Captain Obvious

Oh, and don't worry. We'll get you into late fall! In fact, you already have a workaround. Just keep that L to G jumper in place and make the promise that you will never ever ever forget to turn the fan switch to OFF when you park the car so you don't drain your battery.

First off, just a point of clarification... You said that when you jumper L & G wires "the fan runs at full speed". Do you mean that 1) the fan runs at top (full) speed all the time, regardless of the position of the fan speed lever? Or do you mean 2) the fan runs at the correct speed (depending on the position of the speed lever) and by "full" you mean "not sluggish". I'm assuming "2", and I will move ahead based on that assumption, but I just wanted to check. So assuming the fan behaves "correct" with the jumper in place, that's good, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the relay is the problem. There are still other things that could be causing the issue, although the relay is suspect. So with the relay connected as designed, you should be able to hear (or feel) it click when you turn the key from OFF to ACC or ON. You should also be able to measure the voltage on the other L wire (not the diagonal one, but the other one) go from zero to battery voltage when you turn the key to ACC. This other L wire is the actuation control wire and it should have 12V on it any time the key is in ACC or ON. When this happens, the relay should click closed. Can you snap a picture of the relay? I'm still unclear how it makes it's connection to ground, and that could be a problem area as well. It appears to be internally connected to it's metal shell and that shell is then screwed to the body where it mounts? I'm not yet ready to condemn the relay, but if you do get to that point, I don't see anything special about it. I think it would be easy to replace it with something generic.

That's what I do as well. After getting a couple speeding tickets in my past, I now pretty much lock my speed right at six miles an hour over the limit. Unfortunately that isn't enough for some drivers behind me. If the guy behind me is really being a dikk, I slow down to exactly the limit. They usually get the message and accept six over. Another facet that drives me nuts is the guy who rides your butt even when there's another car in front of you. It's not like the guy behind you would be going any faster even if I wasn't there. They would still be limited by the next guy. And the next. And the next. A-holes... all of them. I hate everyone. Remember what George Carlin says?

Nick, That device is part of the air conditioning system and is known as the FICD, or "Fast Idle Control Device". It's purpose is to pull on the throttle linkage a little bit when the air conditioning system is turned on to account for the load of the A/C compressor.

That white wire should have a strong healthy 12V on it any time the key is in ACC or beyond, regardless if the fan switch is turned on or not. So there's clearly a problem on the power delivery side of things. You have "some" power at that white wire, but it's not a good strong connection. First, I would make sure the fuses are good. I think heater is powered by either the third or forth one down on the left column of the fuse box, but while your under there, you may as well take a good look at every fuse. Take them out, look at them in good light, and gently clean up the brass fingers of the fuse block. If all the fuses are proven to be good, I would take a look at the "power relay". (The device in the lower right of the diagram you posted.) If that relay is having a problem like a bad ground connection, or dirty contacts, then the fan won't get strong power. Is that relay screwed to the body? If so, that's how it makes ground connection. Make sure that isn't dirty. For testing the power relay you could jumper it out of the circuit by connecting the L wire to the G that diagonal from the L. If you do that, it shouldn't matter whether the key is ON or not, and the fan should get power. Good luck with the troubleshooting, and let us know what happens.

I'm assuming the fender liners are high density polyethylene, or polypropylene. ABS would not be a good choice there because it's probably too brittle.

Got it. I did a little digging and found people on BMW forums talking about installing different thickness shims or multiples to adjust the tension. Really seems like an un-German "afterthought" design. Looks like they included a tensioning device in later years, but the early ones used shims? And to design the system without interlocks or locating pins or something such that you can easily do exactly what you did. Just surprising. Could they at least have put the shims on other feet that don't have oil holes or do all the feet port oil? Certainly not poka-yoke. Haha! It's always easier to second-guess someone else's design decisions. Anyway, glad you found a smoking gun. I would have never been comfortable with the engine ever again if I hadn't found something definitive. The guy with the Viper will be happy to see your rear again.

Wow. Glad you found something! It always makes me nervous not to have what I believe is the smoking gun. So that shim is supposed to just stay in place with no locator pin or pressed in boss or anything? Just pinched by the bolt nearby? I don't like it. What's that shim's purpose? That's a gasket between the block and the oil pump?

Once you write the program to do the cutting on the table, knocking these things out will be a piece of cake. Good luck with the project! Once you get to the point where you have the outline perfected, let me know and I'll pull one of my originals off and do a more thorough material analysis if you are interested.

Neat! Here's my impressions after reviewing the dots: The general price seems to have gone up from roughly centered around 15K to roughly centered around 20K. There are a bunch of people out there that think their hunk-o-junk is worth around 10K (7 to 13), but the market clearly disagrees. There is one guy out there with deep pockets who hopefully got a fantastic car for his $40K!

LOL. Or cardboard painted with wrinkle finish paint...

Zed Head, Don't remember exactly how, but I found the Beck/Arnley part number first and started digging into the "used on" applications list. That's how I turned up the Wagner number. One bread crumb that leads to another and hopefully eventually leads to something (hopefully) usable. Cross referencing from other vehicles, and all that. Thanks for guinea pigging for us. Hope they work! PS - If they work and aren't made out of cut up black jeans, can I have your old rusty dented originals?

225's on a inch wide wheel? Looks nice, but I can feel that sidewall roll from here!!

For the energetic experimenter, there may be options. A little digging turned up what some people consider replacements for the factory shim. And cross referencing has turned up a couple part numbers. There may be others as well, but I didn't dig too deep. Here's some numbers to start with: Beck/Arnley 084-2008 WAGNER SH14025 The look a little different than stock, but the differences appear to be in areas that shouldn't really matter. Mainly... They are cut straight across the piston instead of having a circular cut out in the middle. Since the piston doesn't contact there anyway, I'm thinking it shouldn't matter. And I don't know if the coating would help or hurt, but I think they would be worth a try if you're desperate. Here's a pic: And here's a couple pages with more info: http://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=156573&cc=1274745&jsn=10619 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Disc-Brake-Pad-Shim-Front-Beck-Arnley-084-2008-/232361458677?epid=75309807&hash=item3619d27bf5:g:sA4AAOSwhvFZNeBE&vxp=mtr

Your temp sensor readings look well within tolerance: I agree with the crowd however and say that your fuel pressure looks high. Also, are you running aftermarket injectors? I'm convinced that some of the supposed "correct" replacements put out more fuel than stock.

Haha!! I'm disappointed! It's solid state and not tubes!! Hope none of your neighbors are listening to the radio or they're gonna hear you testing your injectors.

Chas, That's exactly what I did as well. I used the starter for about ten seconds and decided I needed to do something different. That's when I got the signal generator out and used it to drive a relay that pulled the lower side of the coil to ground. That way, I could also test the ignition system and verify the one injector opening for every three sparks, as well as vary the frequency. A little crude, but it worked. I only mentioned the sig gen because I'm sure Dave has one. Probably vacuum tube, but I'm positive he's got one there somewhere.

Zed Head, Now that I think about it, I bet you are right in that they are steel and not aluminum. I was jumping to conclusions because I don't think they rust. And with that in mind, I bet they are stainless. I suspect the rust you have seen is "embedded" into the shim by the piston, but not growing out of it. I don't have any spares and the only ones I have are on my car. Next time I'm in there I'll investigate a little deeper. Do you have any spares laying loose? Are they magnetic?

Haha! Well the arrow doesn't necessarily point towards the front of the vehicle (because the caliper doesn't mount exactly on the top of the rotor), but it does point in the direction of wheel rotation (when the car is moving forward). When the calipers are mounted on the car, the shims contact the piston from approximately the 8:00 position to the 4:00 position. (Does that make sense?) I don't know for sure what material they use for the OEM shims, but I don't think they rust, so they are probably stainless steel or thin aluminum. I don't know what grade, but it is not one of the dead soft malleable grades. There's a temper to it. They would be a breeze to cut using water-jet or laser. You could mill them on the CNC, but water-jet or laser would be much faster and easier.

EdwardZ (David), Welcome aboard!! I hope you like it here. You got a wonderful car, and I hope you enjoy it as much as the previous owner did!

When I first got my car, the front brakes squealed. When I dug into it, I found that my PO had put the anti-squeal shims in backwards. I switched them around to the proper direction and the squeal went away like magic. Poof.... One way they squealed, the other they did not. The point being... Yes, which part of the piston that is covered by the shim DOES make a difference.

Dave, Yeah, it's not as bad as it sounds. You can get the whole rail off as a unit, and that will also give you the opportunity to take a look at your lower injector seals. If they're dried out and shrinked up, they might not be sealing well. And that certainly isn't going to help a lean misfire at idle when the vacuum is so high and the amount of fuel is so low. Chas, Haha! That sure does look familiar! I don't remember, but I probably got the idea from seeing what you did! Out of curiosity, how did you get the injectors to fire?

And about injector testing... I checked my injector balance a little while ago. I bought a pack of small plastic containers. I think it was an eight or twelve pack of containers from the dollar store. I used a small hole punch to cut a hole in the lid of six of them: I weighed them empty to get the tare weight. Thankfully they were all the same (at least to the resolution and accuracy of my cheapo HF digital scale) at seven grams empty: Numbered them up so I knew which was for each cylinder: Disconnected the fuel rail from the head and thankfully there was enough flexibility to get the cups onto the ends of the injectors: fired the injectors a bunch (I used a sig gen tied into the ignition system) and collected samples: Weighed them up again and verified they were the same (again to the resolution and accuracy of my cheapo HF digital scale), so I'm happy:

Dave, I don't know if there was an ignition problem or not, but I was just pointing out something different on the two videos. Maybe it was just different indexing of the colortune when threaded into the two holes. Maybe on cylinder 2, the spark gap was on the visible side and hidden when installed in cylinder 1? There's a dark spot in the ring on cylinder 1 video. Maybe that's the shadow cast by the ground strap electrode strap? If that's the case, then the spark would be 180 degrees from that and would be hidden by the plug boot? Would be neat to have two (or six!) colortunes installed at the same time for easier comparison in real time.

Well I certainly would try to get it out without pulling the dash first. Maybe you'll get lucky and can manage to get enough stuff out of the way. That copper tube goes about three inches or so into the airbox and then is formed into a coil about an inch in diameter. The point is, you need direct straight on access, not only to get the two screws out, but also to pull the assy out of the airbox. It's incredibly easy if there's nothing in front, but like you said... you have to disassemble so much to access two tiny sheet metal screws. Good luck and keep us posted!