the one and only e30 s52 engine swap
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I think It's about time I get a damn update on this thread.
Yet's rewind a few weeks lol.
@GunMetalGrey stopped by Thursday evening (valentine's day) with the MS3 pro and to give me a hand with the setup of the base tune and what not. After finagling around with it for about an hour or so we got it all set up and I gave her a go. There was a click, and then nothing, Terrific! I suspected that the grounding issue I once had before had returned so I hooked up a jumper cable, one to the mounting point on the alternator the other on the chassis ground bolt. Hopped in and gave it a go, not more then a second later after cranking she popped right off! The idle was quite rough and we only left it go for maybe 5 seconds before shutting it down and took a look at what they had pre-set for ignition timing on the base map, 31 degrees!? Not sure what the reason was for setting it that high but we tried bringing it down a bit to 18 degrees as well as tweaking with the warm up idle rpm and gave it another whirl. Much smoother, as we let the engine run for a bit and warm up the turbo started sounding very dry and quite loud. Immediately we shut it off, popped off the oil feed line, and after giving the engine a few cranks sure enough, no oil. After this was addressed I loosened up the vanos banjo bolt (being that the feed line and vanos line run off the same port on the filter housing) and once again gave it a few cranks, nothing. Seeing this I back tracked in my head remembering quite well that the oil pressure was sitting right below 60 psi so the motor had good pressure which also means that the port with the distribution block was getting oil but not the vanos one, I was quite confused on how that was possible and after another 15-20 mins of brainstorming on what the hell was going on we called her a night.
Following day while I was on lunch I figured there has to be only two reasons for the issue, somethings backwards or somethings clogged. After work I went straight to the shop and although feeling that it was very unlikely, I flipped the oil cooler lines around, propped the feed line in a cup and gave her a few cranks.
That was it! I still don't quite understand how this was possible other then the fact that the oil cooler must have only allowed flow of oil in one direction with some sort of valve. At that point I also took the liberty of figuring out my grounding issue which was quite simple. The powder-coat on the motor mount had caused an interference with it and somehow I've been lucky enough that it never made a fuss up tell now. Easy enough I removed one of the bolts and sanded away the coating covering that area.
Hopped back in and it cranked right over and was running well once again. This time there was no funny noises coming from the turbo, Yay!
Didn't really tweak with anything else on MS3 (being that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing) other then just run and save data logs whenever the car was running.
With the car now at least running I had to park it over on the other side of the shop (cold side) for a while as per the deal with my grandfather so he could attend to a few projects of his own.
Fast forward to present day, hoping to get the car rolled back over come spring break (Week of March 17th - 24th) to get things finished up.
As for a to-do-list...
- Get another Driveshaft
- Get the exhaust installed. Unfortunately the hangers currently welded to it mount to spots on the car that I would rather not mention. Gonna go ahead and cut those out and make some up to mount to the stock locations.
- Bleed the clutch system a bit more
- Mess with the wiring for the headlights a bit (intercooler caused rerouting of the loom that comes across the front of the car causing them to be a bit short for reach)
- Wire up the boost controller
- Finish up wiring for the wide band and boost gauge and then get everything tucked back up underneath the dash
- Find another glove box
- Maybe find some different wheels and tires
- Get it tuned
Luckily there's not a whole lot to get done before she'll be ready to get back on the road.
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2 things checked off the list today!
Picked up a glove box from a guy off r3v for a fair price. That's gonna be shipped out tomorrow and on it's way.
Called up driveshafts specialists in Texas this afternoon and got me a reman'd driveshaft ordered. I can't even begin to describe how helpful the guys are over there, they really know their shit and were super helpful in figuring out what I needed. Prices were very reasonable as well. 100% recommend!
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More progress!
New driveshaft installed, check.
While I was under there I went ahead and finished up bleeding the clutch system.
Next major thing on the list was wiring and finalizing everything.
Wideband and boost gauge had to be fit up and wired in. I ran 3 wires for the ms aux plug. One for the wideband, boost controller, and electric fan.
After getting everything routed how I wanted I wrapped all the wires with 1/4 inch split loom for tidiness. Also had to remove the old stock ecu bracket I was using as the ms module is about an inch wider then the 413. Luckily they sent some universal type brackets that I was able to fit up to the old bolt holes for the stock bracket which made for an easy install.
Little before and after...
Also found what I'm assuming to be my culprit for the "no heat" issue.
The pin holding the wire was popped out completely so when I was trying to turn the dial to warm it was just pulling the hole sleeve and not the wire. In order to make sure that doesn't pop out anymore I drilled a small hole behind the wire and ran a zip tie around it, crossing my fingers that was it. (blue colored zip tie to follow the theme
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Picked up a glovebox from a user on r3v a couple weeks back, showed up today.
Gonna work on getting that installed tomorrow.
Last major thing on the list before the car is ready for a tune is the exhaust. Friend of mine started working on some new hangers for it Monday night, he will be returning Friday and hopefully we can get that all done so she's ready to go.
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can you elaborate on the driveshaft company in TX? name and contact info? approx cost for a reman? did they take the core?
Dan
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They look to be the same remans as Wholesale Import Parts. I have used them a few times with great results
https://www.wholesaleimportparts.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIo7KW8OOT4QIVFZ7ACh21GgZzEAAYASAAEgKKqvD_BwE
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can you elaborate on the driveshaft company in TX? name and contact info? approx cost for a reman? did they take the core?
I believe the guy I talked with was Brent, super knowledgeable. Before calling make sure to have the driveshaft out of the car and a tape measure on hand as they do require you to make a few measurements to insure they send you the correct one (you wouldn't believe how many different variations there are). Driveshaft was $399 with tax plus a $80 core charge. They send a return shipping label for the core driveshaft which you just simply send back in the same box the reman'd one comes in. New reman'd driveshaft is of very nice quality and comes with a new CSB.
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I believe the guy I talked with was Brent, super knowledgeable. Before calling make sure to have the driveshaft out of the car and a tape measure on hand as they do require you to make a few measurements to insure they send you the correct one (you wouldn't believe how many different variations there are). Driveshaft was $399 with tax plus a $80 core charge. They send a return shipping label for the core driveshaft which you just simply send back in the same box the reman'd one comes in. New reman'd driveshaft is of very nice quality and comes with a new CSB.
Did you have them put the e30 CSB on the e36 driveshaft?
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Did you have them put the e30 CSB on the e36 driveshaft?
The reman'd driveshaft was an E30 one and they will ask for measurements of the CSB as well to confirm that they send you the correct one which comes installed and ready to go out of the box.
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The reman'd driveshaft was an E30 one and they will ask for measurements of the CSB as well to confirm that they send you the correct one which comes installed and ready to go out of the box.
For some reason I thought you were using a ZF, good to know though!
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Decided I'm gonna do a compression test on the engine tonight after work. Pray for me.
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Well it looks like everything is good over here! Only reason for doing a compression test in the first place was because it is part of the pre-dyno inspection checklist and I just needed to know that everything is good and healthy. Very happy with the results, everything was within 10 psi or less of each other!
Finished up hanging the exhaust last night! Very happy with the way it sits along the bottom of the car. As of right now I'm just gonna run the two hangers. There is a spot for a third one which would have to be welded to the muffler but the way it fits up now and how snug it feels I don't think it will be needed, we shall see though.
Next little thing was something I had not originally anticipated on but after some diligent research I came to the conclusion that for me, the pros out weighted the cons. I decided to switch over to E85. Friday night I took a ride to the closest gas station with a flex fuel pump which luckily is only about 2 miles from my house and picked up 6 gallons. Came back, drained out the remaining 2 gallons of 91 still in the tank and poured in the 6 gallons. Once this was done I proceeded to tunerstudio where minor adjustments had to be made to the fuel ve table.
To get the car to at least run and idle with E85 I simply had to highlight all the values, go to my scale cells tool and increase everything by 40%.
After letting the fuel pump prime for a few seconds I turned the key over and instantly she was up and running, very rough of course but after letting it warm up a bit everything started to even out.
This brings me to my last order of business. I Found a tuner. After spending some time asking and searching around I located a shop, DB performance out in Rogers, MN. After some messaging them on facebook explaining my setup and what not they gave me an estimate on the cost and I locked down a date, April 15th. A day on the weekend would have been the best for me but it was an extra $100 and all other days were pretty much booked up tell May. Nevertheless, very excited to what kind of power this thing puts down! Last few things on the list include me tucking up some wires on the front of the car and going through everything on the pre-dyno checklist. May do a few other cosmetic touches that need to be attended to.
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Last little update before Dyno day!
Finished up checking off everything on the pre-dyno checklist!
Double checked the ignition timing. Everything was good there, as expected.
Pulled my wastegate and double checked that I had the correct springs for the boost pressure I plan to run. Luckily I had as it was set at 15 psi on spring pressure. Swapped in a brown and red one which is 7.25 psi (plan is to run around 8 psi once tuned).
Something else I hadn't mentioned but needed to attend to was one of the axle boots in the back. When I bolted the rear end back up after switching out the bushings and what not I just so happened to rip one of the boots on accident.
So, I ordered 2 new boots for the whole axle off amazon and got to it. Fairly easy job to do but very messy with the grease and all, had all my tools used covered in it after I was done.
Unfortunately the boots on the other axle have a few cracks from dry rot so I will be eventually doing those as well.
So, since my car originally did not come with cruise control I did not have a clutch sensor to wire up to run launch control/2step that I was hoping to do. Well thanks to @GunMetalGrey I do now. Wired it up the following night. I am looking forward to the enjoyment this will bring me
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Alright, back to the checklist.
Boost leak test. Instead of paying the 70 to 100 dollars for a tester online I instead made something myself that did the trick. Unfortunately since the turbo leaks through the back side of the face I had to pull that portion off and plug the beginning of the charge pipe there.
On the other side I popped off the 90 degree boot connected to the throttle body and plugged that side where I also had a valve stem I installed into it as well as a port for the diverter valves vacuum line so those would stay shut.
Brought it up to 30 psi before my valve stem started seeping (it was a cheap one) so brought it down to 25 psi where she held as well as everywhere else in the system. I did however notice that after about 15 psi the seam on one of the diverter valves started leaking air out. Not much I can do there besides replace it and being that I will be running lower then 15 psi of boost anyways I think I'll be alright (famous last words). I do plan on eliminating both of the valves down the road and running a tial bov or similar that weld in to the pipe instead of hose clamps.
After that was finished, I went ahead and reinstalled the turbo housing...
Lastly and the most exciting update... WHEELS AND TIRES!!!!
Yes, they are reps. They will do fine though.
CCW classic reps to be more specific made by avid 1. They are 16x8 et25 all around sitting on a set of Toyo proxies R1R 225/45-16 tires . I was originally gonna do a 205/50-16 but with the extra power I thought it's best I run something with a bit more meat. Only down side was the fact that I had literally 5 tires to choose from in that size and 2 of them had been discontinued.
As for the wheels, the back's fit perfect with no rubbing. The fronts however had some rubbing along the inside on the strut tower as expected. knowing this was most likely to happen I had 5mm spacers come with the the wheels to get me a +20 offset which helped with just the right amount of clearance on the front. I will also be running 5mm spacers on the back so it looks more even, idk we'll see. I need to order some wheel studs before I do this though.
I feel pretty confident that she's ready to go. Really hoping all goes smoothly and nothing major happens, we shall see.
Stay tuned!
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This setup will ruin you and nothing will ever be fast enough ever again
I sure hope so
As I think @Jdesign had said, reps now a days are so good it’s kind of non issue for most uses unless you are a wheel purist. Very excited to see dyno numbers, any predictions?
Only thing I can say about legit wheels is the weight being a bit less. I think these ones come in just around 18.5 lbs which is pretty hefty but they seem beefy and capable so whatev's.
Hoping for middle 300's hp, anything better then 330 and I'll be pretty happy.
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@DrLeadFoot did just about 500whp on 18-21psi on his S52, and that was on an OBD2 chip tune.
That setup was uncomfortably fast
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@DrLeadFoot did just about 500whp on 18-21psi on his S52, and that was on an OBD2 chip tune.
That setup was uncomfortably fast
Obd1 tune. Very bad tune
@DrLeadFoot
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