Kevin's 1990 745ti DD

[kevbot]

Thanks everyone

Just came across this one from my photographer friend:

http://www.jeremystoutamyer.com/

[Dirty Rooster]

Originally Posted by kevbot

And haha thanks, roller and a foam brush too .

If I had a spare (when I get a spare) 940 I will attempt a straight copy of this, minus the wheels : they actually cost real money, so that's out!
I may contact some Army bods for their olive drab paint ...

[kevbot]

Found one more from the Auto Combine meet. Happy to see the wagon got some love despite not really fitting in with the hellaflushdapperstanceworkscambergang cars which made up the majority of the event.


Aside from that, gave my knockoff greddy BOV another try and managed to get it to operate properly:



Used a Kinuwaga blockoff plate on the turbo and it's working fine there, might try to move it to the post-IC side at some point. Even with it only being on a few days, there's a tiny amount of oil accumulating at the end of its opening. I'm guessing it's just coming from the catch can/pcv, so I'm going to try running the catch can vented to the atmosphere to see if it'll stop.

Monday I managed to pick up a screw in my drivers side rear tire:



Seeing as how the tire was only $20 I just plugged it for now. I'll probably end up getting a better set in the near future.

Then yesterday I met up with a local guy from craigslist and picked up a few goodies from him that he no longer has a use for. Snagged an uncracked angled housing with some significant port work done to it, a ported 90+ with the one stud removed and the area around it ground down slightly to allow me to attach the hotside with all four corners instead of only three, and also a 3"-2.5" angled flange downpipe with two o2 bungs.





I had the intention of just picking up the downpipe to use with the spare 90+ and angled housing I already have, however since the ones he had were already ported I figured I'd pick them up too to save myself the time and effort. Unfortunately the 90+ has two cracks in it that appear to go all the way through:




I've spoken to a customer at my shop who does mobile welding on the side, and he says he can weld or braze them for me for cheap. Once he takes a look at it and gives me the verdict I'll decide if I either want to get this one fixed or end up just porting my spare uncracked 90+. Then I'll grab a new set of exhaust manifold gaskets and toss it all together.

[kevbot]

Got the goodies put on this past Friday night. Crappy pic, but here's the back of the welded 90+ after I picked it up:



Guy took his time with it, heated it up to weld it and let it cool down properly. He welded it a good distance past where each crack was too, to help minimize future cracking.




Got some new exhaust manifold gaskets to install at the same time, and I also swapped plugs and did an oil change while I had the car up on ramps. Unfortunately one of my Taylor plug wires came apart when removing it. The metal piece on the end stuck to the spark plug and pulled out of the boot, but thankfully I had a spare set of plug wires laying around to use for the time being. Everything else went smoothly, only issue I had is this downpipe was about 3/4" shorter than the last one, so I had to bend one of the exhaust hangers to get it to reach okay. Also decided to ditch the spark plug heat shields (OEM hand slicers) this time around. Partly because I had the manifold mostly tightened down before I realized I forgot to put them back on, but also because they're ugly and dirty and a pain in the ass, and if I ever want to put them back on in the future I'll clean them up and paint them first.

I also did notice a significant amount of oil that had accumulated right at the intake of the turbo, with a trail of it leading from where the PCV vacuum nipple attaches to the intake hose. I may try running the catch can vented to atmosphere for the time being, however I would like to keep some sort of vacuum on the crankcase... So I may just try to get a better catch can. This one now, although it somewhat does its job, doesn't really have any baffling in it, so while it does catch some oil vapor I'm sure a good amount is unfortunately just getting sucked right back into the intake.




Got it all together and everything seems to be working okay. Very minor leak right where the downpipe meets the hotside. Tried tightening the side where it's leaking and that made it better but I probably just need to wait for it to cool down and then loosen all of them and tighten them evenly together. Overall car seems a bit more responsive even down low just cruising around down, and seems a bit quicker up top too. I'm satisfied.

[Simi]

I put copper wool in mine and it made an improvement, try that.

[Sir Psycho]

Did your friend drill holes at either end of the crack in the manifold to relieve stress?

[kevbot]

Originally Posted by Sir Psycho

Did your friend drill holes at either end of the crack in the manifold to relieve stress?

Pretty positive he did. He told me he's done lots of cast iron before and he was going to grind (maybe he said drill, I can't remember) a part of it down and he would let me know ahead of time if it wasn't going to work. When I picked it up he said everything worked fine, and the welds are about twice as long as each crack. Hoping it holds up fine.

[496truck]

How does your car run with the BOV (assuming your MAF is preturbo)? I've heard a lot of people say they cause stalling issues.

[kevbot]

Originally Posted by 496truck

How does your car run with the BOV (assuming your MAF is preturbo)? I've heard a lot of people say they cause stalling issues.

It's only stalled on me one time, and that was from one stop sign to the next and I revved it out in first to about 5k and snapped the throttle closed. Sounded amazing of course but as I came to a stop it stumbled and stalled. Other instances where I've done the same thing from one stop sign to another, through parking lots, etc, it's never stalled. Probably only did that one time because I revved so high. I'm planning on moving the AMM post IC just to give it a try and see how it runs like that. I have a few of them kicking around so it wouldn't be an issue.

[Sir Psycho]

Beware that the AMM will eventually leak post IC without some resealing.

[kevbot]

How would you recommend resealing it?

[Sir Psycho]

Not sure, I haven't taken mine apart to see where it leaks internally. From the outside I can see it leak around the part number plate where there is a silicone looking seal around the perimeter.

[kevbot]

Got these fitted today.

[Dauntless]

Is the front wheel dented?

[kevbot]

Yeah, has a small dent in it, the angle makes it look worse than it is. Doesn't leak at all, it's pretty shallow and isn't into the bead section at all. It's been thrashed through numerous drift runs on my buddy's e46, with no issues. I'll probably try to bend it back out some myself at some point. For $100 with tires, it was hard to pass up on em.

[+Kardboard+]

Time to paint them gooooolllld.

[kevbot]

Originally Posted by +Kardboard+

Time to paint them gooooolllld.

[miguel.760ti]

This thread delivers more than the UPS man

[MrBrown]

Looks good Kevin.

[+Kardboard+]

Thank you for obliging.

[VQ]

Originally Posted by miguel.760ti

850 seats are super comfy and are nearly bolt in, you just have to redrill the mounting holes on the tracks.

I cut the tabs off both ends and welded on plates with new holes in them, means it bolts straight into the car and can be reversed easily.

Liking what's been done here. Whats the best drag time you've had now?

[kevbot]

Thanks everyone I love these wheels.

Originally Posted by VQ

I cut the tabs off both ends and welded on plates with new holes in them, means it bolts straight into the car and can be reversed easily.

Liking what's been done here. Whats the best drag time you've had now?

Good to know, thanks.

And I unfortunately haven't been back yet since my last trip when I was having traction issues. Guess I haven't really realized how long it's been now that you asked me I really need to make time to head back and get a few more runs in.

[kevbot]

Long, delayed update time part 1.

Let's see. I finally got around to doing the camber mod:




I was happy with the results I saw from it, especially since I was getting some uneven wear on the outside of my front tires.

Next up, I installed an engine start button. My ignition cylinder had been occasionally sticking in the start position, which didn't sound very pleasant, even for a second. I had contemplated just replacing it, but I didn't want to have one key to start the car and one to unlock the doors. So I just wired in a momentary toggle button to the starter, and it works fantastic. I made the vinyl decal at work.




I also ended up getting a matching set of tires from my local used tire shop. All four 195/55/16s with decent tread mounted and balanced for $80.

Aside from that, I had been tracking down a steering wheel shake for some time. I tried swapping front wheels to the rear, no dice. Replaced ball joints, and replaced the strut rod bushings and swaybar endlinks with poly bushings, still no change. Finally tried inner and outer tie rods, and that helped with it. There's only a minor wobble around 55mph, but it's nowhere near as bad as before. Plus the steering response is phenomenally better. I ended up single around this time, so I was dealing with that and moving out out of the apartment, so car stuff kind of got put on the back burner. But I did find time to do those on Valentine's Day this year:



Next up I gave the wagon a fresh coat of paint, and then took it to a couple shows. First up was Fixxfest in Tampa:



Then came Eurojam in Orlando:




Ever since day one of owning this wagon, it hasn't had a headliner and also hasn't had any interior lighting. I was given some thin LED strips quite some time ago, but never got around to installing them. I was finally motivated enough the other day and I wired them into the existing wires for the dome light, and I'm happy with the result. They operate off of the doors opening or closing, and are bright and they illuminate the whole car.

[kevbot]

Long update part 2

I'll throw out an interior pic since I haven't posted one in a bit:



Also, I got the greddy style BOV dialed in much more, but it was still occasionally opening at idle or on decel, or other times when it wasn't supposed to. So I picked up a knockoff SSQV to give it a shot, and it works significantly better than the greddy. It vents when it's supposed to, and it doesn't leak or open under other conditions.



I tried venting my catch can to the atmosphere, because I was getting quite a bit of oil in my intercooler piping. I only had it VTA for two days before switching it back, because the smell was unbearable. I added some baffling to my catch can and stuffed some steel wool in the bottom too.


A couple weekends ago I wanted to add some port holes to my front bumper. I sawzall'd out some of the metal bumper and then used a 3" hole saw on the plastic cover. It allows some extra airflow into the trans cooler and bottom of the radiator, and I may end up relocating my oil cooler to this location as well.



Second to last update, I scraped some money together and got a proper exhaust put on the wagon. 3" downpipe down to 2.5" exhaust over the axle to one straight thru magnaflow muffler, single inlet dual outlet. Sounds great, and it kind of eliminates and smooths out some of the tractor noise. No more side pipe nonsense that scrapes over everything.





Now to the FINAL recent update. Ordered some 2" wheel adapters to replace the adapters I was using up until now. I had originally picked up some 25mm adapters, but the style 5 wheels didn't have reliefs in the back of them and I didn't want to trim my studs down. So I temporarily ordered some 7mm spacers and put them underneath the adapters. Not the most conventional route, but it was just temporary to make sure I liked the wheels. I wanted a little more poke this time around, so I went for some 2" adapters instead of the 32mm I was using before. This gives them a final offset of -27.











No rubbing whatsoever, and I'm very happy with how they look. Next tires I get I'll probably go for either some 195/45/16 or 205/45/16.

Only other thing worth mentioning is while I was working on the front bumper recently, I made the bumper cover into a quick release. I cut some of the tabs off and made it to where it just slides into the supports on the sides. Then I drilled a hole into the underside of the fender and the bumper cover itself, and just ran a ziptie through them both. It holds it nice and tight, and with two snips it comes right off. Definitely comes in handy for driving the car up on ramps or doing any work on or under the front end.




And one final, recent picture to finish up this update:

[MrBrown]

Sweet. Its about time for an update. I like the holes cutout on the bumper. I wonder if it would look good on mine...
Get you a headliner Kev! Good to see a better flowing exhaust. Whens the next meet? I should be good to go.