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Old 06-15-2019, 12:17 PM   #57
spidertri
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Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Elizabeth City, NC
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Yeah, this was my first time doing a HG. It's a bit nerve wracking but I made sure to put the hardware I took off in labeled plastic baggies, had a clean bin to lay out removed parts in, and bought a cheap storage tray from harbor freight that I could put all the lifters in and keep them soaked in oil while they were out of the car. It worked well, I only have a one car garage so not a ton of room.

Timing the VANOS really isn't too bad, but it is a pain when you can rely on your timing tools. I have a lightweight flywheel so no TDC lock hole, I thought that was screwing me up and I was being super careful with lining up the TDC mark on the timing cover and I had a wooden dowel down cylinder 1 to see when it was at TDC. All that looked good and I finally took a closer look at the blocks.

I had Markert Motorworks retune my DME while it was out of the car, they turned it around quickly and were very responsive. I've been running their swap tune since I put the M52 in back in 2016.

The RKs are 16x8 et38, I also have a set of 17x8.5 ARC8s but those currently have RE71Rs on them for autox. I really like the 15x8s but I want wider rubber and with their low offset I can't fit much before I run into my fender. They are a great wheel if you want to run the cheaper, smaller, performance tires. Interested in the 15s???

Torsen vs clutch, just from driving both (had a 3 clutch 3.73) I like how I can put power down way sooner with the torsen coming out of corners. That could be a limitation of the stock diff type and adding a third clutch actually made things worse. Apparently torsens are bad on bumpy surfaces but the autox I ran last weekend was about the worst concrete I've ever driven on and I didn't notice any wheel spin.

I like the 3.07 because it gives me a little more 2nd gear top end for autox, on track I pretty much only use 3rd and 4th, and then 5th is pretty chill for cruising to events. (I'm getting old haha) The E36 transmission has pretty close ratios so it hasn't seemed to be an issue with bogging down. With the cams and manifold there is absolutely a "here comes the power" point around 4K. Diff ratios are just all about trade offs, more top end or more acceleration? BMW picked the ratio at the time to hit a performance target they selected that could have been defined by other cars on the market.
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Last edited by spidertri; 06-15-2019 at 12:30 PM.
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