Building a track car

[Cobra1956]

Think I finally solved my thermostat issues and remind myself of how stupid I am. The oem stat should not open in boiling water so I forgot that it also could be influenced by design in addition to the temp needed to be above boiling. A standard mechanical thermostat has a bridge and the pin pushes against the bridge as the wax pellet expands.
They all work the same including the electric ones. What I failed to realise is the oem housing acts as the bridge and the pin is static in the housing providing heat if needed to open the oem unit up or simple resistance to the pellet in the unit from Mishimoto as the wax pellet expands. I am sewing on my IDIOT merit badge now!
Hot water but not boiling


Housing pulled from water. Daylight from the inside is courtesy of the open thermostat!

[Cobra1956]

The car is home and I got rid of one of my other projects so I have access to my scissors lift. I am fat and old, did I mention fat?, so rolling around on the floor takes a bit out of me but one of the things I enjoy the most is working on my own stuff if I can. I have a few weeks to get done what I would like as well as address some of my screwups in this project.
I pulled the termostat yesterday and that was real fun, not, but it is out and the new housing with the Mishimoto race thermostat will be going in either tonight or tomorrow depending on my back. In the screw up department I need to address my mechanical gauges. The oil pressure gauge leaks and I think it is a combination of my poor plumbing and buying the cheapest gauge which again proves the point, there is no cheap way to do cheap...I just never learn! So I picked up a new Auto Meter as they have never let me down. The coolant gauge took a dump after one day but I attribute that and some of the oil gauge to my choice of routing the lines. There is a hole gjust behind the throttle and I chose that due to simplicity. Bad choice, so I am either going to bust out the step drill but then remembered there is a guy who built a drift car out of one of these so I checked out a couple of his videos and found a view I liked so I took a picture. There appears to be a hole just above the steering shaft and I am going to attempt to use that. I think it is covered in our cars on both sides so I will go digging later today in lieu of installing the therm. Here is the shot I lifted from the video. In it you can see the hole I chose way down on the bottom and the hole above the column I hope to find. If it is not actually there the step drill gets the call.


Other items on the list:
DCT cooler
Oil change
Passenger floor board
New coils
New plugs
Still waiting on my flares and if they arrive I will try to get them done.

[Cobra1956]

About 95 here today so not much will get done. I have the thermostat in but nothin tightened up. Wont crawl under the car to the sun starts dropping as the garage faces west and it hot. The flares arrived today so this will allow me to start messing around with them. They look great as I expected they would. Jendosa flares out of California. I ordered two and three inch and will see what I like the best. Just a quick press against the oem fender looks like the fender will be trimmed at least back prior to the bend for the lip which should be great, I hope.

[Cobra1956]

A little bit of mission creep so I went down the rabbit hole and pulled the ac out. Seems to be some question as to the length of the belt but the oem belt is 1860 and the one from the kit that is sold by a few of the vendors is 1660. If I am correct on this it should be 200mm shorter. I am assuming that the pulley they sell is a slightly smaller diameter and this might come into play in order to get everything to fit correctly. Been there before as my last car was converted to electric power steering off a Volvo with underdrive pulleys so it took my local NAPA about 6 tries to hook me up with what I needed. They are in the loop on this project and just gave me a bunch of belts that are on both sides of the range and said bring back what I don't need, good guys! Opens up the firewall I need to plumb my gauges better and I want to use the area vacated by the condenser to run my DCT cooler.
Few shots of my silliness
Memory is good but short so my reference for routing. I think the pulley between the alt and ps pump is where you make the adjustments if needed.


Carnage and weight reduction.


Compressor is out and measured the pulley for the heck of it to verify belt sizing. From the view I had prior to the start it appears to have around a two thirds wrap on the pulley. So I did my best Jethro Bodine and cyphered it out and the 200mm smaller belt should be close. Found out on the last go around that belt lengths are similar to fish stories and bedroom lies when it comes to length!

[fe1rx]

Originally Posted by Cobra1956

Carnage and weight reduction.

Make sure you weigh everything your remove from the A/C system. That data point would be really useful to pin down.

[Cobra1956]

Originally Posted by fe1rx

Make sure you weigh everything your remove from the A/C system. That data point would be really useful to pin down.

LOL knew someone would ask and since I weighed insulation and wires from the last car I will get the info. Guessing about 35 pounds. I would like to use the input lines to the heater box from the ac but might not get to that this summer so I might just take a large drill bit and knock them out for the gauges.
Still making a lifetime out of trying to figure out if a poor plan is better than no plan........

[Cobra1956]

Originally Posted by fe1rx

Make sure you weigh everything your remove from the A/C system. That data point would be really useful to pin down.

Picture with the compressor= 13.2 pounds



Condenser picture= 8.4 pounds



Also note, there are two bolts that hold the brace that also hold the alternator.
Once the brace is removed these bolts become too long!

No worries as you take two of the three bolts for the compressor and substitute the as they are about 20mm shorter and work fine.


Side note anyone need a compressor or condenser, you can have these as they appear to be pricey

[Cobra1956]

Drained the oil and ordered the belt and pulley kit as the local parts stores struggle when you ask for anything that involves numbers. Apparently I come from a generation of guys that knew parts by sizes versus the usual "What car is it for". Today's beauty was "who makes " to which I replied "belt manufacturers". I could see the gears lamming up in his brain so I ordered it on my phone while he was attempting to find what I needed. I wanted to use the space above the ps cooler for my DCT cooler and since the condenser is now out I have space of about 26 inches wide and about 2.75 inches deep. I have a had time with the amount of plastic used in the front of the car and would have gladly given up a few of the side airbags in lieu of a little more steel the day the designers took out their frustrations over losing WWII. I have an oil cooler from one of the previous car's iterations. I tis an 11x11 inch Long True Cool stacked plate. It should be able to be fitted behind one of the kidney openings.
I want to mount this on it's side and feed the cooler from the bottom and have the top vacate back out to the DCT. Reading a few posts on cooler installs it appears 8an fittings or 1/2 inch line works based on what the car has. ( Thank you Andy). Most likley I will use 1/2 hose barbs on the oem lines and up to the cooler where I will run 8 an fittings connecting to 1/2 npt to 8an fitting off the cooler. One of the cooler ports will involve a 180 degree fitting so a hose goes to each side to follow the oem routing.

Also I will kick the hornets nest a bit with my choice of oil for the car. Rotella T6. I change oil about every 6 track days and then it goes in my old diesel creep van. LIke finding an oil I can use in both and the van also has a toilet paper bypass filter.

Cooler:

[Cobra1956]

In gathering information for what may be in the future I found this video. A lot of info pertains to our cars and the explanation is very good with detailed photos. Dash removal and heater box.

[Cobra1956]

I keep reminding myself that all I wanted to do on the inside of the car was to route my gauges better. Well left to my own devices here is where I am today.

Dash removal is pretty straight forward using the video as your guide. You do not have to remove the clock spring to get the dash out but it does need to go out the passenger side. Contemplating just hacking off the ac lines to the heater box as I would prefer to have the heater for defrost on cooler spring and fall days pluss I still am not running any fans.


I removed the cowling around the gauge cluster hopping the dash would clear the steering but it made no difference in the end.


This batch of spaghetti is left from the winter work as I have not yet cut back any of the harness. That might change as now I have great access to the fuse box and lots of wires connected to nothing under the dash area. WHen I cut back the harness on the e36 I pull almost 70 pounds of wiring. I will be careful as I need to make sure nothing has a can termination resistor but I do not think so so far. Poor mans way to trim back is to cut the harness at slightly different lengths and then dip the wires into liquid tape and allow to cure. All of this was left over and just jammed up into the passenger door/dash area.


If anyone has specific questions now is the time to ask as my memory is good but really short.

For those scoring at home the steering wheel air bag and front passenger airbag weighed in at 7.5 pounds

[Cobra1956]

Red letter date for the summer projects. Finally reached the summit and now starting to put parts back on the car. I did let this portion of things get out of hand but learned a lot. Actually removed the heater box to remove the evaporator for the ac and will use the ports for the lines for my mechanical gauges. More work than I thought but a better route and no extra holes. A few posts back I included a picture of a firewall thinking i could use the hole above the steering column but that is for a bolt that holds the brace under the dash so no joy on that. Hope to finish up the dash tomorrow. Few pictures from today. A second set of hands would be a big help if you are going to do any of this but think you can get down to the firewall in about two hours or less. Quarter inch torx 30 bit would come in very handy if you tackle this. You will need it for the heater box bolt in the engine bay and one of the bolts holding the heater box on the driverside located left and below the steering column.


In this pic you can see a bolt with blue loctite on it coming through the firewall. That holds the heater box and is a 30torx located behind the engine on the firewall in engine bay. You can leave some of the wires connected and the whole process opens a bit to the passenger side for removing and putting back together. The video I linked will walk you through the order.

[Cobra1956]

Quick update on the AC delete. The belt works but you have interference from the bottom pulley so you need to make a decision. Keep in mind that when you go to a smaller pully the slack in the belt is changed by double so you might not have enough tension to keep the belt on. I dealt with this when I went electric steering on the last car. Kept thinking the pulleys were out of alignment but it turned out to be the belt was about 6mm too long.
Here is what you get using the n54 kit on the n55, I still have the stock pulley on there which is the same size that comes with the kit. 90mm. You can go to 80mm by installing another upper pulley in the lower spot or you can get a pulley from an X6 3 series that is 75mm. I have both coming to see what works best. As usual my photos suck but the lager pulley is the bottom one routed after the ps pump.



Here is a 75mm pulley compared to the oem if you choose to go the bottom pulley route. You might get enough room if you move the top idler from 80 to 75mm but I will have to pull them to check.

[Cobra1956]

Spent a part of the day installing new plugs and coils. Old plugs look good enough to keep as spares as do the coils. Nothing fancy on my car so just went with stock plug and the Dinan coils which may or may not be a slight upgrade over oem.


A bit of a set back on the belt/pulley fitment. It appears that there are a few quirks that need to be ironed out with the pulleys. Nothing dramatic but just not what you would expect from BMW, wait scratch that! Pulled the bottom pulley which is a 90mm. Pulled the idler from under the alt and that is an 80mm. I could solve my issue by installing another 80 for the 90 but it appears that the offsets are not the same. Its only a degree when side by side so it might not be an issue as the 90 does have grooved pulleys on both sides of it. Most belt systems do have tolerances for a bit of slop but I would like to minimize it as much as possible. My guess is that you/I would be okay as the pulleys are 32mm wide and the belt is 24. So after trying to make up my mind I think I would prefer to adjust the upper idler first. I ordered a pulley from gates, 36728. This does have an offset to it so I am betting it will either fit or be within the "good enough" range to send it. I think this is the same pulley you would get from BMW for the 65mm pulley and I went with it because it can be found unlike the BMW one. Should be here Wednesday and I can confirm. Also, by adjusting the upper idler I mess with the slack the least as that pulley has the least amount of wrap. Here you can see the offset of the upper idler (left) and the lower and the width of the belt. Maybe no worries.


Started to scuff up my fender flares with 320 and the 400 getting ready to prime, scuffed versus out of the box.


Slight bit of weight reduction, the evaporator from the heater box. 1 lb.


Broke the styrofoam piece off from the dash cage. It is held in by big cork screw type screws so it left big holes. Easy Styrofoam fix is using a big of expanding foam into the holes, let set and trim to size. Good to go but probably hits the trash due to throwing out what is not needed.

Other items removed, steering airbag, passenger airbag, glove box various vet and all lower dash trim. Will not get to the wiring harness but an upside of having the dash out is that mess of wires I had in the right door jam can now be coiled together and secured under the dash where the glove box and airbag were.

[Cobra1956]

Did not get too much done today for all the sweating out in the garage. Put the radiator in just to see how much room I have now that the condenser is out. Never been happy with the way it sits in the car so I spent some quality time looking everything over. The two rubber plug/bolts that are supposed to hold everything together weren't doing jack So I pulled them out and one was rotted and torn so ordered a few of those. Finally got the radiator to sit in the notches designed to hold it and everything bolts up straight. Was not going to go through with hacking up the aftermarket fenders but since I got so little done I pulled the driver side off and introduced it to the cutting wheel. Couple of the usual poor pictures and you can get a feel for what I cut off, about 2-2.5 inches and the black sharpie line is where the flare will sit. Will remove the passenger fender to get ready for the new flares so maybe tomorrow is paint day for the flares. Using the same rattle can paint I got off of ebay for the sunroof delete panel. Works pretty well and you get primer, color, and clear so looks okay...if you keep backing up.

[Cobra1956]

In keeping with the poor plan of getting something done on the car everyday I hung the oem fender back on the driver side less the clip on the bottom of the fender where the side skirt clips into. This will allow me to take the fender on and off if needed when I start cutting on these. I also got to the flares and hit them with the rattle can kit I purchased on ebay. I had left over primer from the first purchase and enough color to hit the fenders with two light coats of color before I laid down a wet coat from the new can. I did not clear them as I expect to give them their first patina while working them to a shape on the fender I can live with. I did include the obligatory two runs and fretted until I reminded myself that the next time out will probably claim a windshield so I got over it.

This is the product I used. You can get the kit with a 2k clear or just regular rattle clear for a few bucks cheaper. Sprays out well and they send you additional car nozzles in the event you get a clog. I have yet to experience that in either project. They are even nice enough to put your name on the can label so you can tell when you have sucked in too much solvent when you can't remember who you are.


Each flare got three coats of primer and three coats of color.

[Cobra1956]

Gates pulley arrived today and is on. If this does not work to my liking there are other options.
1 Swap lower idler out and use the upper as this will gain you more clearance.
2 Eliminate the upper idler all together

Both of these choices might make you need a smaller belt but going with the 65mm pulley gives you about 3/16 clearance with the smallest change in the belt connection to any of the pulleys that matter.

[Cobra1956]

Nice way to finish out the week, hot and sticky so not a lot done but am starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Driver side flare is mounted to the fender with clecos as I need to figure out how little of the bumper cover I can cut. Should have them both done by tomorrow and then the bumper cover comes back off and the dct cooler gets mounted.
Hope the flares pass approval as I think they will look nice when done. The tire is 255 and I now have a 13mm spacer behind. As per usual sorry about the pictures as the rear shot looks pretty good in non roll over mode!







I am going to fasten the cooler to these fan hangers and it will be where the a/c condenser was. Hope this goes to plan.

[Geran]

Quick question...what engine mounts, transmission mount and diff mounts did you go with?

[Cobra1956]

Change of plans on mounting the DCT cooler. The lack of metal up front and the weight of the cooler just made me look at other options, including the zip ties things through the radiator, which may still be used. I wanted to address the weight so I scraped the fan shroud all together as I was only using it for support of the heat exchanger. I took a piece of aluminum bar and attached the cooler to it. The bar will fit where the fan shroud sat and will be held in place by the two set screws. I will most likely use two of those zip tie things to hold the cooler to the radiator but it will not be supporting any weight. I have a little bit of clean up to do on my top radiator hose but pretty close to finishing up my summer project. Opposed to what another installation, I chose to install my cooler on the upper hose from the exchanger so the hot fluid first will see the radiator and then the cooler. Don't know if my thinking is correct but I can always change it when I am done in the fall.
Have a 170 degree thermostat so hoping the radiator is 200ish or less. That would allow for the echanger to do some cooling and then it goes out to the cooler which is huge. Instead of an fittings I used hose barbs and full contact hose clamps that are 5/8 inch wide.

Cooler location top passenger side of radiator.


Hose cutter and drip pan. Amount of fluid that came out was less than two ounces.


Cut location. Hose barb attached to return line from top of cooler to DCT. Cut location.



Things I found out the hard way. I should have disconnected the hose end coming out of the exchanger. This would have made it much easier to fit the hose over the barb. I ended up doing this later but it was a pain. If you ever need to pull the exchanger and do not want to break the plastic clips, a 5/8 fuel line separator works wonders. It slides over the metal pipe and you just push in into the union and you will hear the clips release and the fitting comes right off. Lisle 37000 Air Conditioning/Fuel Line Disconnect Tool Set availible at most auto parts stores.

[Cobra1956]

Originally Posted by Geran

Quick question...what engine mounts, transmission mount and diff mounts did you go with?

Revshift green

[Cobra1956]

Needed to address one of my poorly execute ideas from the spring. The splice I put in the top radiator hose was off a bit. It works but I had to bend the hose and while it did flow I probably created a flow restriction based on the original bends and what I wanted to do, run a mechanical gauge. Needed to get this taken care of as I wanted to fill the cooling system and check for leaks as I am starting to button things up. Closer inspection of the oem hose revealed nothing special so I cut the clamp off the inner end which gave me a better fit from the engine to the radiator. Here you can see what mess I made of the original idea. Worked but puts undue pressure on my plumbing skills.


Cut the clamp off and cut as much as I dared as I had visions of me with a hose that was now too short.


New hose end checked for fitting orientation before using an old clamp off the s54 and then I noticed another issue and added to my notes. You need to check for clearance as it is tight under the hood and there are parts that should be added to check. It looked like my new mess was hitting the serpentine belt so I added the snorkels to check the top which was fine and the hose just clears the by the width oof a zip tie. Going to run water with a coolant improver versus the Evans that I have run in my previous cars. Note to self, remember this when it gets below freezing!

[Cobra1956]

Everything back on the car but the undertray as I will check for leaks a few times before putting it on. Trimmed the inner fender liners a bit and will auto-clear them next weekend at the track but will have a sander and dremel along just in case. Took longer than I thought but got most of what I wanted done.
Complete oil change draining coolers and sump
DCT cooler added
New coils
New plugs
A/C delete (belt stayed on on first 10 minute run)
Replace oil pressure gauge with better gauge
Replace coolant temp gauge with working replacement
Replace oem therm with Mishimoto race therm
Install and paint Jendosa flares on the fronts
Widen front track 20mm
Removed additional weight front airbags, dash parts, lower dash.
Switch coolant to distilled water and coolant additive.
Before


Today