Red Betty | The Drift E28

How long was the body of that trailer? I'm planning to build a teardrop and I'm trying to get an idea of proportions. 

In reply to Crackers :

Um, I don't know. I don't think it stuck out much past the frame, maybe 6" or so. I can get a closer measurement whenever I mess with it more. I need to go cleanup the mess I made sometime this week...

That's close enough. Thanks. 

Grabbed a pic of the painted seat brackets. Rustoleum Hammer Finish is my cheater paint for anything small like this. It looks decent, and hides imperfections. Welds I think turned out ok. There was 2 spots that got some swiss cheese because I forgot to grind the metal before tacking the brackets on, so it wasn't as cleaned up as it should have been. Should be solid. 

My second seat is due in today, so that's exciting! Should be able to get them both installed and hopefully finish wiring the gauges tonight. 

Seats are in, seatbelts too!

The passenger seat took longer to mount than anticipated. It was not the exact same seat as the driver's seat, so it was tight, but I got it in. Mostly just a matter of order of operations on bolting everything in. 

I also got the gauges wired and mounted, so I have a working tach, water temp, and oil pressure gauge. 

Messed with trying to get it to idle a bit. If I held it at 1000RPMs, it would stay running, but as soon as I fully let off the throttle it would stumble and then shut off. IAC did seem to help to have it plugged in, but I may still delete that part anyway. The curious thing is when I was looking at throttle adjustment, there is a switch in the TPS for when the throttle is fully closed to indicate idle. If I just unplugged the TPS, and let it run, it actually idled without stalling out. It wasn't a perfect idle, but it was a start. So I may have some TPS testing to do. 

Also I think I do want to do a valve adjustment before Carlisle if possible. I think the valves will be a lot happier. May weld the diff too. 

Here's my current to-do list, and I'm probably still forgetting something. 2 weeks till Carlisle...

So last night I did a valve adjustment, oil change, and then as part of the oil change went to fix the leak where the oil level sensor is. 

Valve adjustment went well. Now that I understand how to do it, it was a very simple process. 

Fixing the oil leak on the other hand... Not so simple. Turns out, it was not the sensor that was leaking, but the pan itself. Beside the sensor was a patch of some sort of putty/ JB Weld wannabe or something. When I pried all that off, it revealed a  bunch of pin dents into the oil pan. I couldn't tell which was actually the leak, and the only reason I could explain of why they would be there is maybe to give the sealer something to hold on to? I dunno. I wouldn't want to weaken my oil pan more than necessary. 

I cleaned it up as best as I could, and then I had some J B Kwik Weld around, so I globbed some of that on. It still leaks a bit, but not as bad. (Now kinda wishing I had bought my TIG welder instead of the other miata I got a few weeks ago. (Aluminum Oil Pan) )

Since I did the valve adjustment, I had the plugs out, and that showed that the plugs had a lot of oil on them that was getting cooked. Not ideal... Also, on the front exhaust side of the engine there is a small oil leak, I think the head gasket is leaking a little bit. 

So, since I have to all but pull the engine to swap the oil pan, and it seems that I have oil issues, I think I am going to swap in my spare engine tonight. 

Oil leaks = replace engine. Sounds logical. LOL

Crackers said:

Oil leaks = replace engine. Sounds logical. LOL

Lol. I know, right?

I figure by the time I pull the oil pan, and move it to the other engine from my spare engine, it's going to be close to the same amount of work as just pulling the engine. Now, I just have to hope the spare engine is in decent shape... It was a running driving car when I pulled the spare enigne, just had some front end damage, so it should be decent. 

AWSX1686 said:

Since I did the valve adjustment, I had the plugs out, and that showed that the plugs had a lot of oil on them that was getting cooked. Not ideal... Also, on the front exhaust side of the engine there is a small oil leak, I think the head gasket is leaking a little bit. 

Worth checking the seal ring around the valve guide tensioner plug since it is on the "front exhaust side" area and have been known to leak, especially if previous owners were fanatical about cleaning the tensioner, but reusing the seal ring.  Part #5 below:

HundredDollarCar said:

AWSX1686 said:

Since I did the valve adjustment, I had the plugs out, and that showed that the plugs had a lot of oil on them that was getting cooked. Not ideal... Also, on the front exhaust side of the engine there is a small oil leak, I think the head gasket is leaking a little bit. 

Worth checking the seal ring around the valve guide tensioner plug since it is on the "front exhaust side" area and have been known to leak, especially if previous owners were fanatical about cleaning the tensioner, but reusing the seal ring.  Part #5 below:

That would make sense. I did notice the head of that bolt there. I *think* the oil was coming from slightly higher up, as in, the head gasket. If the spare engine works well, this one may just get rebuilt and painted and all that for future use. 

Spare engine is in! It's nice having stuff like A/C already deleted. The original engine was out in about 2 hours with two of us working. Total time from start to having the spare engine installed enough to start up was about 7.5 hours with a stop for a food run. Not bad, I'd say! 

Obviously the new engine needs some post install tweaks to be ready to drive, but hopefully that won't entail anything major. 

So it turned out to be a VERY productive weekend. When we started the engine swap Friday night I was nervous. It's less than 2 weeks till the drift event at Carlisle, and a lot to do. On Saturday though, I was feeling good. We had gotten the engine installed, and with a little bit of messing around got it tweaked to be running pretty well. It's running MUCH better than the previous engine. Idle is pretty rough still, but it does in fact idle. So, what all did we get done? 

-Swapped engine

-Installed brake light wiring.

-Installed stock handbrake/drift-brake mod (more details there later)

-Changed diff fluid

-Installed hood & pins. (Half way... It works now, but I think I'm going to change it. 

As far as the hood goes, I got the Aerocatch hood pins installed up front, and made some straps to hold the rear of the hood. I don't know that this is really an approved method... The hood certainly isn't going to fly off, but I'm not really happy with it myself. 

Aerocatch pins installed:

And here you can see the straps, or one side at least:

I have a couple options on what I could do to make the hood better, but I haven't figured out which way I want to go yet. 

Organized my BMW wheels & tires to see what I have to work with for Carlisle.

I may have a wheel/tire issue... There's 2 more sets of BMW wheels around, and 2-3 sets of miata wheels around not pictured. 

You are definitely going to need more tires for the drift competition 

So, another thing I discovered over the weekend. The kill switch I had on the rear of the car is faulty. If you turn it off, it still has connectivity. FAIL.

This is the switch I had gotten: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/TAY-1032

I contacted Summit and they are supposed to send a refund. Hopefully the matching one I have up front stays functional. How hard is it to make a decent cut-off switch??

Rear end has fresh fluid!

Fire Extinguisher installed! (Autozone, $25)

Better picture of the hood. I am going to message the even organize for NICOFest and see if they would have an issue with this. I want to make it nicer, but I don't want to do it before then...

Test fit my different wheels last night, tonight going to do some tire changes so all my wheels and tires are ready. 

Started flushing the brakes last night, but the system was being weird. I may have run the master cylinder too low and it might have sucked air, so that's probably all it is. It's just going to take a bit more tonight to finish bleeding them. 

Oil and Air filters are due in today, as is my shift knob (Free because RevRico is awesome!), and my motor mounts are ordered as well.

Swaps engine instead of replacing oil pan (LOL), I totally understand the rational though.

Are hood straps required for a drift event?  With BMW hoods opening backwards, this seems like overkill.

Hoondavan said:

Swaps engine instead of replacing oil pan (LOL), I totally understand the rational though.

Are hood straps required for a drift event?  With BMW hoods opening backwards, this seems like overkill.

Well, as I mentioned, my spare engine's oil pan is actually a different style, so I would have had to pull the pan and then take it to be welded and then put it back. Not out of the question, but takes too much time at the moment. I have a friend with a TIG welder who I'm sure would have let me use it, but he's an hour and a half away. 

As far as the hood straps. E28 hoods open the "normal" way actually. So the pins up front take the place of the regular latch, and the staps take the place of the hinge, but just for the holding the hood down part.

Finished bleeding the brakes, did an oil change, and started messing with the shifter and hand brake last night. 

I got a sweet shifter from RevRico. It fit, but was a little tall. So I took the grip off it and put it on some pipe I picked up last night, and I think I got something that works well now. Just need to get the grip to stay on better. For the hand brake I have a different size of pipe that I bent to extend and move the stock handbrake to a more useable location. Need to finish making something to secure it, but I think it'll work well. 

Unfortunately, not pictures at the moment. Not going to be out there tonight as it is my wife's birthday, so we're going to have some steak. :)

Hoping to do some test driving in Mexico on Saturday.

Mexico??

In reply to Greg Smith :

Mexico

I'm glad the shifter worked out! Make sure you get some pictures from the event!

AWSX1686 said:

In reply to Greg Smith :

Mexico

Thanks for translating "Millennial" , I some times struggle with the language too 

Well now you've lost your deniability. LOL