I haven't updated in awhile because I was going to upload all the work that I had done on the off season.
Unfortunately, my motor decided it was time to go!
I always planned on doing a swap someday but the m20 always ran so well that it felt like a crime to pull it out lol.
Anyways, here's what happened.
So I've always had a really dirty engine bay and I wanted to spruce things up.
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We gave it a nice power wash, but I was still not happy.
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So I starting taking some parts off to clean and paint. While I was in there I figured to do the injectors since they were probably the originals from factory.
Instead of opting for stock ones, I slapped in 17lbs m50/s50 injectors( green tops). Got them online soniccleaned and flow tested. They even came with a copy of the flow test. I also installed a m30 Afm that was donated to me by another max member! Thanks clementine.
Since I could now fit a cone style filter I ordered KAMOTORS e30 intake kit. Suppose to be the best one. Honestly nothing beats the air box but I wanted the "cool" intake sound lol.
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I sand blasted/painted/polished the intake mani, valve cover, throttle body, afm and other brackets in the engine bay.
Here are a few shots of the finished products.
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So now that everything is ready lets put it back together.
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Once everything was installed we started it up. Car sounded like a v8 lol. Turns out only 3 cylinders firing, 2-4-6. Nothing was coming out of 1-3-5. After some trial and error we realized that perhaps the injectors weren't getting energized. Checked them out and it turned out we had everything working. There was fuel, air, and spark. Finally we said, " maybe the injectors are faulty?", and sure enough, coincidently, injectors 1-3-5 were ceased. It was the last thing we ruled out because of the stupid flow test certificate they came with. Contacted the seller and after a few emails if him saying its not his fault he said it was probably shipping that damaged them. If I covered shipping he would send another 3. I said forget it and luckily Devon was able to hook me up with a few he had that he didn't need. Thanks man
Cleaned them up, tested all injectors and put them in once confirmed they were good.
Fired it up and we are all good. A bit of a rough idle but straighten up by dialing in the m30 Afm. Let it warm up and Took it for a few spins and noticed that it was burning a bit of oil. Pulled back into the shop and while I was going to back in the rpm shot to 4k for a few seconds. I put the clutch down and the revs went back to normal. Put it in reverse and backed the car in and shut it off. After that it never started again. My dad suspected that perhaps the belt slipped. It was kinda due for one. Checked the valves to see if any bent and everything visually checked out. Checked to see if the motor was still in time and all good.
All puzzled as to why it won't start we did a compression test. Pulled first spark plug and it was covered in oil. Pulled the rest and they were fine.
All cylinders had very low compression. Lowest was cylinder one with 30psi and highest was cylinder 4 with 85psi. The rest were around 50-60 psi. I am assuming that the already weak piston rings gave out. The car ran like a champ last year before I decided to open it up. Last winter I did a tune up consisting of new plugs, wires, rotor and cap, fuel filter etc etc; however, on a cold start it did burn a bit of oil.
I've kinda decided to put the car down this season. I don't really want to swap in another m20. I have a few motors at the shop that may be contenders but don't want to do a rushed swap. Ill take my time and build something up.
On the bright side, I bought an e34 540i/6 for my wife as a parts car. Body needs work but has a solid drivetrain. It's dumped on m pars so it will do for now haha.
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I won't lie, the m60 looks and sounds really nice in an e30 lol.
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Linear Mode
