Ranger's Dec09 motor rebuild thread (lol)

#241

Ranger,

In 2009, how many hours were you on a track? Just curious to know the ratio of track time vs. support man hours.

#242

Hello Ranger, just a thought that I did not see mentioned and you may or may not have taken care of. When installing a cyl. head back, sometimes dried oil that has hardened into the engine block threads did not all come out when cleaning. As you put the cyl. head bolts back in, any dirt in the threads is pushed down in front of the bolt towards the bottom of the hole. If enough dirt to make the bolt bottom or resist going any further, a false torque reading will be created. The head gasket is not torqued properly and it will leak. You put a lot of time and effort in your car, I hope it would be something as simple as this and not a cracked head or block… :slight_smile:

#243

Chi, 9 events last year, several were 3 day events, + the Lemons race. That’s still a fair amount of events but the time and money invested were a horror show.

IAP, that’s a good thought, thanks. What I really ought to do is chase the threads, but my chasers haven’t arrived yet. I thread the bolts in, pull them out, spray in a little WD40 and then clean the holes out with Qtips.

#244

Whatever the cleaning method, when you believe the threads are clean, you should be able to thread the bolts in by hand all the way in before installing the gasket and head… :slight_smile:

#245

Ranger, If you have an old head bolt grind a slot in the threads and use the bolt to chase the holes. I remember you had installed the head gasket and torqued the head to 20lbs? to do a leakdown test. Did you use a new head gasket when you did your final install? You may have compressed the head gasket the first time. I’m pretty sure the head gasket will seal once and only once. Good luck!

#246

The head came back from the machine shop yesterday pressure tested with a clean bill of health. Which kinda made my job harder, I figured, because that meant that the coolant loss to oil, and coolant pressure test failure cause remained a mystery.

Last night I carefully examined the headgasket that I had used and identified a couple flaws on it. They aren’t really cracks, I’d call them a couple very fine wrinkles. I wouldn’t call them creases, they were too fine for that. I’ve no idea if they were an issue but it was interesting to find them.

I cleaned out the holes on the block with a qtip and used an old head bolt to chase the holes.

With excruciating care I cleaned the head and block mating surfaces. I then put on a V-R HG and put the head on.

For the pressure test I put in 15psi. After 20min I was down to 9psi. After 50min I was down to 4psi. This is vastly better then my pressure test last weekend. There is no water coming into the oil pan because I’d see it drip out the drain hole. I’m thinking that pressure loss at that rate could simply be from my $75 pressure tester which is certainly not as good as some $300 rig that Snap-On probably sells.

I’m thinking that this significant improvement in the pressure test means that I need to put the rest of the engine together (once again, sigh) and see what happens. That will have to wait until I get back from the Lemons race.

#247

12

#248

Experience is Ranger’s school and he will learn at no other…

#249

1

#250

I have blown two motors (actually one was blown for me) and one I had built. The one I had built lasted two and a half laps at RA. That was the last motor I had built. In every case, the whole motor was trashed except the cam (the good “e” cam is very hard to find, so I am told.) It is just not worth the possible angst to reuse any of such a motor. Obviously, a vastly overheated one also.

Scott, note…check the leak down on your street car as you did your race motor to see if the tool or the motor is to blame. Then pitch the old block in the trash!!! Chuck

#251

Tomorrow is the big day.

Recall the cute little blond neighbor that I pissed off late one night because I was making too much noise in my garage? Well it seems that I pissed her off again Thur night. I didn’t get the sway bars on the Lemons car until about 0100. Then I drove the Lemons car out of the back garage, out the “lane” and on to the street so I could put it on the trailer. By the time I finished securing the car down and all it was 0200.

So neighbor spends 30 min on the phone with my wife furious that I was “reving” the race car Thur night. For god’s sake the Lemons series has a 92db limit, the Lemons car is just not that loud. I didn’t “rev” it, I just drove it out of the garage and down the lane. And it wouldn’t have been so darn late except that I’d been excrutiatingly careful to not “bang” on anything, per our agreement from a couple months ago. And that made the effort to put the damned control arm back on take 90min longer then it should have. Is irksome.

Tonight I unpacked a bit from Lemons, and put the manifolds and tbelt on. Because I cracked my clean manifold I had to move my injectors over to a spare manifold. It has a layer of carbon build up inside that I attacked with a pressure washer to no avail. Then I adjusted the valves. Tomorrow I put in ignition crap, fill it with fluids, give it a test run and check for oil in the water.

This time tomorrow night I should know whether or not I’ll be at CMP on Friday, or if my motor is getting shipped to Chuck.

One thing that I’ve noticed in this effort is that it’s hard to get new fasteners. I’ve been trying to order and use new fasteners, especially nuts, but I keep ending up with the wrong ones. I have a nice collection of the wrong size steel nuts, copper nuts, and studs from Pelican. Intake and exhaust hardware mostly. They thread on ok, but intake & exhaust nuts are supposed to be 12mm (8mm thread) and have a broad base so you don’t need a washer. And intake nuts are supposed to be just like exhaust manifold nuts, only bigger…10mm thread and 14mm nut. But everytime I order stuff it ends up wrong. Grumble grumble.

#252

Ranger wrote:

Picture or she doesn’t exist.

#253

I’m going to go out on a limb and say the only picture that will be attached to this thread is a booking photo of Scott for disturbing the peace…

#254

Ranger wrote:

[quote]…By the time I finished securing the car down and all it was 0200.

So neighbor spends 30 min on the phone with my wife furious that I was “reving” the race car Thur night. For god’s sake the Lemons series has a 92db limit, the Lemons car is just not that loud…[/quote]
Seriously? I wouldn’t try to put my street car on a trailer at that time of day.:huh:

92 db at 1:00 am is a little different than 92 db at 1:00 pm. I gotta side with the neighbor on this one. I’m surprised you didn’t have her AND your wife boxing your ears for that move. :laugh:

#255

An exhaust that was hitting 92db would be too loud at that hour, but the LeMons car’s exhaust is nowhere near that loud. Especially at lower RPM. So although Scott’s actions were questionable, I think the lady is a bit too sensitive to noises at night. Your average utility truck makes more noise than the LeMons car does at low RPM. Perhaps a gift of a white noise source would be a good idea.

#256

might her sensitivity have something to do with having a gun pulled on her last time? :slight_smile:

You should be buying your wife several dozen roses this weekend Scott!

#257

Ranger wrote:

[quote]
One thing that I’ve noticed in this effort is that it’s hard to get new fasteners. I’ve been trying to order and use new fasteners, especially nuts, but I keep ending up with the wrong ones. I have a nice collection of the wrong size steel nuts, copper nuts, and studs from Pelican. Intake and exhaust hardware mostly. They thread on ok, but intake & exhaust nuts are supposed to be 12mm (8mm thread) and have a broad base so you don’t need a washer. And intake nuts are supposed to be just like exhaust manifold nuts, only bigger…10mm thread and 14mm nut. But everytime I order stuff it ends up wrong. Grumble grumble.[/quote]

I have found the easiest way to get fresh hardware for the e30 is a local BMW dealer. The hardware us usually pretty cheap and they can get the hardware in a day or two if its not already on site.

#258

Bottom line up front…I might be in business.

This afternoon and this evening I changed the oil 4 times. Oh but it gets better. Each time I removed and emptied the oil filter, and removed a hose from the external oil cooler to empty both. Recall that I have lots of oil plumbing. Then I put some more oil in and then used a drill to run the oil pump and flush things a bit more by allowing oil out the disconnected hose. Then I connected everything back up, filled her with oil, primed the system with the drill and ran her for another 10min.

I was keeping samples of each oil change. After change 3 I was getting a little pessimistic, but I ran out to O’Reilly for one last jug of cheap oil.

And I’d have to say that, after 5hrs of changing, flushing and priming, the 4th sample looks ok.

So, I am cautiously optimistic.

#259

Rooting for you. The Saga must go on! B)

#260

go ranger go!! oh and triple check the crankshaft pulley bolts, hose clamps, rocker shaft retainers, dowel pins, and im sure i’m forgetting something :slight_smile: