BMW m42 serpentine belt conversion

Place holder for the serpentine belt conversion information The goal is to go from the antiquated v-belt arrangement currently on the car to an e36 based serpentine belt arrangement. searching around the internets and realoem.com looks like hardware from the 94+ e36 318's has a high likelyhood of working very well for this. If only I could find one in a salvage yard locally!

This photo is supposedly from an E36 318i. It shows the front of the engine and from this photo I can tell that the oil filter can is the same, the thermostat housing is the same, and other small items are similar to the E30 engine bay that I am working with. I am going to order a set of cheapo ebay silicon radiator hoses for the E36 and see how they fit up. This photo also gives me a lot of confidence in the conversion working. The water pump is the same part number for both m42 and m44 engines. The water pump pulley is different, so a simple pulley swap should be enough for the water pump. The alternator obviously needs a different mounting system, which I believe is a large aluminum cast piece that bolts to the block in the same location as the comparable piece for the v-belt arrangement. the photo above (of the e36 m42 engine bay) further solidifies my confidence in this working. AS of this writing I have not determined if the alternator pulley can be swapped or if I actually need to source a different alternator for mounting purposes. The E30/m42 alternator is 12311721921 the e36/m42 alternator is 12311739421 (through 12/93) and the e36 94-on alt is 12311247310 the Z3 uses 12311247488 which is labeled as 80A compact.

Chargerectomy

AS the title says: The supercharger is going away. yes, I know: I did just buy this car and pay the price BECAUSE it had a supercharger. Sadly the more I dig into the poor beast it shows that the car may have run but the package was far from complete and grossly misguided in some areas. In the mean time I plan to finish cleaning up the interior and putting everything pack together inside so that it at least looks like a proper E30 again! I have also started removing most of the movable components in hopes of doing an M44 serpentine belt conversion as part of the "return-to-the-road" process that I am endeavoring. This is a spendy endeavor in and of itself, but I feel it will be a benefit to the car if I decide to to visit the supercharger. So far I have determined that the car also had Seimens 32lb injectors, which seem grossly oversized, especially compared to the stock injectors being 19lb. The FMU would appear to have been installed correctly, including the modification to the MAF. Sadly that means that the easiest way to return the car to stock is to source a non-modified MAF and airbox in the mean time. This thought brings me to chip tuning. I have had an interest in learning a thing of two about chip tuning for a long time, and this project, I think, will be the beginning. I asked Mark De'Sylvia if he had any chip for a supercharger of turbo and he said he did not, simply because there was nobody who wanted to get him the information he needed to compile one. He pointed me to Moates and their Ostrich emulator to get the information he wants to compile a tune for a 318is supercharged. I will return to that subject probably in the new year when the funds are recouped from the latest travels and the upcoming holidays. pictures later! -G :)

BMW projekt

So I bought another E30. This will be the 5th E30 I have owned, if my memory is correct. This one is probably the most project of any of them as I bought it "non-running" and with a lot of un-proven modifications. The basics: 1991 BMW 318is 5spd manual schwartz metallic over black vinyl. known mods: supercharged engine short shifter lug stud conversion H&R springs bilstein shocks Corbeau racing seats The work list so far: Get running (done) clean up oil grime from engine bay (in progress) clean up plumbing around intake (in progress) re-tune Vortech FMU add silencer to exhaust system pictures will come! :) -G

A motorsports argument

So I recently posted a fantastic in-car video from a Scottish rally team, and the associates article thought this video represented that rally is still alive. My Facebook post of the video led to some guy I don't know writing several long winded responses basically saying, in typical american rally style, "you are just an ignorant jerk because I have been volunteering for years and therefore know everything rally related"

*sigh* Another fanboy for the ages.

Most people don't know my personality so they misplace my cynicism for some kind of actual anger or dislike of what I post about on line. This is an assumption of course. In this case rally is my favorite form of motor sport and the only one I have any passion for, but that does not change the factors that I believe point out a decline in the sport.

all you have to do is look around the Internets for a while and you can find numbers that agree with my opinion:

   
British world rally viewership so low they don't televise any more.
This article ,from 2013 , has the last significant viewing numbers as 300,000 in 2007. And no television carrier at all for 2013.

F1 viewership down but still better than rally!
This post states 681000 viewers of the actual event coverage of the Chinese F1 race, and claims 3.55m total viewers.

Doesn't look to promising to me. The Chinese article even comments on how these are the lowest numbers since 2007, with continual decline each year.

Meanwhile over on social media, the main of all smart phone users, the numbers are slightly different:

WRC, 1.7m likes
F1, 1.6m likes
Meanwhile Rally America has 1778 likes
Or the Williston Vermont rally-america has 27k likes.

NASCAR, 4.4m likes
Nfl , 11m likes
fIFA world cup, 40m likes

While in Facebook I also looked up these:
Targa Newfoundland, 7910 likes
Pikes Peak hill climb, 73k likes
the SEMA show, 179k likes
Bill caswell, 50k likes
David Higgins(athlete), 4519

And on and on it goes. I admit that this is just a snapshot, and not the prediction of doom and gloom that i talk about, but I definitely feel that this is justification of my prediction without even talking about the years I have spent "on the ground" with rallyists all over the Midwest.

Okay, rant done. Time to get up, make breakfast, and go to the SEMA show. Because racecar.
-g

Colorado Day 6, Top to the bottom and homeward

Day Six was the begining of the end. Breakfast at the hotel was meh. Luckily the truck was still where we parked it, and everything was still in it. Off to the Peak! Pikes Peak Highway obviously holds a special place in most motor-heads hearts and I am no exception. It is also a very spectacular piece of natural beauty and history.

Then we fell back down the mountain (where we had to wait for the brakes to cool) and headed over to Garden of the Gods, which is a really weird place to me. Beautiful but in the middle of town and incredibly busy and therefore weird.

And then we were done. :( We hit the highway and headed north to Cheyenne, Wyoming. We stayed the night in a pleasant little place called Little America? The next day we got up and headed off into the high plains of WY and SD. We avoided Sturgis and the Black Hills as it was the closing weekend of Bike Week there and I don't like the crowds. Rapid City was still pretty busy but we flew through and enjoyed the sights of the Dakotas on our way back to home. We had to stop at Wall, since Leann had never been. She thought it was the stupidest thing since the AbMaster and swore she would never return. I thought that a bit steep but basically agreed. Home, and my own bed to sleep in. and a hot shower!

Colorado Day 5, Water in the Mountains!

Day 5 was the big day for us. We didn't have much of a plan when we left but Whitewater Rafting was one of the things that was on the list. We had made arrangements the day before to do the Brown Canyon Full day trip, rafting with Noah's Ark. Now I am not a religious man, and I missed the obvious clues as to the nature of Noah's Ark. That being said I was thoroughly impressed the operation and professionalism of the guides. It was amazing. And lunch was good too! We elected to not take our cameras or GPS on the trip since we really didn't know what to expect.

Our raft, less our awesome guide Andy. Myself and Leann, Brandon? Shannon and Jackson. Have I mentioned that I am bad with names? Probably all wrong...:( For those interested in this kind of thing here is my take-away shpiel: Both me and Leann are comfortable on the water; canoes, kayaks, power boating and sailing. We can both swim. But neither of us had ever done "whitewater" rafting before. So we took the tour companies advise and did Brown's Canyon, though we did make sure to do the full day and no less. Browns was a very nice pretty ride down the river, BUT if you want adventure on the high seas then this will feel pretty sedate. That said: We are glad we did that trip. It gave a us a feel for the rafts, the gear, the paddling techniques. Next time we will do the Royal Gorge trips as they are supposed to be very much more "Adventure" compared to our trip. Very cool. After rafting we dried off, had a bite to eat, and hit the road for Colorado Springs.

I found the scenery of South Park to be amazing in a much different way than the Front Range district. once we got to Colorado Springs we had a little spat over hotels that landed us in a shitty hotel called de Elegance or something. It was aweful. shitty neighborhood right off the interstate with nothing nearby. We drove a couple miles to The Public House. This place is an absolute gem! They are a little pub/sportsbar in a strip mall. But they push the "local" thing. They aren't fruit-loop hippies, they are just down-to-earth business people that know a good thing when they see it. The food was great and at a great price! Then back to the lousy hotel for a nights sleep.

Colorado Day 4, Rest Day and Trails

Day 4 we decided to be a rest day. After the stress of not having a campsite the night before and the stress of staying were we did it was decided to put a priority on securing a decent camp and exploring the local area around Buena Vista. We packed up camp and headed in to Buena to explore. I got some not-so-great pastry at the bakery. I had hoped for better. :) I also picked up a cheap hatchet...since I never replaced our old one and neglected to secure one before leaving on the trip. Foolhardy I know! There is also a very pleasant look Dispensary in Buena, but I didn't go in. In fact I didn't buy any marijuana on the trip. Which is dissapointing. :D After grabbing some maps at the visitor center I realized there was a FS campground literally across the river from our last nights camp. If only I had come prepared. We zipped down there and sure enough there is a beautiful campground right on the bank of the Arkansas River. We snagged a cozy site that hadn't been washed away (remember those rains I mentioned earlier?) and set up our soggy tent to air out and dry the sleeping bags.

Pretty idyllic if you ask me.

Going out from the campground we met up with some of the locals. Goats of some sort I guess?

I am guessing this is not a local. Somebody of the same mind as myself but with a larger budget... We decided to run the 4-mile trails outside of town. They offer some great dispersed camping indeed!

incredible. The far peaks are all 13-14 thousand foot peaks, with Buena Vista in the bottom of the valley.

The only proper obstacle on the 4-mile loop was this out of place cattle-guard. I was worried about clearance because it seemed to just be sitting on the ground. looks like most people just drive around it.

The loop has lots of great views and plenty of spots to stop and have a picnic or something. There are a couple water crossings, though they are probably not too wet during an average year.

The trail comes out just north of Buena on the old railroad grade. These tunnels are just eye-candy. We went back through town and headed back to our camp early and had a wonderful dinner and a nice hot campfire. We stayed up past sun-down and the alpine glow really is incredible. There was so much light from the moon and stars I was in awe. And the dry sleeping bag with the gruggle of the Arkansas flowing by was just what the doctor ordered.