Bonus round evo 5:
Bought an evo 5 from another guy. He imported it, engine blew up within a month, went through a like 4 year long build and the thing never really ran correctly, bounced from shop to shop to shop nobody could ever get it running right. Engine was built, turbo sized, whole thing was built around 600 hp.. eventually after 4 different ECUs (and harness changes each time) it made 380whp... Phantom knocking, tuner said change the exhaust, increase the breathers in the cam cover, bring it back.
He brought it to a 4th shop, pre-dyno inspection they said they boroscoped the engine and there was valve-piston contact. At this point, he was done with it. Listed it as a part out, and I messaged him and bought the rolling chassis.
Fun part of this story, when he sold the head, pulled it off the block, the pistons were in backwards and other than that there was nothing wrong with the engine. No contact, still spun awesome, but he was still just done with the whole thing.
I always wanted to track my evo 6, but then my friend crashed his 30,000 km, totally mint evo 4 doing some hillclimb and I talked to him. Freak accident, fitting on oil cooler sheered off just before a corner, covered his outside tire with oil, slammed into a barrier. E36 M3 happens. So, his advice... don't race a car you can't walk away from. Well, I love the 6, and I couldn't walk away from it, so I scopped up this 5 with the idea that I will have a perfectly competant, totally rad car to track.
Found an engine from another part out, bone stock evo 6 engine. I also bought the harness from the car as the one in the 5 was super hacked up, MAF plug just cut off for speed density, broken wires.. it was just a mess.
Rescue mission
Home
Cleaned up an evo 6 intercooler
Cleaned up some stock intercooler piping
Bumper cleaned up, restored the grills, all the supports, replaced all the fasteners
Restored heat sheilds
Cleaning up the engine bay
Cleaning up the engine
Fresh timing belt, balance belt, pulleys, tensioners, water pump and hydraulic tensioner
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Ported exhaust manifold
Assembled, new OEM gaskets and fasteners
All coming together, new crank pulley, wastegate actuator blah blah, engine portion completed.
Put off changing the engine loom by fixing up the headlights
Went over the new harness, made sure everythign was ready to go, fixed a couple things
Old harness out, *puke*
Resurfaced 7-8-9 flywheel, exedy stage 1 HD clutch, trans installed
Engine going in
Home
Skateboard bearing shifter mod
Uh oh, first issue. Since I am using an evo 5 body harness and an evo 6 engine harness, this connector doesn't work.
Pour into wiring diagrams and find that the difference is that the evo 6 has the hi and low fans on seperate circuits, to help with amp draw on inrush if the fans were to come on at the same time. I ended up splicing those circuits together, de-pinning the connector from the 5 harness, and re-pinning it. I tested the operation on evoscan and everything worked as necessary, so, good news.
Transfer case in, upgraded fasteners in the LSD as well. This is actually an upgrade for this car as from the factory it came with an open diff.
Fixed this janky battery relocation thing. Connections were all bad, it wasn't actually mounted so I built this little bracket
Put a battery in, go to crank it over.. nothing. Welp, back to the wiring diagrams.
Nothing was readily obvious, and old 90's wiring diagrams not exactly my specialty, so I just grabbed the old harness and looked at every single connector between the cabin harness and the engine harness.
Welp, can't really tell, but there is the issue. The starter trigger wire, and the fuel pump power wire are flipped between the 5 and 6 harnesses. The 6 has the larger wire as powering the fuel pump, where the 5 has that one triggering the starter.
I actually keep molex connectors on hand, so I just flipped them.
Now, turned the key and it cranks! But nothing happens lol. I was using an evo 5 ECU, from a friend. Thinking like, that is the only difference now.. I tracked down an evo 6 ECU, plugged that one in, then boom.. fired right up. Sometime between my friend removing that evo 5 ecu from his car, another friend tried to use it in an evo 4, wouldn't work. ANOTHER friend tried to use it in an evo 4, wouldn't work in that one either. I tried in my 5, wouldn't work. If he plugs it into his evo 5, still works. Still a mystery, I think some of the later 5's have some wiring harness changes. But anyways, now I had a running, working car.
Put the interior back together
Fresh rotors, fresh pads, fresh rubber
Restored things
Friend came over the help bleed the brakes
So close!
Coming off jackstands, bumper installed for the first time in a long time.
First drive, went for a lonnnngg drive. Like 3-4 hours driving around the city, bedding in the brakes, bedding in the clutch.
First weekend, took it to a big meet in Edmonton.
Showing off the immaculate underhood, noticed something about my friends gray evo 4..
What are the chances, both cars imported to Canada and end up owned by two friends haha.
And then, I drove the car for a while and went to work.. felt like, happy to have it, but at the same time it wasn't as good as the 6. The 6 just felt more sorted, more dialed in, stronger, tighter.. and I had plans to go over the full evo 5, re-do the suspension bushes, coilovers, blah blah. But it still felt a little dumb to have two cars with so much overlap.
Then, a friend who had an evo 5, sold it, and regretted it ever since kept on hassling me to sell this car. Eventually, he bothered me enough I named a price over double the total of what I had invested in the car just to shut him up and he said sure. The same day, the evo 3 was listed locally, someone sent me the ad, within an hour I sent the guy a deposit to remove his ad. The following weekend I drove the car to pick up my friend who bought the car at the airport, I got to the city early, paid for the 3, got the keys, then went and picked my friend up at the airport.
Note the 3 and 5.
Of course I sold the 5 because this guy really wanted it, he was going to do a full restoration, make the car awesome and really do right by it... instead what happened was he sold the car 6 months later lol. He sold it to someone who winter drove it, wrecked the front bumper, drove it for a while and then re-sold it. The newest owner reached out to me on instagram just this week, so I know my work has held up and the car is now in good hands. He has gotten it tuned (making 295awhp 280ft-lbs torque), stripped the underbody and re-sealed it and is starting to go over everything. Currently has 178,000 km so my work held up for 35,000+ kms.
Everyone, including GF, thought I was stupid for getting the 3 over the 5. My mechanic who did my inspection on the 5, also did the OOP on the 3 for me and just laughed and laughed and thought I was an idiot haha.
I really don't regret selling the car, because I bought the 3 entirely on profits form the 5. The 3 and the 6 are two very different cars, and I also like having something to work on so the 3 has scratched that itch. I also want to get the 3 sorted to the point where that one can be my track car, and I think that will be a more raw experience since the car is light, has mechanical diffs, and doesn't even have ABS at the moment. So, there you have it.. I don't know what else I will have for content going backwards. I will probably make a post of just pictures of the cars I like but I maybe didn't get to post, and from here on it will just be moving forward with things.
I am not a guy who gets mad at people talking E36 M3, commenting, posting in my thread so have at it lol.