M325i vs SR20DET.

[|ncary 0]

Found an awesome problem, the needle for the tacho stops rotating at around 7250 RPM. I'm hoping to have a little more revs than that. Oh well.

Boring sunday afternoon.

Did this while everything was in bits...

Skip a few boring steps: Taaaa daaaa. So damn perfect. Painted the whole dash black and tinted some useless lights with 35% tint.

[JiB 0]

Looks good.

I hope you've got rocker arm stoppers if you're planning on taking it beyond 7krpm regularly!

[Forrest 35]

Do you have a template/still have the hookups for the polycarbonate sunroof panel you had made?

We may need to discuss this in further detail...imma gona do this soon.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Brams

[|ncary 0]

Have seen lots about these rocker arms stoppers, definitely planned upgrade.

And nath, I took my car to a few places around town here till a champ of a man measured the hole in the roof. I returned 2hours later and it was cut, chamfered, beveled, rounded, and drilled at 200mm intervals. It has a 20mm overhang all around and is 4, or was it 6, mm polycarbonate. Great buy for 70 bucks. Look up companies who make plastic things like display stands and signs etc, that is what this company did most.

[Nobimmer 694]

Nath, I can get that made up for you for probably around that price. PM me.

[Forrest 35]

Thanks Henry, I will be in touch Ashkan

[|ncary 0]

Busy busy evening!

I've always planned to have this thing as 'sleepa' as possible. I don't want to plow snow with a FMIC.

So I masked up the fins (a lot harder than you might think) and in came the black.

And added a personalised logo. The Peregrine Falcon.

And this evening..

Just kidding around with the 10inch wide BBS's... sadly.

In goes the jappa

My good bitches helping out. I get to be the bitch for upcoming tech1 installs and manual conversions.

So often I see shitly mounted intercoolers. Drives me insane. It's for a number of reasons I believe. Some people think that each square inch of intercooler hanging out off the front of the car adds a horsepower. Some do it for show. Others do it well, it's rare to see here in christchurch. Here it is done well:

Cut out a bit of the valance, mainly to ease the installation of thin alloy panels to duct up the whole radiator and IC to ensure no air from the 4 vents at the bottom of the tech1 can pass around.

Some 5mm steel mounts were fabbed up, and I got to splatter some Mig all over the place. But it worked well, the mounts held my weight easy.

Finished. Going to be running 2inch charge piping, and at each end of the IC will be 2.5-to-2 inch connectors. The overall lenght of charge piping is going to be sweet f**k all, about 50cm on the turbo side and less than 30 on the intake side; this was the main reason for mounting the intercooler in the hardest place out of the small number of options the e30 gives you.

Some new radiator mounts are halfway through being welded one, but it got too late. This is how we left it this evening. Was great to finally see it in there.

Didn't really get any clear shots of the overall engine bay look. The wiring is all over the place so I'll hide it and get some pics tomorrow. Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

[|ncary 0]

Do you people like the captions above the picture? I'm actually starting to think I'm doing it wrong that way.

And we weighed the SR. Which is the engine, all accessories attached, gearbox, loom, turbo etc etc.

210kg...

The block and crank of a M20 weigh 95kg.

Wish we had a complete M20 to weigh. I don't think there will be anywhere near 30% weight saving! But it should be a good several bags of potatoes. And the bonus of 2 cams.

[gouba 0]

Do you people like the captions above the picture? I'm actually starting to think I'm doing it wrong that way.

It's definitely clearer this way.

Great update btw I was going to do nothing today, but now I feel compelled to work on the car

[e30guydownunder 2]

Love the way this is shaping up mate, the cooler should be well hidden behind the mtech1, just the way we like it.

Keep on with the updates

[|ncary 0]

Thanks! And yes it is. Haven't got a shot of it with the kit on, but it's basically invisible, with air from the lower ducts all feeding it (after some alloy plate air-guiders are added)

And some pics from Saturdays work, not much done. Sorted out what which wires will be used, and where they will go. Decided on a new fuel pump system - separate relay and circuit that switches on the fuel pump when the car is in the ON position, rather than just when it is cranking.

And riveted/welded the radiator mounts. Rivets were needed cause the metal is damn thin down there... It is currently supported with zipties at the top, proper clamps coming.

Hope to have it cranking at least the week after next. This weekend is to be taken up by a large flatwarming at my flat aha.

The clutch is nice and heavy/poppy thanks to the mismatched master/slave. But at least they are on the same side of the car as each other now!

And look at that, no damn steering linkage thwarting any plans.

Mega-shortened driveshaft. Will probably need balancing, but at least it is a lot easier to take out than a standard one. (The front half of the shaft slots into the back of the gearbox, rather than guibo/6 bolts)

Lots of room to move here in the future...

And now the oil pan is barely the lowest point!

How it hangs.

And the higher front end it now has... Shorter springs needed! That's as low as it goes. Although the engine may not be that much lighter, the mass has shifted back quite a bit. We'll get it on the corner scales at some stage.

[Nobimmer 694]

badass

[tibbs.james 1]

Nice Job Henry

Are you going to fit a smoother down pipe to that exhaust ? I Cut one of those OEM Nissan ones in half and it was a bit of a pig looking thing on the inside Pretty Much a Right angle bend.

Looks like you have plenty of room if you grab a flange and a 3" mandrel U bend.

It won't take you long to build something like this $ 50 flange and some Mandel bend's later

if you heat wrap it make sure you paint it with ceramic header paint after you wrap it so that the heat wrap wont go all frayed and crappy.

If you don't wrap it you might find the floor gets a bit warm on that side > I know the passger's foot in the 300zx gets bloody warm

[Gaz 1060]

If you don't wrap it you might find the floor gets a bit warm on that side > I know the passger's foot in the 300zx gets bloody warm

Definately wish I did this when I had the chance on my 200sx.

Conversion looks insanely tidy. Good work.

[e30plz 1]

fully sick

[|ncary 0]

The current exhaust will be sweet. I plan on going top-mount for the turbo for more clearance/heat-issues, and have plans for large downpipe then, its still just a T25 atm. Will be putting in some alloy plate heatsheilding for now as the fuel lines and brake master are pretty damn close to the snail. The engine will remain stock for quite a few months.

Hoping it becomes even more tidy as the months pass

And thanks J.

Edited August 10, 2010 by Incary

[tibbs.james 1]

Ive had the 300zx out boosting around today , Can't wait to give ya a drag a the track sometime !

[pureboiracer 0]

potentially my next race car motor. awsome ....

[hybrid 1043]

sweet dude ... it looks great

[Grant 4]

This is very cool. Nice work Henry and his bitches

[|ncary 0]

Ok so the last 2 days has been sort of a blessing. We just had Uni holidays the past 2 weeks then on the second to last day of them we had the earthquake. If you have seen pictures of the library here at the Uni then you can understand the destruction. They closed the campus for a week starting on monday just been. The students have just had word the campus will be closed for ANOTHER week. Full on. What does it meaaan?

Anyway. So I've been able to start finishing this car. The last 2 days I've been leaning over the engine bay going 'ohhh f**k' and slowly shortening/lengthening/adding connectors/deleting redundant bits. It's a hell of a mission. I've never tackled any sort of wiring job before and this is a pretty advanced job to be a noob for. I'll have a bit of proper write up done after the engine turns over, but for now I've mated the required wires from the engine harness through the C101 wires to the e30 fuse box. Things like constant 12V (ecu backup power), switched 12V with fuse (power for all sensors/misc), non-fused 12V (coil packs power, I added a fuse just in case), oil pressure switch, alternator charge tickler, starter motor trigger and coolant temp sender (which probably won't work with the stock e30 gauge). All of these have to be either extended across the engine bay or deloomed from the loom and shortened right up.

Then under the dash in the C104 will be the tacho sender wire.

Then on the other side of the engine I have to custom up a harness to include the alternator power, power feed, earth and aforementioned alternator charge tickler (tells the battery to charge or something). The power and power feed must be run through a 75Amp fuse to the positive battery terminal (I think). Still trying to locate a 75Amp fuse haha, I have a holder already.

Then I have aircraft switches for the fan and fuel pump connected to relays and fuses, and some nice alloy plate to mount them on the back wall of the phone compartment in front of the gear shifter. Will make a postit note saying 'turn on fan' and leave it there for a few weeks.

Then reverse lights. And f**k knows what else. All of this is soldered with heatshrink btw.

If this was a nissian chassis it would be such an easy job. But with this BMW fuse box, it's very difficult to tell where the power for everything comes from.

It'll probably work. Pictures either later or tomorrow!

[Sammy J 1]

Tickler heh, you mean the alternator exciter?

[|ncary 0]

Tickling... Exciting... Either way you know she loves it!

[Sammy J 1]

Bahaha QFT

[|ncary 0]

You didn't even Quote it!