Race car resurrection | There is always more work than you think!

[PenguinScotty]

Tommy and team did a fantastic job, per usual, with all the fab work and was kind enough to pull all the extra bits that needed to come off before paint as well.



The eagle eyed viewer may be able to spot an additional neat bit :P


So off it went to Vic at Rebuild Rex for a fresh coat (On the inside at least :P )

In the meantime, it was time to get the engine stripped and cleaned.


It was a mess, with the damn oil leak, everything on the passenger side was just coated. But, once cleaned up, it was time to just throw the cerakoated headers on there to see. Sheeeee.


Ignore the billion different exhaust studs, those are getting changed :P

Once it was all cleaned up, i packed my bags and ran up to North Carolina, to bring the engine to a friend of mine, who has built a few of these, for a once over!


It just keeps going

[PenguinScotty]

While up there, it is mandatory to stop by my buddies place and check out some cool cars.

[PenguinScotty]

Sadly, i didn't do a great job of documenting the paint process, which was a TON of hand sanding everything on Vics part. Also didn't do a particularly good job of taking pics when i got the car back sadly, however one or two good ones i did manage :P




Car went up on jack stands right away to get cracking. Couldn't help myself and least had to go and test fit the PDM and my test print for the Emtron mount (Stroms setup is for the MoTeC, so had to make my own mount).


More parts came in still. Decided to try the Garagistic diff mounts, since the car had the stock ones still in it!


Also went and snagged the pedal bushings upgrade from them as well. Gotta say, the clutch pedal one is great. Guess it's because it's plastic, but the brake pedal... man that was way too tight. Had to drill it out with a 14mm bit and now it works, still not super excited about that though.


At this point, what else is there left to take apart?

Of course, the subframes and gas tank. Why not...

[PenguinScotty]

Since i have trust issues with old cars, i definitely wanted to inspect the rear subframe, RTAB pockets and so forth while everything is apart. While the car has plates and a cage tied in, you just never know.

To my surprised (And somewhat annoyance), it seems like the subframe is held in by 4x 1/2" bolts...

No matter, they came out well enough and i'll just get some fresh ones.

The RTABs are GC and definitely felt loosey goosey, ready for a refresh.


Not sure about those welds, but somebody did do something to the RTAB pocket at least. Still, going to clean this up and add some more stitch welding at the very least.


And out came the subframe! Neat, some fancy turner aluminum mounts too.


But something was not quite right...

[PenguinScotty]

To get the subframe down, it definitely too a bit of wiggling, especially on the front. Figured it's because they used 1/2" bolts instead of the M12 stuff there buuuuuut...

Driver side front mount looks nice and straight. No complaints here!


But then you see passenger side... Ignore the lip being bent down, that's not so much the issue. The whole bushing mount though, is bent down on the left side.


Well, that could explain why the camber arms are wildly different in length, adjustment wise. More than i've ever seen. Well that's super, guess i'm getting a new subframe

On to the RTAs we go!

Great... the GC Bushings definitely made contact with the RTAB bracket and, whoever installed the bushings, completely crushed the aluminum cap.


One chisel session later, they are off. Time to order some Syncro Design bushings


And last, but not quite least, of course the friggin RTAB bracket on the driver side is bent, and holes wallowed out


While that one doesn't look too bad, the arm/bushing definitely made contact internally as well, so replaced it will be!

Although i wanted to start the reassembly process soon, seeing all these issues, as well as the dirt and grime, it's time to also drop the front subframe and go through that. And since i wanted to add a Holley Hydramat to the fuel tank, that'll come off too xD.

Not much left to take off the car now at least!

[George Hill]

Knowing what you know now about the car, would you still have bought it and gone through this? Or would you have just built something from scratch?

[PenguinScotty]

Knowing what you know now about the car, would you still have bought it and gone through this? Or would you have just built something from scratch?

Having gone through this twice now, i'd say it really depends on the person.

While the car was "running and driving" and would've continued to do so (probably, lol) for a while longer, having bought it at fairly bottom market value, because that's what i can realistically afford, i knew it would need some work. Perhaps cars higher up-market won't suffer from these issues to the same degree, however depending on the kinda person you are, you will still have to make some modifications here and there (Seat fitment, harnesses, controls, etc.) to make it work for you.
That said, had i known the extent of everything, i probably would've pushed the price down some more, lol. While it has good bones and has(had) good parts, it's all 10 years old and worn out, so everything needs a refresh regardless. The most annoying stuff is all the hidden body stuff i wasn't aware of.

I'm fairly pedantic on things, especially when we're talking about safety stuff because i have other people drive my cars, i'd like to make damn sure that it's as good as i can make it, from a safety and mechanical safety perspective, so everything gets gone through. So while that little bend on the RTAB mount isn't the end of the world, it's a red flag for me.

Now, if i were to build another car, i'd probably start from a bare, good, shell to then build everything up from scratch. While i love doing a lot of the work, some stuff i need to outsource, like the cage and paint, however i'm confident that even then, price wise, we'll end up in the same spot as i will be after this thing is back together, haha.
If you were to just go and drop the car off at a shop though, that'll be more expensive, of course.

But yeah, just depends on how hands on you want to get!

Am i disappointed about buying this? Not really, because it actually came with a great story/history and it'll be just another adventure figuring this whole thing out and making it right. Having a cool story to tell about something is all part of it for me, since i'm not so much a "Driver driver" as others

[PenguinScotty]

Going has been pretty slow due to work sadly, especially with the engine now waiting to be gone through.

There are more than enough "little" things left to do still, especially underneath the chassis!

One aspect i want to address is the fuel tank and the anti-starvation issues. The car has a Bimmerworld anti starve kit in it, with the E36 pump on the driver side. Same setup as i'd installed on my other M3. While it improved things, i still suffered from starvation below 1/2 a tank. Unsure as to why that is, as others have reported significant improvements with the setup, being able to fully drain the tank, so not sure what's going on there.
First, it was time to pull the tank and confirm the state of things in there!



Pretty darn nasty, especially underneath. Quick wash!


Still looking at options regarding the anti starvation side of things, so will update that as soon as i make a decision on that, hah.

Additionally, the trailing arms needed a refresh. For the RTAB, it wasn't worth rebuilding the Ground Control sphericals, so a fresh set of sealed Syncro Design RTABs were ordered. Have these in the other car and they've been great. Local too!


Most of the other "bushings" in the rear end of our cars are spherical already, except for the inner one on the upper arm. Surprisingly, there actually don't seem to be a whole lot of spherical options there, unless i'm unable to search properly, however Rogue Engineering does offer a set. First time trying these, so will get back with some feedback once there is some mileage on there . Install was straight forward, although one arm did require some filing to gain clearance for the c-clip. The other one it popped right in, so could be a manufacturing thing of the arms.


Since everything in the arm is getting refreshed, including bearings, figured it's also time to throw some Core4 Motorsports press-in stud hubs on there. While i've not had issues with screw in studs, figured i'd give these a try simply for the convenience.


Now i just have to win my internal battle to not remove the front subframe as well to clean things up and make servicing easier

[PenguinScotty]

While this was happening, my buddy John had some time to take a look at the S54.

At first glance, the engine looked great, especially after i cleaned it , so he didn't quite understand my concerns and the push to rebuild it.

The leak-down started to reveal some things though.
Most of the cylinders were within spec, albeit on the low side for a "freshly built engine", like #3


Sadly, cylinder 4 and 5 though, were not doing well at all.


At this point, my mind was definitely made up to tear it apart, hah.

He went ahead and borescoped the engine.

Although cylinder 1 had a good leak down, it wasn't looking great...



Not all cylinders were showing this kind of wear, but none looked particularly great either.

#3 also showed some scoring on the walls.


So yeah. Seems like the "rebuild" consisted mainly of a head rebuild, without work done to the bottom end. Bearings and so forth will have to be pulled to see if they did those, however it's pretty much a done deal to rebuild the entire bottom end.

Luckily, it seems that the scoring isn't too bad and the block can be salvaged. Unless anything else pops up, at least block, rods and crank can be reused (as well as the head and so forth).

We shall see once the bottom comes off!

[PenguinScotty]

As disappointing as the bottom end situation was, the head is in fantastic shape and, whoever built it, apparently did a really good job as well as using proper parts.



The full Beisan catalogue has been thrown at it, which was greatly appreciated!


Even the Solenoid side was addressed!


All said, the wear on the chain tensioner is strange. Subsequently, chain, guide and tensioner is getting replaced as well, just to ensure that nothing funky is going on there.


Followers also look great, as do the cams (Albeit seemingly stock cams :P )


So yeah. On one hand, pretty disappointed in a sense that it was advertised as a "freshly rebuilt" engine, on the other hand, i'm not too surprised based on the state of the car . At least now i know that something WAS indeed weird so it can be addressed.

Another expense and another delay in the build itself, however now is a good time to just get it done and start with fully fresh everything!

[bigjae46]

I never trust rod bearing jobs, subframe reinforcements, etc in a for sale post..exactly for this reason. Kudos for checking and finding the issue!

[blknsilver4life]

Accurate tittle

[PenguinScotty]

Failed to keep up with the post, although things were progressing, it wasn't a TON and i was busy with many other things. BUT, progress is progress, lol.

First, the Flossman fenders came in! Really nice piece. Couldn't justify the carbon ones, so these are just Fiberglass. Sadly, turns out the venting is much higher for them, so the chassis needs more modifications... Of course it would xD


Still hadn't found a rear subframe yet to throw the new BW bushings in at that stage. Then, during one Fakebook session, this one popped up! Very nice condition one with Turner bushings all around. Was a unbeatable deal and i jumped on it. Saved me a TON of time and work.

Will require some modifications due to them having used 1/2" bolts for the mounting now but that's not bad at all.

Because i've taken the car apart MORE and need to get it to the fab guys again, they whipped me up a great quick solution to keep it mobile, using the air jack points. Works great! Tall enough to work underneath it as well and allowed me to roll it outside and get it cleaned up some more.


Pulling the front subframe, mainly for cleaning, revealed more stuff i'm not super happy about. Mainly, the SLR lollipops. Seems like they're an older style design, since the new ones address this issue, however THIS one was machined to where the actual contact point of the washer/bolt holding the lollipop to the chassis had a 2mm ridge... The washer was coned, amazed it didn't fall off. If you have this design, i would probably reach out to SLR to see about getting the new one.

Because of this, i again started thinking about just putting the MRT arms on... since the car is going to the fab guys ANYWAY, maybe now is the time... you can see where this is going...

Meanwhile, the fuel tank needed some addressing. While it did have a Bimmerworld transfer kit in there, from my previous experience, it's still not the best. So back i went to do more research. Two options stood out to me that i wanted to try, the Protec kit and the Deatschwerks drop in.
While the Protec kit is very well thought out with interesting solutions to our problems, the lack of communication and support in the US was just too much. The NA rep is in Canada but just a distributor and while very nice, very busy. Being so bespoke, i'm very worried about something going bad and then having the car down for months. Could i buy a spare? Sure, but that's another grand, soooo.
The Deatschwerks one is interesting due to the use of the bucket, so no sloshing away from the pumps. They also dump the return straight back into the basket and have an active siphon from the passenger side instead of using the return line as normal. Some design choices are a bit weird, mainly the power connections and their locations and so forth. The secondary fuel pump is a nice to have and probably will just be used for redundancy if anything.
Will be interesting to see if this alleviates the situation, will definitely report back after testing!


All while i was playing there, the engine was being torn apart more...

[PenguinScotty]

On the engine front, it was finally time to take off the head and get the pistons out to see what's going on.

Head came off and revealed, yet again, some strange decisions. Headgasket looked completely fine, as did the head, however the area between cylinder walls, where these like to burn through eventually, showed a good bit of heat. Didn't throw a straight edge on it but will be interesting. Honestly, i don't think this thing was neither decked nor honed during the rebuild, which is wild.


The head, although showing horrendous combustion, looks decent. Naturally getting a refresh and full check regardless though. Not much to else to say there (yet) xD


Moving to the bottom end, once more looks like this engine was FRESH! Don't think i've ever seen a used S54 with this little varnish, lol.


Aaaaand out came the pistons. The wear on the skirts was concerning for sure. None of the piston rings were stuck or anything. Looking at them, it does appear that they already were Mahle aftermarket pistons, so all this corroborates that it was indeed rebuilt. I'm just so perplexed as to why some SUPER weird shortcuts were taken, like the deck and hone. The tune seemingly was the biggest issue in all this but still...


Looking at the road bearings, same pattern emerges. Look very very new as well.


So yeah, super weird. Not sure what the hell happened but it's apart now, lol.
My buddy managed to find a machine shop that can take the block, although they're more old school guys, so we'll see!

In the meantime, i was tasked to find some .25 oversized pistons and, turns out, there is a material shortage currently. Oh goodie.
Calling around, Lang told me that my best bet is to just see if i can find a set SOMEHWERE because Mahle told him it'll be another 2-3 months at best before production picks back up...

Seems like Mahle aren't the only ones affected and not just S54s either.

So next, i dove into trying to find some friggin pistons

[bigjae46]

Have to wonder if they spun a bearing and fixed it on the cheap.