[jackbauer]

Well folks this is my first project thread on here and my first combustion powered project in quite a few years. The last being a 1984 Nissan Stanza

The car is a '95 (09/94 prod date) E36 coupe in dakar yellow with a M43b16 power plant. I got the car a few weeks back as a swap for a E36 touring I had for sale. Several people have told me I'm mad to spend time and money on it and have offered semi seriously to tow it to a scrap yard. I just stared back as its kinda grown on me. So when I got the car it ran like a dog , had no power , refused to idle and drained the battery overnight. Oh and critically had no stereo!!

So first off I picked up a neat stereo from lidl for 40 euros and got the tunes back.Phew. Near one that! Those who followed my thread on the diagnostic forum will know i was chasing the engine issue for a few weeks. Eventually got it solved but quite by accident. My battery drain was caused by someone fitting the wrong type and pinout dme relay. So the dme always had power. Fortunatley I had the dme relay from the ev compact and fitting that restored normal operation. No more battery drain and also seem to have cured the missfire.

So with the engine running smoothly I turned my attention to the pool of oil on the driveway. The usual oil filter housing gasket and o-ring failure. Changed them and fitted a new oil press sensor just in case. Still have a small oil leak from the front crank seal so picked up a new one today.

Body wise the car is quite straight with only a few minor rust spots I think I can handle. Interior is a mess and both front seats look like my cats had a keg party on them. So I'll need a nice leather interior to solve that prob.

Mechanically the car seems sound otherwise. Nice crack on the drivers side of the windscreen will require a replacement though. NCT booked for 7th July so that will be fun considering it last expired 01/2011

I upgraded the E39 to a set of bridgestone ecopia tyres yesterday and fitted the old ones (still good thread) to a set of E36 alloys I got from a chap in bunclody for 60 euros and popped them on the car. Very happy with that. Will get some pics at the weekend.

So this being me it will have to have a twist so here it comes: I have an almost new Stag LPG system and tank that I intend to fit to the car and make a video manual of the procedure and running costs.

Next in the plan will be some mild ecomodding :
Viscous fan delete and replace with electric.
PAS pump delete and replace with MR2 electric version with control switch.
Lithium starting battery
Weight reduction
LED lights

And what I would REALLY like is a programmable ECU like a haltech or microsquirt for some tuning but that can come later.

So thanks for reading and I'll post some better pics at the weekend.

 

[Hobbs]

Love the thread title man! interesting direction that you're taking with the car. subscribed!
just noticed the reg of the car, was talking to you in riverchapel a few weeks ago? You get the high idle sorted after?

 

[Venom]

Brilliant you got a thread up. Looking forward to this

 

[jackbauer]

Love the thread title man! interesting direction that you're taking with the car. subscribed!
just noticed the reg of the car, was talking to you in riverchapel a few weeks ago? You get the high idle sorted after?

That would have been the previous owner The high idle was linked to the missfire / battery drain.

 

[-Smythy-]

Nice little project you got yourself there, rare colour for an e36, I'd say a good compound and machine Polish would do a lot for it,

 

[jackbauer]

Nice little project you got yourself there, rare colour for an e36, I'd say a good compound and machine Polish would do a lot for it,

That's on the cards

 

[Andy]

Best of luck with the project, rare colour alright. Any idea of the early history of the car?

 

[jryaners]

Now that's some coool shit

 

[Ross]

Factory Individual Dakar? Or repainted?

 

[jackbauer]

@Ross Its factory as far as I'm aware.

@Andy No history sadly.

 

[jackbauer]

Not much progress on mellow this weekend as most of my time was spent installing a new "fuel tank" in the E36 compact That and I dont want to get too stuck into the car until it runs through an nct this day week so I know what I'm up against. The windscreen crack will be a fail but after that I don't know. Good news is the plugs are a nice brown colour now so fingers crossed the engine issue is resolved.

Was having aclear out in the shed and came accross a box of maxwell ultracaps i'd forgotten about. Played with these a few years back thinking I could use them as an energy store in the ev but didnt prove to be practical. What they can do though is pump out thousands of amps of current for over a million charge/discharge cycles. Am thinking 6 of these would replace the starting battery entirely and weigh about a kg. Something like this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPJao1xLe7w

Anyone got a steering wheel please let me know

 

[ian-909]

Very interesting project! Apart from range, what's the advantage of LPG over electric? After reading about your EV E39, I would have thought you'd go down the same road with this. Unless this is the long distance car!

 

[jackbauer]

Very interesting project! Apart from range, what's the advantage of LPG over electric? After reading about your EV E39, I would have thought you'd go down the same road with this. Unless this is the long distance car!

Thanks! Yeh this is kinda the long distance car but I'm always looking to something different. LPG is cheaper than petrol and a little kinder to the engine and the environment so I figured I'd give it a shot. I've had the system here in a box gathering dust for a year.

And I want to see what kinda efficency I can wring out of a 20 year old petrol engine.

 

[jackbauer]

Well had the NCT today and I have to say was very pleasantly suprised. I knew the windscreen crack would be a fail but didnt know what to expect after that. Flew through on emissions so at least the engine is running happy. The handbrake was kinda expected as I've never bought a beemer with a working handbrake! The indicator lamps have lost their orange paint so easy swap and I was planning a spolier delete anyway so that takes care of that.

New windscreen booked for wednesday and I'll hit the few mechanical jobs at the weekend and be ready to retest next week then its gas time

 

[jackbauer]

So picked up two new rear brake flexi hoses from the motor factor. They listed two so I took both just in case. Turned out they were both incorrect parts! And to "round" it all off both flare nuts on the pipe were seized solid and resisted all attempts to move and of course rounded off Need to find a flaring tool and flare nuts .........

 

[jackbauer]

So picked up a flare tool , some nuts and other parts today. Very impressd with the little flare tool. Having never done one in my life was expecting lots of trial and error. Worked first time

New windscreen fitted today by Blue Diamond Windscreens. Very nice job and had the side benefit of getting rid of a bunch of aerials and leds etc from previous aftermarket alarms. The saga continues ........

 

[ian-909]

Do you have any problems NCTing your EV BMWs?

 

[jackbauer]

Do you have any problems NCTing your EV BMWs?

Short answer is No , long answer is its been an experience but getting better. First time out with the E36 it failed on a balljoint and emissions (there were none!). On the retest failed again on emissions and took two weeks of phone calls and letters to nct to get it sorted. In their deffence they pulled out the stops and got my cert and disc out registered post. Last year failed on a handbrake cable.Very easy to swap with no exhaust and fuel tank in the way on the retest the guys took turns running the motor all the way up to the limiter. Sounds like a gas turbine at 5k rpm!

The E39 this year was smoother except for the part where I warned the guy not to use first gear. He didnt but the next guy did and the left rear wheel laid about 3 feet of rubber on the test lane floor:shocked: In general the test center grinds to a halt and I end up hoarse after explaining the cars to about 20 people

 

[clipper]

How do you manage the insurance, their extremely slow to touch a car with any modification. Even a basic mod such as switching runflats for normal tyres.

 

[ian-909]

Presumably failing on emissions because the reading was zero? That's hilarious!

How exactly is the gearbox shifter connected to the electric drive system? Does it regulate max power sent to the wheels? You mentioned 'not to use first gear'.