M2 madness

[ray_]

Nicely done, but hardly pretty enough for your car.

You should make a prettier one and give me your current version!

;-)

Cheers,

Ray

p.s. I'm about to go out the door and finagle with alpha n idle settings, and others.

[M3M3]

Time for a “redneck” PV clearance check. No degree wheel and did want to pull the cams/head to do a more sophisticated check. Just wanted to see what minimum PV clearance was to increase comfort level with the 276 cams.

No pics, but measured the circumference of the crank pulley, divided by 36 and marked off 10 and 20 deg before and after TDC on the crank pulley.

Popped the valve cover, again.

Made a steel bar and bolted to head. This allowed me to position the magnetic base of the dial gauge. What a pita trying to position the dial gauge to get past the cam to the valve shim.

Once that is in position, ya gotta push the valve down until it contacts the piston….against the strength of the springs. Takes a lot of pressure. Made a tool that allows me to lean on the shim with my body weight.

Some solid rod I had laying around, the bench grinder, saw and the welder. Presto! T-handle so I can lean on it. ground it narrower at the bottom to fit around the cam.

In use..i am standing on a stack of tires and the front fender so I can lean on it.

set gauge to zero, lean on tool until valve hits piston, read gauge. Initial PV results indicate the gaps are a little less than stock, but a touch more than the motorsport spec. may be ok, but am going to recheck again tomorrow.

[M3M3]

results...min values found from cyl 1&4

intake .051in @ TDC

exhaust .056in @ 10deg BTDC

so..intake side looks to be over the MS spec of .047in, exhaust side looks to be just under MS spec of .059in.

only one exhaust valve was at that number. all the rest were at .060in or greater.

i can get another .02in clearance by going one size thinner on the valve shim for that one cyl. that would make all the measured PVC's greater than MS spec.

[M3M3]

there are many threads on Mandrel Bend Solutions in Pasedena, MD on various BMW forums. based on the recommendation, i trailered my M2 to them today for a 2.5in complete system. Greg is the man. outstanding quality work and creativity to get a system in there that the car was not designed for. y-pipe to tail pipe.

highly recommended!

Out with the old 2002 turbo system and Aardvark y-pipe

In with the new. Header flange for y-pipe from Lee at Massive. Borla muffler as resonator, magnaflow resonator as the muffler. Uses all the stock hanger mounting points, including welded on bracket to attach to tranny.

The definition of frustration….having a new “throaty” exhaust system and not being able to rev above 3k rpm due to sorting our piston/valve clearances from new cams…

[jgerock]

Where is the 02 sensor mounted now? I didn't see it in your pics.

[M3M3]

about the same place as before, except it is now mounted vertically on top of y-pipe.

[M3M3]

need more pv clearance. got some VAC slotted gears. Marked the heck out of the camshaft, old gears, new gears and chain and and used zip ties to mark the chain and to hold the chain up to keep tenion on the crank gear while changing.

Got the vac gears in, put tensioner back in, set crank to tdc, then put dial indicator on an exhaust valve. Used s14 cam adjuster to bump the cam until I saw the desired increase in gap on the dial guage. Repeated for intake side. Got me in ball park.

Then went back and measured pvc between 10-0 bdc for exhaust and 0-10 adc for intake. Adjusted cam slightly on each side. Ended up with .065 intake and .080 exhaust pvc minimum. That should work….

Stared and stared at these pin/eccentric deals for the gears and could not figure out a way to use them. They were not all labeled and saw no easy way to swap them out with gears in car. plus they go under the dizzy drive and the lock plates, so once that stuff is on, can’t get them in. maybe if they were used when building an engine, but not useful in my case….

Marked cams before (black dot in notch)

And here they are after. Not much change, but enough….

Readjusting valve lash tomorrow…

[M3M3]

custom silicon garage radiator arrived today...

[ray_]

Wow, ya had to flip the motor 180 degrees to move those cams. What price piece of mind!

Purty radiator -- is that a 3 core turbo one?

Cheers,

Ray

[M3M3]

:-)

not exactly a turbo one. three row custom made from two other radiators. slightly thicker core than normal turbo and the mounting flanges are attached so that i can push the rad forward more than stock.

[RayC911]

Took me 3 tries before I was happy with the fit and finish of my exhaust. Any reason why you used the Borla instead of a regular resonator? Seems to be a tight fit.

[M3M3]

the resonator the shop planned on using did not come in before my appt. the borla actually fits well. he mounted it in the area right under the front seats where the floor pan rises.

[M3M3]

Valve adjust

IE rad removal

SG rad test fit

Crank pulley replacement

Water pump pulley replacement

After bumping the cam timing, I readjusted the valve lash…again. This time I just went up on size (.05mm) on all the shims to close the lash a little.

Then pulled the IE radiator. A bit smaller and thinner than the Silicon Garage replacement.

Test fit the SG radiator….gonna have to do more creative clearancing of the metal work to get it installed. Will also have to relocate the pass side horn and find a different mounting method for the electric fan.

The area marked with the black marker is metal that will have to succumb to the air body saw..

And now that the snorkel is gone…do I have a tii? No snorkel and fuel injection!

Time to replace the broken crank pulley. Nut is on with 320ftlbs of tq….. put car in 5th gear, locked up the ebrake, put a jack handle on a breaker bar and off it came.

The broken one and its replacement.

Next swapped in a new waterpump pulley. Old one looked like it had some odd corrosion.

Front of engine freshened up….just waiting on some M6 10.9 bolts to lock down the cam gears with before putting the dizzy back on.

[M3M3]

got the M6x1 15mm grade 10.9 bolts in today. the stronger bolts allow a little more TQ to be used to clamp the slotted cam gears tighter. added healthy dose of red locktite, not that i am paranoid about them coming out or anything...

bolts in, lock plates on.

engine buttoned up, again. would love to try it, but gotta finish the radiator install next.

[ray_]

Where'd you get that clear distributor cap?

;-)