Motor build 95% :) Major pix

[Urinemachine]

I'd like to preclude this by saying I really hope that both the Mod's and other users leave this thread be and not take it down or take it too far off-topic. I'd really like to have this space as a place to document my build for others to see as well as keep track of everything I have done for myself. My other thread, although not hidden anylonger, is locked. So, I would really, seriously appreciate the banter/bashing/negative criticism be left at the door - this is merely somewhat of a journal - if you have a question or comment that doesn't fit on this page in terms of content, you can PM me and I will reply. Otherwise, I hope this proves useful to you guys! Thanks for checking it out!

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I am going to make a unified thread that will contain all progress on my engine build so others can follow. It has been expressed to me that people wish some of my other write-ups

were around, so I figure I can start by encapsulating this one.

First I'd like to thank Jay (multiplex) for hooking me up with all the tools, time, and facilities to do all this crazy shit and PT (turbojettamk4) for helping me store and sort

everything out. Secondly an employee at Jay's business, Jim, who has given advice and input based on his experience.

The Plan
The goal is to have a 8.3 - 8.4:1 CR M50 non vanos motor factory fresh or better. I already have the turbo setup alive and well, so now to extract as much power as possible I need a

low compression setup that is strong and fresh.

The Parts

Con Rod Bearing Set Std
Con Rod Bolts 53mm
Flywheel Bolt 12x50mm
Main Bearing Set Std
Oil Filter Kit Mahle
Oil Pressure Switch
Piston Ring Set Std 83.98mm
Timing Chain Guide Cam to Cam
Timing Chain Guide Crank to Ex. Cam
Timing Chain Guide Lower Crank Ex. Cam
Timing Chain Lower Crankshaft to Cam
Timing Chain Upper Cam to Cam
Valve Cover Grommet
Valve Stem Seal Set 7mm
Water Pump Plastic Impeller OE
ARP M50 Head Stud Kit
ARP M50 Main Stud Kit
VAC MLS Head Gasket 0.140"
Block/Lower Engine Gasket Set
Expansion Plug 45mm Freeze Plugs
Valve Cover Gasket
Spark Plug Hole Gasket

A detailed list can be viewed at This link.

-- Stock balanced pistons
-- Stock balanced rods
-- Stock polished crankshaft

All parts will be bead blasted or soda blasted. Majority of external parts will be powder coated, block powder coated or painted, head left alone.

Pics

Here is the motor, a '92 Non Vanos M50 from an E34 that had been wrecked. Purchased from a friend for $250 in Connecticut. Drove up and brought her home in the back of PT's truck:



We took it apart the night we got it home, and noticed how clean this engine was for being 200,000 miles deep in life and how there was no damage to any components. This engine had a

DIY turbo setup with a RRFPR and a T3/T04E in the former E34:



My parts were taken apart and stored in boxes/bags for about a 9 months - 1 year, until I could afford to start purchasing items to start rebuilding. Initially I only planned to do

rings and bearings and clean up the motor somewhat. Having met up with Jay and his convincing me/demonstration of how easy powdercoating is, I went nuts and decided to powder coat

anything/everything I could. Once I met Jim, a machinist at Jay's business, we went from doing a stock factory fresh rebuild to ARP head and main studs to fully balancing the bottom

end to polishing the crankshaft to god knows what else will come!

The first valve cover was done in a translucent gold finish:




It came out pretty well as you can see it looks great on the car:



But I had already powder coated a bunch of parts for this new motor and decided to do the other valve cover in silver, to match my parts. I got carried away with powder coating and

cleaning stuff but this is the end result:





Now that school is done (never more!) I took the time to focus on this engine as I really want to make power and push the thing to the limit once I have a fall back car. I ordered all

of the above parts in a couple phases, but the majority of the parts were collected about a month ago:

[Urinemachine]

It was time to get serious with cleaning up the head and block so I could send them out to be machined.

We started with the cylinder head which looked like utter hell in as you can see in the very first pic in this thread, but after a couple hours of sodium blasting (again thanks to

Jays having every tool under the sun), I was able to get it super clean. The only downside, I will say, to using a soda blaster is that the soda gets EVERYWHERE inside the piece. So,

I have probably washed this head about... 4 - 5 times now. I am satisfied that it is clean, but yeah it's definitely annoying. Sand/bead blasting like we did with the other parts is

not an option because you cannot afford to alter the finish/dimension of the combustion chamber and as I have experienced and no matter what anyone tells you, bead blasting DOES

remove/alter material.

The cleaned up cylinder head looks like:










Quite awesome if you ask me.

The head just came back from the machine shop and was confirmed flat so all they did was barely touch the surface of the head - has some nice machining in it that is sure to give a

good seal. I am not sure whether or not I'll be using the copper head gasket spray but I have purchased it just in case so last minute I am not scouring trying to find something

ridiculous like that.

Here is the head back from the machine shop - doesn't look much different. You can see there are new valve seals installed:

excuse cell phone pics




Today [7/7/2007] was spent up at Jay's lapping the valves into the head. I am retaining all of the original valves because they are perfectly fine and straight and just needed to be

cleaned up of carbon. The intake valves were a BREEZE to clean. Brushed them right up and they came out as shiny as new. The exhaust valves, however, were very stubborn (as one can

expect). We had originally tried soda blasting them and I was only marginally successful with that. I have read that you can bead blast the valve face but I don't want to risk

destroying the valve surface. Wire brushed them again, and it proved to be quite adequate in cleaning. There is still some carbon on the lower stem/flute of the valve (backside) on

the exhaust but it's sure to be more than fine. I couldn't justify $270 in new exhaust valves (not even including intake valves) and I have talked to many people who said using them

over again is safe - if they were bent there'd be no question as to what would have to happen. I don't have the money to rock aftermarket Ferrea valves or anything like, and so the

stockies will have to do - I am sure I won't be disappointed. The guides are very long and provide good wear characteristics (if any wear!) and so I am content with the valvetrain

setup.

Here we are after having cleaned up the valves:




You can see the exhaust valves have some discoloration of carbon that was once there - its just discoloration now. The actual carbon (chalky definite surface substance) is all gone.

They are smooth to the touch and you can see the original machining grooves that are a characteristic of the surface.

After the valves were cleaned up, I lapped them into the seats using Permatex valve lapping compound - it was coarser than the Clover compound that Jay had which aided in the

swiftness of completion - but was definitely not overly coarse. I read that a nice mid grade like the compound I hard purchased was the best to use and had the original valve seats

been re-cut, then I should use a series of lapping compounds. Valves seat very nicely and cleanly and are sure to pose no leaks - the seats were in immaculate condition as it was

based on the pics earlier in the thread.

Here are the valve seat surfaces after being lapped:




Shitty cell pic, but you can see the discolored flute of the valve, then a grey surface, and then a discolored section again. The grey section is where the valve seat meats the valve

and the compound is sandwiched between two said surfaces. Jay was pointing out, and I agree, it looks as though the factory did a really good job designing the head - the valve seat

area is quite wide and I have seen some VW and Honda heads which do not have nearly as much valve seat area.

After lapping everything we cleaned the head in a parts washer and washed all the valves off to insure no compound was left over. Cleanliness is godliness they say. We were going to

install the valvetrain but realized that a member on the forum has Jay's cam/valve install tool (cough jfdmas cough... just playing bro) so we have to wait. No big deal.

Current progress on the block is that it is still at the machine shop being wrapped up sometime early this next work week we think. The rods will be balanced to one another and the

crank polished/oil orifice polished so as to insure clean running through new bearings.


I just got back from Jay's to pay da' man. Motor looks really good - completely degreased via hot tank and such. Crank is cleaned up and Jim is going to polish the oil journals at

assembly time - Jim is offering to put it together and he's experienced so I am going to go ahead and have him do it. I will be stopping by to check out what gets done, so once I

start phase 2 (or 3?) of my car I can have an idea of good practice.

Anyway, here are the pics:



Crankshaft is all cleaned up/polished - jim is going to polish the oil journals even more to insure no catching on the new bearings.




Block after hot tank and hone (stock hone for 84mm pistons) - will be powdercoated a high shine/bright silver.

[Urinemachine]

Rods, dynamically balanced to one another both ends with pins, to insure correct bob weights and all



Pistons all balanced in and soda blasted clean of 200k miles of carbon - check out the condition! (the dirty spots are from letting the piston air dry from being washed with water -

going to clean again jays part washer rather than water).

That's the update!

The pistons are now ceramic coated with TechLine Cerakote CBC1 coating - was fairly painless, though
getting it to spray through one of various guns was a challenge. One piston was either not aluminum oxide
blasted enough or had some oil still on it, and it had a small spot that bubbled, and is going to be re-coated.
Otherwise, they came out real well!


They had a slight little "lip" to the finish since they were masked then sprayed. Using a yellow scotchguard pad, the lip is
easily removed with very little rubbing (it isn't bonded to metal so it moves from the object).
Here is a pic with slight lip:



All cleaned up:



Welp, time for another update.

Today Jay and I spent all day preparing a few things for both our cars.

I brought my cylinder head which I had spent nearly 2 hrs masking off in order protect all critical surfaces from powder coat. I left a few studs in because I intend on removing them

and replacing when done. Anyway here are some pictures of that.

This is the head before:








(sorry for soft pic the camera didn't want to focus on the puffy cylinder head... powder has a weird effect when not cured)

Once baked, this is what came out...

[Urinemachine]

Its hard to photograph the reflections from the head, but its a very near chrome effect, looks freaaaaaaking amazing if you ask me. Here are some more close up pics...






Once that was done I was super motivated to do the block. I don't recall anyone ever doing a silver block so I was really pumped to see the out come.

So, I originally intended to just coat the block over the factory finish - well, that didn't turn out to be a good idea because Jay noticed some crap buildup in corners even after

having the block hot tanked. So, that meant I needed to blast the block. Sooo, break out the high temp/high strength masking tape yet again, and prepare to bead blast the most awkward

thing in the world...



Pre- blasting...



Post- blasting - the blackish/brown stuff you see is the original factory baked on paint. Most if all of the grease/oil was blasted clean off.



Fuzzy block...

And then...







So after all that it was only like 1:30p so we still had more time!!!

On to the pistons...

So, the ceramic coating was done with the exception of one piston that bubbled... talked to the manufacturer and they said that the piston might have needed to out gas or perhaps it

was put in the oven before air drying, or too thick of application, etc., etc.

So, blasted the piston again with al oxide, which took the ceramic off with some time (good to know its really on there!). Re-coated the piston, let it air dry for more than ample

time this round, and presto it's done.

But more importantly, Jay helped spray the Dry Film Lubricant on - basically some sort of high temperature teflon coating for the side skirts. In a vacuum this will make more

horsepower but in reality it will definitely cut down on wear. It wasn't the easiest thing to apply but Jay is the skill there, I just aluminum oxide blast and mask - the first

application we had an issue on one or two pistons because, we think, the acetone used to clean the surface after blasting seemed to carry some of the adhesive down from the masking

tape and when sprayed with the DFL1 coating, it didn't sit properly and had runs. I blasted them over again and Jay sprayed it again, and it was good to go. Oh yeah masking on this

shit is really important if you decide to do it. I left about ooh about 3mm maybe down from the bottom ringland til where the teflon starts. This seemed to be the norm on all

commercial coating process pictures I could find, but also it made it easier and more practical when masking off the wrist pin area - nothing like trying to aluminum oxide blast a 2mm

sliver of area with masking tape on either side!

Anyway, we all know what the pistons looked like before but what the hell..



You can see how I masked the tops off (ceramic coated) and the wrist pin inset. I didn't want to coat the wristpin area because it would be quite hard to keep it linear.

[Urinemachine]

Then, baked at 300F for 1 hr (I stayed til like 530 or 545 btw Jay, oh, and the cops did come)...



Nice and uniform!

And final picture, I swear..



There is the region I masked off. Looks really really good and uniform. To be honest I cannot really tell with my hand if its any more "slick" but I am not sure I am supposed to haha

especially with it dry. The manufacturer said when oil sits on it, it's crazy slick and that it will reduce wear and drag, and thus free power and durability. We'll see - same product

all the commercial places use though!

Ok that's the end of the updates.

Update - spent this evening putting the cylinder head together - sort of makes me hate having 24 valves, but then, it'll all be for the best

I used VHT assembly lube to lube the valve stems nicely. Used the custom machined dual valve spring compressor/installation tool jay made, and went just as planned - works great jay

[Urinemachine]

Updatez!!!

Just got back from the shop w/ Jay. He put a 3.5" straight rear section on his exhaust its narly and extremely loud I love it Jay don't change it.

Anyway, I worked some on my motor. The bottom end is done and I got the pump in and the nut welded along with some other little stuff. The biggest issue is that I don't feel like

putting gross dirty bolts back in my new motor. So, I did as much as I could without using gross stuff and I am basically ordering all new hardware for things I think are important.

BUT, anyway, here are the pics. Hope you like it!



Can see the pad ground for balancing.

[Urinemachine]

And you can see I forgot to powdercoat the upper timing cover and the crank pulley, so I did that. Crank pulley is hard to capture but its not the silver I used for the motor. Its

"Stainless Steel Grey" which looks very very cool (has an olive greenish tint...well... you've seen stainless before) and contrasts nicely to the block.

Don't worry about too much shiny. The engine bay has wrinkle black intercooler piping and valve cover, it will look awesome IMHO.

That's about it for now!
The exhaust valves don't have any texture on those discolored areas, I just coulsn't get the carbon stain/mark out with the brush wheel I used. The intake valves look brand new. The

valve are all hand lapped in (sigh!) and the seat is perfect.


So my gf was over and was asking how I kept track of all the bolts that came out of the motor and I told her "well.. I labeled the bags... but... the oil kinda... yeah I can't tell

what's what"

So, I decided eff it. I am not going to spend this amount of time piecing together old grimy bolts and sit around measuring them with a caliper assuming everything is good.



Placed another order with www.bmw-auto-parts-dealer.com -- they're a dealer in NJ but they cater to online parts orders and give a sizeable discount from list price.

I ordered every single bolt/stud/nut/washer/grommet/plug/pin that is on the motor that I know is either grimy or in a bag somewhere. Basically this entails every timing cover

bolt/water pump/etc. The only thing not in this order, because I can't justify it yet, is the 15 - 20 "acorn nut" things on the valve cover that hold the valve cover to the head. They

are like $3-$5 each, and I just can't see spending $50 - 75 on fittings for the valve cover. We're thinking of blasting the current ones and nickel plating them.


Ok mini update, I ordered pretty much every bolt/fastener/clip/nut/etc., that I didn't already have assembled in the bottom end (basically rod/crank fasteners and piston stuffs), and

I spend tonight looking up each P/N on the bag and labeling the part in something that makes sense.. to me at least!

The only parts not ordered are the acorn nuts for valve cover fastening and a couple intake/exhaust studs (I randomly have a few new ones). All the exhaust nuts are up at jays shop

along with all the oil pan bolts and such. But, if you ever wanted to know what 99% of the bolts that hold your engine together look like, along with some other misc. crap that is

inside it, here it is!



Don't be fooled - some bags have up to 20 parts in them, and unfortunately I had to stack some shit up, but its impressive how little there is to our motors really.

[Urinemachine]

So it's been a bit between updates due to craziness with my thread. Stuff that has gone on since then will follow:

I took some time to ceramic coat some exhaust components for myself and a friend. Here is my holset H1e housing ceramic coated with a 2000F ceramic:





I also did a third valve cover in coating that I received from Robstah - Rob thanks for sending the cover I still owe you $15 I haven't forgotten. Paypal sucks and I keep forgetting to x-fer the money, but I will!





Here is a hint of the new 4" exhaust I'll be running - right now its a 4" section on a 3" straight exhaust and it's ridiculously loud. I am looking for a nice straight thru 4" muffler that does some good:



I also recently purchased a new turbo - I want to eventually go as big as possible with this build. Right now that means stock parts reinforced with such processes as ceramic and teflon coating, balancing, polishing bearing surfaces, etc. But, eventually, if it is necessary, I will be doing pistons and rods to try and maximize output. So, I introduce the Precision PT76GTS - its a .81 exhaust housing with T4 flange and 3" v-band outlet. The compressor is a .75 H housing with 4" inlet and 3" boost outlet - this is the ported H housing which is supposedly/was supposedly back-ordered for a long time. So, I've been told I am lucky to have been able to get it:











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Today I went up to work on the engine - I had to trouble shoot what turned out to be a clutch slave cylinder. But that's neither here nor there. I worked more on the motor - replaced what I had done with the new bolts I bought. A few step backwards but everything is brand new and clean/torqued. All that remains is the water pump*, the head being torqued, timing chain tensioner, and the cams. After that, I should be able to call it finished. I will then use it to mock up a new manifold but more on that in a future post.

The water pump doesn't fit - there is some weird casting on it that is obviously intentional but none the less hits the crank pulley. Not sure how I am to fit this - it does not flip 180* so that's out of the question. Have to call the parts place Monday.

[Urinemachine]

Here are the pics - sorry for the cell phone.









Annoyed that I didn't bring the oil filter housing with me as it would be super easy to just bolt down, but also make the motor look that much better!

Ok that'll do. I will report back with more updates in a bit.

[90E30i]

Now that's a CLEAN motor. very nice

[ABUSTAIF]

Respect For The Hard Work.

[propr'one]

damn.

[NateoriouS]

uummm... WOW!

[Blades]

I want to see a videos of the car firing up

[shimajer]

holy molyyyyyyy