The Barbara Chronicles

[Vass 859]

Ended up having no luck with the exhaust manifold gaskets. Pulled one apart but the indent pattern is different between the two so gave up. A few more shops should be open tomorrow so will try my luck but pretty much resigned to dropping the engine in without them attached.

Put that to the side and got onto fixing up the steering coupling. Somewhere along the line it got gifted with this masterpiece from Ireland Engineering. Can appreciate the intention behind it but what an absolute piece of sh*t it is. I suspect it would be around 4-5 years old but already very soft and insanely squeaky.

Video: Ireland Engineering Steering Coupling

Compare that to the stock 20-year old rubber one from the engine donor car that still feels solid as (the cracking is coming from my wrist...)

Video: Original Rubber Steering Coupling

If anyone thinking of doing this "upgrade" ever happens to see this - DON'T.

Got the parts nicely cleaned up, put a dash of white lithium grease on the pivot points and bolted the thing up. Did have to drill the holes a size bigger to fit the M10 8.8 bolts.

Was going to put the heatshield back on to make it a bit less conspicuous but that was just too mangled up to be of any use.

Haven't looked into what the cert/WoF verdict might be on it but can easily throw on the original spare coupling if they deem it an issue.

Otherwise, the freshly cleaned heat shields all bolted up, pretty much set for the engine install. Have a mate coming around tomorrow to help with the manoeuvring. Really regret not getting the AC system drained prior to this whole endeavour as that'll be a bastard to dance around but... will manage.

Tomorrow is the day.

[Eagle 1670]

I found poly is just more hassle than its worth on parts that twist. Stopped using it for everything expect fixed mounts after ongoing issues.

Would be interesting to compare the steering feel between the solid to the new OE one. Everyone always compares worn OE to new which isn't exactly a fair test.

[Vass 859]

She's in!

[wrs 120]

On 12/26/2022 at 12:38 AM, Vass said:

Also haven't quite settled on what to do with the exhaust. Lined the 325 & 330 ones side by side and apart from the flap at the tail pipe on the 330, they seem to be pretty much identical? Leaning towards going with the 325 one if so. Am also thinking I'd like a bit more volume out of it so keen to hear some suggestions as to the best course of action, short of dropping a few grand on a full new setup. Don't want it to be stupid loud but in stock form it seemed barely even noticeable so just after a slight increase. What sort of difference would cutting out the secondary cats / resonator make? I assume deleting the muffler is sure to make it obnoxiously stupid? 

Removing the cats will likely create a lot of rasp. I removed my cats and replaced with 50mm tube. Was quite a bit louder and rasped like crazy. It also makes the tin box behind the cats rattle really bad. The tubes going into the cats appear to be 63mm but are dual skinned to keep the temperature high for the cats to work properly. The inner tube is 50mm.

Ended up putting 2 x custom made 250mm resonators from AdrenalineR where the cats were and it settled things down nicely. Was still a bit more noisy (but deep sounding) with almost no rasp.

[Cement 891]

So much work going on here !! Great progress updates Probably not applicable as you're on the mainland but I'll mention here anyhow in case its useful in the future or for others ... highly recommend https://www.beattys.co.nz/driveline in Auckland for driveshaft work. Just make sure they note 'fussy paint job' on it like they did for me 😆

[Vass 859]

Engine went in without issues and have been busy assembling everything around it. First thing I did, of course, was attach the shifter linkage and have a jolly good time shifting gears whilst making racing noises. Really happy with the E60 shift lever and ZHP knob combo as per @Eagle's recommendation. Well worth the investment. 

Engine bay is beginning to look pretty much complete now. Just waiting on the exhaust manifold gaskets to arrive and can finish the last bits off. Fuse / ECU box is also looking nice and tidy now. Tied in the reverse light wires quite well so that they're barely noticeable and the one remaining auto transmission plug is also tucked out of the way.

The new tensioners arrived and got bolted on, as well as the rebuilt DISA, new intake boots and MAF, aluminium water pump and power steering pulleys, power steering reservoir and hoses and also a fresh new dipstick, just because.

Gave the steering rack a good scrub and bolted it back onto the subframe. Kept the old tie rods for now, will chuck new ones on when doing the new suspension, brakes, rear subframe etc. Remembered the old PS pressure hose having a groove worn into it where it was rubbing against the underside of the engine block so chucked on a rubber sleeve on it to prevent the same from happening to the new one in that spot.

Washed all the cooling system and intake components and threw those on. The radiator and associated hoses are barely two years old from when I first bought the car, the engine donor also came with a near new genuine expansion tank dated 2020 so happy enough to reuse that for the time being.

Made sure I got the manual radiator bracket along with the manual conversion so it all looks as it should and doesn't have the blocked off auto trans cooler dangling off the front. Remembered to switch over the radiator plugs from auto (left) to manual (right).

Filled the engine up with oil and turned it over a bunch of times by hand. Going with Penrite 15W-40 special running in oil for the break in period. Have heard good things about it so am sure it'll do the job. Will then switch back over to Castrol Edge 5W-30 that I've built up a decent stockpile of. Am also just using straight distilled water in the cooling system to start with.

Just doing a tonne of cleaning and tidying up small annoyances like missing/broken clips and other imperfections that I have easy access to still. Not sure what sort of environment this car used to be in back in Japan but am noticing some weird items wearing away that I haven't noticed happen on other cars. The latest example being the hood latch cables, the plastic/rubber sleeve on which had completely crumbled away. Went for my ritualistic scavenge to Pick-A-Part and none of the cars there were suffering from a similar disease so was an easy search for a replacement. Luckily an easy task replacing the cables themselves as well without having to change the lock mechanisms. Gave those a clean and dash of grease whilst having the whole thing apart.

Hoping to receive the parts package this week still so can finish things off in the engine bay. Will put the front end back together in the meantime.

[Eagle 1670]

Id be very surprised if this isn't the best mechanically sound non M E46 in the country (once fully completed)

[Vass 859]

On 1/4/2023 at 11:02 AM, Eagle said:

Id be very surprised if this isn't the best mechanically sound non M E46 in the country (once fully completed)

Honestly I just hope it fires up, getting increasingly more nervous the closer it gets to the time to turn the key 

Got the front end back together, great to have it back looking like an actual car again.

Reattached the sway bar with new bushings and slipped in the strut tower reinforcement plates, will leave the rest of the suspension untouched for now.

Got onto swapping out the diff. Decided to put in the auto 330 diff (3.38) from the donor car for now rather than messing about swapping over the input flanges on the 325 auto diff (3.46). Want to give the manual 2.93 diff a fresh lick of paint and new fluids before putting it in for good with the rest of the refurbished subframe later down the track so left it out for now. Good chance to try out the different ratios as well. Was a bit of a mission wrestling it in and out but got there in the end.

The exhaust gaskets arrived yesterday so got onto attaching the manifolds. Absolute PITA of a job, started early afternoon and finished around 1am.

Fitted new pre-car O2 sensors and blocked out the post's with nuts from Redline delivered overnight.

Then got onto the fun part... Honestly, not sure if it's even possible to fit them in without removing the exhaust side engine mount arm. Gave it a quick half-arsed effort but quickly resorted to slightly jacking the front of the engine up (having removed the engine mount nuts on both sides prior) and took the arm out. That opened up enough room to wrestle both the cats past the subframe but was still a balancing act holding them both in there and trying to thread on a few bolts, at the same time trying not to knock the gaskets off the studs. Got there in the end but then made a bit of a misstep. Got the Bank 2 manifold bolted and properly torqued up and jumped onto Bank 1. The right thing to do would have been to at least roughly throw the engine mount arm back in place and reattach the small bracket to the block that holds onto the Bank 1 manifold right after the cat. I only realised my mistake after fully torquing up both manifolds. Of course the engine mount would not fit back through with the manifolds in the way. No way I was going to remove them again so instead I unbolted the power steering hoses (luckily I hadn't filled the system up with fluids yet) and LCA bushing that allowed me to swing the control arm out of the way enough to manoeuver the arm into place. Then I discovered there's not enough room between the block and the manifold to fit in the top bolt for the little bracket (seen in the photo below). Not sure if it serves much of a purpose but wanted to attach it regardless so I ended up cutting the top bolt about 8mm short that gave just enough room to thread it on. So far I think that's the first (and hopefully only) shortcut that I've had to resort to so won't be losing any sleep over it.

Reattached the steering linkage and that should be that in the engine bay, short of fitting the beauty covers and cabin filter housing. Had to rotate the plastic guiding tab thingy on the steering rack input shaft so that the steering wheel and the wheels themselves are pointing (seemingly) straight.

Prior to that also replaced the top section of the steering linkage with one I stumbled upon at Pick-A-Part. Wouldn't have bothered with the effort but someone had done all the work of removing the thing so it was just laying there looking pretty in the engine bay of one of the cars so I couldn't walk past. I knew the old one had been subjected to some serious abuse in its past life so just another small thing to tidy up. 

Things to do still:

• Sort out the driveshaft
• Fit exhaust
• Fluids - bleed brakes & clutch, cooling system, power steering
• Coding - have never done it before but with some awesome guides out there, hoping it won't be too messy an affair.

Not sure if the order matters but will first update the DME to the latest EU2 330i software following this guide. That should code out the post-cat O2's so two birds with one stone. Then, code out the EGS module following this one and that should be that. Hopefully. Famous last words.

If I was a bite-my-nails type of person, I probably wouldn't have any left at this point. Exciting times.

[adro 1084]

Loving the rapid progress!

[Eagle 1670]

Catted manifolds are pricks. Least its all easy stuff now to fire it up.   

[Vass 859]

Popped by Uniweld to ask for advice on what I could do with the exhaust system and to gauge what sort of money to budget for. Replacing the secondary cats with resonators as recommended by @wrs would run $400 a side so $800 all up. Could then sell the cats and recoup maybe $200-300 which isn't too bad. Something to look into later on.

He also put me onto Autopassion to see if they offer any ready made exhaust options for the E46. They don't but whilst I was at it, asked them about the chip tuning service they offer and claimed they have a tune for the 330i that increases power from 231hp to 262hp and torque from 300Nm to 345Nm at a cost of $895. Does that seem legit? Haven't really looked into chip tuning before so not sure if there are any downsides to it?

[Eagle 1670]

Going to be using your spare exhaust system for mods ? Not sure secondary cats would be worth that much unless prices have gone a lot in recent times?. I scrapped a set of primary M54B30 in late 2020 for around $170-180 iirc. 

Those power claims do seem very bold. Personally don't think its worth spending that kind of money on a tune unless you have done other mods. They don't dyno either, so id want to do a before and after which would add more cost. 

 

 

[Vass 859]

1 hour ago, Eagle said:

Going to be using your spare exhaust system for mods ? Not sure secondary cats would be worth that much unless prices have gone a lot in recent times?. I scrapped a set of primary M54B30 in late 2020 for around $170-180 iirc. 

Those power claims do seem very bold. Personally don't think its worth spending that kind of money on a tune unless you have done other mods. They don't dyno either, so id want to do a before and after which would add more cost.

Not sure, might just sell the second one and mod the main one? Got offered $350 for the full set of cats - manifold + secondary so yeah sorry, got my wires tangled up,  your numbers are closer to the truth for just the secondaries.

Hmm...

[Gaz 1062]

Mate has his Audi S4 chip tuned by Basil, loved the outcome. For that money maybe call round places like Flame or RE Sinclair see if they can do a remap and rough costs. I see to recall I had my 200sx tuned for $1000 ish

[Eagle 1670]

3 hours ago, Vass said:

Hmm...

Downsides are their power claims.. Given your engine is basically 'new' (not sure about about all new sensors etc) they should be willing offer you a rebate of some sorts if the before and dynos are way off. I know they likely wont because as they say all their original tuning was done using a dyno.

[balancerider 770]

23 hours ago, Vass said:

He also put me onto Autopassion to see if they offer any ready made exhaust options for the E46. They don't but whilst I was at it, asked them about the chip tuning service they offer and claimed they have a tune for the 330i that increases power from 231hp to 262hp and torque from 300Nm to 345Nm at a cost of $895. Does that seem legit? Haven't really looked into chip tuning before so not sure if there are any downsides to it?

Seems a big power jump claim for an NA engine. Car is looking awesome...feel like a rear PDC retrofit and carplay capable HU would be the cherry on top.

Edited January 7, 2023 by balancerider

[Vass 859]

33 minutes ago, balancerider said:

Seems a big power jump claim for an NA engine. Car is looking awesome...feel like a rear PDC retrofit and carplay capable HU would be the cherry on top.

Yeah did seem a bit suspect, from what I've read up on the M54 there's not much extra you can squeeze out of it without bolting on some aftermarket mods, and even then the gains are pretty limited. Unless it's a turbo or supercharger...

Thanks! The headunit is an Android one that bluetooths to my phone pretty seamlessly so happy enough with it. Don't think I'll bother with PDC, will fit a reverse camera instead. Already routed the cables through to the back seats whilst the dash was apart, will wire it all in when I get onto repairing the boot elephant trunk wiring.

[KwS 2429]

Just stick a popcorn tune on it and be done with it 🤣

[wrs 120]

On 1/8/2023 at 1:08 PM, Vass said:

Yeah did seem a bit suspect, from what I've read up on the M54 there's not much extra you can squeeze out of it without bolting on some aftermarket mods, and even then the gains are pretty limited. Unless it's a turbo or supercharger...

I'm running a M50B30 stroker with M54 internals. With M3 US Cams, 3.5mm over-bore on a M50 throttle body, 100mm inlet, MAF delete, pink top injectors, S50B32 Euro headers, no cats and custom dyno tune on a Link G4+ it made 299HP/220kW (@6800) and 343Nm (@5500). With standard cams, cats, standard throttle body it might make 250-255HP with a dedicated tune but unlikely with a tune chip (maybe 240-245). A local guy here got 264Hp on a similar M54B30 engine configuration to yours with S50 headers, no cats (race exhaust (Loud!)) and a Link G4 Storm (same tuner).

[Vass 859]

Took up some arts and crafts for a change. Stripped down the scruffy looking driveshaft and bottom brace plates to bare metal and gave them 3 coats of low gloss paint. Came out quite nice. Left the U-joint part of the driveshaft untouched as I didn't want to get any of the actual pivoting bits caked in paint. Bolted and torqued the driveshaft up with a new center support bearing and that's the driveline sorted.

Didn't feel like bolting on any rusty bits to went full stupid on the exhaust. Post fact realised that most of it was likely an absolute waste of time but happy to have some shiny exhaust tips at least.

Onto less trivial stuff, busted out the laptop and tackled the coding/flashing part of things. All went without a hitch. Threw in the fully charged battery and got the latest 330i EU2 software installed, EGS coded out and adaptations cleared. Got rid of the gear cog from the cluster so must have worked alright. Haven't tried starting it yet but nearly at that point now.

At the end of the night, went to roll the windows up by holding down the lock button on the key fob and was met with a pleasant WTF moment - along with the windows going up, the mirrors also folded in. The same mirrors that had refused to work all throughout my ownership. Absolutely no idea what the issue was and what fixed it but not complaining!

Finishing touches now. Brakes and clutch fully bled through and feeling nice and firm. The old brake fluid had definitely seen some better days.

Went through the underside and engine bay to double check that everything is bolted and connected up. Moment of truth tomorrow morning. Will see if she'll fire up, then hopefully go for a drive if all is looking well. Fingers crossed.

[Eagle 1670]

Extensive service history.........yep.

[Vass 859]

Well, sure enough, would have been a bit weird if it had been all plain sailing. 

Charged the battery back up to full after doing the coding, disconnected the main relay and the fuel pump fuse to build up oil pressure, depressed the clutch, turned the key...

No crank.

Was definitely dreading this. So many components have been tinkered with that it's hard to pinpoint a culprit. Here's what I have to work with so far.

All sorts of codes pop up with the main relay out but here's what's left after that hooked back up and everything cleared.

Weird amount of ABS codes that won't go away, and do hear a click from the ABS unit area when turning on the ignition, but surely the ABS unit shouldn't be what's preventing it from cranking?

Reading live data, the clutch switch is registering, whether the signal goes all the way through to the EWS though I'll need to check. I do get a chime when opening the door with the key in position 2 so the key shouldn't be the culprit. In the EWS live data, I wonder if the 'Selector lever / Clutch switch' is supposed to go green with the clutch depressed? Currently it doesn't make any difference. 

After a couple of tries another DME code popped up - 'Control unit self-test 3'. Not sure what that is.

Suspect it's either an EWS signal issue or the starter not getting voltage. Have put the battery back on charge again. Will keep on digging and trying to diagnose, shall report back if I get anywhere. Feel free to chime in, might be missing something obvious.

[Cement 891]

I'm more of a nissan in a bimmer sorta guy buuuuut ... is there a park / neutral switch in play as well as the clutch ?

[Vass 859]

3 minutes ago, Cement said:

I'm more of a nissan in a bimmer sorta guy buuuuut ... is there a park / neutral switch in play as well as the clutch ?

I think it's one or the other. The clutch switch wiring on manuals is supposed to emulate the same signal as the park/neutral switch on automatics, if that makes any sense.. I'm far from an expert though.

[Eagle 1670]

Yeah you are right the ABS wont cause starting issues. The EU2 flash shouldn't have the idiot feature present 'aka clutch in to start', that's was for dumb American's at the time. There is a menu in BM scanner 1.4 (EWS reprogramming i think) which should have a no clutch option you can change to (may already be on it)

Im not sure BM scanner worked for me when showing clutch switch activation. What does INPA say in MS43.

Shadow codes can be ignored. Most cars seem to have some present.

I don't think you would of missed anything but maybe recheck all the grounds are present and tight, starter cables etc. Guessing cleared adaptions?

I have a spare DME with no EWS if you get stuck