328FTW

Bump, still looking for this. Or some kinda diagram of it? I'd rather buy the plug though, not hard cause I just need it chopped off an old body. Maybe the 5 series used the same one to maybe, might post a pic tonight.

Cheers

rather buy one cause it's a PITA and I dunno how the wires go. I didn't unplug it when I lifted the thing out and it pulled all the wires out. It's also one of those twist plugs and has weird round prongs in it so I dunno what kind of connector I could push onto them plus if I could even solder it. Chop one off yours and send it, it's a piece of sh*t anyway

Hey guys I'm after the plug off the back of the gearbox. It's a round one, chopped off is fine so I can solder it onto my loom. My plug is destroyed and I've been asking all over trademe with no luck. This stupid little thing is holding up getting the car back on the road

Still after this? I have one available from a pre facelift 325i, I'm in pukekohe. I assume it's the same as the 318 one?

Ok so some of the studs on my new motor could do with replacement, trying to change the gasket the pre facelift manifold is a complete biyatch to get off and not only that the nuts were well rusted down, rounded and needed heat to get off at which point the threads picked up and a few were straight out gas axed off they were so bad. Does anyone sell a well priced kit or do I have to make up my own to suit? Either or, it's about $15 to make my own I guess; just time consuming.

Good writeup I remember from a while back, this was before I had done a wheel http://www.mr2.com/forums/mk2-interior-ste...recovering.html Shows how to make "fat" wheel as well.

Use foam, about medium density.

I've done this before only I used vinyl. Same process with anything else, well some things might need a little heat/steam/creativity to work them.

Yeah that's what I was kinda thinking but I don't want too much black either cause the block is already done in a nice black enamel I've used before that looks good. I'll have to have a play. Just sometimes some people are more aesthetically inspired than I am.

It looked better in my head which is why I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. I didn't really like when I painted it silver either which was my first choice.

I've been busy painting up and otherwise prepping my new motor for the E30. I've sandblasted, polished and painted everything. Even the exhaust manifold has been sandblasted then done in stovetop paint to make it look nicer. So that said this is my intake/motor It seemed good in my head but it's just seems a little too much colour. I was thinking either silver or crinkle black for the centre of the plenum and then just highlight the BMW logo with some blue/silver/black by hand. My valvecover has the BMW stripes so I kinda extended the idea. What do other people think? I'd rather not repaint the runners cause that was a real pain in the ass and I like that bit, just the centre is a bit much IMO.

I already had a bid on one so if I don't get it I'll hit you up if still available. Otherwise I'll land up with 2 of the things lol

Actually after sending that PM I remember another thing. It's a facelift right? looks it. But I need a left hand rear tail light. Mine's got a bit missing and white light shines out = wof fail. So would be keen on that if yours is ok.

Sorry I didn't reply to the text, things are out of control around here. To be honest I was more interested in the manual conversion than the car. I can't really be assed with another project e30 or part out. Just keeping tabs on what you do with it.

Manual or auto?

Sorry man, she has gone to the big scrap merchants in auckland. Will be updating the thread in a minute, not much left. I basically cleared that stuff in record time to make room, was really on a mission to get rid of things. If I can move the bonnet and doors this week I'll be really happy. Once again thanks to those I've dealt with, no shenanigans or messing around; was good.

I'm bias, when I say n/a power I mean gobs of it. Generally not very good street setups mostly because of cams. Boost is only useful if you know more info is what I was getting at, like when someone in a starlet quotes "run my car at 18psi, GOES HARD" 18psi means jack all by itself if someone says such and such motor takes X boost it's nice to know what is pushing that air. I still stick by standalone being brilliant however the user and tuner behind it has a lot to do with that, it's not worth dirt if the user has no idea what they're doing. Something I have zero idea about is on these cars you have basically 3 iterations of the motronic ECU with the M20 engines and even one jetronic unit and how they get on for one being easier than the other to mess with.

Alright so I got the motor and stuff out today by flipping it onto its side. After that I put it onto the trailer ready to be dumped. So if anyone is keen to go ahead and grab anything from the body then now is the time because it will cease to exist soon.

While I realise you can make power on stock ecus with the right touch I do often wonder why. It made sense maybe 10 years ago but today you can have standalone really really cheap. It's the tuning that kills you but you need to do that regardless so I'd rather go with the better system. I'm a fan of megasquirt, some people hate it but mine was fine right up till I sold it. Sure I blew up a couple motors with it but I've blown plenty more on stock ecus. My prelude runs a LINK, antilag, launch control and features that are just in general not really easily possible on standard ecus. $700 off tardme. I mean that's nothing when you look at what the car can do. The car is unlike almost anything else. I find drag cars spend most time at WOT and they tune as such, my car being a rally car has a much much broader range of scenarios; road cars you don't want huge injectors drowning out any chance of good MPGs because it's only good for WOT and only has the flexibility to do that one thing well and the rest of the range is compromised. To generalise doing turbo setups: Cheap stainless manifolds usually crack, they use lower grade stainless and the welds are often sub-par. Cheap turbos often die young, chinese quality control is sh*t and there is a lot of the time metal swarth from machining just left in the assemblies or bad tolerances on the bearings etc. Even pot metal wheels that explode. Tuning is your friend Widebands are your other best friend Psi and horsepower have almost nothing to do with each other, learn to at least partially understand turbo efficiency maps. Cheap intercoolers work fine Use good clamps on your pipes Expect it to cost more than you planned If you can't afford another motor or to have your car leave you stranded then don't try. Probably more stuff but my suggestion is a big ugly steampipe manifold and something solid like a genuine garret t3/t4. Not because it's optimal but because it's solid. If you can spring for a good ball bearing turbo then go for it but they can't be rebuilt as a rule, 360 degree thrust bearing on a turd pusher t3/t4 of the right trim is an ok setup for most 6 cylinders and parts are everywhere. N/A built motors are fun as hell, I've driven a 300hp 2 litre and it had to be one of the most responsive motors I've even been behind but the M20b25 is too limited heavy and wrong kind of car to really benefit greatly. For starters the whole 2 valve per cylinder thing makes for throwing about heavy valves which on a revvy n/a motor is all kinds of wrong. I just bought a nice tig welder and was kinda half considering getting into making some manifolds and what not. I can mig them up but most people recoil at my shitty looking welds spattery cause of the CO2 I run on it now. Steampipe is the bomb for turbos, stainless I like more for n/a cars that don't get the things red hot. A good stainless turbo manifold is $$$$ if they are using the correct alloy for it.

I've always been of the stance that "shortcuts" with stock ecus are what blows things up. Full standalone is usually always the way to go even with engines that use a volume type of metering (AFM) rather than speed density. Fuel you can dump it in till it's running out the tailpipe but unless the timing is well controlled the motor dies a sad death. I've never really see many pull it off without true standalone, at least not for a decent period, only takes a short period of leanout on an ecu that isn't monitoring a wideband or what have you and the motor is toast. Plus it means you're not maxing out the trim settings on things that control fuel only, they are different in their limitations but they are usually just that, limited. The exception to using standard ecus to me is if you change injectors then remap a chip in the stock ecu to compensate timing etc. Which is basically going back to having control of your criticals. Stock ecu turbo setups are usually very mild for what is put into them and the gains in my mind are "not as fun" as n/a power adders due to that cut timing and less responsive feel, till you get to the 300+hp turbo realm then they really come into their own. I'm not too specifically clued up on these motors but looking at them and their compression it appears easier than most. As for parts, I make everything usually, putting the turbo on is the easy bit.

May be keen on springs, just posting to subscribe myself and to remember you have these.

If you can do something with it I guess it depends on how hard it is to pull the loom. I don't mind pulling the OBC panel out but the loom might be a mission. It's no use in pieces so easier to go cheaper as a whole. Maybe $40 if I have to pull the dash to get it out? (I despise removing dashboards) If it can be just quickly unclipped and the loom undone easily then $20 is fine, somewhat inbetween being somewhat inbetween. I'm guessing you'd want the computer, the dash surround and the loom correct? Removing a dash is a good few hours work when I'm unfamiliar with how it bolts in is my only quip about that. I'm fine letting it go cheap if it's really easy to remove though. I just dunno anything about how tricky it is.

Head deck is mine MUHAHAHHAHA, it's actually got a remote and all. *snatches away from the hordes* The diff I think is a 3.91. Given the age of the car and the swapping and whatnot that goes on I'd have to check for sure but I think it should be a mediumcase? 3.91. Pretty standard, I'd doubt it's LSD or low ratio but it didn't whine or do anything weird. I took the car on a decent drive when I got it and it drove ok. No bearing whine, didn't knock, clunk or whatever.

UPDATE, today I backed it off the trailer. VR sensor sh*t itself and it stopped running. Well I assume a VR sensor, everything points to that, no spark or fuel, ecu seems fine and is throwing a check light when I attempt to crank but it won't fire. Would be easy to fix but no reason to. I'm converting it to motronic 1.3 on my facelift electrics (appears to be 1.0 from what I see, VR pickups in gearbox, no teeth on front pulley) So the rest of the running gear like diffs and stuff are fine for being pulled now. I've got the car stripped of much of the useful things and will be just add in the stuff I don't use getting my car running to the mix later, like my old shortblock was still good etc. I have a full shop with car lift so things like the diff, suspension arms etc don't take long for me to rip into. Will update first post shortly/tonight some time with a big list of stuff I've put a number to. What doesn't sell probably is going to be sent to scrap metal, I'm really motivated to keep things moving and not have another car body around. I have other projects that need attention. Not original, just some shitty $15 warehouse ones sorry. Will keep it in mind