Corded

Argh. Pulling into the garage tonight the headlights revealed that I've corded the inner shoulder on my front passenger side tire. I was hoping to delay this as long as I could but it looks like I have no choice. Now the hard part...do I:

• Put new street tires on the TRD wheels and get another set of wheels to mount the R-comps?
• Get new street wheels & tires and mount the TRDs with the R-comps for the track?

And if I do get new wheels? What kind?
I'm really partial to these:

They look to have good clearance for any future potential BBK, and they're super light @ 12.3 lbs.
Or I could go scrounge eBay/forums/classifieds for something dirt cheap and nasty looking...

Jolly Rancher

More progress in the parts department:

Fuel Injection rebuild kit from eBay (check out the complimentary sweets! haha)


Another S50 valve cover
New (used) 80A alternator
Crank, cam, knock sensors
And.... (drumroll please)


An extra gear!

This is way beyond what I had originally planned for the project, but someone was selling it at a price that was just too good to pass up.


There's still quite a bit more parts to go...but finally (after over a month) got confirmation from FedEx that all the oil pan parts are on route (hopefully he didn't forget the charcoal cansister). Other remaining big pieces that I'll pick up from the yard on Monday:

• Brake booster
• Steering rack

As far as additional work on the motor, it's been slow going to say the least. Tonight was the first night I've touched it for over 3 weeks...I dropped the oil pan and pickup in preparation for the E34 pan and pickup (and safety wiring the nut).



I was hoping to drop the water pump too, but for some reason that bar used to lock the pulley has just disappeared :( So I ended up spending the rest of the hour reorganizing the quickly growing messy pile of parts. Now I can walk around that part of the garage without breaking something. I really should sell/trash all those old parts sitting on the shelf to make room for all the new crap.

So the short term work remaining currently stands at:

• Clean the motor (somewhat)
• Install new thermostat, new housing, new water pump
  
• Install oil pump nut w/safety wire, new pickup, new pan
• Replace the VANOS seals
• Beadblast and powdercoat the valve cover then install plugs, seals, coils
  
• Prep the fuel rail and injectors

More of the little stuff to buy:

1. VANOS seals from beisan
   
2. Tool to remove water pump pulley :(
3. Water temp sensors
4. Fan belts
5. Exhaust manifold studs and nuts

Realistically, getting this stuff done by March is going to be a stretch. Unless I shake this stupid cold soon so I could put in more hours in the garage. Viruses suck.

80 shot

So I have abandoned hope of entering into organized club racing events (SpecE30). The addition of a son to our family last year has shifted priorities to diapers, wipes and regular visits to the pediatrician. Regardless, the need to hit the track for the occasional has been just too difficult to resist...but one big problem: I'm losing coolant. There appears to be a nice slow stream of what looks like mud oozing out of the area where the head gasket on cylinder #6 is. Do I pull the head and hope for something easy? Or do I just change out the entire 20-year-old hunk of 12-valve iron for something better?

Right.



Stumbled on a nice S52B32 advertised in bimmerforums and picked it up over the Christmas break down in Orange County. 117K miles, pulled out of a 4 door '97 M3. No compression or leakdown numbers, no maintenance history. Just acquired out of blind faith. I'm hoping that wasn't the wrong decision...



The plan:

• Full OBD-I conversion
• 3.5" HFM
• Lightweight flywheel
• Keep the current driveline (G260 transmission & 3.73 LSD rear end)
• Fan delete
• Keep A/C: it doesn't work now, but I'm hoping new lines and R134A conversion will work
  
• Keep PS: this will be a daily driver