zboot's 328ti Project - A couple years early

[zboot]

Update: So it's 3am tuesday morning. I decided to goto Erie monday night and take tuesday off from work rather than coming tuesday afternoon and getting back to pittsburgh wednesday morning.

I've got the battery charging and taking Phamster's advice, I loosened the exhaust header engine bolts a bit. I'm not sure if it was that or I happen to hit the sweet spot with balancing the cats on my floor jack, but I was able to get all the cat/header bolts lined up and took care of that

Next, I moved on to the rear end. First thing to do is loosen the collar nuts on the half shafts. Unfortunately, the passenger side nut is stripped. So, in the morning when I go shopping for some final odds and ends, I'll pickup a 29 and 28mm socket as well as some dremel cut off wheels. I've got extra collar nuts, so no biggie on that. If I can't get the nut off using the smaller sockets, then I'll just cut it off with the dremel.

So, I'd mostly filled the oil, coolant, and powersteering before I left sunday afternoon. I've had some PS drip out - looks like I need to tighten the banjo bolt at the trombone. Worse though, it looks like most of the oil has dripped out. I don't see any obvious sources of the leak. . . .

I figure I'll do all the following by 8am:

1. Loosen diff bolts, remove nuts from driveshaft/diff, loosen half shaft bolts, disconnect/remove rear brake calipers and brake lines.
2. Reassemble ds door panel, glovebox
3. Partially reassemble the front end
4. Sleep for three hours.

At 8am, I pickup the sockets, cutoff wheels, automotive tape, and marine battery terminals. One way or the other, that collar nut is coming off. 9am I'll go have tires mounted on my DS1s. After that, I'll need to:

1. Finish rear suspension swap
2. Make sure there are no more PS leaks.
3. Finish front end reassembly
4. Get car started and idling
5. Drain and refill all fluids
6. Test drive the car

Oh, I've got my m3 cluster though I may wait until after emissions/inspections to swap it in. I don't want to have to deal with mismatched odometer readings.

[thesk8nmidget]

nice nice! you are getting pretty close!

[Philly]

right on man, you sound like I did getting down to the final bits of my swap.... sleep is not an option..

those wheel nuts are a biatch too, i had to use a 3ft breaker bar on the 30mm socket. Its those crowns around the nut that are a pain, if you can pop those out first, Id try that.

What are you swapping in the rear? the 3.73 in your sig or something different?

and you might as well throw the cluster in, I think by using one of the "test" functions, you can make it show the correct mileage stored in the DME... although I havn't done it... plus its nice to have the tachometer work properly

anyways, keep at it bud... its all downhill from here!

[zboot]

the way the mileage thing works is the cluster stores the largest of the mileage values between itself and the dme. I guess I could do that.

As for the rear end, so last july I bent up my PS trailing arm and bought an e30 parts car. Unfortunately, the subframe on that e30 did not match up with the 318ti trailing arms. So, I had to use the e30 ones (with the e30 4 lug drive flange). I tried to swap drive flanges too, but it turns out that the e30 wheel bearing is a different size.

So, I've still not finished the rear end swap. I'm still trying to get the engine to start. All that happens right now is the fuel pump primes, starter runs, but nada. No coughing, no nothing from the engine.

[zboot]

Great. . .I just broke the banjo bolt on the PS trombone. . .

Here are some pics. . . In the last one, you can see a hole/housing for some sort of position sensor. There is a wheel at the front of the engine. Am I supposed to have some sensor there?

Edit: nm - it's the engine speed sensor. Apparently not on all engines.

[zboot]

Aha, I have a much better idea why the engine may not be starting. . .

Can I use the coil packs from the 318ti? Autozone says these are are $73/each. . .

Dealership has in stock. . . $560 total. I can get on ebay for $200 shipped to me by thursday. What do you guys think?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-B...spagenameZWDVW

Edit: decision made. I've bought them.

BTW, can anyone tell if I'm missing anything else from that picture? Thanks.

[zboot]

I'm tired of trying to get that collar nut off. I've made a decision. I'll buy another half shaft. Luckily, I have an extra 318ti one so I will be ok till it arrives.

[Philly]

No, you can't use the M44 coils, since they are housed in that box that used to sit on your PS strut tower.
Ive heard bad things about those ebay coils, but those don't look too bad... make sure you get the right part, those guys sent me Benz w124 shock mounts instead of my motor mounts earlier this summer

Have you tried a massive breaker bar on those 30mm nuts yet? I couldn't break them free for the life of me, but as soon as my buddy brought over his custom huge BB, it came right off. Its just hard to get a good grip, maybe if you get someone to put some pressure on the socket as you pull down that may help.

Another note, I think there is one more power wire to hook up to that battery terminal, don't know if the auto harness is much different, but I doubt it in that regard. Make sure its not grounded, thats why mine would not start, it was doing the same thing as yours...

and also, I hope you don't plan to keep that coolant hose like that... that looks like once you get some pressure through it that its going to stretch the crease and blow up!
Just cut a few inches off it.

[zboot]

so, it turns out that the "318ti ps trailing arm" I thought i had is not actually a 318ti trailing arm. I'm not sure what it is. It's definitely 5 lug. But the location of the bolt for the brake rotor is different. Also, the ti/e30 halfshaft is barely getting on.

*sigh*. Now I need to look for a trailing arm. Looks like I'm putting this on hold yet again.

[zboot]

Ok - trailing arm found in Pittsburgh. I'll be going up friday afternoon with that and the injector coils. Let's pray that no other problems manifest themselves.

[zboot]

Installed injectors. So far engine only runs when I give it gas. If I let go of the throttle, it cuts out. Still debugging that.

Something strange - my 318ti cluster is giving the correct RPM!! I'm still going to put the m3 cluster in cuz I want that mpg gauge. But. . .still, this is interesting. . .

EDIT:

Whohooo, I got it idling. Now I need to figure out what is smoking. I think its a part of the AC condenser pipe bushing thats coming in contact with the engine and it heats up enough to start melting the rubber.

[zboot]

Ok, the smoke is not from the AC stuff. Instead It's looking like from the exhaust side of the car or maybe near the ignition coils. Also, the car usually idles for about a minute before the smoking starts.

Any ideas?

[minicoop900]

could be just dust or lubricants you used

[Philly]

lol... i think we both went through the EXACT same thing on alot of issues... I had a little smoke coming from that exact side of the car... it stopped after a little, never figured out what it was, maybe a little touch of oil got dripped somewhere.

Congrats man! Im pumped for ya! Did you have to hook up that 3rd power wire?
thats awful strange your RPM's are right???.... VIDEO THAT BEFORE YOU SWAP THEM OUT!

[cooljess76]

Killer!!! Congrats, look forward to pics and vid. That's really strange about the cluster. I'm installing shocks and springs on a friends e30 tomorrow, but Sunday I'll be pulling the s52 outta my M3. Like I said before, I admire your dedication. Man you really pulled this together quick! As for the smoke, I'm sure it's probably just grease or oil on the headers, but make sure you find out before you take it out on the road. I'd hate to see all of your hard work go up in flames.