Tuesday, February 16, 2010

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...

Saturday, February 13, 2010

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.