Spring was in the air!

Hello again, as usual everyone was lulled into a false sense of security, thinking spring was on the way but one can never guarantee that until end of April. Last weekend the sun was shining and decided I'd do a test run around the block. Spent over an hour shoveling away hard packed snow and ice, sun was going down by the time I finished. Hopped in the car and realised I had not connected the steering so had to wake until the next day!

The test drive was okay but the clutch pedal wasn't releasing the clutch enough so very difficult to change gear. I was a bit suspicious whether as well as upgrading the clutch, flywheel etc. to an M3 it would also be necessary to change the clutch master cylinder. Well that's what I had to do.

Nice new M3 clutch master cylinder. The release stem is longer, haven't tested it yet but hopefully it'll solve the problem.

Idle regulating valve - replaced

ABS sensor. I'll mount this and see if I can get the speed signal from it instead of using the diff sensor.

The front right hub upright already has a hole for an ABS sensor.

Something like this ...

and this ... problem was the hole is a little too small and also slightly in the wrong place, at least for the ABS sensor I bought (M44).

Hole enlarged and fixing hole with M6 thread to the right. Also had to make a slight adjustment to the sensor so it would go in further. 

 The pickups are roughly in the centre of the "teeth"

Bolted in place.

Upright in place just need to connect power to the sensor and take the pulse wire to the ECU (See May 22nd 2013)

X20 Connections
9 - BR/RT-WS/GR/GE (WS/GN) ABS SIGNAL DME-ABS / OIL TEMP>INST M3
14 - SW/WS DME<SPEEDO OUTPUT (M1.7.3 MSS50 M41) 

On with the air filter box and just about completed the final prototype, which may end up being the final version if I don't get it made up somewhere. Problem is I have a metal cutter but not a metal bender so the edges for the tags are really bad. Maybe I'll try and fill the bad bits and then spray paint it black.

It's quite a tight space between battery and air intake. The top of the box is slightly below the bonnet so I can place a rubber edging between.

This will be the approximate size of the hole in the bonnet.It can't be much bigger than this as I want a tight contact between the filter box and bonnet.

The scoop will have to be bolted quite a way back on the bonnet.

A few hickups

The engine is back in, cables and pipes tidies up. Turned the engine over a few times without coil overs connected to get oil pressure up and then started it for real. Kept stalling directly and the only way to keep it going was to rev to 4000 revs or so. It sounded as though the firing order was wrong but that's basically impossible because all the cables are all cut to the correct length. 

One thing I did do while the engine was out was shorten the length of  the cables to the coil overs as they were unnecessarily long. I thought I had perhaps wired them incorrectly but I buzzed all the cables out and they were okay. I checked the plugs and they were coated in carbon which means too rich. I have now disconnected the MAF and directly it runs much better, not perfect but at least it stops stalling. Still the idle is quite erratic and the new vent valve (can't remember the name of it but it was replaced when installing the SC) is moving in and out continuously.

The only thing I may have done differently this time is torque everything to the exact specification whereas the first time I put the engine in I didn't have a decent torque wrench! 

Any ideas why it's running like this would be greatly appreciated.....

..... Thanks for the help Dave, James and Taffy.

I have tried a few things and have a few things left including replacing lambda. I will also change the MAF as I bought a cheap aftermarket one before. This is what it sounds so far .....

While this is going on I'm starting to prototype the air intake. I intend to encase the air filter with an opening to a hole in the bottom.

Once the shape is correct I'll cut it out from aluminium sheet. The idea is it will fit snugly up against the bonnet. All the nice cold air should go straight to the air filter!