MLM

Nice one Graham! im impressed how quickly and sensibly you went about putting the car together. Good work

Had a bit of an experiment today with carbon fibre. Can you make parts using existing parts as molds? The result.. One carbon fuel flap in all its wanky goodness... Weighs sweet FA as you would expect and no i wont put it on the car as is. If it goes on at all its getting painted! Proves the process though.

Hmm hows you bandaging skills. The only realistic way i can think of doing this is to wrap the steering wheel with somthing before covering.

It subtle and kinda looks factory which makes it hard to spot. Just the way i like it. No glue was used to hold the fabric on to the wheel just to hold the stitches in case of breakage. Its pulls up tight and holds itself well. No slackness three years on (cant twist material on wheel at all) The suede does looks a bit second best for not using gloves though. The How To Required items Super glue leather or material of choice Heavy duty thread. Quilting thread i think its called? Sewing machine Forgiving girlfriend (step 4) Scissors about 4 hours 1) Remove wheel etc and slit all the factory stitching. Do not cut the leather. 2) Use the cut off part to make a patern on whatever your using. I bought a offcut of leather from trade me for $20 3) This is the tricky part. Using your girlfriends sewing machine punch a row of holes along the edges of both sides of the pattern (where the stitching goes). I tried to stitch it using the sewing machine and as it happens this breaks sewing machines... 4) Appologise profusly for sewing machine failure 5) Stitch the punched holes so that you get a continuous row of stitches on the visable side. Ie do one stitch and tie it off then do the next stitch using the same last hole as the previous stitch. 6) Super glue the back side if the stitches. This is so when pulling it up tight the all pull evenly and if you break a stitch the whole lot dosnt unravel 7) Sew the strip of leather into one continuous loop and slip over wheel. Tight is good as this helps form around the wheel. 8)Stitch onto the wheel like this this, I stole this pic from instrucables though i didnt find this until now.. Tie it off regularly. If the thread breaks now or in service you will cry. 9) Refit wheel and enjoy

I DIY'ed mine. Bit of a time consuming job but not difficult. Looks good and is still going 3 years on... Not bad for the $25 it cost me to do. swheeloa1_1_.bmp

Cold air box has been reinstated this week. Intake temps dropped from 47-50 degC to 25-27 degC, peaking at 31 stationary. Due to not being able to CNC my air box any time soon ( i have to wait for free time on the machine) Im thinking of getting a base tune first. Then at least i can see if i made any gains when it gets made and goes on. Also allows me to drive the car with confidence with out having to be cautious all the time. Edit:Photo added

I had a key cut 2 weeks ago at Mrminnit Sylvis park $10 should still be blanks out there ?

i have looked at these also and IMO they were a 'race' mod only. If i deliberatly slow the pump i should be doing it either because i regularly overspeed the current set up ie lots of high rpm race driving or i know the current setup is over driven. I trust the bmw engineer to spec a pump to work over the most used rev range if not the whole rev range. I cant prove otherwise so for a street car the factory arrangement stays. I would never remove the crank pully/harmonic balencer for fear of breaking somthing unless i had a proven replacement with significant gain. Prove to me any aux conponent is oversped or my car becomes race only and you have yourself a convert. My 2c anyway...

Apex is right about the cross over. I had a similar issue on an AC Cobra with a Lexus V8. They are essentially a paired 4 cylinder so if you run a manifold off one side you get a 4 cylinder sound x2. A balence pipe gets the right combined firing order for the v8 rumble.

The G4 Storm im using requires an external "knockblock" but the G4 extreme dosnt. I have only encountered knock a few times (its audible) at low rpm med load situations and have backed out ignition in those zones or corrected fuel due to cells having poor values. Not the best way for sure but to achieve a car which is mobile this has been sufficient . I set up a base ignition map which was very conservitive initilly and this has proven so far quite good. By no means is this my final map or even one i would use full power, just one to move the car from place to place. I understand N/A cars dont make power where they knock anyway so its not a case of add ignition till it knocks then back out a few degrees. Once the plenum and exhaust are done a full dyno tune will be completed by pro's, Ive just made the engine start idle and run safely, not so much tune as correct thing to make it run acceptably

Yeah i guess, switchable maps on the ecu..... Was thinking a 'stage 2' could be build up the spare head with valves springs lifters cams etc but will sort out what i have first while i save up for later mods. Next project is the plenum chamber and exhaust before any of that happens.

Not as yet, just itb's and ecu to run it all, further head work including cams is a future plan. Cam options are varied (catcams list 4-5 options) but the intention is to keep the car street drivable. *spelling

The tuning is going well, I do a bit each day on the way to work so low load stuff (below 20%throttle) is pretty much sorted such that it it is safe timing wise without any knock and air fuel ratios around 13 which while on the rich side is again quite safe. Still coming to terms with all the features of the link ecu. Down low the car feels quite strong, over the stock set up but then goes a bit flat as the rpm rises as i have kept the ignition very conserative. It now starts on the second crank if not the first so there is a bit of work to do there but its improving and the idle and warm up sequence is rock solid. Waaay beter idle control than factory, no bouncing around the idle point and stumbling. I have read that Alpha-N setups are hard to tune particularly at low throttle positions but so far im very happy with it. The rad is from redline performance, Im happy with the product for the price. The only down point is the drain tap is poor quality with a press interferance fit finger grip to release the the water. This has broken off. I think it was slightly damaged upon recieving it and the brass fitting it brittle. At some point i will braise on the tap fitting again and would sugest this as a first step if starting again with it. Dimensionaly the product is good and fitted well (had to mod a few brackets but thats because its for a 6cyl not a 4. In conclusion, for the dolars it was about right and would buy another if need be.

The turbo setup could work in reverse however i think you may run ito a few problems.. 1) if you plumb in the turbo in reverse finding a manifold may be hard and you may have to custom make one which is expensive. You could try one from a left hand drive car though. 2) because you are blowing exhaust back into the engine. The turbo will be really laggy and the power reduction will be far to late in the rpm range. Ie tyou will have to thrash it to get the power reduction benifit.. 3) you would have to reverse the oil flow in the turbo also, this might require an additional oil pump as your current one is geared to work for power making situations. 4) An interheater (oposite of a cooler) would be needed. I think wrx's had these from factory try your local wreckers. I recomend a reverse supercharger setup. This way you would have a linear power reduction that would work from idle. You could plumb the charger to suck from the inlet and blow into the exhust. a bit like EGR setup only backwards plus you get that cool supercharger whine. Once your done, adding water injection in the exhaust will also help reduce power on hot days.......

Anecdotal but a chap I worked with who was an automotive engineer in Europe the 90's mentioned the early E36 models had weak A pillars which underperformed in crash situations and was strenghtened in later years. Bit of a bugger realy as my E36 is a 1992.... I have never found any info on this but I trust the source as crash structures was his area of expertise and benchmarking the competition (BMW) was part of his job.

Today was rather sucessful. After the rad swap i have been a bit paranoid about temps and running it however a friend who has experience tuning links helped me start building the basic fuel map. After a few cautious moments the car is now drivable with a safe (rich) fuelmap from 1500rpm up at all throttle positions. Under load it sounds awesome with a loud induction rumble. Even with a half baked map it feels as strong if not better as it did before. issues remaining: -Still needs map completion -Idle it high at 2000 rpm and there seems to be a resonance making it hard to achieve an idle. Needs some tweaks of injection phase angles, ignition and fuel. All new to me but will learn it. So good to be driving it again after 8 months

Cheers Josh, I was looking through your project earlier to see how you did it. I was wondering where the tank came from... So far it all fits quite well but i still like the idea of a ram air feed. Might concentrate getting runnig propperly before moding to much!

Started figuring out how to fit the larger 328 style ali rad today. To do this i took a 325/8 expansion chamber the 318is fan shroud and made up a bunch of brackets to support it all. Upper expansion tank bracket, Mounts the shroud and tank to the rad Bottom bracket for additional support The whole lot fitted. A bit snug but still plenty of clearance between parts and looks acceptable I didnt go for the air bypass idea as packaging was tight but it still may be on the cards for the future.

Roight, sortid.. full aluminium radiator it is... While fitting it i have a few problems which i could turn into opportunities. 1) The aircon is shot and has been since i got the car. While im there i could remove the condensor to improve air flow to the rad further. 2) The rad is designed for a 6 cylinder so i need to fit a different/new expansion tank. This may require some custom work to mount it sooo.. What if i were to move the rad back by 100mm with a aluminium shroud to seal around it to the front ducting air though it. The reason for this is that it offers the opportunity tp fit a duct off the side to feed the air box which also dosnt exist at the moment. This could take advantage of any high pressure created at the front of the car to over come pressure loss and maybe gain a +tve pressure in the air box at speed.... At least it would be a guaranteed cold air feed... Looked like a good idea just now in the garage at least, could be the tequila though.. Pics and concepts later. tell me what you think good idea or not? Merry Christmas everyone

Thats a awesome add compaign.. Wonder what else you could use that 'technology' for...

Option B it is... i hope. Engine temps were well within maximum at the time the rad developed the leak. So this leaves a few questions. 1) replace it with direct factory replacement. $300 2) Since the motor is a little "hotter" now should i take the opportunity to go for the larger 328 style radiator and if i did what extra work/expence/hassel/gain would this give me. $??? header tanks look like they could be an issue as the arrangement looks different? Any thoughts?

Just been out in the garage running the car. It still starts which is good, however as it came up to temperature at ~1500rpm i noticed a wee wisp of steam from the radiator and a few drips of coolant on the floor. Not good. So this may mean I have either A. overheated the engine though the coolant temp stayed in the usuall center dial position. I had an external fan as well as engine fans running as i was worried about things getting to hot.. or B. i have a naff radiator which is only now exhibiting a leak all be it tiny after being sat in the garage for so long and at 18yrs of age has decided this was an oportune moment to cark it. Any thoughts? What is the max coolant temp the enginr sensor should see in deg c?

Cheers Chris, Recognise your handle from m42club. The plenum isnt designed for boost, would need a rethink in how the mounting plate attaches to the plenum. In theory i dont see why something like that could not be built to be boost worthy. Overall volume may be less than optimal resulting in a bit of lag. The carbon i hope to use is phenolic based pre-preg which is used to build fire proof walls in aircraft so heat shouldnt be an isssue.

Cheers Nath, Had to learn alot along the way. The final proof of if i did a good job will be on the dyno...

Cheers kerry, It will be interesting to see if/how much of a gain it is.