M2 madness

[M3M3]

thats the unobtainium racing cap......imported from a neighboring universe...

actually waiting to put the cap on until i get the radiator in. clearance concerns...

[M3M3]

Time to put the radiator in.

Marked off the area to hack out, and went at it with the saw.

More metal gone..

With the brace gone and the bottom of the rad support cut, needed some reinforcement to attach the rad securely. Made up brace of 3/4in aluminum bar stock

Cut up the new radiator braces to fit around the frame rails and air cleaner and drilled mounting holes in right spot.

The custom radiator will sit a little further forward than the IE one, so had to offset the elec fan forward a tad. Made some more brackets. Attached right side to the rad support brace stub that was left after cutting the panel out.

New home for the right side horn.

Painted all the bare metal edges where I made cuts. When paint is dry tomorrow will bolt in the rad and fill’er up.

[ray_]

You... you modder! ;-)

Yeah, getting the distributor cap off takes some finagling with the turbo rad in. Another half inch clearance therewill be a plus.

Have fun,

Ray

[M3M3]

Finished up radiator install

Wired up the horn

Dropped rad in, bolted it up and connect some hoses.

Detail of the support bracket on right side

actually have more clearance on the water pump than i did with the IE rad, and i can get the dizzy cap off easily.

Then did a few other little items, swapped on the street tires, replaces some fuel hose, replace the fuel pump and sender seals rings, put the airbox on, filled rad with distilled water and ……turned the key. Vroom! Started right up. But then overheated. Crap. after several rounds of overheating, hose pumping and ir temp taking at various points in the system, looks like I may have a stuck tstat. Thing only has 1500 miles on it. top of tstat is hot, top of rad is hot, bottom of rad and hoses below tstat are cold. Time to drain the cooling system…again and get a new tstat. S14 stats are dang expensive and I have three good 2002 tstats in a box, but would have to have more fun figuring out hose configurations if I changed.

[Swiftus]

Would a washer work as the t-stat?

[M3M3]

whats for dinner? how about some boiled s14 tstat?

pulled the tstat and tested it on the stove. cleared the experiment with she who must be obeyed, and used a teapot that was convieniently in the trash.

it was a little slow to open, but it did open. hmmm.

new one on the way from blunt anyway.

poured some water through the rad, no blockage issues.

wonder if i had the mysterious "air lock" somewhere in the system? never had that problem before. will wait until new tstat shows up, reassemble, refill with water and try again.

cooling systems with just water are wonderful things in summer, on a race track, and when you have to dump and refill multiple times.....

[M3M3]

New tstat from Blunt arrived. boiled it up in the same pot as the old tstat at the same time. new one opened a tad earlier. not much to make a big difference i doubt, but i used the new one and reassembled the cooling system. refilled the system with straight distilled water, jacked up back of car so it was a little more level than it was before and started'er up.

MUCH BETTER!

rock solid dead center in the gauge. that should be 195deg. tstat is an 80c s14 model. elec fan came on a tick above half and temp settled into the middle. this was sitting at idle in a garage. prior to the rad swap i had to run a box fan in front of the rad to keep temp down under the same conditions.

will recalibrate in free air the 02 sensor, dump a bottle of redline water wetter in the rad, put the hood back on, and it should be good to go for testing this weekend.

[ray_]

Hey, hit that rad with your IR gun and lemme know your readings.

I'm running an '02 tstat..

Cheers,

Ray

[M3M3]

195 ish at the top, 168ish at the bottom.

[ray_]

Hmm. I think I saw slightly above 200 after heat soak on mine. I need to check again. And the M88 for comparison...

Got that diff in?? ;-)

Cheers,

Ray

195 ish at the top, 168ish at the bottom.

[M3M3]

saving the 4.10 diff until AFTER the 800mile road trip to vintage.... 3.91 will be a tad nicer on the highway!

[jgerock]

saving the 4.10 diff until AFTER the 800mile road trip to vintage.... 3.91 will be a tad nicer on the highway!

Another speedo re-calibration needed - correct?

[M3M3]

in theory, yes. however, currently speedo seems to read a tad low, so maybe it will be close with the 4.10.

[ClayW]

You know, if you went with a digital speedometer, you could recalibrate it for free whenever you felt like it. Just sayin'.....

[ray_]

But officer, my speedo said...

;-)

Ray