Several people have asked me if this project is actually done. Think being in the loo and people pounding on the door: "Yo, you fall in or what?"
Probably. Then again, probably not.
There are a number if items remaining on the "punch list" that I will deal with in the spring: cooling issues, and the clutch. I expect the updates to Electromotive's TEC-3r software will mean more dyno time.
For those of you who have offered your comments and compliments, my heartfelt thanks. In the late summer of 2005 when I first went public with the project, there was a lot of bad air on the board. I think much of this was due to my not publishing all the supporting documentation and references. Time has a way of curing things. I've let it go.
Shifty shot me a PM inquiring if I was going to turn this verbiage into a for-real published book. The short answer is No.
Several reasons.
1. An incredibly small audience. No publisher in their right mind would try to market this spew.
2. A number of the individuals involved have emphatically told me they want their names kept out of this. Their reasons are outlined later in this chapter.
3. A great deal of the supporting photos and certain key documentation is missing.
4. Some of the problems encountered have legal ramifications. Counsel has advised me to limit discussion. 'Nuf said.
5. Some of the work done involved proprietary knowledge and techniques. As such, some people have asked me not to go into specifics. The expertise is available, but it comes at a price.
The following is an expansion on an e-mail I sent to Shifty and Duke.
G'Mawnin.
Thanks again, Brad, for your compliments.
A few thoughts on your suggestion (book, project and other delights).
I. The cancerous presence of EB through this saga added immensely to the expense and frustration. In effect, the project had to be redone from ground zero. This added at least 35-40% to the total cost of the undertaking. I can be reasonably precise on the numbers, as with the car recovered, a fair amount of cost analysis was done. EB's billlings did, in fact, break out the cost of various items, e.g., R&R diff, purchase of crank, fabricate exhaust system. Stuff like that. What I got hot about was I asked for and never received copies of the invoices or subcontractor statements. Nor was a photographic record supplied. After 2 August 04, I was on this aspect like white on rice.
The paperwork was asked for as supporting documentation for three purposes.
A. Reference material in case of any warranty issues on parts or workmanship.
B. Supporting records for establishing "as-agreed" valuation with my insurance company.
C. Source documentation for anyone doing work on the car in the future. There was enough original work being done that anyone coming in was definitely going to need it, no matter how skilled they might be. Think a paper trail on parts used on an aircraft. Absent that documentation and the "build book" records of tolerances used, etc. a mechanic is guessing at what was done and why. This applies even if the man is an S-engine wizard.
Paul Burke is such a man. The unknowns are one reason he insisted on treating the engine as if it were something I picked up at a garage sale. That strategy proved its worth several times over during the course of Paul's work. Much of the drama of the build would have gone away had Paul been involved from the get-go.
Paul and I think the undertaking could have been done soup-to-nuts in less than six months IF the following conditions had been met:
1. All of the mathematical and engineering work had been done prior to starting. This includes crank, rod, piston geometries and configuration, as well as the turbo calculations and head/valve modifications. Not having to revisit the turbo department would have saved us at least 100+ hours in shop time, let alone the delivery and machine shop delays. More on this below.
2. A complete "parts needed" schedule had been drawn up and ordered in advance. This would have saved a huge amount of time, as numerous delays arose from waiting on special order bits. A single bulk order would also have allowed for better pricing. Paul knew about 90% of what was going to be needed, but didn't order everything all at once. Not a criticism. It's just that he hadn't looked at doing it that way before. Preparing a comprehensive parts list is a fairly time-consuming effort. Having it on a single database makes it mucho easier for the next go-through. Somebody's going to luck out . . .
3. We had been able to establish in advance when we would need access to specialized machine tools or shop services. Two examples: a clear shot at the rotating assembly balancing at Campbell Crankshafts; flowbench time on the head. In other words, being on the same calendar with the specialty shops (who are God-awful busy).
4. Not being tied up waiting on "manana" from specialized parts sources. SCE Gaskets comes to mind. This alone cost us a couple of months.
II. This is a nice segue into my working with Paul, the story of which I outlined in Part 4 et. seq. of "LH." If I had brought Paul in from the very beginning, I tend to doubt that I would have done the turbo conversion. Not because he has any aversion to FI, but that the build strategy would have been much different. Topic for another essay.
Paul and I have talked about what he would have done had he been responsible for the whole nine yards, first rattle out of the box. The focus would have been more on the chassis and running gear. In the course of things with EB, it became apparent that the entire drivetrain was going to need rework to handle the FI motor's power. I had already begun making plans in that direction when I delivered the car, and had informed EB of the fact. In a similar vein, there were plans on the shelf for doing the brake upgrade and further work on the suspension. EB started on these subroutines in a number of cases; for the most part they were incomplete when I fired him from the job.
III. Had Paul come in at the start, the approach he wanted to adopt would have been generally as follows:
1. The E28 chassis really isn't stiff enough or strong enough to handle vast increases in power. As it is, the S38 was a factory hot rod. The chassis was originally designed around the 210 hp M30 motor, not the 286 hp Euro M88/3.
To solve that, the interior would have been removed and a number of corrective measures undertaken.
~Major structural reinforcement of the front and rear suspension mounting points via gusseting and formed sheet metal reinforcing plates.
~Similar reinforcement of known potential unibody weak points, "B" pillar-to-roof in particular.
~Change to coil-over suspension; very possibly requiring custom valving of the shocks and obtaining springs with more "streetable" rates.
~Rebuilding of the front subframe crossmember. Replace the steering box with a Porsche (?) rack and pinion arrangement.
~Fabricate a 6-point roll cage integrated into the unibody. When completed, rework the interior pieces to camouflage/cover the cage for appearance.
2. Further upgrading of the drivetrain.
~The late Bob Lingenfelter had come up with some gawdalmighty halfshafts for his reworked Z06 Corvettes. Work with Lingenfelter Engineering to assemble a set that would replace the stock halfshafts and CV joints. Bob Tunnell, the boss at Bimmerhaus, and no slouch when it comes to building world-class autocross BMWs, thinks the halfshafts may be the weak point in my existing setup. A point worth noting.
~Do a finite element analysis on the rear subframe and its attachment to the unibody. The subframe would receive major additional gusseting and stiffening members. This, conceivably, might extend to fabricating a complete new subframe assembly, with additional adjustments for camber and toe-in. The new subframe would be considerably stiffer. The locating points wouild require a LOT of work to come up with a durable alternative to the existing rubber bushings that would both damp vibration and still have some kind of life expectancy.
~Transmission alternatives to the Getrag unit, most likely a Quaife 6-speed. Something that is designed to handle 800 ft-lbs torque. This might well involve machining out a bell housing from a single aluminum billet.
Oh, joy; the CAD guys are gonna love it . . .3. Assuming I was fixated on Forced Induction, the exhaust manifold Jon Volk (http://www.666fabrication.com.)has created makes sense. FWIW, I found images of a similar layout that some of the Swedish boost-wizards had come up with. This was done on an S14 sometime in 2002 or 2003. I forwarded those images plus some questions regarding "can we do this?" to EB in late 2003. The inquiry/approach was basically blown off. I shared the images with Paul when he was starting on the (re) build. At that point the turbo-on-the-left-side exhaust was built and installed. Starting over was going to be expensive, and the built exhaust a total writeoff. More outlays I didn't need.
The top-mount turbo layout may have some potential fitment issues on the S38 regarding clearances on the valve cover, as well as doing surgery on the hood. This to clear the snail, install a NACA feed duct and properly insulate the hood. Additionally, the washer tank and other items on the passenger's side would have to find new homes. But the approach would allow for fitting in a GT-42R 8)
~Revisiting the intercooler sizing. The existing IC was scaled to fit between the front frame rail extensions. That unit will flow, according to Corky Bell whose shop built it, 1156 cfm. Pressure drop, from IC inlet to the feed into the intake plenum, is around 1.5 psi. At least .5 to 1.0 of that drop is due to the bends in the IC-to-plenum piping. Unavoidable in the layout available. In the conceptual rerwork, the IC needs to be capable of flowing around 1400+ cfm with similar pressure drops. This means both a larger frontal area on the IC, and entry/exit piping of at least 3-inch
diameter.
The increased frontal area, in turn, means creating an all-new lower valance, shaped to accept the IC. Not an impossible task, but someone who really knows sheet metal is going to have a chance to demonstrate what they can do with an English wheel . . .
4. I wrote at some length in Part 8 about doing some exotica with cam profiles. Get these ground and then start the dyno exercises and see what works best. The additional gas flow through the head may well point to needing a larger-diameter exhaust; how big depends on what backpressure levels coming out of a GT-42R might be.
Having seen the way Paul gets focused on a job and discounting the time and $$ in blind alleys, I think the total outlay probably wouldn't have been a whole lot different. How much more of a track car it would be vs.a 'GT-type' is another question altogether.
So what was originally conceived as an engine refresh/overhaul grew to include a suspension rebuild, a from-scratch drivetrain -- clutch to rear rubber--, as big a set of brakes as I could cram in there, a one-off exhaust, and a replacement dash. Not to mention some exotic stuff on the engine management.
Brakes. I used N-Rings, (345 mm F, 328 mm R). These were an upsizing from the E31 single-pots fronts and E34 540i vented rears. These in turn were an upgrade from the stock M5 setup. I considered doing a set of 14.5" JFZ's with 6-pot calipers. These were designed for the NASCAR sleds. Just effing HUGE. Before I could pull the trigger, Ben Keyes came up with the N-Rings. I knew at some point I was going to do the brake upgrade and so had bought trhe 17" Style 5's from Duke. This is known as rationalizing.
JFZs would have meant a bunch of fabricating of brackets as well. . . .In the original game plan (NA) I was going to use the UUC 'cat-back setup I had gotten from Rob Levinson. I also had a set of NIB Euro headers ready to install. Both of which are since sold.
Paul's pulling everything apart, establishing what was or wasn't there, what needed replacement or rework probably took a full week-plus. This was before he could consider he was ready to start his work. Once into the job. some additional time was needed to clean up hidden shortcomings. Sur-prise, sur-prise . . .
One item where EB had me backed into a corner was the crank. I had done a LOT of unsuccessful looking for a stroker crank. EB had one; this tended to focus my thinking, as it wasn't for sale as an individual item. As matters turned out, when I began trying to get records on various parts and spoke with Moldex in Detroit, they told me they could cut one for me. Doing so probably wouldn't have been any more expensive than what EB charged me. What this would have required, however, was supplying Moldex with a stock 84 mm S38B35 crank for dimensions, then letting them work out what was needed to do the desired 94 mm throws. Cost was one major question, delivery time was another. Because I didn't need any more cranks, we really didn't get into firm pricing, either for a one-off or for a run. IIRC, the number was substantially less than what Fahey had told me SCAT would have charged. Delivery time was problematical, but at least nine to twelve months. Keep in mind this conversation was late summer, 2004. Assuming I knew about Moldex in December 2002 when I was "crank hunting," the best I could have hoped for was late summer 2003 delivery. Further, assume I wanted Moldex to cut the crank. My S38B35 was running, so where to find a crank for the pattern? Beyond that, with the Moldex crank in hand, I was faced with finding an engine builder what knew his ass from third base about S38s.
III. I fulminated in earlier chapters about the film loss at King Soopers. As important as those pictures were, an equal or greater loss were the photos which never got taken when the car was at EB's. I had specifically told EB I wanted a complete photo record of the work done; again, this for documentation as I discussed above. It was never done, or at least no photos ever came into my possession. I got a lot of BS excuses as to why there weren't any photos. This, plus the non-availability of invoices for parts and subcontractors were contributing factors in my pulling the job.
As to my own photos, the quality and subject matter is very uneven. I am a rank Ammmachoor when it comes to photography. Further, when Paul, Dave, Justin and I were working on the car, the focus was on getting it done. Photography was a distraction. At the time, there was never a thought about writing this up for any kind of distribution. In a perfect world, having a professional (or very skilled hobbyist) do a photo record would be ideal. Someone who does the photos in the how-to articles in "Hot Rod" would be nice. Record each step as things progress. This would have required infinite patience and cooperation on the part of everyone involved--engine builder, machinists, subcontractors--and would also have significantly added to the total billable time on the project.
Not having a complete photographic record is another reason I don't want to publish a series on doing an S38-cum-turbo engine build for one of the BMW-centric magazines. There are just too many holes. When the idea of an article, or series of articles, was broached casually with a couple of the participants, the response was an emphatic negative. Some of these gentlemen regard what they do with their hands as trade secrets. Another reason is time. The thinking (with which I can agree) is that if their names get out before the Great Unwashed, the effect would be any number of phone calls, e-mails and such asking a lot of questions, asking for literature and free how-to advice. All this without generating hard money backed commitments, and taking time from completing work in process. Paul thought the inquiries might generate one firm contract out of a thousand. Better to use referrals and word-of-mouth.
IV. As to the project being fun. Yes and No. Yes, in that I learned a great deal about a topic I have always been interested in. Yes, because I've met some really intelligent and focused people. Yes, because I began to establish a new circle of friends. Yes, because as near as we can tell, nobody's done this to an S38. (The Swedes may disagree.) The downer here was the ration of cheap shit that got handed out in the early fall of 2005 when I first got the car on the road. There were a number of people on the forum that basically couldn't deal with the truth and whose "web personalities" led me to abandon the board. In this regard, I'll grant I didn't do a very good job of providing the supporting information. That's why "LH. Parts X thru Y" got written this time around. Time has a way of curing things. That and having a few friends -- Duke, yourself and a couple of others -- who didn't walk away. You have my thanks and my respect.
As to the "No" side of the deal: the problems and frustrations arising from early-on mistakes. My insufficient preparation/planning/research going in, plus the repeat work cost a ferocious amount of money. This was and is a very sore point in the household. Dealing with the delays, problems, blind alleys, what-have-you occupied far too much of my time for far too long. The next point is a question mark, namely, driveability. Overheating and the clutrch are open issues. The car does not like stop-and-go environments. When you buy a race horse you want it to run. Give it some room and I say, ah mean, Ah say, Gawd-Daym."