A Sorry Excuse for an 02 (Now with M42!)

[Barrosco]

The M42 went in about early November. The P.O. cut the C101 off for his M50 swap so I had to graft a new one into the engine harness (thanks for you pinout diagram Jake).

Finished up a little bit of wiring and fired it up:

It seemed to run well, but there was a hitch. The G240 that was given to me shifted fine when I had it on the floor with the E30 shifter, but after I took that off and tried to move the shift selector with my hand or screwdriver it wouldn't budge. At that point I decided I may be able to persuade it out somehow so I went ahead and put it in with my shifter setup (E21 shift plate with UUC shifter and DSSR):

Well, the transmission wouldn't come out of gear with all my might. So I figured while I'm at it, why not just throw in the driveshaft and see what it does. That didn't work either. So I took it all out and sat on my hands waiting for a transmission until March.

More tomorrow.

[Barrosco]

Wow, I'm not very good at this. I had planned on thoroughly discussing any confusion I had with certain areas of the swap, but I've honestly forgotten what issues I was struggling to comprehend. If anyone has any questions about the M42 swap please don't hesitate to ask me. I'm not going to go to far into detail about the swap itself, as it's been pretty well documented by other people and I'm not really doing anything different. When I do get to areas that I'm doing things differently, I'll make sure I go into detail about them.

 

Anyhow, back to the car.

I ended up exchanging my burnt up G245 and all the assorted 5-speed swap parts for a fairly low mileage G240, threw it all in and started driving. Here's my messy engine bay which will be cleaned up when I figure out my tach issues.

 

The only thing I've done different here is a carbon fiber KA Motors intake rather than putting a cone filter on the AFM to suck hot air from the engine bay. As you can see I just bolted the coil pack to the passenger side over there, but I may try to do my own COP with the newer pencil coils.

 

The next step was to get a functioning speedometer. I really didn't care for the VDO speedo that everyone else was using, it looked out of place. So I found this Stewart Werner speedo on Ebay for 30 bucks and figured I'd give it a try. I then decided that I wanted to try to use the stock 02' cluster glass, so I popped the glass off of the SW speedo.

 

Since the SW speedo was 3 3/8 inch instead of a 3 1/8 inch I had to dremel out a little bit of the gauge cluster and figure out a way to secure the speedo. This was the result.

 

 

Unfortunately I still haven't been able to get it to function. I'm using the same signal pickup as Jake, and as soon as the speedo gets power it jumps to 80-90mph. The strange thing is that even though the speedo is just about pegged, the odometer doesn't move at all. I'm not entirely sure if it's a bad unit, is incompatible (it seems to be a fairly early electric speedo, you can't calibrate it), or if I'm simply doing something wrong. I've checked my wiring multiple times and I'm almost positive I've got everything hooked up correctly. I've just been using an iPhone app for the time being.

 

So while I've been dealing with some of those little issues these showed up at my door.

 

15x7 Kosei K1's with 195/50 S-Drives

 

I also had my exhaust made which comprises of Jake's exhaust manifold, an 18 inch resonator, and an ANSA muffler. I don't remember what diameter tubing was used, but it doesn't sound half bad. I'll admit that it is fairly loud and a little farty, but it's not awful. I don't think I can get much better than that with a 16 valve 4 cylinder. This is the only picture I've got of the exhaust setup.

 

This is pretty much the point I'm at currently. The fun stuff is coming up very shortly.

[DaveBMX]

Hey Barrosco you seem to have had a pretty easy time with the install except the duff tranny.  would you mind running me through where you hooked up the wires to run the m42 and where you wired them?

 

 

Dave

[Barrosco]

Hey Barrosco you seem to have had a pretty easy time with the install except the duff tranny.  would you mind running me through where you hooked up the wires to run the m42 and where you wired them?

 

 

Dave

 

Sorry I hadn't gotten back to you Dave; I haven't been in my thread in quite some time. I assume you've gotten your wiring sorted out by now though.

 

Anyways, It's been over 6 months since I've updated anything here. Well, I'd like to say I have a brand new 2002, but that'd be a lie; she's just as rough as she's always been, albeit not quite as rough.

 

So what's changed? Quite a bit. I pretty much took it down to a shell, resealed the M42, and installed Poly bushing with coilovers on the front.

 

The first step was to get both subframes out.

 

Then I started disassembling the M42. I looked over the bottom end, which seemed to be in good shape.

 

Strange sight for the M10 guys, eh?

 

Then it was time for GC's coilover kit. First things first is to cut the spring perch off and sandblast the strut housings.

 

Mount for the coilover sleeve welded onto the strut housing and sand blasted again.

 

The finished product with a fresh coat of self-etching primer and paint.

 

I really slacked on taking pictures (what a surprise), but I managed to get the subframes as clean as possible and throw a fresh coat of paint on them. Here's what I ended up with for the rear subframe.

 

I also installed a Volvo BBK (which I'd had all of the parts for it for quite a long time). Of course I managed to neglect taking pictures of, but I did snap a picture while installing new bearings on the front hubs.

 

I turned my attention back to M42, which had been resealed (damn profile gasket) and cleaned up. I also went ahead and put a fresh coat of paint on the sides of the block.

 

You can see my assembled struts in the backround of the last picture (no good pictures of something once again!?) which have a new sets of Billy Sports and 350 pound springs.

 

With everything buttoned up I put the engine and transmission on the subframe and installed everything from the bottom. The rest of the assorted suspension components went in, and I spun the coilovers all the way down, just for giggles you know.

 

I went about getting my camber in a different way and it resulted in too much caster. Those who've been around for awhile probably know what I did for camber, but I did end up getting the caster back where I want it.

That's enough for today, don't want to shove too much content into one post. There's plenty more to come though.

[Barrosco]

I put the coilovers up to a comfortable height and this is how she turned out.

 

The next obvious step was a hood. Now obviously the original hood had been tapped, but the owner gave me an extra hood. Which under further investigation seemed to have also had some damage, and plenty of bondo. I was able to source a better one for cheap, but it also had issues. So I started stripping the rust I could get to and put some self-etching primer on it.

 

Another little detail I wanted to clear up was the DME. I finally got it up off the floor and mounted for the time being. I'd like to make a false floor like Marshall did at some point though.

 

It was then time to just get out and drive the thing. I took it up to Road Atlanta to watch some HSR races and met a friend. I see a Long-Hood Porsche in my very, very distant future.

 

That 912 was absolutely gorgeous.

 

I was really putting some miles on, but I still didn't have a tachometer due to some problems with using a tach adapter with the stock one. I wanted to go with an electronic tach, but couldn't find one I really liked, until I came upon this VDO which I've never seen before. It seems like I don't have an installed picture; I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

 

I also had to rid myself of those goofy mirrors. They may have been a popular change back in the day, but I really don't care for them. Some new Vitaloni Sebring mirrors with convex lenses.

 

No 2002 would be complete without Euro turnsignals either.

 

The latest little fix was the radio and removal of the A/C Evaporator, since there isn't a compressor anyways. The radio wiring was pretty awful so that really had to be addressed.

 

So that's pretty much where it's at today. Here's the first actual "beauty" shot of it at a recent Cars & Coffee.

 

Oh, and these showed up; we'll see where it goes. More info on this setup in the coming days.

[Cupid]

Loads of nice work in this thread.  Bravo!

[okibono]

really good stuff...

[76ohtwo]

Hi -

 

What M42 components would I need to buy to conduct the swap? I have the whole custom mounts and stuff thing all figured out, but I'd like to know what other M42-related things I'll need. Thanks!