So does this mean you are ready to build a nova or what? :SIQQQQQQQQQQWHEELLIESBRUHHHHH:
well it certainly means i’m ready to put a single turbo on this after i buy a house. One medium sized single in the FR corner, some sort of truck manifolds with crossover from the driver’s side, and downpipe scooting past the passenger side of the block, so much room. Paging JD…
Turbo.
Budget.
Heaters.
JD’s work.
Wheelstands.
Beers.
Fuuuuuu.
:tup:
this shit will never do a wheelstand.
I’m excited to see this boosted, see if jt76 has any parts left over you could use
Congrats on getting ot out :tup:
I’m glad you tackled this. Plus, this made me giggle:
It just takes patience…and a schematic.
and about 40 beers in my case.
I was telling Paul B last night at Bubble Tea, if there was anything I would re-do, it would be to buy a premade harness for this swap (if they made them). There was lots and lots of nice information for the GM portion of the harness but it was difficult to establish what BMW sources to tap into for ground, 12V+, 12V+ keyed, and start.signal. Also was a pain in the dick using relays to convert polarity. In 2 cases I had a relay triggering another relay, which then powered the item. Oh well, it’s all tucked away in the e-box now, and hopefully won’t be a headache for a long time.
Are you still interested in taking a look at my QTP electric cutout motor? I’m reconfiguring my exhaust and really want that damn thing to be functional, it has been sitting for over a year now.
I can look at it for you. Let’s hook up next week or the week of the forth.
Shoot me a PM when you have time to look at it. Monday - Wednesday works best for me.
a bit over 1000 miles on the swap and had my first “troubles”…
on the way back from a Color me Rad 5k, a severe misfire started occuring with the smell of raw gas making its way into the cabin, even at speed. thought i had dropped a plug wire or a coil, but they were all firing as verified on the side of the road. limped the sucker home, really could have been worse, but the car got me home from 60 miles away, so I can’t complain. turns out the injector signal wire for cyl. #7 was grounding out on the fuel rail, causing it to run WIDE OPEN, all the time. at one point i had liquid fuel dripping out of the exhaust. reinsulated the wire, unplugged battery to try to reset the fuel trims, and after an initially rough idle as the fuel cleared out of the exhaust, all was well.
while diagnosing the fuel issue, i also went through multiple startup/shutdown cycles. during one startup the starter began SCREAMING, literally gear on gear noise. i thought my flywheel was toast due to the teeth being chewed up, but it was fine. Pulled the starter (which I bought used over on LS1Tech with low miles) and found this. Yeah, that’ll cause some noise due to tooth misalignment…
Replaced it with a reman’d unit that actually turned out to be defective as well (bad solenoid), but starter #3 did the trick and the car is up and running again.
The replacement is OEM for a 2003 Express Van, and is the “later style”, with a much thicker mounting boss for the inboard bolt (the area where my thumb is in the picture is where the added material is located).
ughhh. nothing but headaches. lol lemme know when your ready for some broooooost. I may have a 6.oh by the end of the week myself!
no shit, what’s it going into? another E36?
boost is on the list…but i have a real fetish for houses now, so that comes first.
Well, it officially sounds like a 1988 Buick going down the road…
Over the past few weeks I had been getting a slight belt squeal during cold starts and during the first 10 minutes of driving. Once the engine warmed up it went away, but when cold it was present. The sound is clearly coming from the driver’s side of the accessory system. While increasing revs in the garage I could tell it sounded like:
-idler pulley (which came on a bracket I bought used)
-alternator (which came with the drivetrain a year ago, and the bearings were grinding back then).
Made sense to replace the cheaper one so I threw in an OEM idler, and the noise did not change. Replaced the alternator with an Autozone unit, and suddenly the noise is severely worse. At hot idle it’s not there, but as soon as I go above 1200 RPM we have a loud squeal.
Water pump is a low mileage used unit
Belt tensioner is a new rockauto unit
Power steering pump is a low mileage used unit
I’m assuming it’s one of the following:
-Alternator is bad. It charges fine and the bearings made zero noise before putting it in, so I doubt this.
-Alternator pulley is now SLIGHTLY misaligned with the rest of the system due to manufacturing tolerances, causing causing enough belt misalignment to make noise.
-Belt is bad
-One of the other accessories suddenly went bad and is making noise internally (doubt it)
I plan on running it tonight and spraying the belt with water to see if it quiets it down. Will run it without the belt as well to rule out an accessory being bad internally.
I also diagnosed a severe clunk I was getting from the driveshaft under hard launches. Thought it was one of the diff bushings causing that pig to move around, but it turned out it was the CSB (which is original to the car). It’s a shame because I bought a new CSB months ago and asked Fleet Pride to install it for me when they welded on the slip yoke. They “couldn’t get the nut off” on the center section, but I think it was more of a case of it being late on a Friday and them being too lazy to get it done. So now I have to try to find that new CSB somewhere in my pile of parts and do it myself, hopefully it’s not too much of a pain.
On the brighter side of things while I was underneath the car I measured up the diff bushing dimensions to make a removal and reinstallation tool for the front and rear bushings. I bought a handful of E39 M5 diff parts last year while rebuilding mine and I got 2 new rear bushings as part of the deal. I’ll snag a new front one with ECS as I have store credit with them and need a few other things anyhow, and will be making those tools at work this week.
For the pic whores: pulled off my M-Parallels to put on a spare set of wheels. The rears are getting there but still have lots of fun left in them.
Make sure you have the right belt. One time on a Re-Man autozone alternator it came with the right diameter but wrong rib pulley on it and my car was unhappy.
a new name brand belt (Goodyear Gatorback) has solved the belt noise for now. I suspect it’s still a power steering pulley misalignment issue, but not a big deal.
Finally got around to taking care of my driveline noise; pulled the exhaust and driveshaft to replace the center bearing. Symptom was severe banging noise under the car on hard launches, obviously the driveshaft hitting the body somewhere. I initially thought it was my diff bushings (which I will be replacing in the future anyways as I got them as part of a package deal when rebuilding the LSD), but they turned out to be ok.
Center bolt inside the u-joint was a pain to get out since Fleet Pride spray bombed the whole driveshaft with 8 coats of paint after welding it up, so I ended up using an 11/16th to remove it. I still have to buy a replacement bolt, and the center bearing arrives this afternoon, so I’ll assemble it all later and report back. A new bearing MIGHT be an improvement over this:
For all the BMW reliability nutjobs out there, it was another case of degraded rubber/plastic. The bearing itself spun just fine, but the rubber had hardened and separated, allowing the edges of the center u-joint to kiss the underbody on hard launches. I’ll see if I can snap a few pics of the contact later tonight.
hey norb, when you get the new one be sure to clean it good and pack it with window weld before installing it. lil something I did when I was around 700ish whp on stock bmw driveshaft.
:tup: thanks for the tip, i may do that.
anyone have an M12x1.5x25mm bolt laying around? Having mediocre luck finding them locally.
Mcmaster is typically next day…
Found a slightly longer one locally that will work, but thanks! gotta get that instant gratification on!
When you wrenching? You have to come over and see the parts pile for the Nova.
As soon as I leave work I’m gonna go grab that bolt and slam it all in the car. If I have time I MIGHT be able to drop by around 8ish to take a peek? Still owe you AN wrenches and a MAP (and whatever else I’m forgetting)