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CarRacer

From Bill Hincher on this forum.

CarRacer

I haven't updated this in a while because installing the driveshaft kicked my ass. I had quite a few issues to overcome but I did manage to get the car mobile. I drove it a couple hundred yards in its maiden voyage, it did move but it also revealed a few problems that need to be solved.

The first ...

CarRacer

Finished up the throttle cable today. I ended up finding a universal throttle cable on Amazon for $20, I ditched the cable ends but the rest of the cable and firewall clip made things easy to install. I fabbed up a bracket that mounts to the fuel rail that allowed the cable to maintain a straight ...

CarRacer

It runs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVXq0hIrIuE

It had a bit of idle surge as I didn't have the cold side piping tightened down as I'm taking off the throttle body soon to get a throttle cable made up. It smoked from burning off the oil on the manifold but I was happy with how it ran ...

CarRacer

Finished up the gauges today. I used a smaller than needed hole saw to ditch most of the material to be removed, then used a die grinder to get close and finalized the size with a hand file. The weird part was that each gauge was slightly different in diameter, so I had to plan out where I wanted ...

CarRacer

After fixing the wiring mistake on the fuel pump I pressure tested the system and was happy to see there were no leaks. I also set the base fuel pressure to 37psi with the regulator.

http://img.galantvr4.org/164000/164137-0-0-0.jpg

I also started making the gauge panel insert for the radio spot ...

CarRacer

Had a frustrating night out in the race shop tonight. I installed the used JM Fab coil relocation bracket I picked up. Due to me running my water pipe under the intake it interfered with where it would put the coil packs so I had to use a BFH to bend it to a position that would clear the water pipe ...

CarRacer

Tied up a few loose ends today that completed work on a few sections of the car. The O2 sensor got mounted in the downpipe which finalizes the work on that, the rest of the exhaust will get run once I get the driveshaft in the car.

http://img.galantvr4.org/163000/163144-0-0-0.jpg
http://img ...

CarRacer

Mounted up the fuel pressure regulator this afternoon. I bent up a piece of flat stock aluminum then ran the fuel and vacuum lines after drilling it to bolt up to the intake manifold. The oil cooler was mounted in a similar manner to the core support but due to the lack of clearance between the ...

CarRacer

Finding all of the required fittings and dealing with the BSPT threads on the Mitsubishi motor has been a bit of a hassle. The intake manifold also has small vacuum ports which made plumbing the vacuum booster for the brakes suck and left me with a less than ideal solution. It should be sufficient ...

CarRacer

Thanks

Started work on the water pipe connecting the thermostat housing and radiator. I reused the 180 degree bend from the Chevette but everything else was new metal. It was a big ordeal to wiggle the finished pipe so I wanted to rethink how the support worked on the radiator side of the pipe. I ...

CarRacer

It's been a while since the last update but I've been slowly working on getting the wiring sorted on the car, which isn't very photogenic. I did start getting the wiring harmess laid out in the engine bay, which is a bit of a milestone worth documenting. I'm pretty happy with how the intake side ...

CarRacer

I made up an ecu mount today. I was unable to fit the ecu plugs through the hole in the firewall so I couldn't mount the ecu above the glovebox like I had originally planned. This spot by the power distribution block was the next best thing so I made up a mount to bolt it in place. Welding it was a ...

CarRacer

This turned into a huge information dump, so it's really wordy.

I didn't do anything too exciting to the car this week, it was all finishing up little things on the car. I installed the clutch slave, bent the hard line to clear the motor mount, and bled the air from the system. I also installed ...

CarRacer

Made a cover up panel for the oem shifter location and a spot for the new shifter boot to mount to. I'll have to remake it, but I wanted to rough out my ideas to see if the end result worked. It doesn't fit the coin tray as snug as I wanted, the bends aren't exactly where I need them, and I ...

CarRacer

Got started on the intercooler piping tonight. I was extremely happy with how the cold side turned out, the angles didn't work out as well as I had planned on the hot side. I said fuck it and ground down the welds to make things look a bit better, I don't normally do that but it bugged me on the ...

CarRacer

Got the motor back in after painting the motor mounts, here's what the engine bay looks like currently.

http://img.galantvr4.org/161000/161165-0-0-0.jpg
http://img.galantvr4.org/161000/161166-0-0-0.jpg

Noticed the camber was off on the RF tire and looked into it, the control arm bushing has ...

CarRacer

Made up a throttle body flange which will make the cold side intercooler piping easier to route. I can weld the piping directly to the plate at the exact angle I need, which is crucial since the distance between the intercooler and throttle body is so short.

http://img.galantvr4.org/160000/160925 ...

CarRacer

After a sad realization that I won't be driving this car before the snow flies, I haven't worked on the BMW in a while. I got back to it today and pulled the motor so that I could paint up the engine mounts, install the power steering delete block, and clearance the core support for the intercooler ...

CarRacer

Made a caliper bracket for one side of the car using 1/4" plate last night. The caliper lined up really nicely with the caliper carrier mounts on the strut so I didn't have to step the plate at all, just kept it flat and drilled some holes. I had to drill out the holes on the chassis to pass through ...

CarRacer

Got my 11" rotors back from a machinist friend, had to open up the hub bore 1mm to fit. I also ordered all of the -3an lines and necessary adapters from Pegasus racing to fit the wilwood calipers. Only thing left is to get bar stock for the caliper mounting bracket and I can get the front brake ...

CarRacer

Bent up some steel tubing last night so I could plumb the engine into the heater core. I deleted all the heater core stuff on the racecar, so I'm having to add it back in for the BMW. I should be able to find a heater hose at the parts store to cut apart and complete the connections with the correct ...

CarRacer

Because those were the engine mounts I had and I didn't want to go through the trouble of sourcing new ones. You're right they would have been a better option but these work.

CarRacer

After an Alaskan vacation sidetracked my progress I was able to get back at it and work on the intake manifold. I had an old racing buddy shorten up the runners by one inch and rotate the plenum 180°. Today, I clearanced the plenum for the brake master cylinder and vacuum booster. I didn't have to ...

CarRacer

Finalized the fuel pump mount after removing the oem rubber mounts and bolting in an aluminum plate. The location is close enough to utilize the factory wiring as well, so the wiring is nice and tidy with a grommeted pass through in the floor. I did screw up the preparation for the fuel pump rewire ...

CarRacer

Removed the factory fuel pump and test fit the high flow one from the Chevette. I'll have to mount a plate to the factory fuel pump mount but I should be able to use the factory feed line and wiring pigtail. Good news is that a 90° off of the fuel pump should work fine going to the fuel rail ...

CarRacer

Started work on the wiring harness for the chassis side of the motor swap. I felt kind of bad chopping up the BMW harness but I don't need anything related to running the inline 6, so it had to go.

BMW harness up top, Mitsubishi harness on the left, and cut Mitsubishi harness on the right.

http ...

CarRacer

Worked on the car for a couple hours today, sadly it was mostly pointless and I didn't make much progress. I tried modifying the fuel pump hanger for a Walbro 255 I had left over from the Galant but that wasn't possible. I tried a couple configurations but couldn't find a workable solution that ...

CarRacer

Ran into the first problem with this janky ebay intake manifold, the throttle body doesn't clear the plenum. If you mount it upside down though, it does clear except for the throttle cable linkage. I will be running it that way, so I did dodge a bullet there but I'm curious how many other issues ...

CarRacer

Added the merge pipe for the wastegate to the downpipe today. Fitting the smaller pipe to the curved section of the downpipe was pretty tedious but the fitment result was worth it.

http://img.galantvr4.org/157000/157737-0-0-0.jpg
http://img.galantvr4.org/157000/157738-0-0-0.jpg
http://img ...

CarRacer

Intake manifold arrived today. It seems like a pretty good value for $250, the flange in pretty thick and the welds look decent. The "velocity stacks" made me chuckle at how pitiful they are, luckily I'm not super concerned about airflow. Now I just need to cut it in half and have it welded back up ...

CarRacer

Worked on making the main exhaust for the downpipe today. 2.5" tubing, nothing too crazy but the smaller size helps with clearance underneath and my power goals are minimal. It seems like it follows the contours of the chassis and transmission well. I'm pretty happy with it aside from finish welding ...

CarRacer

The best and worst part of building a car, doing the research. Figured out what I need for my front brake lines and the fitting for the clutch master line. Pegasus racing has everything required at the best price and I don't even need to make any AN lines. I have a pretty good system down for AN but ...

CarRacer

Stripped the Chevette of the parts I want to use on the BMW. I'm doubtful I'll run the surge tank as I don't want to deal with the routing for it and the low pressure pump is on its way out. I'll run the rest of the -6 lines from the tank to the rail though. Brakes are Corrado rotors with a Wilwood ...

CarRacer

Cut a new hole in the tunnel and clearanced the console for the T5 shifter. My hand doesn't hit the dash in 1, 3, or 5. Now I just need to figure out a shift boot, shifter knob, and what to do with the patch panel over the stock shifter hole.

CarRacer

Started mocking up the engine bay to see where things will fit and what needs to change. The downpipe is too close to the firewall near the transmission, it doesn't quite touch the heat shield on the insulation but it's too close. It also runs too close to the floor where it ends. I cobbled the ...

CarRacer

Completed the transmission mount tonight. There were some weird angles on the crossmember but I used a piece of angle iron bolted with suspension bushings from Oriellys on the cross member and then welded square tubing to that. That allowed me to offset the angle and get the square tubing ...

CarRacer

Finished up the motor mounts last night. Happy with how the motor is sitting but I may have to shim up the driver side as the pan is a little closer to the rack than I prefer. It'll knock the motor off level but that's not super critical. Next hurdle is the trans mount and I'm not quite sure how I ...

CarRacer

Picked up an E30 roller chassis on my birthday as my next project now that I'm done racing for a while. Chassis is an 1987 325e with 114,000 on the clock. It seems pretty clean all around, doors, fenders, and trunk area is rust free. PO parked it and stole the drive train for another car after ...

CarRacer

Bringing this back from the dead hoping to get a few questions answered. The 4G63 Chevette is going to go away and I want to stuff the drivetrain (4G63, bill housing, and Ford WC T5) into an E30.

I'm hoping there's space at the firewall to run the stock thermostat housing, is that possible?

Why ...

CarRacer

When I did it on my motor, I did start it up to idle and check for leaks. I didn't run it for long and didnt get the motor up to temperature but made sure nothing fell apart and all of that.

For break in, I drove it but a dyno will work the same. I did a few ramp ups to 4000-5000rpm using only 50 ...

CarRacer

Updating this. Changed the front end around to a tubular style setup. No suspension stuff got moved around aside from the shock mounts but those aren't anything crazy. Radiator is a civic half size and now fits in between the core support and hood. Intake piping and oil cooler got moved as well now ...

CarRacer

Here's the car on the front straighaway at Road America. We finished Saturday's 7 hour race but had issues with our new Wilwood brake setup. I was worried about picking too aggressive of a pad and locking up the tires but I picked a compound that didn't hold up to the speeds we were going. They ...

CarRacer

Took the car to the track for a shakedown before the first race of the season at Road America. Nothing fell off, so it was a success.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEkAp6pN0h8

CarRacer

I think that would be a fun project. Here's a FD with the swap, although they used an automatic.

http://www.maperformance.com/map-fdsm.html

CarRacer

In car video from the oval segment of the race. We passed a lot of cars there and the motor performed flawlessly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cycVxoEI8DU

CarRacer

http://www.missedshift.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/20110904-011125.jpg

I guess the hood didn't like having a turbo at boost under it for 12 hours.
I did a small write up from the pits about our race so far.

After I wrote that, we continued to finish the 25 hour race and ended up ...

CarRacer

It should be sufficient. It's very similar in size to a civic half size radiator but twice as thick. There will be a ton of airflow in this race as well. It's a 1 mile banked oval, so we will be averaging over 70 mph laps. We also have a big ass oil cooler to help share the load.

CarRacer

Well, it was a team effort. Pops provided a great place and all of the tools to build the thing, financed it, and worked on it with me and was there when I couldn't be.

I'm just glad it's done and my stupid idea wasn't a waste of time and money. I'll try and link some videos of it at the race this ...

CarRacer

It runs and moves under its own power now.

Walk around of it while it sits idling.

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1987 BMW 325e