Lifted E30 V2

[suspenceful]

Supposed to get 3-5" on Sunday. Hope you'll be around to play.

...and just to clarify, I'm talking about snow.

[SteelBlue]

You treat her right, Ben.

pls

[Jdesign]

Glad you got it back up and running. I would try bleeding the brakes till you cant feel your calves. Then consider replacing the booster.

[GunMetalGrey]

So it seems like the passenger front caliper is either seized, or there is still a ton of air in the line. The pedal is feeling okay, but in snow the car pulls hard left under braking. I shall try to bleed that side again. 
Took it out for the first time, and went to get gas. Filling up a car from the trunk is a very amusing thing to do.

Stopped in some snow and took a pic. 

I threw the old bumper on for the time being, just so it had something up front. I also wired up the lights because they are quite bright and convenient to have!
 

 

Did a touch of "ditch" banging with sir Spence that night as well, which is always amusing. 

We are scheduled to get a lot of snow this weekend, so last night I started building an actual exhaust for it in hopes of having it "street legal" for the weekend. 

I also need to get started on the new skidplate, but my indecision of frame lifting is making me hesitant on that. 

This has been my scattered thoughts. 
 

[Earl]

When you doing the rear flares?

[straight6pwr]

thats awesome!

"no f*cks given ditch banging"

[GunMetalGrey]

Earl said:

When you doing the rear flares? 

I'm not sure. 
The rear doesn't actually need flares, and I may loose travel by spacing out the wheel to match the flare. That or I need to stop stance boi'ing it.
I need to go pull another set of front flares to do the rear of the car, as the rear flares didn't line up at all like I wanted them to. They aren't high on the list as it is quite a bit of work lol.

[Earl]

Just anxious for the complete flared look=)

[suspenceful]

Earl said:

Just anxious for the complete flared look=)

Same. I keep bothering him about it but as he said, it's not high on his priority list. I think it looks incomplete and will look awesome with all 4 flares.

[GunMetalGrey]

I attempted to take this home last night in preparation for the snowpacalypse. I stopped to get groceries on the way home and shut the car off. I returned to the vehicle after getting groceries, loaded up and went to start it. Cranked over very well, but wouldn't fire. Fuel pump wasn't running. Got a ride home from Mr Suspenceful and will go try switching the main relay today. 
The last time it did this I just let it sit for awhile and it started again, which was odd.

[straight6pwr]

oh noes! gotta get it working the the snow tonight.

GunMetalGrey said:

The last time it did this I just let it sit for awhile

what is the book time on that procedure?

[suspenceful]

The car definitely has some gremlins. I wish I knew M20s or E30s better than I do. But I hope to see it eating snow this weekend!

[Jdesign]

Oh geez. I hate gremlins! Main relay or crank sensor? I hope to see it running and pics of it climbing snow banks this weekend!

[GunMetalGrey]

Many things happened this weekend, and for awhile I thought the motor was toast. Though given all of this stuff I did get this picture, which has messed up lighting, but I still find it cool.

[B C]

Love this pic and the "BEN PLS" decal [emoji23]

[GunMetalGrey]

So the biggest issue with this car currently is that the main relay on the engine harness never turns off. I tried unplugging the ECU, c101, and ignition switch at the same time and the main relay still turns on when plugged in. 
This confuses me, as well as drains my battery. 
I had continuity to pins 2, 5, and 17 of the c101 engine side, and those all appear to be just level sensors. 
The ECU is supposed to ground this relay out, and it is always grounded. 

I'm tempted to do a bad fix and just put a switch on the wire, so that the main relay is controlled in the cabin.

[Jdesign]

I would check to see where the power is going after the relay. I know that on my E24 it goes to the OBC which has a fuse or a resistor that fails and can cause issues. Maybe not the same with your car, but its worth a look.

[GunMetalGrey]

Jdesign said:

I would check to see where the power is going after the relay. I know that on my E24 it goes to the OBC which has a fuse or a resistor that fails and can cause issues. Maybe not the same with your car, but its worth a look.

The main relay is always hot, and the ECU is supposed to supply the ground when the key is turned (it's a weird system the more I think about it) 
So it's not so much a matter of where the +12v is, but more of "what is grounding this thing out"?

[GunMetalGrey]

Not much to update. 

I have never been able to get this thing to hold its temperature so far. The radiator isn't getting hot, the top row gets fairly warm but nothing else happens. 
I've tried bleeding air out many times, have replaced the thermostat, and made sure the radiator was flowing. I'm starting to wonder if ice killed the water pump blades. I will probably take the pump out soon and check.

Any other thoughts? It will sit at about 3/4 temp with the cabin fan on high, but will start going higher if I go on the highway.

[GunMetalGrey]

Did some digging last night. 
I was impressed by the amount of time that isn't required to pull a head on one of these things. This is clearly due to not needing to pull the cam and various timing components. It took 45 minutes from start to finish to get the head off with the help of a friend, neither of us having done it before. 

I was very surprised to see how clean the pistons were, and that though the cylinder walls are pretty smooth you can still see some crosshatching. This thing has around 250k miles, so that's always amusing. It also looks like someone had a little valve to piston contact at some point in its life. 
I don't see any super obvious signs of HG failure, but all of the symptoms are there. 
Misfiring (cold and hot lol)
Long crank times
Touch of white smoke
Overheating

Pictures of stuff. White exhaust valves and all. (probably due to my lack of exhaust most of its life)

The really dark part of the HG between the pistons is odd, and something that I have not seen before. 

I'm torn between swapping head gaskets or replacing the motor with on of Mr. Young's spares.