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Ke70Daves New Euro Toy


ke70dave

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  • 5 weeks later...
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Ok so its been a rather slow few weeks.

 

I properly destroyed the original engine with the timing belt failure. holes in 3 pistons, about 5 valves clean snapped off, the rest bent. Wouldn't surprise me if i bent a conrod. Given the condition of the belt it wouldn't surprise me if it had never been replaced. A bit of a shame but the more i pulled apart the original engine the more it was evident it had not been well looked after, probably good to get this other engine in.

 

Compression tested the second engine, it came up super good, 190 +/-10 across all 6. looks to have had some work done, it has a shiny new wate rpump and alot of the gaskets are new. Can still see swirly marks on the inside of the cylinder, so i reckon it may have been rebuilt at one stage.

 

I did however notice that two exhaust studs were broken below the surface of the head, and the front cam seal was leaking.

 

Given it has been sitting for about 1yr i took the plunge and decided to remove the head, even with the good compression results and get it overhauled. Figured i might as well do it while its out of the car.

 

In the end head was generally in great shape, but i needed 6 new exhaust guides installed to be perfect. Went ahead with basically a full head overhaul and now i essentially have a band new head. New genuine headgasket, timing belt kit, new head bolts and i got them to replace the exhaust studs at the same time. Total of just over $1000. kinda expensive, but not so bad.

 

I have found a small bit of rust in the firewall hiding behind the sound deadening, so i have grinded that back and given it some paint to stop it going any further. removed a bunch of sound deadening to stop it happening again.

 

Unfortunately life has gotten in the way of fitting the head the last few weekends, but i have devoted tomorrow and sunday to getting it done and possibly get the engine back in the car!

 

Edited by ke70dave
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ok dokie.

 

A good day was had!

 

progress included a good clean, scraped the top of block and pistons to remove all gunk ready for head, replaced front main and the seal around the cam gear dizzy shaft thingo, i also degreased the engine bay in preparation for engine. Found some small rust spots, nothing major and hard to see, so i just sanded them back and gave them a coat of rustkill paint. fitted up the flywheel and clutch also. Engine looked like this at the end of day. also do you like my trolley? Dad made it when rebuilding his boat engine (huge 5L diesel thing), works quite well!

 

post-2532-0-17680600-1472901361_thumb.jpg

 

 

Eneded up having to make my very own special service tool to get the front crank nut off. Had a spare harmoni balancer and bought some cheap steel. welded it on and it worked a treat. obviously only useful with engine out of car, i might cut it down so it works in the car also. Issue is i now have to do that nut up and its 402nm!!! my torque wrench only goes to about 170nm.....work might have one i can use, will check on monday.

 

post-2532-0-22710200-1472901374_thumb.jpg

 

 

Tomorrow i should be able to get the head on and the manifolds cleaned up too ready to drop in this week sometime.

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300ft-lbs? That will require one hell of a long bar. Must be to couteract the massive torque of your engine so as not to throw the harmonic balancer......

 

I think it has been said previously that the German's have a tendency to over engineer things a tad.

 

And who of us hasn't fitted a standing engine without changing the timing belt. I know I have. When I did eventually change it, the belt had had a slice in the side of it. But as we all know, 4AGE's are not blessed with endless torque.

 

Can't wait to see it finished. And sorting out the few minor blemishes will stand you in good stead down the track also.

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Thanks parrot!

 

Yep shes getting the full once over.

 

I have also purchaed new dba brake discs and qfm hpx pads all round. Havent got a chance to put them on yet. Brakes are pretty bad from sitting so long, should be a nice improvement.

 

4ages have the advantage of not being an interference engine. We broke a timing belt on a smallport 4age yrs ago at full noise way up in the mountains. Zero damage except for the damage to the wallet for the tow home!

Edited by ke70dave
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OK progress!

 

Yesterday only got a few hrs in to work on car, but i managed to change the brake discs and pads front and rear. Just went with DBA oem replacement discs and QFM HPX pads. Have had the HPX pads on most of my cars including the ke70. always been happy with them. Nice brake setup on the e30, easy enough to replace.

 

Today i got about 4hrs in. spent aaages sorting out the vacuum lines. sifting through my parts replacing hoses and figuring out the best hoses to use. Ill be back to an almost stock setup now. still running the coolant operating idle up widget for now.

 

But by the end of today i have the engine ready to go in, ready to bolt the gearbox to it and drop it in.

 

You can see in the photo i have installed the late model crank sensor on the front. 60teeth wheel with 2 teeth missing. This will allow me to hook up my haltech computer in due time.

 

 

post-2532-0-39368500-1473583648_thumb.jpg

Edited by ke70dave
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Alright big weekend! Had a mate around from about 4pm Saturday arvo and took it for a drive at 1030pm on Saturday night!

 

Engine works very well, fired straight into life once we hooked everything up properly. runs beautifully with good compression on every cylinder (who would have thought?:P)

 

Very smooth power delivery, drives nice and straight. I've never really driven a straight 6, they are nice and smooth that is for sure. Even one that is like a 40yr old design.

 

Issues to work through:

 

- It idles too low when cold and too high when hot. (500rpm cold, 1300rpm hot). Started wiring the haltech and my electronic ICV so that will hopefully sort that. Looking forward to removing the painful vacuum system on it.

- Accelerator pedal is quite stiff, interwebs suggest they are always stiff (Cable looks newish), perhaps i will get used to it, it is kinda annoying, but perhaps my hyundai accel is just very light. accelerator pedal is pivoted from the bottom, so sorta gotta put your whole foot on the pedal, sit heal of foot at base of pedal, and push at the top of the pedal, bit different to use, and quite weird at first.

-new brakes and discs work alright, I did the 60-0km medium braking to try and bed them in (as the box suggested). I'm almost there, but they are still a bit spongy. They pull up good and straight but it just feels a spongy. I did flush the brake fluid and bleed it before driving (no bubbles at all), so unsure, perhaps they need to be bled again, or i need to greese the caliper slides.

-AC and powersteering works well apart from no idle up on the AC. I'll get some new belts all round soon enough, unsure when they were last replaced, they look alright but cheap insurance.

-Need to check ignition timing, i think it might be set a bit conservative. Unsure how to do this because i have removed the normal harmonic balancer with the marks in favour of a late model 60-2 CAS wheel. It runs well so i might just advance it by ear.

-Slight annoying surging at very low throttle or even just cruising at say 1200rpm (ie when parking or crawling up driveway), can be fairly violent surging as you slow down and pull into driveway.

possibly need to adjust TPS (its not a linear tps, just a idle switch and a what switch).

-Throttle body has some small plastic bushes in the linkages that are quite worn, and my spare throttle body is the same. I don't think you can buy them anymore, might have to machine something up out of a bushing material. needs to be very low profile else i would just use a bolt.

-Probably should change the differential oil, its got a leaky seal or 3, only weeping it seems as no oil on the ground. I'm on the look out for a shorter ratio and an LSD. it is currently a 3.45 ratio which is great for cruising, but something like a 3.9 would wake it up. the 325i came with a 3.9 and LSD was an option i think, see what i can buy from USA as there are loads of them over there.

-External of car needs a wash badly!

 

Planning has begun on haltech for ignition. Plan is to run the car on wasted spark (as my haltech only has 4 outputs). The commodore ecotech run a bosch wasted spark system using 3 coils with 2 coil posts per coil, cheap enough from a wrecker, and reasonably cheap brand new.

 

I Just need to track down a tripple chanel ignition module, i think the ecotech coil setup comes with one but it is a "Smart" ignition module that controls the coil dwell itself. haltech will control the dwell so i just need a "dumb" module. might have to buy from overseas as they seem to have come on later model volvos or something weird. Alot of the ECU manufactures sell them but the are just bosch ones with a different sticker and twice the price....

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On the stiff pedals, E30 has always had poor pedal feel, way too heavy. I've driven a few and afterwards I got back in my ae and thought for a moment someone had taken out the clutch hydraulics or cut the line cause it gave me the sense that the pedal wasn't hooked up to the system, but it was just that beautiful feel Toyota has to the pedals and I had quickly adapted to the weighty BMW pedals. I remember the accel and clutch being really stiff on the 318 i drove.

 

I also found a nice trick while bleeding my brakes the other day. Bubbles can catch on any surface that's not perfectly smooth inside the system, similar to how they sit on the side of a glass sometimes as the gas comes out of solution, so I found by tapping the calliper with light to medium force I could always get a few extra bubbles out with the gentle shockwave through the component.

Edited by LittleRedSpirit
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