'll see once its under pressure.

Also got in some 7mm copper bolts for the manifold and put them on, torqued to spec, etc. Much easier with the tubular M42 manifold than with the cast M10 manifold, I have to say.

Got all the shifter stuff ready to go in once I get the rear mount bracket. I was planning to use the M10 rod that came off the car, but it was a bit longer and the transmission linkage "peg" was longer on it too. Odd. I had to go dig a super-rusty M42 rod out of the crate in the backyard, clean it up as good as possible, and throw some paint and new hardware on it. So ready to go on this end. That's a Z3 shifter if anyone cares.

So that's it for the moment. The garage is a disaster area...tools and fluids all over the floor, benches packed with crap. Before any more work on the car I'm going to spend an evening doing some serious cleaning/organizing/putting away.

A bit of bling for my man Carlos at Condor Speed Shop.

Nice progress! Love the development threads. At least on earlier m42s the IACV isn't buried under the intake like the e36s - oh and happy birthday!

Thanks. On both of my e30 M42s, the IACV is over to the side of the head, wedged between the side of the IM and the firewall. I know one of my engines is an early one (both are out of e30s). Where was it located?

The e36 IACVs are directly under the IM - access is pulling off the top of the manifold. Can't even see it with the IM on. Probably a packaging thing for e36s. I think the IM is a little shorter than the e30 manifolds - but never measured before I sent my e30 m42 to Yamaha. Your posts tempt me to eventually turn the 318ti into a rallycross car.

nice pics pat, I'll get them from you :)

So....almost ready to give the engine a go. Tonight I cranked it with the DME unplugged just to circulate some oil. Cranked fine seemingly.

Then I plugged the DME in, and kind of got ahead of myself in impatience, and decided to give it a go on a start. No dice....no crank and didn't seem that I heard the fuel pump going. What the hell.

Went through and re-checked the crank position sensor (505 ohms on the one on the car AND the one on the spare engine, both well within spec), and the cam position sensor (1200 or so ohms, also within spec). So those are good.

Checked power: 12 volts at both the main power distribution line and the secondary line (power to DME). So that's good.

Checked power to the DME: pin 26 is getting power so that's good.

Then futzed around with the main and fuel pump resistors looking for I don't know what. And of coursed discovered what I hope was the problem: somehow when I pulled the resistors to clean the contacts a while back, I put them back wrong, with the main resistor and the fuel pump switched (one the pins are numbered differently and the main resistor has 5 pins vs 4, but they physically fit in each others' sockets). So dumb....

So switched those back. And now since everyone is asleep in the house and I can't exactly try to fire up a car with no exhaust on it, I have to wait until tomorrow to give it another go. Let's hope that was the problem and that everything fires up right.

Two things:

1. Where does the DME ground? I have it mounted via zip-ties since the K-Jetronic DME has a different bracket that doesn't work with the Motronic DME. Is there an external ground someplace (I assume it needs one)?

2. Thanks to slow Christmas mail jam-up, I didn't get the O2 sensor today from Spencer as I (and he) expected. So now I won't get it until Monday. According to several people on the forums, though, the car should start without it present. We'll see :)

Also got in the airbox and coilpack mount brackets...I was hoping to be able to somehow bolt them on through the lower tabs, but of course those had to be cut off to remove them from the P/O's car, so they'll have to be welded on. Not a major issue at the moment, since the car isn't going anywhere soon, but something else to do.

(and I suspect my dad bought me a welder for Christmas/Birthday (which are 6 days apart), so that would be a nice/useful gift :) ) IDK, he just said that when I come down to their place in January I had to pick up my gift and that is was "heavy" and later in the coversation he alluded to whether I had taken "those welding classes" yet. :)

Non-sequitur, but Pat posted up a photo from the last rallycross at Summit that he had bought off the pro photographer there. It's pretty good. ALso kind of funny, since the guy riding shotgun is Roberto Moreton, who is the PR class champion and is moving up to MR next year....so he was on a scouting ride to see if I can actually drive, haha....

ok, after that last post I was restless regarding the coils, so I spent some time digging through the electrical troubleshooting and wiring diagrams, and finally found the pinouts from the DME for the coil wires.

Pin 25 = plug 1 Pin 52 = plug 2 Pin 24 = plug 3 Pin 51 = plug 4

With this information in hand I busted out the multimeter and did some resistance tests, which enabled me to determine which wire went to which coil. Happy to say that I had them correct from the start, but it's one more thing to rule out being a problem when I start the car and it doesn't work, right?

While I'm at it, anyone know what these wires are coming off the DME? I think they're for the tach and CEL perhaps? I'll look them up eventually, but in case anyone knows offhand, it would be helpful.

Then rigged up the coilpack bracket. Again, will weld this eventually. For the time being, a few well-placed rivets actually have it really secure...

ghetto rig

from the wheel well

And one last thing. For no apparent reason wanted to glance in to the valve cover and see if there was any evidence of oil making it up there while I was cranking the engine earlier. Looks like there was some, but it's hard to tell. What I DID notice, though, is that the mounts for the upper timing chain guide were both cracked. They were not like this when I put it in. The part came out of a box of spare parts and I used it because it looked less worn than the one that was in the engine when I took it apart. I don't see anything amiss with the timing chain, so for the moment I guess I'll assume that I either torqued the bolts too tight or that the plastic was brittle on this piece for some reason.

I replaced it with the original one from this engine, and will be checking it often as I get the car running. The chain alignment and tension seem to be fine, so we'll have to see if this happens again or if it was just a faulty piece that maybe was already weak/cracked when I installed it. Not real pleased with that, needless to say...

"New" replacement

Started it up this morning. No leaks (except from the oil filter cap that I forgot to tighten down), runs ok, though I still have no O2 sensor attached so once it comes off cold idle it's a bit variable. Anyhow, good news :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fxhtiJPWm8&feature=youtu.be