Leaderboard

Good idea Blue! No telling what else might be hiding in there. No time like the present when parts are 100% accessible to take care of small jobs like that.

Wow, maybe I should ship my car to the EU with prices like that. I think Blue is the one to talk to about that. I do have the matching numbers L24 still tucked into a corner of the shop and a local guy chomping at the bit for me to sell him the mild L28 that is in the car right now. I sure wouldn't want to start with another rust bucket, I already have my share of iron oxide in the lungs. The guy who rebuilt the s38 M engine for me said he could source a intake manifold that would accept triple carbs but he said I would be crazy to do that. So I need to post a question on one of the bimmer forums, I would have to take the wiring harness out of the M6 and isolate just the engine management systems, distributor, timing, O2 sensor, throttle position sensor, flywheel and water temp sensor, cold start valve and all that and eliminate the rest. I'm not sure that is even possible yet, the Motronic 1.1 system might be ancient by todays standards but it's still electronics so it's got me at a disadvantage. The engine produced 256hp at 6500 and 243lb tq at 4300rpm and that was before the after market chips were available so yeah that would move a 2300lb Z along quite nicely. The mileage I was getting on the M6 last time I checked was 9.3 L per 100km on the Hwy and that is hauling around a 3700lb car. Pretty hard to beat fuel injection. This is not my engine but still an s38, with that short tranny I could move the engine back 4.5" in the engine bay and improve the weight balance of the car. Chris

$3 ring pliers from harbor freight made a pita job into a breeze. old rings were nasty, stuck & worn new set from MSA - they said they were nissan rings, my shop tells me that npr made rings for nissan - anyone know about these?

With the two front head bolts removed and bagged I went about breaking the head bolts loose. Most were pretty but three in the middle on the passenger side did not feel as tight as the rest. Anyway, all came out without issue and were laid accordingly. I cannot tell if these are the original 40 year old bolts so a new set may be ordered just to be on the safe side. With the help of my wife we lifted the head off. It did not require any prying or persuasion. A naked eye inspection seems to show the head is in overall good shape. The intake valve on the #4 piston looks to be fine but the machine shop will give it a thorough inspection and diagnosis. The cylinder walls feel perfect but with the head off you can see coolant has been getting past the gasket since it has a small amount of rust outside of the gasket. There is much discussion on which head gaskets work best. Many people have great luck with Fel-Pro head gaskets just like the one on the car while others go with high performance pieces from Cometic and the like. For now I am going to do some research and order the other gaskets I will be needing for reassembly.

If only I had the space. I think 5k is fair. Maybe too fair.

I did something I really, really wish I hadn't......... I added up all of the receipts from my build

That soda blasting works great on the aluminium. Messy as hell but it'll all blow away with just the air gun. It'll make paint disappear too. Give it a try but make sure your air compressor doesn't have any moisture. A way to reduce the amount of soda be sucked up is to put a small nut into the pickup end of the tubing, a little less mess. Here's some carbs I did with the same DIY setup as Chris mentioned above. Here's some furniture I did for my Mom. The round table had 2 coats of paint, the smaller telephone table to the left had about 5 coats, it's OLD. It just disappears without tearing up the wood.