Thanks for the feedback and ideas, 80stech. I learned how to work on cars starting in the early 80s, first on a 52 Ferguson tractor, then my 70 Chevelle. My father said I couldn’t drive it until I knew how to rebuild it and he taught me how. 3 years and 15”x12” Kelley tires later, I fubared my transmission, and he said “you break it, you fix it.” With no lift or even a floor jack, I used wheel ramps, pine logs and 2x10 boards as levers. I rebuilt a Turbo 350 I had bought cheap and broken, put in a shift kit, bands and valves and put it in the car. Dad had to correct the transmission cooler lines though… Ah, memories.

I drained all the fuel from both sides of the tank at the fuel senders last weekend and put 3 gallons of fresh pump 93 octane gasoline in.

Cylinder 1 is the best. There was about a 25 PSI drop yesterday with a 4 crank (4 flashes of the spark plug light) test versus the 10 second test. I only did 1 cylinder last night. If that drop persists, I’ll have the following, cyl 1-6:
- 145 PSI
- 120
- 105
- 125
- 100
- 110
Note that only cylinder 1 is an actual measurement. The others are based on the previous measurement with a fixed offset. I’ll remeasure all again tonight if it’s not still raining. Severe thunderstorms right now.

There is a turbo on a new cast exhaust manifold, and I built a new 2.5” down pipe to a Y-pipe, 2 new cats under the frame, to the old X muffler to the final individual end mufflers. I pre-oiled the Turbo plus it has a high pressure oil feed tapped off the Vanos oil feed at the sending unit. The exducer spins freely, don’t know about the inducer. The new cats aren’t clogged, and I pushed compressed air through the X and final mufflers as part of cleaning and ensuring they were good to go. I didn’t measure output, just that air flowed and that I could feel air coming out each pipe. Air compressor puts out 5.3 SCFM/11.9 CFM at 40 PSI. I don’t know what it’s rated for at 1 bar.

I’m really curious why it seems as if I’m pressurizing my intake with the throttle body connected to the MAF then open air. With my N55 intake, it builds pressure until it forces it out of the vent on my catch can.

The engine has not ever started with the turbo on it, or after my rebuild. I’m desperate enough to pull the turbo off, or alternatively I can put a hater pipe out the back of the turbo and force the waste gate open to validate exhaust issues.

The original exhaust valves looked burnt, and had what would appeared to be Viking Runes around the edge. Kinda cool actually. The intake valves looked virtually new after being soaked in Chem Dip and buffed with a bronze brush, then wool with polishing compound, then plain wool to remove any leftover compound. I bought new, moderately high end (not the most expensive) exhaust valves from Bimmerworld and reused the intake valves I’d cleaned and polished. I tested the spring compression, they were all good, so I used the original seats, guides, springs, keepers, etc. They all took a Chem-Dip bath overnight too. I put Ultraslick in the guides when inserting the valves and ensured they went up/down and spun freely, and that there was no lapping compound left. Before I put oil in the engine I checked the pan and it had a bunch of Ultraslick there. I found that somewhat amusing.

In a way I’m surprised it makes much compression at all since every valve leaks. I’ve never had to deal with leaky valves before. Is this typical? I still don’t know if the leaky valves are the valves themselves or the valve sleeves. If it’s the sleeves, I’ll get a used head rather than pay for resleeving right now. I won’t port the head this time until I know the engine runs first. I highly doubt the porting affects the starting.

I got the gap testing tool today, so I’ll do that once things dry out. I’m pretty crazy but even I don’t want to play with 30k volts in the water—it’ll jump too easily.

I found a set of Dragon Fire and Mishimoto coil-on-plugs. If the gap test is bad enough I’ll order one of those. I want a longer spark if possible to handle the forced induction.

On timing and stuff, I used Wossner’s guide for rings, the Project Crankshaft guide on E46fanatics, the cam removal/installation/timing guide from German Auto Solutions. The GAS guide was really good, with plenty of pictures. They make a very nice tool for working with the cams. I can look in INPA for their timing procedure. I saw it once before but thought the GAS guides were more complete and made more sense. I think Pelican has a guide too.


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__________________
Donald Foss
2003 E53 3.0i, 5L40e (for now)
- self-rebuilt engine, valves, SL oil pump
- ported heads, both sides
- N55 intake manifold, 70 lb injectors
- GTX 2860R-clone 60mm top-mounted turbo
- progressive slip diff
- under chassis cats
- extra sensors wired to Arduino
- 15" touch screen dash-mounted