My turbo build

[tcturbo91]

I started this build a little over a year ago. These are the pictures I can find right now to document it a bit. It started with a motor build knowing I was eventually going to boost the car.

My car is an 84 533i, my donor was my old 85 535i:


I used the M30B34 and trans out of this car, and rebuilt the motor. Head refreshed, decked, new valve seals and guides, some porting, 272 cam. New rings, ARP head studs/mains, lower mileage stock pistons, motronic 1.3 conversion, miller war chip/ maf conversion, etc.





I bought a Good N Tight Turbo manifold from the group buy on here and that got the ball rolling. Over the next 6 months I gathered parts from other places, a lot coming from TCD.

Going under the knife:


TCD/ Clutch Masters clutch:


Rear end out for a 3.46 LSD and all new bushings:



Apart for the build plus some "trimming" for the FMIC:




Front mount fitted:



Pan and oil filter housing tapped:


Exhaust fab:




Coming together:


Finished engine bay:


On the dyno:


Made about 400/400 at the wheels on 16(ish) psi. I was getting crazy high torque levels my first time on the dyno (440-440wtq) but under 400whp with around 14-15psi boost. Drove on the street and wasn't happy with my AFRs so went back a second time. Hp went up, tq down, but drivability is good and my AFRs look good now.

How the car currently looks:


This was H20i weekend, logged about 350 miles on the car with no issues. I wish I could find all of my pictures as I had more of the build, they may be on my hard drive. All in all I'm very happy with everything. the Good N Tight manifold is a work of art. TCD was very helpful in getting me the right parts for what I was looking to accomplish. The car is finally getting where I want it, still have some more to do for sure, but what project is ever finished?

Here's what all was done between the motor/turbo build (not including the euro conversion, coilovers, etc):
3.46 LSD
New stock RTABs
Akg subframe bushings
New Pitman arm bushings
New guibo
New center support
Clutchmasters/tcd stg1 clutch
Akg shifter
Sachs tob
533/m5 fly wheel
Ireland engineering 272 cam
Head refreshed/ported
New valve seals
New Stock hg
Arp headstuds/main studs
New stock rings
New timing chain, guides, etc
Block decked/honed
Every cooling component new
SPAL electric fan
Ltw battery to make room for IC piping
Mishimoto ic
Comp 61mm turbo
Vibrant charge piping
GoodNTight turbo manifold
Tial 44mm wg
Tial bov
3" turbo back exhaust
Magnaflow muffler
Vibrant AN Oil feed/return
Vibrant crank case scavenge setup w/ vibrant AN lines
AEM fail safe boost/ air fuel gauge
Vdo temp/oil pressure gauges
Motronic 1.3 conversion
miller warchip
Miller 4" maf setup
Aeromotive 340 in tank fuel pump, (new) stock walbro inline

[tig]

cek likes this. A lot.

[mkoepp]

cek likes this. A lot.

So does mkoepp

Nice work and a beautiful fünfer

[9mil]

A year! You lucky somabitch! Im on my 2nd year already-

That looks great and runs even better- I am truly envious!

Subscribed

[Evil-E]

Very nice setup. Been contemplating doing the euro bumper conversion but was concerned about the front mount fitting behind the valance. Which version of the euro valance are you using and did you have to do a lot of trimming on the valance itself?

[grey ghost]

Very nice. What are the specs on that intercooler. I was thinking of mounting one there.

[tcturbo91]

Evil-E, I am running the later-model euro valance. As for fitment, the top did need some trimming to fit around the intercooler. I also cut out my tow hooks to fit this intercooler so as you can see the tow hook covers are gone to make room for intercooler piping. That's all I really had to do. The intercooler definitely pushes on the valance a little but this is actually due to my in/out piping. If I welded some 45s or 90s directly on the intercooler it could solve this issue, rather than the straight pieces that come on the IC with silicone 90s off of them. It doesn't bother me enough to be top on my priority list as the fitment is pretty good as is.

Grey ghost, the intercooler is 27.5x11.75x3 overall. as mentioned above I had to cut off my tow hooks, and the us bumper mounts/frame area definitely needed some "massaging"/cutting to accept this size (which really needed to happen for my euro bumper to fit correctly anyway). If you don't feel comfortable something a little smaller would definitely fit with less work. I was just worried about not having enough IC for the power. I also wasn't scared to do a little non structural cutting- this car is very clean but by no means an all original concourse car.

[grey ghost]

Dude. The green is killing me. Is so out of the ordinary that its hot. Great choice in color. I hate you. Lol.

[T_C_D]

Great job! 400rwhp is just about perfect.

[Nebraska_e28]

Nice build! The green is cool. What are your IAT under boost?

[Shadow]

Post that dyno!

[KrautnotRice]

Very cool build! Got any updates at all?

[tcturbo91]

Man I haven't updated this in ages. I'll try to get some
Good updates soon. The car has been boosted almost a year now, with minor stuff here and there of course. I was having an issue of going lean under boost which was partially due to the MAF connector from miller, which I had a buddy modify a bit and seems to be working better. In running down the lean out issue I put an upgraded fuel pressure regulator in.

I think what was the main culprit, which is partially me being an idiot, was my alternator. I had it go completely on me a few weeks back, and when I replaced it with a different one I had in my garage it seemed to fix the issue completely. My thinking is the alternator wasn't fully operational which was giving a fluctuating current to the ecu/ Maf which was why the issue was so temperamental (sometimes I could get it running well, other times not so much.)

I finally put my e34 540 brakes on all around which really made the car much more sound to drive, since all the power with stock brakes didn't feel so great. I picked up some recaro SE seats which also made the car much more enjoyable to drive. I put a turbo blanket on which sounds like a small detail but I really think it helped with under hood temps. The car is up for inspection so I have a 3" cat I need to put on and a few other things, plus possibly some tuning for emissions friendly purposes. Delaware inspection sucks.

Otherwise I'm going to keep plugging along with the project. I really want to go megasquirt at some point so I can run wasted spark and ditch the war chip. I also need to do something about my suspension sooner rather than later. Pics to come of the progress, sorry for lack of updates! Thanks for looking

[ZenitramNaes]

I remember reading this post last year, glad to hear things are still going good! Ever consider flipping the throttle body?