MyE28.com

<img src=http://mydrive.roadfly.com/photos/pic.p ... FQ1&i=7107 /img>

Thats my home made cool air intake. 2.5", 63mm piping to the compressor inlet where it tapers down to about 46mm at the compressor wheel. I'm still trying to find a way to fit a 325i plastic airbox in front of the turbo. I'd like to be able to use the stock air filter. Now that the coolant tank is out of there, it might just work out. You can't really see it, but the oil feed comes up from between the oil cooler lines, right out of the back of the bolt for the oil filter head. Used power steering feed hose for the oil return. It holds up fine. I doubt that the oil return is really hot with a water cooled CHRA. Certainly not as hot as a traditional oil cooled turbo. The coolant fittings, oil inlet restrictor fitting and oil drain fitting were purchased from ATPturbo dot com. You wouldn't really know unless you're familiar with Nissan Silvias, but I did need to reclock the compressor housing to clear the exhaust manifold. Since the GT2560R wastegate bolts to only one point on the front of the compressor housing, I needed to bend the actuator shaft to allow the rotation.

<img src=http://mydrive.roadfly.com/photos/pic.p ... FQ1&i=7108 /img>

Thats what I needed to do to get the coolant tank out of the way. I could have put a tee in the heater core return line like the late e30 325i configuration, but since I had an e waterpump in there, I did it like this. The little UFO is the Cartech RRFPR I'm using for fuel enrichment. Other than the set of 535 injectors, thats all I've done for fuel so far. Seems to work. No detonation. The packing tape on the BPV is a temporary fix. It'll move to the other side of the intercooler in the compressor outlet plumbing in the near future. For now, it prevents surge in its own rigged little way.

<img src=http://mydrive.roadfly.com/photos/pic.p ... FQ1&i=7109 /img>

Coolant tank brackets and stuff. The water cooling for the turbo was the old throttle body heater stuff. It takes exactly one meter of hose to get to the turbo from the back of the block and exactly one meter to get the water back to the thermostat housing. Too easy. You can see the old auto tranny cooler line peeking out there too. Don't mind the grime and mung. The whole car needs a little attention like that.

<img src=http://mydrive.roadfly.com/photos/pic.p ... FQ1&i=7110 /img>

Ignition coil moved next to the radiator. If you look closely you can see the crankcase ventilation hose, as its flipped over and routed down the firewall out to the bottom of the car. Not quite emissions friendly, but it beats messing around with check valves to avoid charging the crankcase. If it sees pressure it will immediately pop the steel oil drain tube out from the intake. Not all the way, but enough to dislodge the o ring and leak massively. I'm considering blocking off the passenger side heater inlet and cutting out vents to the engine compartment to allow air to flow up from the bottom and out the right side hood grille to cool the turbo side of things. It traps heat a little too well right now. I think using the hood vent for cooling would eliminate any possibility of coking, which is already pretty unlikely with synthetic oil and water cooling.

cool shit!!

If you plumb the crankcase breather to the inlet of the turbo you'll end up always having crankcase vacume.

Neat.

I thought about that. The big bummer to me with the recirculated crank breather is the deposits in the intake. I might end up doing that anyway, but I'm quite happy with the cleanliness factor as it is. It all looks how the filtered side of the intake should. Just clean and shiny.

Is that a 524td manifold? You've got to get that thing on a dyno and post the results for all to see. I'm curious as hell...

Its one of them. The e28 524td has a t3 flange and EGR port. This one is from a euro e34 524td, which has a t25 flange and no EGR. Needed nine 3/8ths thick flanges to get the compressor housing to clear the valve cover and spark plug rail. I will get to a dyno one of these days. Before it blows up I hope.

Looks great!

Have you had any problems blowing through the AFM?

No probs charging the AFM. In theory, I think its best to charge the AFM than to place it in front of the compressor inlet if you're going to use a stock chip. That way it responds to the volume flow like it would at atmospheric pressure. The air pressure and density are compensated for by the RRFPR. If it were ahead of the compressor I dont know that it would run as well without a chip mapped accordingly. I might be wrong, but it works great either way.

There hasn't been any problem with the rubber boot between the throttle body and Air meter?

I'm not sure if I missed it, but is this a stock ETA motor with the low redline?

Merkin,

It's a 2.7i engine. IIRC, turbodan is running an '88 528e with the 325i top end components. This allows a higher redline without worrying about the cam problems the e's have.


Dan, looking good! Keep us posted!

That is correct. Stock super e block, stock head drilled to oil the 325i cam, dual springs, intake, AFM and throttle.

No problems with the intake bellows either. Just to be sure it wasn't inflating I strapped it with some zip ties. It went two weeks without anything, so I don't think it really needs reinforcement.

Sweet car, kudos on originality. I bet that thing is quite a bit of fun. BTW What kind of intercooler are you running.
TIA
Justin

The cooler is a 27"x6"x2.5" ebay special. The core is something like 19"x6" with 2.5" connections on the tanks. Seems to work.

Cool deal, Dan. That reminds me of my budget 318i turbo that i build last year.

I'm curious though... why do you feel it's better to charge the AFM than drawing through it? I used a draw through type on my 318i, as I didn't want positive pressure inside of it. I figured the engineers at Bosch weren't really expecting anything but draw-through, but I'm curious as to which is better pragmatically.

I wonder if anyone has tried back-to-back testing to check it out. I think your way is better for a stock chip, as the pressure change is compensated for by the RRFPR... drawing through increases what the AFM sees, but a tighter spring setting must be used, as will some fuel management changes.

Hmm...

You said it. It responds to the volume flow like it normally does and the RRFPR responds to the density and pressure increase. I also like that it sees the actual air temp going into the engine. In front of the compressor its certainly cooler than what the engine sees, so the intake temp sensor adjusts timing accordingly. That might be why I can use the stock ignition maps with a turbo. If that sensor is retarding timing enough to prevent detonation with 100+ degree charge temps than it works out pretty well. It certainly wouldn't work like that ahead of the compressor.

That is an interesting and valid point... that might definitely help you out!

I would have liked to tried each setup on my M10 turbo while I had it to see which method ran better.

I might try the blow-through method with the eta once I put on the i head, intake and ECU. I was hoping to megasquirt and spark it, but I think I might just try the budget blow-through setup for the initial setup, dyno it to make sure things are well in order, and then MS&S it later, and redyno it for a comparison.

We shall see. I hope to do a water/alky injection after I get the MS&S in there and properly tuned.

Are you running a stock fuel pump?

Oh, and Dan? You might be keen to check out siliconintakes.com for some intake supplies... I've heard that 10psi explodes intake boots, even if they are brand new.



Here are a couple pics of my old car. I hope you don't mind me posting them in your thread... and yes, I know the seat covers are retarded, but they were free, matched the car, and covered up the horrid seats that were in there at the time!

There’s something about projects done through the resourceful use of readily available parts which is worthy of respect.

M635CSi wrote:There’s something about projects done through the resourceful use of readily available parts which is worthy of respect.

I'm glad someone gets the very idea behind my 318iT project! You with me on that one, Dan?

I had parts from Porsche, Ford, Saab, VW, as well as local auto parts stores and other resources. Total cost? $446.93. I haven't found a BMW turbo done for less.

Its running on the stock main and in tank pumps. No problems yet, but it hasn't been running with the RRFPR for more than two or three weeks. Time will tell.

I've probably spent 150 bucks at the siliconeintakes ebay store. Great place for all kinds of bends and reducers and bending reducers. I was going to do the AFM to TB bend, but I thought I'd take a wait and see approach. I do have a few zip ties around it in what I think would be vulnerable areas. So far so good.

I almost went for the lowball turbo system. I was thinking a used 524td manifold. Maybe an internally wastegated T3 60 trim turbo, .63 A/R turbine from an old ford 2.3l. But I thought I might as well sink some money into it after rebuilding the engine. It wasn't cheap, but it worked out well. Either way, its all about the homemade turbo.

WOW, Good Stuff.

Besides the obvious, Tell us more about your set up. Stock Motronic / Chip? other than the injectors and RRFPR? What kind of clutch are you using?

Stock 325i chip and clutch. It slips if I'm not careful. Like downshifting into third at 60. It doesn't like that very much, but if you're careful it holds. The clutch has about 50k miles on it, but it looked like it was in great shape going in. It'll probably be the first thing to fail.

Dan, do you plan on dyno tuning it anytime soon? I'm hoping to do before and after dyno's with my eta->i conversion while I'm in VA, and then before and after runs from the i->turbo i most likely after I move to Alabama. I'd love to have all three setups on the same dyno in similar conditions, but I'm not sure how much time and money I'll have in the next couple months before I move!

I'm curious to see what power you can put down and what boost level you're running.

Hopefully it'll get dyno'd soon. I got a boost gauge hooked up the other day and it read 6 psi in the manifold. So I moved the wastegate signal line to the manifold to make up for the pressure drop through the AFM and intercooler. So its making at least seven psi the manfold now. Its enough to make the clutch slip on downshifts and spin the tires up to about 50 in second gear. I'm hoping for about 220 at the wheels. I'll see if I can get on a dyno in March. I'm moving at the beginning of the month, so it wont be right away. You'll see it here first as soon as it goes down.

That would be my guess on the dot, and initial goal for an intercooled 2.7eta at 0.5bar (7.3psi).

I can't wait to see what numbers you can get... because that gives me an idea of what I might be looking at this summer for mine.