TobyB

I know why.
 
Many do.
 
The 32/36 is a progressive carb, where the 32mm bore opens first, and then the 36 follows on a bit later.
 
the 38/38 was originally meant for a V6, with each bore feeding one bank, and it's synchronous, with
both 38mm bores opening at the same time.
 
So for the first 20 degrees of throttle shaft rotation, the 38 flows a LOT more air.  Too much for a 2 liter, really,
but having run one for a few years, it was still a blast.
 
There is a 'sync link' out there for the 32/36 that opens the secondary 36mm barrel along with the 32.  Never tried that.
 
I DID find that lap times with a tired stock engine didn't much care if I was running a 32/36 or a 38/38- with a 6k
rev limit and 8.2:1 compression, the 32/36 isn't a flow restriction.
 
The 38/38 is more fun.  
 
t
 

Squirt harder.
 
Squirt backwards.
 
If that fails, drill out the plugs and mechanically ream out the passages.
 
I've had to do that on agricultural carbs that were fed corn soup...
 
t

www.realoem.com will answer this and far more questions like it!
 
(I think so, but I've never stuck them side by side to be sure)
 
t
 

there's a huge difference between 120 (150bhp) and 140 (I don't know, way more than I make)
 
It's impressive hitting the aero wall at Portland without the chicane.  You come piling out of 11, right up to the wall,
shift to 4th, shift to 5th before start/ finish.... and sit there.  Just, sit there.  You can FEEL the air holding the car back.
Data goes flatline on everything.
Spokane, old course, even more so.  Every mph of a tailwind is another mph at turn 1.
I was breaking rockers when we got a 25mph tailwind, because I was undergeared.  And undersprung.
 
Ride height matters, static camber matters, but when you get 150 bhp of air resistance, there you sit.
300 probably comes on about 145, volume being the cubed bitch that it is.
The E46 will pass 140 with an advertised 225 bhp, (barely) but the brick?  No way...
 
t
 

From BMW, only the bolts on the bottoms of the strut tubes were wired.
 
And had they had loctite red, I don't think they would have
bothered with those.
 
Things that come loose?
The bolts on the bottoms of the strut tubes.
I've had the halfshaft bolts come loose.
I've had the halfshaft nuts come loose.
I've had the throttle linkage come apart.
I've had the nuts holding the carb come loose.
I bet others have more.
 
t

However, the current Elring instruction is torque, angle now, so at 54 ft- lbs, too late for that!
 
Dan, yes, if you've used the old way, and torqued in 3 steps, once the engine's on the car and running
well, give it one last torque- dead cold- and if any bolts don't move at all, back them off just enough to release them,
and retorque.  
It doesn't hurt, and it's not uncommon to find several bolts that have slackened- thus, the angle method now specified.
 
my opinion only,
t
 

If the inside sidewalls of the tires are at uneven distances
from the tubes, that's a pretty good
indication that a strut's bent... 
you're not always going to see it at the base.
 
t
 

If second is quiet.
it'll usually do that for quite a while before it grenades.
 
Most likely the front countergear bearing's worn, and moving
out of position enough that 1st's gears don't like it.
 
It's not going to do anything worse than wear the gears,
so yeah, just use 1st to get rolling, and move on to 2nd.
Second will eventually get noisy, too, but by then you'll have
something else to put in.
 
Even if there's something catastrophically wrong, and it DOES go,
it's not going to damage anything else, in 1st.  
 
no sweat,
t
 

I use one in the 2002 race car, as one class I (sometimes used to) race in
limited modifications.
 
The electric valve IS a trick bit, because it will allow full flow from the
accumulator to the main galley but prevent the accumulator from filling too fast.
 
Here's why you want this,
as me letting the car run low on oil at Spokane one year demonstrated:
You're flying down the main straight, with full pressure of 60.  You pitch the car into a long, sweeping
left- hander, and uncover the pickup, which starts sucking air.  Pressure drops below what it was
on the front straight, and the accumulator starts oiling the main galley for you.
You hold that attitude for almost 30 seconds.  The accumulator pressure drops from 60 to 20 during this, but
keeps oiling.  It has an air-spring bladder in it, so it has a pretty wide range as it unloads.
Now you have an extra quart and a half in the pan, and come out of turn 2.
And get hard on the throttle.  The extra oil's now covering the pickup, but the accumulator pressure
is low- and with an open valve, that would hold your entire system pressure low as the accumulator filled.
But the electric valve only diverts a small amount of refill volume to the accumulator,
letting the main galley come back up to 55 or so, fully oiling the engine, yet
refilling the accumulator slowly as you work your way through
3, 4 and 5, kicking in briefly in 6, refilling through 7 and 8, and then oiling the engine 
as you take 9, another sweeping left- hander, which uncovers the pickup again.
As you come piling out of 9 on 2- and- a half- tires, oil drifts back over the pickup,
pressure comes up again, and you repeat the cycle 18 or 22 times.
 
Yes, this is hard on the engine.  But it's a lot LESS hard on the engine than running without
oil FLOW, which is what would happen without the Accusump, and I seriously raced an entire
race like this, watching the oil pressure gauge more than the track, taking odd lines, and otherwise
acting like an idiot who checked his oil level with the accumulator partly discharged.
 
Because the other half of the Accusump is that it puts an air spring into your oil system, and now, oil
volume is directly affected by oil pressure.  100 psi at startup?  You'll pressurize that accumulator to 100,
and that'll feed it an extra half- quart.  Leaving the pan a half- quart low.
Drop to 10 psi at idle?  It'll dump everything into the sump, leaving you a quart over. 
Run 18 laps at Spokane a quart low?  After that, I had half a quart of air on the oil side of the
accumulator, from all the frothed oil that went in and out of the accumulator, and had to 
blow that out of the thing through the engine.  Then VERY gently restart it....
 
Back to valve choice: my race car came with the electric valve, and I probably would never have
bothered to figure electric valves out if it hadn't.  I like it for the slow refill feature.  It really makes a difference when
you're relying on it too much.  You shouldn't need it almost ever, but if you DO need to run on it, 
it really does work.  It also refills whether or not it's energised, which is an odd feature.  It will slowly
refill itself even if it's switched off.  
 
As FC notes, you need separate control over either valve.  I ran a manual valve on my street/track
car, because of the 'filling' 'feature'- the pressure relief valve was sticking when cold
in one of the engines I had in it, and I didn't want it putting 150 psi into the accumulator. 
I forgot once, and oiled down my passenger compartment...
On the race car, the accumulator's electric valve is on a toggle on the dash- I flip it off on the cool- down lap,
and make sure to hold the revs high enough to build 60 psi in the Accusump.
 
WAYTLDR- they're different, each has its benefits.  Both require some attention.  As does the Accusump
accumulator itself.
 
t
 
 

All the time.
 
And doing it in a press (disassembly) is difficult, as it's VERY hard to make a good jig to
support the arm in such a way that pressure only gets transferred through the outer collar
and doesn't bend the arm.  I usually whallop them out with a big brass hammer,
and then press them in if the threads won't protrude enough to get a nut onto them.
Then a bunch of shims to keep pulling against the inner race.
 
The first time it makes that noise you do tend to check to see if you have all your teeth, fingers,
and a spare pair of undies...
 
t
with great press comes great possibility for graunching the bearings.

jelly...
 
t
 

Holy Sith, that header really hangs down, doesn't it?
I'd also missed that you were using the E30 version,
with the extra mounting ear.
 
Here's a diagram (red line) of what I did- the green circle's where I remember the 
Stahl landing.  I whalloped a great dent in the tunnel so the mounting flange
didn't grind into it.  
 
I think you could do similar- you've got a lot more room to work with with that 
lower- hanging collector.  That's a great picture- IF it's aligned as well as it looks,
maybe something like the yellow line could work.
The trans support is really not carrying much weight at all, it's far more of a stabilizer.
So some 1/8" or 3/16" strap bent as the yellow shows will be plenty stout.
The OE bracket was designed to give in the event that the car's nose was 
crunched, to aim the engine downward slightly as it got shoved back.
 
 
 

Did you shift it before you installed it?
If it was OK then, I'd unhook all the linkage and go back to that step...
Otherwise:
 
I would be tempted to remove the reverse detent plug to see what happens then.
It's the big, threaded cap up high.
I don't know if you can get it out by lowering the back of the trans-
I've only done it on the bench.  It WILL launch itself across the township,
so  be careful.
 
Then see how it shifts with that spring removed.  It's POSSIBLE that it's out of alignment,
or has broken internally...  altho the only problem I've ever had with it is it jamming...
 
t
 
 

Having had a 'sub- optimal' experience with a Spanish Weber once,
I'd be very hesitant to slap a set of Chinese- sourced Weber copies on and go.
Plus, if one's good, there's no guarantee that the next will be...
 
Now, as a science experiment, why the heck not, eh?
 
The myriad of throttle body configurations is tempting, I must admit...
 
t
 

Absolutely no reason, if you like the spring rate, and they're not too long.
 
Springs do sometimes fail- but it's obvious.  And as long as they don't run out of
travel, the rate stays the same.  Since they're already pre- aged, they're proven to 
be stable where they are.
 
Add to that the unknowns of modern spring production, and I can't think of a single
reason to toss a good part to replace it with a part of unknown quality...
 
t
 

Yeah, that's the rest of the story:  to degree a cam, the usual procedure is to roll it through 360
while graphing the lift on the intake and exhaust.  A cam degree wheel helps, here.
Then, the starting point is usually whatever the grinder says for valve openings and closings*
and you do an initial timing alignment between crank and cam.  
THEN roll it through 720 crank degrees to see if all 4 events happen in time^
and adjust the cam as applicable.
 
THEN decide if you want to favor torque or top end, and cheat it one way or the other.
With a SOHC, there are always pretty painful trade- offs, so very seldom do you find lots
of free go by moving it more than a cam degree or 3.
Then take it to the dyno and see what you bought, and if you can find that little
bit of extra free go that HAS to be in there somewhere.
With DOHC, individual cam timing (and grinding) can make a big difference-
BMW's dual vanos gives them a LOT (30ish crank degrees?) of adjustment.
 
t
* the open time is usually specified at 0.050" or 1mm, as the 'take up ramp'
often goes on for more than 45 cam degrees.
 
^it's very common to have a cam that doesn't exactly agree with what the cam card says-
then you get to make phone calls, adjust your setup, and see if you can decipher what the
person who originally designed the cam had in mind.  And then take your best stab at it.

Oh- right, choke pull- off.  
 
Try using compressed air to see if you can find a leak.
 
Having said that, the block- off screws often have a tapered seat, like the
diaphragm holding screws in your pic do.  So now I'm doubting myself
on that, too.
 
https://www.lainefamily.com/images/WeberTuningManual.pdf
 
if it helps.
 
t
 

I find grit in my intake.  So I don't use them.  But it's me, and I KNOW I won't maintain them.
 
But I've also adapted the early air filter housing to a 32/36, so clearly, you cannot trust the information in front of me
 
t
stay out out of land wars in Asia.

Well, you can measure the ID, of course...  whut, 24mm?  😛
 
There are a number of threads on this-
 
what you got there is one version of the A/C, air pump and water pump pulley.
 
There are several versions of THIS one, several A/C and water pump, several air pump and water pump,
and at least 3 of the water pump only version.
 
Yup, it's kinda like they made all sorts of options.  Just like BMW.
 
I DON'T think it's an E21 pulley, as those were 'usually' stamped steel...  
 
t

Oh, #waffles, no, don't weld that!  
 
You'll kill your paint!!!
 
So this was an early attempt at 'panel bonding'- the trunk floor was hung off the OUTER
fender skin with an adhesive, as any welds would show up as distortion on the outer panel.
 
It was successful in the normal lifespan of the car, but after more years, the adhesive shrinks and fails.
If there's no rust in there, get some urethane adhesive that sets solid (not stays sticky)
and fill the gaps, removing as much of the old material, debris, and mouse turds as you can.
It doesn't need to be super strong, but it does need to stay relatively flexible.  Your local Auto
Body Supply can give you a tube- don't be shocked if it's used for installing 'structural' windshields.
 
Normal panel adhesives for modern cars won't work, as they count on close contact, high assembly pressure,
tight fits, etc etc etc. to really work.
 
That said, any non- corrosive (don't use silicone) adhesive ought to be fine.
 
This comes up from time to time, but not all that often.
 
t
glue it!

That's a reman from BMW-  
Steve will decode all the numbers, but from the 
milled- off surface and the 21, it's at least 0.25mm over,
and for the US market.
 
t
 

+1 for sealed ball bearing.
 
However, having been stuck with needles in the past, 
they're not the end of the world IF your trans pilot shaft is
spotlessly smooth and even.
Now owning lathe and steady, I would bore the small bearing out to
ball bearing size if it was otherwise good.
 
t

I'd stay air- air myself- the 2002 is a crossflow, front- mount engine,
and that packaging lends itself pretty well to a crossover arrangement.
 
If you're really hurting for space, you could always bury a couple
of Saab- style intercoolers behind the headlights by removing
the inner fender bulkhead panels  You know,
the ones with the circles embossed in them.  Or even just cut out the circles.
There's a LOT of room there, and it'll get airflow
from the front grilles.  The biggest challenge is fabricating an inner fender
to deflect wheel debris off them.
 
In an ideal universe, I'd pull brake cooling from there, too.
t
 
 

yeah, that's odd.  So do what you need to do to get a pretty tight mechanical seal, and life's good.
 
There's nothing to align, really, other than the inlet port, and that's not a precision fit.
 
t
 

Loaded is when you're accelerating, overrun is coasting with the engine slowing you down.
 
If the transmission or the diff's coming apart, that noise changes a lot.  If the center support is a mess,
usually it's constant- ish.  If you don't see anything obviously wrong with guibo, center support or driveshaft,
look carefully for something touching either the body (often the top of the tunnel) or the exhaust, or the exhaust
hitting something.  You can sometimes feel it, too.
Taking the driveshaft off is sometimes the only way to really make sure it's OK, as the center bearing
can get pretty noisy before it tears itself free.
 
If you can get it safely supported on 4 stands, I've carefully crawled under the car with it running and in gear
to try to diagnose driveshaft problems- I'm not saying it's SAFE, just that I've survived it without scars!
 
That noise does sound like bearings, tho, sadly.  But sounds over the internet are notoriously hard to diagnose.
 
t