Ranger's motorswap thread

#181

My experience with the tab is that it don’t just fall out.I’m thinking MM and not the upside down shop?

Isn’t speculation fun. Kinda why I do all of my work,“No no no nooo body’s fault, but mine.”

RP

#182

Patton wrote:

[quote]My experience with the tab is that it don’t just fall out.I’m thinking MM and not the upside down shop?

Isn’t speculation fun. Kinda why I do all of my work,“No no no nooo body’s fault, but mine.”

RP[/quote]

I know that the head had the retaining bar when it came to me the first time. I have a pic of it. And I don’t think that there’s anyway the engine build at the local shop could have spend 6hrs with their nose in my head, so to speak, without noticing it’s absence. The engine doing the work had significant BMW motor experience. It’s easy to overlook when it’s in place, but when it’s absent it’s obviously absent. I really think that they pulled it out while attempting to diagnose the clank.

#183

Dude, I thought I had bad luck!

Sorry about the head woes. When I assembled my head, I realized about how important the oiling hole locations in the rocker tubes were (after the fact). I convinced myself all was lined up properly, but It made me think you can put them in wrong. I didn’t try to disassemble to prove that point to myself. :slight_smile: Can any one verify that you can install rocker tubes wrong? If so, that might be something you want to double check on.

By the way, the cheapest OEM parts I’ve found are through RMEuropean.com. You get free shipping once you’ve hit a certain minimum and the more you spend, the faster shipping you get (for free!) I can send you a 5% discount code if you want to go that way.

#184

I just rec’d the head back. It’s missing the 4 plastic pieces that cap off the rocker arm shafts, and the oiling tube, but I think that I have spares. It’s arrival today is good news. I was concerned that it was going to arrive tomorrow evening and then it’d be work half the night to put the engine together, and then drive until dawn to Road Atl.

rroadster, that was a good tip re. RMEuropean, thx.

#185

Just a suggestion, but you might want to drive to Charlotte instead of Road Atlanta. :wink:

#186

scott, those rubber peices came with the elring klinger head gasket kit i got.

#187

kishg wrote:

And this would be…taunting?

#188

haha… no… i was assuming you had a new gasket kit to put the new head back on.

#189

The rubber plugs can be reused as long as they are not hard. Put a little hi temp silicone on the bottom and they will seal just fine. Chuck

#190

Boys and girls, RangerGress has 6 cylinders of fury once again.

I just finished the head install. Savannah soon-to-be-SpecE30 racer Al K helped. We had a few problems (of course) but we worked thru them. My accumulated pile of spare parts seems to come to my aid every night.

This head has the rocker arm shaft retaining bar, and I tightened the damn harmonic balancer as tight as I dared.

You guys have a good time at Lowes. I’m off for 3 days at Road Atlanta tomorrow.

#191

Good luck Scott! Keep it together!

#192

Ranger wrote:

God I hope they all reside in one block and it is the one in your car. :stuck_out_tongue: Good luck with the shake-down. I truly am rooting for you!

Steve D.

#193

Good deal Scott! Drive safe up to RA, and you, Kelly and I can have a SpecE30 “orientation” session on Friday.

I did a mix-n-match of AFMs and ECUs at the dyno last week and found over 5 hp and almost 5 lb/ft of torque. Replaced w/junkyard parts from Strictly German.

Anxious to see how it feels on track.

Also, for those watching at home, I tried some 524 ECUs (legal, but I had never seen one until I pulled it from my '91 parts car.) Very similar power to the 173s, but we can definitely state that they have a speed limiter at 130mph (a very soft limit, most unlike the hard limit at 6300rpm. Tried two and they both have the limit. Doesn’t affect the lower gears, as it seems to be based on speed, not RPM. Had to use 5th to get there of course.

I also found that I had zero LR brakes at the June Jam, which now explains why I was making 3 course corrections at 10 and 1 in the brake zone. The SS lines were older than my ownership of them, which means 6+ years, and apparently they don’t last forever. The line going over the subframe was visually fine but 100% blocked. New set from BimmerWorld and I’m ready to stop in a straight line again.

#194

Chuck, someone told me it was possible to reflash the programing of an ECU. Is it possible one of those SG junkyard ECU’s was reflashed?

#195

Gasman wrote:

No, it’s not possible. Someone told you wrong.

You can change out the chip and then move over the label from the OEM chip to the new chip to disguise it but the original chip can not be reprogrammed.

#196

No, they weren’t chipped, and the redline is still 6300rpm. I had previously seen that a borrowed, known stock ECU gave my car more power than it had on my stock ECU, and I’ve seen many anecdotal comments that different ECUs have different performance characteristics, so I snagged 4 or so extras and went to the dyno. Some were better than others, but mostly it was the AFM that gave me power. My other one was dangerously lean.

A clean air filter element didn’t hurt either. The one I started with was filthy, even though it’s a K&N and I had cleaned it not that long ago (winter?) I ditched the K&N and went to a new, clean paper element.

Chi is correct; the newer Motronic (E36 and up) is flashable, but not the stuff in our cars.

By the way, before anybody calls me racer X, I started with 146 and ended with 152, so I won’t be winning the backstraight drag races!

#197

csrow wrote:

[quote]Gasman wrote:

No, it’s not possible. Someone told you wrong.

You can change out the chip and then move over the label from the OEM chip to the new chip to disguise it but the original chip can not be reprogrammed.[/quote]

Wow, what low down, sneaky, rotten scoundrel would do such a thing? :laugh:

#198

Yes, damnit, the stock chip can be reflashed!!! However, most, if not all, sell you a reflashed chip to replace your stock one.The labels can be changed but that is somewhat obvious and you risk killing the chip if done under florescent lights. If your redline is still at the stock point, your chip is probably stock as I don’t know of a tuner that does not raise the redline to 6900-7000. Chuck

#199

cwbaader wrote:

Chuck,

I would like to see an original stock chip that has been reflashed because all of the chips I have seen in 153 and 173s are one time programmable PROMs.

Some aftermarket chips for E30 DMEs are EPROMs which can be erased with a strong UV light. These will have a round window on top and they are much more expensive than PROMs. Once they are erased, they can be programmed again.

The function of reflashing requires a type of EEPROM memory which only became available in the mid 1980s and were small in size and very expensive. Only in the early to mid 1990s did they come down in price to be used in in place of PROMs and EPROMs.

#200

CSROW, you are correct. The chip I had in my 90 car was an EEPROM that had apparently been switched prior to my getting the ECU.

Or, what he said. Chuck