It's been a while.
A long while.


Recently I had the urge to pull the thing out and get it going, it's not really went properly since being back together. And suspecting a minor blown headgasket I decided to take it out to my mates workshop.

It was an early winter morning, and as I drive redbob seems to be treating me nicely. Just humming along, quite fun actually. So, I do what any e30 owner would do, I gave it a squirt.

POP goes the headgasket! and plumes of white smoke poured out.

I removed the head, and there was a lot of corrosion, has since been reco'd and cleaned up where necessary. All put back together, and actually tuned this time!

The reports are in, the thing is well fun now. Made a clean 200hp atw!

Coming soon: Big inlet. More tuning. More boost. Proper oil drain on the turbo. stay tuned!

MANY THANKS go to Moore Automotive at North Richmond for all the help on this thing. Really appreciated! Also thanks go out to BG Engines in North Richmond for the head work and to Bligh Park Mechanical for the tuning.

in red, we trust

today, seemingly a normal saturday to most, i had my first decent drive of redbob - whilst being
red !! i must say, im very happy.

most of the bits are back on - sideskirts and rear bumper have some work to be done prior to being fitted. chrome will be blacked out. blah blah.

ill continue to finish it of this week, but it means he can get around.. which is kinda cool.

progerss update

so, its been a while - and I have plodded along slowly.

unfortunately on the last layer of red, we encountered quite a bit of orange peel - as such I needed to cut this out :( the car now has been 2000/cut/polished - I will do a final polish once its outside in the daylight :)

all glass is back in, except for the front window - which decided to crack on me during installation - a new one arrives tomorrow!

A fair bit of small bits need fitting - but some clips have escaped the "bits bucket" and so I'll need to peruse the junkyard soon heh

stay tuned for .. well tunetime which will be later this week it looks.

REDBOB!

its RED!

while not 100% finished, it is very damn close - few little bits to finish, nothing major..

The colour is awesome and the job done was even better :D

I love it!

I've uploaded some initial pics now - and stay tuned for some proper shots later, when he is all back together.

Night shot is 4th coat, day shots are 1st coat ..

red .. !

So my mate Ty and I decided redbob shall be RED, instead of its very attractive pink (very faded red).

So we purchased a shitload of stuff from VG Automotive Paints and Tools, very great guys!

I opted for a red from by VG, looks to be a real great red - its listed on their website, but its not an overly good picture of the colour. Its the "Bright Red". Looks awesome in the tin (pics to come).

We start to remove the trim, and rub it back you can see some dent repairs in progress.

redbob bleeds

We rub back

We tape it up, and start to get ready for some spot priming on repairs.

The boot had a few imperfections - so we sprayed the lot. This first spot priming is purely to see how our repairs are going - we then guide coated these area's

This was just a cool pic of test spraying thinner :)

updates!

I went for a longer drive today - boy it felt good. I feel confident now to actually drive the thing. what a feeling!


when the engine was in the old car it started to heat up further before the thermostat kicked in.
it'd get to 94ish before cooling back down.


I've since noticed it staying hotter, round the 92 94 mark, which is too hot (given this was only ever for <5min drives). So this weekend I removed and replaced the waterpump and thermostat. Not only did I get rid of the squeel from the waterpump but the cooling work great now. sits at a nice 82 :) perfecto.

However with the lack I squeeling I notice a light rattle. I think its been there for quite a while, but it doesnt really sound like tappets. I think perhaps it might be something to do with the dizzy.

The noise is noticable on back off mostly, and at idle. Anyway, its the next thing on the list. That, and a proper tune and upping the boost back to normal ranges. (~12psi, its at like 4-5psi now).

initial tune, and moar progress

initial tune time,

well I went and met up with my main man Benny. On arrival it was apparent by the third full oil catch can (of PETROL) that something was wrong. Thats right fuel vapours making up about ~200ml maybe. I suspect a lot may of been from its NOT wanting to start, and running uber rich.

Anyway, Benny gave redbob an initial tune, tweaked the idle, and generally played around. From here, we knew before we actually did any real tuning, I'd need to do a few things.

So Benny sent me off with some homework ;)
First off was some was heat shielding the leads and clutch slave. I used acl heat shielding, which is piss easy to work with. I created a tunnel of sorts for the leads to sit in, in effect the lower (where the manifold is) is double layered. After a long drive it was fairly cool (before, the leads were almost to hot to touch!) on the inside of the shielding.

redbob is very dirty, dusts n shit from other projects in the shed ;)






So next off was an overflow container, which previously was a spring valley 600ml juice container :D The 318i's come stock with really effective overflow containers, the ground!

I picked up a appropriatly fitting overflow container for the wreckers, and fitted it, easy. Needs a clean, a bottle cleaner would work well :) I'll pick one up from coles next time Im out.




Anyway, redbob is running much nicer now, revving much more lively. I'm still worried about tune damage, glazed bores etc. But I think it'll be ok, the ole m10 can take a thrashing.


Stay tuned for some more updates soon as Benny weaves some more tune magic.