73 Fjord with Megasquirt

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Seats and carpet have been refitted, i believe the front seats are from a Honda Integra, they fit without modification of the mounting points, so i can revert to factory seats easily. IMHO they dont look too out of place and are quite comfortable

Carpets a bit faded but servicable

Seats and Seatbelts in

Engine reassembly continues, I ordered 2 permacoil kits from Amazon and they arrived within a week.

M6 fitted in timing case for water pump bolt

M8 for exhaust manifold stud

All frost plugs replaced, notice the evidence of a coolant leak, the original plug was almost rusted through. Loctite No3 aviation sealant used extensively on gaskets!

New water pump

New crank seal and gasket, Hylomar used on joint between seal housing and sump

Inlet manifold

and exhaust manifold, using copper coated nuts and lots of copperslip on the studs, installed.

Looks like the head has been milled approx 0.7mm, should give me a compression ratio of approx 9.1:1 which is fine, shame the upper timing cover hasn't been milled!. At the stage i dont want to pull the head off so will have to get creative with rocker cover sealing!

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Pilot bearing removal using bread

 

This worked like a dream! I didnt have a suitable puller and had previously tried using grease which was both messy and unsuccessful! Came across this video so decided to give it a go.

 

 

 

Used a 12mm round bar to compress bread

 

2 slices is all it took

 

Even cleans up for you

 

The bearing was an open one and at first the bread squeezed through the gaps, but eventually it compacted enough and started to push the bearing out, wouldnt recommend trying to reuse the bearing though!

[nobrakese28]

Very nice!

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Engine In, Hood and Brakes

 

Homemade flywheel locking tool

 

Freshly machined  - mmmm!

 

On its way back in

 

Tight fit but went in no problems, not necessary to tilt without gearbox

 

Back home!

 

Hood fitting as per FAQ.

 

Volvo calipers with vented discs, as fitted by PO, refreshed with new flexible hoses

 

Bilstein Sports with 320i drums

 

Rear springs have been cut and aren't captive, a big no no for passing a WOF in NZ, i will be replacing.

 

Brakes have also been bled, wiring tidied up in engine bay, all new hoses. Im taking a trip to the UK next week and hopefully pick up the final parts needed to get back on the road, hopefully just before blueys 40th birthday in September

[dasfrogger]

I really like this thread! Good work, I'm excited to see how it goes

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Small update, got back from the UK last week with a suitcase full (30kg) of parts - saved me a heap of money in shipping charges 

 

First thing to do was install the gearbox

Lubed the centering bearing on the driveshaft

 

and the pilot bearing

 

No photos of me getting under the gearbox and bench pressing it into position! In reallity it wasn't too bad, i used Mr Bill Williams trick of studs in the upper gearbox holes documented here http://www.bmw2002faq.com/_/technical-articles/engine-and-drivetrain/transmission-install-with-motor-in-the-car-r18  BTW i also gained all the bonus points!

 

Guibo install - i admit to falling into a trap for young players here, i thought i would be clever and bolt the guibo to the gearbox while it was out of the car, it wasn't until i had installed gearbox i realised it wasn't possible to mount the driveshaft with the guibo on - it needs bolting to the propshaft first, then to the gearbox!

 

Original size of Guibo

Large hose clamp tightened up, bolts slid in easily after doing this

 

And mounted, unfortunately to be removed once i realised the propshaft issue!

 

Clutch Slave cylinder mounted with new seals and plenty of Copperslip

 

Gearbox drain plug removed, little concerned about the swarf but no large chunks so

Cleaned it up and

Filled it up - the label says 'German Technology' so it must be good!

Made sure it was GL4 spec

 

I also bought back a Momo Hub to Nardi wheel adapter

 

Now i can fit my nice Nardi wheel ive had for about 3 years!

 

Now i'm waiting on a small parcel of parts from Walloth and Nesch after which i will be planning on startup - yay!!

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Package arrived from Walloth and Nesch so work continues

 

Guibo fitted with new retaining nuts

Remote adjusted, with new foam to keep dust out, new rubber gaiter in plastic bag to be fitted

All installed, should have used a 320i gearbox rubber mount but didnt know about that upgrade when i bought it so meh, next time!

 

Refitted exhaust, new gasket nuts and lots of copperslip here

And new hangers

 

New drag link installed, no felt washer to soak in oil? Just a plastic cap

That i filled with this grease - have used before and its really good stuff, hope it does the trick.

New tie rods, copperslip on adjusting rods. Notice protective plastic cap that covers the ball joint rubber, easy to leave on if you dont realise, luckily i had read a few posts of people who had done it so i was forewarned!

First put on tie rod end with non nyloc nut so the taper bit and the ball joint wouldn't rotate ( i used a wheelnut )

Then removed and replaced with nyloc torqued to spec.

 

I then moved on to do some rustproofing with cavity wax

Sprayed the inside of the drivers door

And (after removing dry dirt with compressed air) the shock tower cavity

This is the product i use, creeps well and doesnt harden

Applied using this applicator

 

Startup getting closer!!

Edited July 18, 2013 by scanner

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Its been a frustrating but ultimately satisfying couple of weeks, i was preparing for first startup and first i spun the motor without plugs to get oil pressure. After trying various fixes and picking forum members brains http://www.bmw2002faq.com/topic/142902-oil-pressure-setback/#entry936750 i dropped the sump
 

Engine supported from above

Subframe out

Oil pump removed, cleaned and measured - checked out ok

As discussed in above post, 2 O rings added which sealed nicely
 
If this was a rebuilt engine with lots of $ spent on it i would not have done. But given it was an old engine, the oil pump checked out fine and if there was any damage due to low oil pressure it would have already been done i opted for the simplest solution. A new sump gasket from BMW NZ and engine was back together. After cranking for about 20 seconds i got a good flow of oil out of the sender gauge hole - success!!
 
With the subframe out i took the opportunity to replace strut ball joints, tie bar front rubbers, sway bar rubbers and replace cut springs with Jaymic 30mm lowered springs. I wont document subframe reconditioning as it has been done by others far better than i could, couple of photos though
 

Standard rubbers went in easy with the recommended insertion tool!

Silicon on frame ends to stop water entering here, i also took the opportunity to paint the rails with the subframe off

Modified cavity wax gun to get in the frame rails via the subframe bolt holes.

Built up the struts, ball joint and control arm off the car to make access to nuts and lockwiring easier.
 
No photos but i attached the steering and idler (RHD) box and the sway bar to the subframe, then offered the subframe up to the frame rails, this allowed me to keep the subframe as light as possible to allow easy bolting up to the engine mounts and frame rails. I then added the tie rods and finally attached the struts/control arms as a unit. This all bolted together really easily and i would use this method again

I was struggling with the swaybar rubbers until i used a C Clamp positioned like this and it all went together easily.
 
Job nearly done, the control arm to subframe mounting needed torquing to 123ft/lbs almost impossible to do with the car on the ground with lowered suspension so instead i put a jack under the strut and raised the strut until it was just taking the weight of the car and then torqued up - good enough i hope to avoid strain on the control arm rubbers - sorry no photos
 
And so to today, new fuel in tank, plugs gapped and timing set roughly using a test lamp, full choke and ........... STARTED FIRST KICK!!! Really happy, ran for a 5 minutes, turned off and checked for leaks and fluid levels. I then tested clutch and gearbox and drove out the garage, cue compulsory startup video -
 

 
At the end of the video you will see that the fuel pump is leaking, luckily i had a spare which i swapped over and fortunately worked perfectly - you have to catch a break sometimes!
 
To end a successful day i even treated bluey to a wash 
Edited August 11, 2013 by scanner

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Back on the road!

 

Final push to get legal, finished off the doors

Black bin liner did the trick!

 

Mirrors fitted

 

Not many photos taken, i basically spent a couple of weeks sorting out teething problems, some self inflicted - dont forget to do up wheel nuts before going for a test drive is one tip! I also reset timing with a strobe, set toe in using this method http://www.bmw2002faq.com/topic/116459-diy-alignment/ (worked really well BTW). Swapped leaking radiator for the spare fortunately non leaking one, rebled back brakes. Finally last friday i took the plunge and went for a Warrent of Fitness (WOF). It failed - but only for a bad wiper blade and badly aligned headlights!

 

So yesterday i went for the retest and

 

WOF

And vehicle license

 

Fully road legal -Yehaa, it was also a beautiful spring day in Auckland so took a few glamour shots at the local beach

 

 

Very happy with the outcome, this is the first 2002 i've driven and im not dissapointed. Engine is nice and torquey, pulls well from low RPM, suspension is compliant and feels great around the twisty bits, brakes are good, steering is pretty good, quite heavy but i have wide tyres on so only have myself to blame! The plan now is to just use it for a few months and enjoy 

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Well its been a month, no major problems but had a couple of leaks that needed sorting -

Brake MC leaked from day 1, took it to Just Brakes in Auckland (highly recommended) expecting it to need sleeving, good news was the bore was in excellent condition, just needed a light parallel hone and a new seal kit. I was expecting the bleeding to be a PITA but turned out to be easy, all the air bubbled out of the remote reservior with some light pumping of the pedal! 

Used this clamp to keep MC bolts in while i put the nuts on - have to be creative when theres no one around!

 

Job was made so much easier with the engine bay clean and having only put it all together a few of months ago - didn't even spill any brake fluid!

 

The second leak was the rocker cover, because previously the head had been skimmed but not the upper timing cover there was a .70mm gap between head and rocker cover, not good. Not wanting to remove timing cover at this stage i thought i would try this stuff

Put .70mm washers under the studs on the head only and added gasket goo

Result - Ugly but effective, been for a few runs and so far no rocker cover leaks

 

Also started trying to get a bit of shine on the paint, used a claybar, meguires polish and then carnuba wax

1/2 done -They say you cant polish a turd but ill give it a go!

Edited September 30, 2013 by scanner

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The muffler had developed a rattle, the center core with the holes in it had come adrift, instead of replacing it i decided to run without a front muffler.

Pipe cut at rear and separated from manifold at the front, pipe was 46mm entering the muffler and 51mm leaving

 

Old pipe carefully cut away from the downpipe.

 

300mm of 51mm (2") pipe welded onto the downpipe.

 

After mocking up on the car i drilled a hole for a oxy sensor, there is space between the gearbox and tunnel to put the sensor in at 12 o'clock 

 

And bung welded in

 

Downpipe mounted securely, the gearbox support bracket needed to be opened up to fit the 51mm pipe snugly. Then added a length of 51mm pipe flared at both ends and secured with exhaust brackets.

 

The straight pipe needed a couple of kinks in it to get it to marry up with the rear section smoothly, but after a couple of attempts managed to position everything so it didnt hit diff housing/CV inner joint/ rear subframe!

 

After driving for a couple of days, i think i will add a resonator at some point, its not unduly loud but it has a rasp to it that to be sounds a bit 'ricey"!! I prefer a burble to a rasp .

 

I have also finally made a start on the Megasquirt side of things - i have felt a bit of a fraud about the "with megasquirt" part of the blog title so to put things right

 

The test bed! No laptop but the old PC had a serial port so i loaded Tuner Studio and set up the relay board and Megasquirt, it powered up OK and after a couple of false starts managed to get the latest firmware loaded on the MS and Tuner Studio to talk to MS. 

 

The plan is to get the ignition side working first as I have all the components (EDIS), and i think i will see a good improvement to performance with a good advance curve and crank controlled timing instead of my worn distributor, dodgy advance springs and.rattly timing chain. I do love the simplicity of points but the benefits of this ignition alternative are too compelling to ignore - time will tell ( and i can always go back to points if modern technology gets the better of me )

 

Heres the 36 tooth wheel as mounted at present. Unfortunately the wheel is not mounted in the correct place to take advantage of the 10 degree BTDC 'limp home' mode that edis offers should the Megasquirt fail. At the stage i am thinking of repositioning the wheel on the pulley.

 

Before i pull the pulley off i thought i would use  my spare engine to mockup a new VR sensor mount, if i position the missing tooth 1 tooth BTDC then 90 degrees before that is where the VR sensor can be placed without fouling on the water pump bolt - its my understanding that as long as the engine is at TDC i can mount the toothed wheel anywhere, as long as the VR sensor is 90 degrees behind it?

Edited October 19, 2013 by scanner

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EDIS Installation

 

First decision was where to mount the EDIS hardware, decided on these spots

EDIS Controller close to the VR sensor to avoid too long a cable length - it seems from reading the Megasquirt forums that one of the major causes of problems was poor signals from the VR Sensor and i wanted to minimise signal interferance. Position was also well away from other causes of electrical noise.

 

EDIS coilpack mounted (rather crudely but solidly) in position and using existing holes for the origional canister coil. This also allowed me to use the EDIS coil leads without modification, the lengths were perfect!

 

Also decided to mount the Megasquirt Relay box at this Stage - the block of wood will be replaced with a block of rubber at a later stage with the intention of isolating vibration as much as possible.

 

I also ran a separate 8 gauge wire from the battery in the trunk to the distibution box and then on to the relay box to try to minimise voltage drops when cranking. Switched power to activate the main power relay on the MS relay board was taken from Fuse 12 on the fusebox as it was 'hot' in run and when cranking. Ground from the relay board was to the engine and were the edis ground and shielded cable ground, all to the same point.

 

Crank pulley removed from engine - no puller available but with some blocks of wood and wedges got it off with no damage. Tack welds on toothed wheel ground off and wheel removed

 

After locating TDC using the flywheel OT line and mounting VR sensor i moved the toothed wheel around until the 9th tooth before the missing tooth lined up with the VR sensor, held it in place with hot glue and tack welded twice to secure. It then took a couple more attempts to centre the wheel on the crank pulley which i did by nearly grinding through the welds and tapping the wheel with a FBH then rewelding - got it on the third attempt! Access to a lathe would have been ideal to centre up but this did the trick. Put about 12 tack welds around the pulley to secure. At this stage i have aimed for a 1mm gap from wheel to VR sensor.

 

All that remained was to wire up as this diagram (EDIS 4)

 

Well not exactly as my EDIS controller had no pin 7 so i ran the sheilded cable from the VR sensor through the PIP/SAW sheilded cable to ground at the same point on the block as the MS Relay board and the EDIS Ground. I also left the PIP and SAW disconnected to test the EDIS alone in limp home mode.

 

At each stage of wiring i checked for continuity and then for voltage where appropriate.

 

I then connected one coil lead and spare plug and cranked motor - success - we have a spark!

 

Put back fanbelt and radiator connected up all HT leads and cranked, and cranked and cranked - nothing. A little disheartened i pulled a plug and noticed it was dry? Removed air cleaner and then noticed the fuel line had come adrift from the inline filter!

 

Reconnected fuel line, primed solex float bowl, turned up idle speed screw 1 turn and cranked, motor fired up 1st kick and after checking with timing light i have a rock solid 10 degree BTDC advance, exactly what it should be for EDIS running on its own in limp home mode - awesome!!

I realise i still have a long way to go but this was really encouraging, the timing mark didnt move around at all, with the admitidly old and worn distributor the timing mark used to jump all over the place, now i have a stable starting point for building the Megasquirt advance curve

 

Next step - connecting up the Megasquirt in car and building an advance curve

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Megasquirt Hookup

 

Next stage was to hookup EDIS module (already confirmed to be working in limp mode) to the Megasquirt.

Only 2 wires to connect to the relay. PIP which is the Tach signal in and SAW , the signal Megasquirt gives the EDIS to vary the spark advance.

Before testing i tidied up the ground connections, EDIS and MS grounds all converge at the engine block.

At this stage i hadn't access to a serial to USB to use my Macbook so bought out the desktop Windows PC to the garage!  BTW i believe a Windows OS was needed to load the latest MSExtra Firmware to the MS, there isnt a Mac based loader available. Latest firmware loaded perfectly and so was ready to startup.

Using Tuner Studio software and from info i gleaned from http://msextra.com i setup the ignition settings for EDIS and initially set the Fixed Timing to a fixed advance of 10 degrees and with everything crossed started up - motor fired up and after warming up i changed fixed advance to 15 degrees, burnt to controller and like magic the engine revs changed!!! Controlling my 40 year old Beemer from a computer, what a hoot .

Map sensor was also showing me load from the takeoff below the inlet manifold so now i could build an advance table.

Based on info from Megasquirt forums, FAQers posted tables, BMW distributor curves and a bit of guesswork i built a (hopefully) very conservative table shown above. 

 

I've been for a couple of short test drives and even with this unrefined table there is a marked improvement over the old worn distributor and with full spark advance control things should get even better.

Package arrived from Amazon containing this USB to Serial cable (FTDI chip based) hooked up to my Macbook running 10.9 Mavericks and fired up Tuner Studio, went to communications tab, hit the detect button and it found the Megasquirt immediately. At this stage is working perfectly which is a relief as there appears to be a few USB/Serial/Mac issues out there.

Also in the Amazon page was this http://www.amazon.com/Innovate-Motorsports-3844-Complete-All-In-One/dp/B004MDT8MW/ref=sr_1_2?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1389481703&sr=1-2 with free shipping to NZ on this it was too good a deal to ignore  Next project sorted!!

[austinmf]

Very nice work!!! Very impressed with everything!!!

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Very nice work!!! Very impressed with everything!!!

Thanks for your kind words. Glad to see (on MSExtra Forum) that your MS issues are getting resolved, i still have the fuel side of things to do !