535is Homebrew Turbo (ex 633 Callaway) - 2024 Update

[T_C_D]

The Rials deserve black lug bolts!

[tschultz]

Throw some gripper tires and eat the edges of the outside on that E24. It's what all the cool kids are doing these days.

I have some r comps that are a used set but I was planning to use them on the E28. They are 17" M systems and I have had them for too long without using. The goal is to use them with this car here in 2019.

Since I never shared a picture, here is how the interior looks.


Sitting down in a nice interior is a great feeling and i hadn't looked at this one for a while since I was taking a break from it. It is a nice place to be now. I really ought to do something similar on my DD 535i.


I started removing parts last week and am ready to pull the head to inspect the damage and see what was going wrong back in October. Hoping it was just a gasket problem and not a head or block/ring problem. May look tomorrow night, we will see.

[T_C_D]

Seats look cool.

[tschultz]

Thansk Todd. Yeah I really like them. The black lug bolts are what I used, but for the lapping day I wanted to make sure they have full thread enagagement (6 turns), so I threw on the silver ones to better hold the wheel on the 635

I have the head off and can only find discenable damage to the gasket in one lacation. It looks like I set it on the locating dowel and pinched the gasket causing damage in one place. When I started it, it seemed as if coolant was leaking into the cylinder and possibly some oil leaking into the coolant slightly.

Top side


Bottom side


Cylinder bores still look good like the last time I took them apart...

#1 & 2


#3 & 4


#5 & 6


The head, cyl #1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6



Nothing looks out of the ordinary from what I see here. I tried some wd40 into the cylinder bores and it seemed like the rings weren't leaking excessively fast... that would be one of the only other things that it seems like it could be.

I'm thinking about putting it together one more time and just chalking it up to a damaged gasket unless I find similar problems with a new gasket. Just a few hours of my time and then the cost of a gasket. Other thoughts?

Thinking about driving it again and the sweet feel of a turbo M30!

[marc79euro645]

I don't know why it's so hard to get these headgaskets to seal. I've done 7 or 8 times over the years, and even when they seal the combustion, they often weep oil or coolant. I've tried copper spray,and Indian head gasket sealant. My current is an oem m5 gasket with Indian sealant.
good luck

[Mike W.]

I don't know why it's so hard to get these headgaskets to seal. I've done 7 or 8 times over the years, and even when they seal the combustion, they often weep oil or coolant. I've tried copper spray,and Indian head gasket sealant. My current is an oem m5 gasket with Indian sealant.
good luck

No experience under pressure, but the oil/water sides should be the same as a regular M30, and I've not had problems with at least as many as you're referencing. I did take one apart though, a bit of a custom build with 94MM pistons, about 9.5:1 CR with a blown HG. The fire ring was pushed out on #1. And the gasket was coated, on both sides, with some sort of orange/copper colored sealant. Which was slicker than snot and led me to believe that was the real problem, that damned gasket sealant. So, maybe there's a reason the factory manuals say to assemble dry. On some high mileage M30s I've even taken apart some the HG was bonded to the block and or head, and tore apart taking it apart.

If I was going to do anything, it would be to lay a super thin bead of RTV outside the factory lines. That would complicate the torquing process, but such is life.

What were the heads like that leaked? A fresh surface from a machine shop? Blocked with sandpaper? Cleaned with a razor blade and wiped down? Or what?

[marc79euro645]

I'm using the same head. First time I had it surfaced, after that I would just clean it up with scothbrite and razor. I would think, it might need surfacing again, but, this last time (about a year ago) seems to be sealing well. I don't know, it's probably just me, but, I've never had an engine that repeatedly leaked something.

[tschultz]

Well, I had the head machined and was told it had .003 of warp. The machinist I used this time was able to get a smoother surface finish with less visible and smaller machine marks. It appeared that the arms supporting the rocker arms had moved with the ARP head studs in place, I am guessing from detonation. He took off about .003 and with it being machined once previously, compression ratio should be closer to 8.15:1



I didn't find any issues with the block when I inspected it. When turning over the engine, I could not identify any strange damage or behavior so I put it back together. I decided to use stock BMW bolts on the outer most locations to hopefully support the shafts from moving better than with the ARP head studs.

I started it last night and was able to idle. There is a bit more leakage through the crankcase breather and the engine idled at 38kpa instead of 33. This is very light pressure puffing out of the crank, maybe a piston ring wore against a cylinder when coolant was flooding it??



I'll finish putting the exhaust on soon here and get it out on the street.

[Nebraska_e28]

Keep at it! Prep for vintage?

[tschultz]

Post by Nebraska_e28

Keep at it! Prep for vintage?

Unfortunately I need to save the time off work for other personal commitments coming later this year. A trip like that is on my bucket list, though!

[tschultz]

Small update.

Last year I stopped playing with this car as I was unsure I would be able to have it fixed in time for the August 2019 D4C event. After putting it back together, the car did not like my tune at all even though not much has changed. So I sort of put it on hold to focus on other things.



Fast forward and I was preparing for a new child and then the subsequent birth, I was focused on other cars and house projects in the second half of 2019.

I decided to take my 540i to D4C 2019. Grand Junction Motor Speedway Go-car track, my car wasn't the heaviest/biggest on this course!





Next to Travisj





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8TidS4tIa4


I got another project car, a 1981 635CSi euro running and then rebuilt the head after converting the car to M1.3 (which took a lot of time).





I also bought an E36 M3 and started sorting it out. I was lucky enough to be able to bring it to a private day at Aspen Motorpsorts Park




2020 has been a lot of time dedicated to playing dad and assisting my wife. In January, i did take my 535i (all 11 years of ownership!!) to Georgetown again to drive on the lake



My brother bought a project that I committed to helping with, a 1984 318i destined for 24 hours of Lemons. I have been helping on that project little bits at a time.











Now my son is almost 7 months old he could hang out a little while as we worked.



Last month, i was able to install a S3.73 into Fanklin, the auto 535i. Not much to show picture-wise, but the car drives better now in general with that gearing-- Still a pretty low cruising rpm.


Back to Burt though, I had started a couple months ago resetting the tune and shutting off real time baro correction. I had less time to work on it a couple months ago than now, so yesterday and today I got the car to start and (mostly) idle. I was able to move it into the garage yesterday and briefly drive it around and tune it.
It seems to run ok with the headgasket reinstall so I hoping I can make progress on the tune to drive smooth overall and to drive reliably. I am planning on taking it to Crested Butte this August for D4C 2020, 10th anniversary.

For some reason, though my odometer no longer works at 282k miles so I'll have to fix that.

More slow progress to come.

[marc79euro645]

Nice stable of projects! My odo quit also. There used to be a guy that sold replacement gears. Let me know if you find a source for them.

[marc79euro645]

Ok well, I went looking for it and found it so here's a link for the odo gear.
https://www.odometergears.com/documenta ... cement.pdf

[tschultz]

Yes, Marc, I plan to get some odometer gears from Jeff at Odometergears, but haven't yet. Recently I had some more time to work on the car:

It seems to be running pretty close to normal again! Not sure why the tune from 2018 wouldn't work, but oh well.

I messed with the tune and eliminated a bunch of the jerkiness. The car starts and generally idles but I need to keep dialing the VE table and cold start/ MAT corrections in. What I found is that the autotune was not giving me accurate numbers and I started seeing much better results when tuning the VE table manually. Temperature fluctuations or something were causing the autotune to try to correct cells that were pretty close to begin with.

While I was driving around working on my tables, the coolant light popped on. A slow leak showed itself near the radiator. After inspection it turned out that the radiator had rubbed against the intercooler eventually wearing a hole in it.





I took the chance to see if the South African Behr radiator is any better than the stock/Nissen brand.



The fins are finer (shown on top) than the old one that came out.


I mounted the intercooler on top with a bracket to hold it from rocking and made sure there would be clearance even though both are mounted solid





I also mounted a front lip using a piece of trim that came off the original 633 that this thread started with



Hoping to do more road tuning these next couple of weeks where I'll snap some more photos.

[marc79euro645]

I split the sheet, the sheet I split, and on the splitted sheet I sit.
Lookin good! I like the splitter

[tschultz]

Thanks Marc!

I have been driving it on and off now a little bit-- enough that it seems to start up reliably and drive pretty smooth overall. Working on the reliability of the tune with MAT corrections, cold/hot start and overall performance. So far it is running pretty good.

I will share some datalogs and tune settings again soon.

In the mean time I wondered if I could get the Econometer working. Turns out the signal runs through the instrument cluster so all I had to do was hook up the correct wire (Which usually went through C103) to the injector pulse signal (thanks Karlo!) for the gauge to do something.

Right now I have larger injectors so the signal isn't accurate, but the gauge moves again and the OBC shows better than 5.9MPG. Now it is showing ~30mpg, when I'm probably getting 20mpg because I have larger injectors and shorter pulses. Would be nice to get this circuit more accurate, but it is great to see it working again.

I also swapped in an old cluster odometer to track my mileage for the near term. Funds have been tight so I didn't want new gears at this time.

Here are a few more photos. Yes, it is rough around the edges but I haven't washed it since 2018!

[tschultz]

Playing with more settings after a week of relatively constant performance based on temperature. Trying to get a consistent tune that doesn't always rely on computer corrections as condition change.

I looked up constant air temperature corrections and found this curve.


Interestingly, it was similar to my current MAT correction curve which is a tweaked default value from MS2


So I looked up default barometric corrections which have a change in standard temperature


I figured I could try to emulate this to start with since MAT corrections were working reasonably well.

But I needed to remove the corrections I already have programmed in based on temperature change. So i subtracted out the MAT %corrections from the suggested barometric changes.

See the difference here. My 100% is around 83kpa so it adds fuel at lower elevation and will remove at higher (lower kpa values).

It's possible these corrections are too extreme. If that's the case, I will simply scale these down in excel until it is correct. The shape of the curve should fit theory, but we will see (it didn't before).

I will try these corrections out in the next week or so and report back after taking the car up to altitude.

[marc79euro645]

I'm glad I'm at sea level. That's one less thing I have to figure out on my tune. I've been working on my cold start,and idle. It seems to need a change with the seasons.

[tschultz]

When trying to align last time, I was told my caster was out of spec on the passenger front. So I sourced some struts and got to work removing the original shocks. Eventually got them apart and decided the other week to do the swap.



Trying to visually see a difference. New on bottom





I made a paint mark on the harmonic balancer but couldn't seem to get the megasquirt settings to work out when verifying ignition. The paint mark was 30-40* before TDC when I had timing set at 10* on the timing light and on Megasquirt. Not sure what's up with that but I knew I was within ~3 degrees with a trigger angle of 87...



Oh and since I never showed, here is turbo inlet and piping to intercooler it is tight!



On Saturday I drove down south with the car with the intention of fine tuning my barometric settings and seeing my brother. The car ran well although my correction settings still aren't quite where I would like.

Considering the car drove there smoothly and made it ~250 miles, it was a win. Didn't like to start at altitude of 10,000 ft unless I held my foot down for flood-clear mode.

On to some pictures



I thought I'd try the Rial's on this car and I really like how they look! I added the banner last week just for fun.





If you have followed on the build, I drove the 633 to this same area with my brother (in the Z3) back in July 2016. Here was a picture then and now with our cars.



Overall it drove great and at my home I see boost of around 160kpa. At 10,000ft that same 12psi was only about 145kpa. At sea level this would be only 8psi (or 6) but this was good for now with my goals. Still faster than my M5 and I think handles better in the e28 than e24.

Seemed like my thermostat may not be working 100%, I saw temps over 190 regularly (vertical needle on cluster). Will look at that next. Also considering a diy paint of the decklid. Depending how it comes out I might consider the hood and airdam.

[Zengineer]

Great thread, really enjoyed it start to finish. Reminded me of cutting my teeth on my first turbo car, programmable EFI and all the trials and tribulations (and learning!!) along the way. Keep the updates coming!

[tschultz]

Thanks! It has been a continuous project for sure -- but certainly a joy when boosting through the gears.

I have been driving the car for basically the last two full months. I have messed around with the megasquirt settings and have come to the conclusion that even the default MAT corrections don't resolve the differences in mixture based on temperature. I am thinking the sensor is heat soaking and IAT is not a good variable to correct based on temperature. Regardless once the car gets to operating temperature, my MAT curve works OK enough for summer temperatures of 70F-110F.

It isn't quite as smooth as the AFM especially near on/off throttle, but I have messed with it a lot.

Also, I have found MAP based fuel enrichment to be better than TPS based.

My spark plugs seemed to be too hot, so switching to the colder plugs helps in boost although there is some slight misfire feeling during cruising. I didn't have the same problem with stock temp plugs, so it must be something ignition related. I was considering Wasted Spark but haven't gone down that rabbit hole just yet.

I am running about 8psi (155-160kpa) and am pretty happy with the performance.


I had a battery drain that I ended up tracing to the power window relay which was activated at all times due to the incorrect relay.
I also traced my power lock issue to the lock control module behind the passenger front speaker. The door locks would default to locking sometimes and my key less entry didn't work even though the trunk lock would work.

Planning to take the car on the D4C 2020 Mountain drive next week so I should have some more updates and photos after.

[marc79euro645]

I'm running 100% map on accel enrichment. I think I need to rescale the tps accel enrich, because even fast stomp doesn't show much movement on tps
accel enrich scale (tps does work as expected otherwise). Map moves as expected. I still need more work on accel enrich. Mine doesn't stumble , but I'd like it to rev quicker. I feel I'm running an aggressive spark map, so I think it has to be accel enrich.

[tschultz]

Made it back from D4C 2020 in one piece and the car did fine. Overall only about 600 miles, one of the shortest weekend drives I have taken for this BMW meet.

I am disappointed in the South African radiator as it couldn't keep up with cooling on the long uphill grades, hitting 200F (12:30+) on the gauge. Rally it cools worse than the Nissan brand radiator. So I'll have to get one of those back in. Luckily the cooler temperatures of the mountains meant that once I got out of 80 degree weather it did fine.

I drove up a day early with the car loaded up so that we would be able to stay on schedule and split our drive up.

Our stop for the first night


Required some mud driving





A morning hike


We had about 12-15 miles of dirt roads where the car ended up hitting some rough washboards. Had to slow it down a bit.

We met the group at the fuel up stop.


Top of Cottonwood Pass








Freshly stitched wheel by Nosis


The regroup


Our stay in Mt Crested Butte




The slope area is nice





Group drive meetup Friday


The cool am rain before the group drive Saturday was amazing!


My son was wearing his shark fin. The other day was 'future BMW driver'


I followed Travisj down the mountain


The next morning I found a place to wash Burt


Hike the next morning with aspens was refreshing.




Coffee downtown in historic CB. Like the hoodie? Ben a few years since I got that.


My son fell asleep while driving back so instead of waking him up by shutting off the car, I decided to take some photos







The meetup Sunday AM


Stopping on Cottonwood Pass headed the other way home








On Friday night my brother noticed that I had some smoke coming out at night after shutting off the car. Turns out somewhere I lost my oil fill cap. So I drove to town to get one and clean up the oily mess. Not sure how that happened but got a replacement and didn't lose it going home.

[tig]

So good. Love the dirty photos. And the clean. And the kid. And the deep dish wheels. Love. Love. Love.

[Ken H.]

The passes were better when they all were just dirt !!