Street Legal

Hi there, just a quick update to cover what's happened during 2019. Summer wasn't quite as good as last year and for some reason there didn't seem to be so much time for long trips. I still managed to get out occassionally though. The feeling of driving along country lanes with the top down and the wind in ones hair can never be beaten. Well, maybe a jog along spanish beech with the coast stretching into the distance, the waves rolling in and the  sun shining down is also a bit of a hit too.

Anyway, the summer went well, until! The MOT (besiktning) was due in December but for some reason in September the sun was shining and so I thought "hey why not get it done and out of the way today?" So I did, but the two guys checking the car "noticed" the Super Charger (Kompressor) that had been there a while and hadn't been noticed before. 

Failed!

Any modifications to a vehicle must be approved and go through a thorough approval process. I was given two choices:

• Take the compressor away and put back everything to it's orginal state.
• Get the car re-registered with the compressor

Either way I would have to fix it within one month otherwise the the car would be given a körförbud (driving ban). Well, I was pretty upset and wished I had taken it somewhere else or at least waited another month or so. Problem was I knew there were restrictions to how much power to weight ration one could have. Officially it's 15kW (20HP) per 100kG. But then, after a chance meeting at one of the Scania Roadtrips with Stefan who had squeezed a Honda engine into a Fiat X 1/9 (https://photos.app.goo.gl/NfNJKwZiKjDExWdC8). He mentioned one could apply for an increase to the standard, I would no longer need to worry every year whether my compressor would be found or not! 

The rules looked like this: (815kG/100) * 15 =  122.25 kW (166,5 HP)

Which was fine before as the standard BMW 318is engine is 140HP. Adding the SuperCharger increased the HP to 220HP which meant:

220HP (163kW) / (815kG/100) =  20kW per 100kG.

Long story I had to start by contacting Gustaf at SFRO. He said I would need a dyno test result showing the new HP and the car would have to go through another sound test (bulletest) again which was a pass at 81dB. He also had to test the brake stopping effect in meters/sec2 which was also a pass at 0.9G 8.8m/sec2. He also wrote a recommendation that the car was okay to be approved with the higher HP.

Gustaf doing the sound test

I then put the car through a new registration MOT expecting everything to be sorted out but it failed. I had misuderstood and thought there was a new category for sportscars that allowed 20kW but 15kW was still the highest! So I had to write a request for dispence to the transport authorities, asking them to allow the higher kW. I was told it could take between 3 and 5 weeks to get an answer so it was going to be a nail biting time, would it be a no or a yes?

Within just 3 days I received a letter saying YES they agreed. Thanks a lot Björn!

So the car is now legally SuperCharged woohoo!

Spring on it's way again

Welcome back to 2019. 

Yes I'm still here but not so often. Not sure what happened to 2018 it was there one minute and gone the next. The summer was fantastic but unfortunately I didn't get the little car out as much as I had expected. There were plenty of short trips to the Rose but no trip to Italy and Spain which was talked about early spring. Let's see how this summer goes.

My last trip on the 16th of October last year ended with the car overheating. I though it was because I'd run it low on water so I hobbled to the nearest shop to buy bottled water and then got the car home. But never went out again until yesterday! Snow has almost melted and weekend weather was supposed to be sunny and around 8+ degrees. Thought it would be a great idea to take a start of spring trip to Rosenhill. Well, I started by changing to the winter tyres and then had to dig some of the snow away from outside the cellar. Then I took a spin around the block. It went well for the first km or so but as I was reversing back down the driveway again steam started to come out. There was rusty water being sprayed out from the coolent connector pipe from the engine block. It doesn't look much but this image is after the engine has been running only a few minutes.

The pipe supplies the water to interior heating system plus a couple of other things that are not connected, so are plugged with rubber end plugs. It seems that one of them had warn and started to leak. 

Not easy to get to so easier to remove the inlet manifold.

Manifold and compressor out of the way.

Rusty water sprayed everywhere. Tried to remove most but will wait until the car is running and use a high pressure hose.

The mount on the engine used to keep the compressor in place broke as I removed it. Will replace in the week 

01

Support

1

11611247496

This is the offending rubber end stop. I need to find something a little tougher.

Must have deteriorated over the almost 8 years since getting it on the road.

While I have the inlet manifold off I can get to the oil filter housing so I'll take the opportunity to change the filter and the oil. Haven't done a great deal of mileage but it was two years ago I rebuilt the engine so good to do another change.

I mentioned I changed the headlight bulbs to LED last winter; well they failed the MOT (besikningen) as they are not allowed unless the car is re-rigistered with them. Besides the lamp housings are not designed for LED so although the lights were brilliantly bright the pattern was not good for oncoming vehicles (I thought it looked okay!).

.... BMW have still not delivered the bracket which I thought may happen. So I found a local metal shop who welded up the broken bracket for the price of fika bröd  (swedish coffee break cake). Also bought a new rubber hose plug.

The new rubber end plug in place and one I prepared earlier (Blue Peter!) to show what it looks like. This one is much stronger than the previous one.

Oil filter top removed ready to replace filter.

New oil filter

New inlet manifold gasket

Took the car out for a longer drive and the feeling was fantastic. The winter months are finally over!

Enjoy and share your build project links with me.