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

Rallycross final event 12/9/18 wrap-up in the post before this!

Also figured out something on the Porsche. For a while I've been hearing an odd grinding/rubbing noise, usually when slowing down and turning. I assumed it was either tire rubbing the springs up front (they are pretty close) or the fender lip. The 8" wheels up front are set up to barely fit both, but if camber is off it can rub one or the other. 

I had ordered some Black Friday Hawk HPS pads for the car to replace the cheapo ones I put on previously when just trying to finish the car. While changing the front pads I found the issue.....my stainless braided front brake lines were rubbing in certain situations! Since they don't have the rubber locator grommet like stock lines, I hadn't attached them to the strut, since they seemed to have plenty of wheel clearance. But apparently when braking and turning this wasn't the case:

So, that's not cool. No sign of leaking (both sides were like this), but I don't like the idea of having damaged brake hoses, regardless. So a quick RockAuto order and today got some OEM-type Centric brake hoses with the correct centering bushing to attach it to the strut tab. So, those are installed, etc etc. 

I also have my spare '87 DME out with a well-known Porsche tuner to get his chip in it (and convert it to 27-pin to work with my '88). So that should be here next weel adn will hopefully improve some fo the power delivery under the curve. We'll see. 

Options are: 1) leave it as-is and hope that less mental errors allow me to stay in it. 2) turbo it - though I'm not real big on FI for rally/rallycross and that's not the inexpensive solution. 3) Get one of Jim's spare M20B25's and swap it in, which wouldn't be very hard and would put me in power parity with most of the other BMWs except Nick's M3, or 4) take the shell out in my shed, do a light build on it, totally gut it, and drop my spare M42 in it. This is probably more work than I want to do, and i don't really want a car that isn't street-legal and only good for rallycross, but it's certainly an option. 

I've been following this build since the start, so I think I know you pretty well. That being said... you're not going going to go with option #1, you tinker too much. #2 seems more trouble than it's worth for your rally car - just not enough reliability, not as easy to fix on the course, less durable, etc. So you're left with 3 or 4... but 4 could also include building a rallycross miata, yet keeping it street legal. 

I fully admit to wanting that option (Rallyx miata!) because your builds are so cool, but option 3 seems to make the most sense to me. Just my 2 cents!

lol, yeah. I'm not going to build a Miata, at least not anytime soon. The only reason I even consider building a second car is because I already have a complete rolling shell out back and a spare M42, LSD diff, transmission, etc in my garage - so it would be relatively cheap to do all-told. Buying a Miata with a hardtop and making it good enough to run would take all of my rally entry money for the year.

If you want rally-x Miata action, you should follow Shawn's (moxnix's) thread since he has like three of them lol.....

Miata build thread would be boring though - for rallycross really all you need is some shocks, gut the interior, and go run! I know Jim creeps on this thread sometimes, so maybe he'll throw in some of what he's done with their MIata. 

Agreed - the only reason I may leave the car mostly alone is to save money for entry fees - stage rally isn't cheap! The turbo thing is only in mind as a way to let me keep the M42, but in reality once I'd add the weight of all the turbo stuff of there, it'll be just as heavy as an M20 with less reliability - so yeah, no real reason. That said, Stone/Noyes (who stage rally a 318ti) are turbo'ing their M42 this winter - albeit they ahve a larger budget than I do, are faster on stage, and are building the whole engine to keep it reliable. 

In reply to irish44j :

Fair enough! I just saw your comment on the fast Miata and thought it may be worth talking about. Whatever you chose, it’ll keep us all entertained like always I’m sure! Good luck! 

And thanks for the thread suggestions too  

Yeah, but I'm a glutton for punishment who will continue to try to win at rallycross in a car with an extra 250lbs of cage and equipment in it, lol....

Honestly though, on our local courses, which are extremely fast and power-car-friendly, Miata is really not the answer in the same way it is at a lot of other rallycross regions that have tighter courses. Shawn is just a great driver, so he does well. But other Miatas that have come to run in our MR class pretty much get stomped by half the BMWs, other than a couple out-of-towners like John England (supercharged NA). And some of these guys are GOOD drivers, but they can't overcome the lack of power, especially in NA/NB MIatas. A couple years ago when we ran at Rally Farm, "handling" cars did really well. But Summit and Panthera have so many big straights and uphills that good power is a must, no matter how well the car handles. Point in question that Nick won this year in an M3 that has full interior, air conditioning, etc etc and probably weighs MORE than stock - definitely the heaviest and largest car in the class. But with all that power he could drive carefully around cones and make up all the time on straight sections. Meanwhile, i had to drive super-aggressive in the turns and tight areas to try to make up time there, which didn't always work ;)

I think the answer is in your last post, your car needs an S52 to keep up with Nick (and an S54 to beat him?)

On a serious note, is an M50 of some sorts out of the question? I think the oil pans hang pretty low on those swaps but what are your other reasons it's not on the list?

I've gone through this in my head a bunch of times for my E28 between going to an M52/M54 or just finding a later M30B35 and doing a build on that and that is what I keep landing on. For me the M30 just feels right for the car (other than an M88 or S38 if money wasn't a consideration) and I can spend more on the motor (hot cams etc.) and less on the swap (bolts in, no need for hard to find oil pans, sumps, custom mounts, new transmission, driveshaft etc.) so I'm sure that is part of it for you too.

Whatever you decide on it will be fun to follow along on here.

Adam

adam525i said:

I think the answer is in your last post, your car needs an S52 to keep up with Nick (and an S54 to beat him?)

On a serious note, is an M50 of some sorts out of the question? I think the oil pans hang pretty low on those swaps but what are your other reasons it's not on the list?

I've gone through this in my head a bunch of times for my E28 between going to an M52/M54 or just finding a later M30B35 and doing a build on that and that is what I keep landing on. For me the M30 just feels right for the car (other than an M88 or S38 if money wasn't a consideration) and I can spend more on the motor (hot cams etc.) and less on the swap (bolts in, no need for hard to find oil pans, sumps, custom mounts, new transmission, driveshaft etc.) so I'm sure that is part of it for you too.

Whatever you decide on it will be fun to follow along on here.

Adam

Oh an S52 would be dandy, but I don't have that kind of cash on-hand. M50 is a good solution (Josh S. did that swap, and Ozgur did it too into the white shell my spare M42 came out of ), but it does require a decent amount of work as it's a fairly tight fit. The M20B25 is mostly the easy answer because it will drop-in fit with a few wiring modifications - and Jim has two of them sitting in his garage that I could presumably get one of fairly cheap. . I don't really need much more power than that for rally/rallycross as there's only so much power you can use - especially in an e30 (Nick's M3 is heavy and has JVAB suspension so can handle the power better). 

M30 is a neat idea but those things are damn heavy, not what I want for a car like this. For an e28 though, that would be great. 

If money, time, and skill was no limitation an M54 would be great as well, since they are all-aluminum in some configurations so less weight penalty - but it's a pretty complex swap from what I've read, and complex is the enemy in rally. Once again back to why M20 is a good answer - it will be enough power for my driving, is cheap, and is about as easy as it gets for the swap.

We'll see - again it's all just a big tradeoff in time, money, and do i want to buy some nice Braid wheels and some new tires this winter, or do i want to do more than 1-2 rallies next yeaer. And I have m big cross-country Porsche road trip in the planning stages for this year or next, and that's gonna be pretty expensive since I like staying in hotels lol....

irish44j said:

If you want rally-x Miata action, you should follow Shawn's (moxnix's) thread since he has like three of them lol.....

Miata build thread would be boring though - for rallycross really all you need is some shocks, gut the interior, and go run! I know Jim creeps on this thread sometimes, so maybe he'll throw in some of what he's done with their MIata. 

All ours has is a skid plate (which was installed when we were running Frostburg and there were huge rocks everywhere), shocks, tires, and seats. Nothing build-thread worthy, and  therefore way too boring for Josh's tastes in a project car.

For our needs, it's been a super-easy way to keep involved with rallycross while still leaving time for other stuff. It's been great.

My motor is an m52b28.

my $.02:

Part of the reason I chose it was because the larger displacement and single vanos is simpler than an m52tu/m54. I've been running a mediocrely tuned one for 2.5 seasons now that I pulled from a junkyard for $300 w/ god knows how many miles.  They've proven their robustness to me.

I think a failing vanos system is also less likely to DNF you from a rally than a failing forced induction setup.

bluej said:

My motor is an m52b28.

my $.02:

Part of the reason I chose it was because the larger displacement and single vanos is simpler than an m52tu/m54. I've been running a mediocrely tuned one for 2.5 seasons now that I pulled from a junkyard for $300 w/ god knows how many miles.  They've proven their robustness to me.

I think a failing vanos system is also less likely to DNF you from a rally than a failing forced induction setup.

 

main problem with a b28 is that it bumps me up to the open 2WD classes in stage rally (over 2.5L), Not that that's a deal-killer since both classes have some seriously fast-movers in ARA, but it is a consideration. In the end, as much as I keep talking about it I'd put odds on me being there with the M42 again next year, but perhaps some better suspension (which is a bigger upgrade for stage rally) and a couple sets of nice tires. We'll see. Chances are i'll just take my time rounding up parts for whatever I want to do over the next year, looking for good deals and such, and eventually do something. If I engine swap I'll want to do a light rebuild on whatever engine it is, regardless, so it wont' be immediate.

I keep finding other things to spend my money on, and having a 2nd new-car payment now isn't helping things.  

Probably nothign will happen before WM Winter Rally, since there is no upside to having power there. I will be shooting for May to have some kind of upgrade done (power, suspension, etc) for SOFR, likely our only full stage rally in 2019. 

Ah, I hadn't considered the displacement bump.  A refreshed pre-vanos m50 sounds like a better option than an m20/m52 in that case, and is still practically bolt-in.

so plan so far for stage stuff is only WMWR and SOFR next year? my dance card is already looking really full for late summer and next fall, so that works for me :)  

In reply to irish44j :

Regarding your planned Porsche road trip.  If you haven’t already, I’d suggest getting a credit card that gives you points towards hotel stays, I got multiple free nights out of a big road trip I took in 2015.  Saved several hundred dollars.

bluej said:

Ah, I hadn't considered the displacement bump.  A refreshed pre-vanos m50 sounds like a better option than an m20/m52 in that case, and is still practically bolt-in.

so plan so far for stage stuff is only WMWR and SOFR next year? my dance card is already looking really full for late summer and next fall, so that works for me :)  

yeah, that's definitely the only things in the plan. I'd love to do BRS, but don't think I'll have the funds to deal with the NASA stuff (including getting a new physical) that late in the year. WMWR is certain. SOFR is "probable."

eastsideTim said:

In reply to irish44j :

Regarding your planned Porsche road trip.  If you haven’t already, I’d suggest getting a credit card that gives you points towards hotel stays, I got multiple free nights out of a big road trip I took in 2015.  Saved several hundred dollars.

oh for sure. Though I don't really use credit cards generally (check card only...I don't trust myself!)  I also have Marriott rewards, Hotels.com rewards, etc etc. So figure a free night every 5 or 6. 

ok so let's do some updates. First order of business was to figure out the overheating issue on the car at the last rallycross. I had three things in mind: 1) since I was running a very high water-to-antifreeze ratio there is a good chance that the water in the radiator froze on that 20-degree day. 2) thermostat stuck - it's 8 years old now. 3) thermofan switch bad - this is an "extra" thing since I could turn it on manually and it wasn't cooling the temp.

So, pulled off the thermostat housing and tested the one in there. It was supposed to be a 190 degree but didn't open in a boiling pot of water until well after that. That kind of makes sense - thinking back this car has generally run around the 205-210 mark pretty much all the time since I put the M42 in. Seemed a bit high but that was with all new stuff so figured it was ok. 

Nonetheless, decided to order a lower-temp thermostat (and new gaskets for the housing) anyhow. While at it, I flushed the whole system, with no sign of radiator clogs or any other issues.  Also gave me a chance to replace the o-ring on the sensor up at the top of the timing case that pretty much always leaks oil on M42 cars and makes the timing case all gunky. We'll see if that works...

So, put the new thermostat in, with new 50-50 coolant mix and bled it good (much easier with the M3 radiator + M20 expansion tank than it was with the stock M42 radiator setup, I might add). And went for a good hard drive. And what do you know, now the car, on a 60-degree day, runs at a solid 190 degrees driving at mid-range revs for the most part......so I guess the thermostat was sticking, or just faulty and too hot. Nice. 

I did find another issue though - when I got home I let the car run in the driveway to see if the fan would kick on, but the temp gauge crept up past 210 and nothing - so flicked my override switch on and it quickly cooled back to 190. So....tested the wiring to the switch and it's good (jumped it from there to turn the fan on). So I guess the thermoswitch is bad. The car has always had a 99 degree (C) switch, so I odered one of thsoe as well as a 91-degree switch. I want to see which one comes on when i want it to (and they're cheap). 

So, the main e30 problem is solved. Still have the gas tank replacement to do and some other things, but the overheating was my primary concern.

I also took a couple hours to clean up the back shed, where my parts shell lives..

And tucked everyone in for the night

Then today I wanted to address the 924's power steering air leak. I've had a constant drip from the pump and figured it needed a refresh, so I pulled out my gunky spare one and a Rennbay rebuild kit...

After much washing, set about replacing all the o-rings

so, that's done

I was going to put it right into the car, and jacked it up.....and in the evening dark with a flashlight I noticed.....drips ABOVE the PS pump. I like looking for things in cars at night with a flashlight since it makes it much easier to focus on individual things. And what this told me is that the leak is from the reservoir up above the PS bump and frame rail. Hmm.

Checked the hoses to the bottom of the reservoir (both are older hoses) and noticed that one is definitely leaking - the feed hose to the pump. It has a hose clamp on it, but it's a plate-style (a nice one) that is full-tight and perhaps not tight enough. Hmm. Dug around and found a slightly smaller one and installed.....no more leak. Tried out with the car on turning the wheels and no more groan, and no bubbles in the reservoir. So I guess the pump in the car is ok and not leaking. So I'll stick this other one on a shelf until it's needed (also, i think it also fits the e30.....)

So that's about it. Oh, and got my new "Stormproof" custom cover for the 924S since it's gonna be living outside for most of this winter (and the sunroof still leaks a bit). Had to get a custom cut since the standard 924S cover doesn't fit well over my turbo spoiler (and the 944 turbo one is "baggy" at the hips on a non-flared 924S). It's pretty nice, and wasn't too expensive... Now I don't have to play musical cars to avoid big rainstorms lol (or tarps, or catch-cans inside the car haha...)

More project stuff today, this time the Porsche, something I've been meaning to do for a while. After building the cargo bay/shelf to replace the rear I wanted to build something to make sure cargo sitting there (cooler, in particular) didn't end up in the front seat in the case of hard braking. So I headed to Home Depot to look at various materials and get ideas, and ended up picking up a 3-foot section of electrical conduit and a pair of 90* curve pieces, plus a few big washers. After stripping the galvanizing off the ends, did some quick welding to make a bar with curved legs. Then used a pair of large washers as feet.

Painted it up, and after a bit of measuring, installed it....

The idea with this is threefold: 

First, to hold cargo back. It perfectly fits my cooler and two of the small HDX bins from Home Depot, so that's one option. Or whatever else I end up putting there.

Also wanted to make sure it wasn't too wide to stop the "cargo bay" lid from raising all the way.

And had to position it so that my seatback can still fold down fully in case I need to carry any larger cargo back there

So, mission accomplished. A $6 project

Hope you all had an excellent Christmas. Just a quick post while I chill for a bit after 12 hours straight of family and extended family, lol...

Not unexpectedly, most of my Christmas gifts were either dress shirts/ties for work, or "car stuff." The girls got me a couple Craftsman multimeters (I asked for two since they were way marked down last month), one of the big folding LED under-hood worklights that I've wanted for a while, and a Ram Mount cupholder, which will come in very handy in the 924 (and in the rally car, for that matter), neither of which has actual cupholders - in the 924 I've been using a McDonald's drink tray - those brown cardboard ones - when I have a cup of coffee or something, lol.

My in-laws as a joint birthday/Chrismas present got me some excellent Lloyd floormats for the Porsche, with the red stitching. Which is pretty cool since those are pretty much the last significant thing I wanted to finish off the interior. 

In any case, hope you all got what you wanted and are having a good holiday break!

I keep having not much to do on the e30 at the moment (at least nothing worth talking about), so more Porsche stuff I guess...

Decided to tackle the PS pump today. Aside from the pump itself possibly leaking, I knew one of the hoses was leaking, so I ordered a new OEM one to replace it. The old hose I always thought was odd since it kind of took a roundabout route to the pump from the reservoir, very close to the belts.

Now I see why....apparently the old hose maybe wasn't for this car? IDK. The new replacement is definitely shorter and molded to run right down the frame rail to the pump, much more direct. So that's pretty odd, but also good...

Lots of making a mess

And hey, everything works and no leaks so far....and no more occasional groan from air bubbles. (this is with the rebuilt pump noted a few posts up, as well).

I also installed a multi-USB charge port (same one we use in the rally car for our electronics). The cheap ebay plug-style one I installed last year already broke so no more of that stuff, decided to just go with one with more ports and more "solidness" 

Just ziptied through the passenger kick-panel where it's out of the way of knees and stuff...

Also took a decent pic out last night...

And stopped by Jason's place to see his lovely Chevelle...which I hadn't seen since he had it repainted.

Well, as a middle-ish-aged suburbanite whose daughter's birthday is New Year's eve, another such night was spent at home, with a glass of whiskey and some music in the garage (with it being unseasonably not-too-cold). So I tackled a little project made from lessons learned - a new trunk setup for the rally car. 

For several years we've been carrying a small HF floor jack for tire changes, etc on stage. But it's just too bulky and hard to strap down quickly. Plus other trunk stuff hasn't been as convenient as I'd like - impact gun in a tool bag, tool box in the back seat, etc etc. 

So took a new tact for trunk organization. 

First, put in some weld nuts to the floor after grinding off the plates that held the floor jack in place. This is over on the left side fo the trunk, where I already gridded over the little side "bin" that nothing fits in and everything in it always gets muddy due to trunk leak and dirt.

Then used them to mount some HF plastic ammo boxes, which will hold our tow strap, our impact gun, and a third one. The third one was just a test, and isn't gonna stay there since that's where I want to make a mount for a scissor-type jack with a big plate (maybe next week)

Over on the right, where the stock battery tray is, I am messing with some ideas. Right now I'm going with a larger HF ammo box, which will hold our little air pump and our spill kit (had to order a new one since we used it all up at NEFR, doh)

However, if I can find something the right size i'd like to find something taller that I can use for that stuff and for our tool roll and other stuff we carry. So for the time being we'll still carry the flat toolbox in the back seat. I have some plans though, so it's just a matter of finding a container of the right dimensions (doing a lot of Amazon browsing, Home Depot, etc). TBD

Also, registered for WM Winter Rallysprint, which was won the 2WD class of last year. Maybe 4th time's a charm and this year we'll get some real snow and not just icy mud. Four years ago when I crewed for Ozgur, it was blizzard conditions with tons of snow. But the three times we've done it, just a lot of frozen, wet, muddy mess. I still have eight nice snow tires on bottlecaps just waiting for some actual snow rallying....

And hey, look who's on the cover page for the event :)

Also got a few things in for the Porsche. First, I sent my 1987 DME unit to the long-time Porsche tuner who makes chips for 924/944 engines (Russell, at MaxHP). The 1987 DME is a 24-pin unit, while the '88 DME that goes with the car's engine is a 27-pin unit. I wanted to keep the stock '88 DME with a stock tune, though, so I can run regular fuel if I want to. So I sent the '87 to Russell and he converted it to a 27-pin setup, and installed his tuned chip. This isn't a "big power" tune, but instead one that substantially increases the area "under the curve" for better low- and mid-end torque and driveability. Upon installing it, it was immediately apparent - even startup after sitting for 4 days in the cold was instant with none of the stumbing and uneven idle i've been used to on this car. Smooth as butter. A quick drive and the car pulls stronger throughout the entire low to mid-range. You can't do too much to these engines for power without major internal changes, so this makes it significantly more pleasant to just drive. Nice.

Here's a pic of the '88 DME, which looks just like the '87 DME, just for illustration's sake :)

Now another thing - the internet is great. Last month I put my old seat up on facebook marketplace for $100. A guy drove down to get them and turns out he has sever of the front-engine Porsches (and other interesting cars). While we were chatting in the garage, he noticed my old (but pretty decent) steering wheel hanging on the wall and asked if I wanted to sell it. I said "you can just have it, got anything to trade?" Well, he has a few parts cars up in Baltimore and asked me what I needed. What I need is a fully functional speedometer with working odometer. He said he'd look, and rolled out. This week he messaged me that he had a 924 speedometer and had tested it as fully functional in all ways, and he shipped it down to me. It arrived today - it's an early unit for sure, with only MPH notations (to 150mph) vs. my 924S speedo which also has kilometers (and up to 170mph). It also doesn't have the little circuit that activates teh fuel-mileage meter and shift light on the tach, but both of those things annoy me anyhow, so I won't miss it.

It also had a broken front cover, but that's ok - I have several spares. So i stuck it in the car real quick (not really installed, just hooked up to the speedo cable) and took a drive. And yep - works perfect. No more bouncing speedo reading 10mph high. Speed it pretty close to accurate (will check against GPS this weekend), smooth action, and both the odometer and trip odometer work. This is pretty important for road trips, especially as I don't really trust the fuel gauge accuracy below 1/3 tank or so..

Anyhow, took it back out and swapped on of my nice plastic faces onto the "new" speedo

new old-style one vs. old new-style one 

swapped faces. I actually kind of dig the more basic/simple, less cluttered look..

Went down at the end of last week to visit the family, so some V-dubbin

On the way back I stopped by Neil Cox's new place in Richmond to say hi to him and Eric Eisele, both of whom are top competitors at DC rallycross. They're busy rebuilding a bunch of stuff on their car for next season...

I stopped by a huge outdoorsman's store while heading south for the post-new-year's holidays specifically so i could check out the hundreds of tackle boxes they carry there. It's hard to look for specific-role containers online, especially when you need measurements and can't tell how sturdy the thing actually is. 

After 45 minutes of measuring, flexing stuff, etc - Finally found exactly what I was looking for to replace our big tool case that we've been carrying (which is overkill). The tools have been condensed into a compact tool roll (which will mount inside the car), but wanted something to carry all of our other on-stage contingency gear - a small air pump, our spill kit, spare electrical stuff, some nuts and bolts, and other random parts that would come in useful for quick fixes on stage.  So here's what I got:

It's waterproof, and feels very sturdy, so it can be ratchet-strapped down. I removed one of the two swing-out tackle trays so it could fit a few larger thigns inside

The cover sits flush against the bin, so the stuff inside won't fall out.

On the underside are two little waterproof containers, perfect for fuses, relays, and other small stuff

And it fits perfectly in the battery tray 

Also took the car out for a drive and everything seems to be working fine, though one of my tires is slowly losing air (always the case on rally cars...)

After that, replaced the DME coolant temperature sensor on the Porsche (which I suspected was going bad due to some random/occasional engine shutoffs that are known to be caused by thsi sensor going bad), which is conveniently located right up front of the engine... and went for another drive..

So guess what? I went and got something today.

stashed it in the backyard, but will get around to doing what you think I'm doing, maybe in March :)

Stopped by Nonack's house/shop/garage/rallyHQ as well to scope out all his shiny new stuff...(well, it's shiny inside and under the hood, at least...)

Giving up on the 4 banger eh?

NGTD said:

Giving up on the 4 banger eh?

I love the way the car feels with the m42. However with the venues we run for rallycross now it cannot compete thanks to all the big hills and open courses. And for stage raally more power would be preferable also.  I would also like to do some hill climbs and track stuff, for which more power will definitely be useful

Plus I'm pretty much done with the Porsche and need a project that won't kill my budget. so this is something I will probably mess around with for a couple months befor I actually swap it in. I'm definitely not going to try to rush get this in before the season starts. 

and yes I do feel a little bit guilty about swapping out the m42 because it is a great motor. That said I could certainly put the m42 drivetrain right into my shell out in the shed and make a super light car.

Very exciting, looking forward to seeing the swap. 

got the e34 in the garage today

And since I have no social life on a Friday evening, I just started taking stuff apart. I was extra-motivated since a big box came in from FCPEuro full of all the engine refresh parts I ordered, though it may be a bit before I tackle that. 

This car is super-gunky. The old PS hoses were leaking badly (like all German cars this age, it seems) and made a complete mess of everything on that side of the engine bay. Looks like the valve cover gasket was pretty leaky too, since the front of the engine looks like 20 years worth of almost-solidified oil/dirt mix haha. I drained the coolant (there was coolant, so that's good), and then started taking stuff apart and labeling hoses, wires, plugs, etc. 

I will say a couple things: First, it's super-convenient that the e34 radiator support just unbolts and comes right out. Once I figured out where the bolts were, it was a pretty easy job (except the couple of headlight screws that BMW hid in places only a stubby Philips can get to). The e34 has all its wiring, DME, etc in the engine bay (where the e30 battery box is), which makes it pretty convenient to get to and remove. The firewall wiring loom holder is pretty sweet, really. It really packages things nicely and with all the ABS-related wires out of it, it should be useful to clean up all my auxiliary wiring on the rally car once I get this engine in. 

On the downside, I was kind of hoping that I could perhaps re-use certain M42 accessories (alternator, PS pump) since it was developed more or less around the same time as the M50 and is also DOHC. But looking at things, that's not looking likely. Oh well. Only annoying because I have spares of EVERYTHIGN for the M42, which is good for rally. Now i have to start rounding up M50 spares. 

Also did random removal of other stuff: all the electronic modules under the rear seat (which is basically a giant distro block for everything in the car electrical) and trunk. The nice-condition taillights (which will go to Condor Speed Shop's Chumpcar e34), the gauge cluster, and some other interior stuff that seemed easy to pull. Will also pull the cruise control system - to sell, not to use.

Also looks like I'll need a new intake boot. This one looked good from above, but the bottom of it was folded over (clearly put on incorrectly at some point) and must have been a huge air leak. Also both lower hose ports are split. So, new one of those. Unlike e30s though, the e34 piece is really cheap - like $25. So, that's convenient. 

Anyhow, that's about it for now. The plan is to pull the motor on Sunday before the SB. Jim is probably coming over, and Andy Nguyen (whose shop has done a dozen of these swaps) is going to come by to help, as well as anyone else who wants to hang out. I think with the front of the car removed this will be a pretty easy removal (famous last words). Then another guy said he wants the shell from me to repair his own wrecked e34, so I should make back about half my purchase price from him AND he'll come tow it away. Win-Win!