Back To The Start: E28 Shenaigans

[tcturbo91]

Good stuff so far man! If I were you I wouldn't use a Victor Reinz head gasket, if you do some research they have a pretty high failure rating. I bought that same kit when I built my motor, used all the other gaskets, but bought a quality head gasket instead of using the VR. I'll be following this build!

[Grime]

blew my back out and had to stuff my ass hole back in with a broom handle

hmmm...

[SnazzyQ]

blew my back out and had to stuff my ass hole back in with a broom handle . All good , shit happens .

Sounds like a typical friday night to me

[12vsex]

So Ive patiently been waiting for the head to be finished. Picked it up about an hour ago, 310deg cam installed , valves were polished and cleaned , new valve seals and the valves were adjusted. In the middle of replacing intake / exhaust studs , replacing some seals and some crush washers . Hopefully Tomorrow I can finish getting the old head off so I can see exactly what went wrong. Here is a list of stuff Ive done .

Patiently started on removing the radiator and all associated piping . Began to do the wiring loom too .




then I decided to pull the trigger on an extremely rare set of wheels .
They are two piece 16x9.5 et38 Riken STX . Rare as hell in the 5x120 bolt pattern and even more rare in such a wide width . Wheels are on their way . But this is what they are > exact wheels . Not sure if this car is what the wheels came off , but I'm stoked. Plan on polishing the the lips & faces to mirror .



So anyways . While I wait on those , Ive got the head in my Spare bedroom since its colder than a witches tit outside and My garage isn't heated








Gonna pick up some bolts tomorrow to start on these . I'll install them the old fashion way.


Also Got a Heater Valve Rebuild kit in the mail , Heat has been really lacking lately and I'm sure its the valve . I'll prob Flush the core too just for re-assurance.


Got this in the mail too . Not sure how old the original is , but I may as well do it . Cant beat $25 for OEM fitment .


Updates prob tomorrow. I'll be digging into it and hopefully doing everything short of starting it. I'm a little weary about the whole timing thing . Its an aftermarket cam so Im hoping you still align the cam marks the same as OEM . We will see how far I get . First time doing a head on a watercooled car, Only done aircooled vw's.

[mikey G]

The Riken's are sick dude. You should peel all that fire resistant shit off the bottom side of your hood. It would clean the bay up a lot IMO as it looks like shit since its cracked and serves little purpose now anyway.

[12vsex]

The Riken's are sick dude. You should peel all that fire resistant shit off the bottom side of your hood. It would clean the bay up a lot IMO as it looks like shit since its cracked and serves little purpose now anyway.

Thanks bud ! haha I have seriously been slacking on scraping that off. For some reason I just keep forgetting about it . Since I'm in there , I promise ill do it

[philohlean]

Whoa, those Riken's are crazy cool! I have never seen anything like that before, you're doing a lot of good work on this man! Any progress?

[12vsex]

Its been a better part of a month now . Progress was made so I guess i may as well update .

Started polishing the Riken lips


Then when all the rest of my parts came in I started pulling the old head to find out what exactly went wrong.






Chain guide broke when I blew on it.




as you can see , everything was dirty as hell . So I put in some elbow grease and went to cleaning .



Cleaned the oil pan and threw a new gasket on it . Put the new control arms , tie rods , and all that crap in too , I was busy with that and I got lazy and didnt take too many pics of that .





Painted the valve cover , intake Manifold and also the thermostat housing . I'm happy.




Painted the Fuel rail too since I will be tucking the harness this summer so I want that to look nice when its out in the open .


Also did a mild rebuild of the injectors


Bolted it all together .


so I went outside and started to put everything together , New chain rail / guide / tentioner / lower cover and all that .


Threw the head on with the help of my buddy Lou




Went inside and started working on these for the rest of the evening
I will be selling them once Im finished with them. 15x7 5x120 . 3-piece epsilons


Next day I finished up most of it .


Hold up #1
shortly after that , the brand new water pump leaked like a stuck pig out the weep hole . so i took it back and got another one .


While I was in there I took out all the A/c . I live in the PNW so i'll never use it . Just a waist of space and weight.


Put the rest together ...
Hold up #2
the brand new freakin starter decided to not work . Solenoid wouldn't engage, so if you know m30 engines you know its a royal pain in the ass to do a starter . Instead of bitching about how hard it is , I was a man and I got the correct tool and did it in 30min .


got it all together and the car fired right up .
Hold up #3
Then after 10 min it died and it wouldn't start back up for hours, so I traced everything down ,spent 5 days trying to source one and tracing known issues.So I replaced the ecu as that was the last thing i didn't replace on the car and still had no luck . Someone from mye28 said to check the coolant temp sensor for a resistor, sure enough there was one and it was barely on . snipped it off threw a whole new plug on from a donor harness and Ive been driving it for a week now with no issues, beating it like a redheaded step child


So ... since I'm no longer spending money on maintenance items I got to work buying fun things , maybe now this thread can focus on the cool stuff? haha

Purchased a set of bbs rs 005's



Started working on some more Epsilons


And then I decided to purchase a second set of Rs's . This time a set of 026's . 16x10 .
Found them on craigslist for a steal . They were listed as " bbs crosshatch wheels " lol needless to say , I got a total steal .


Got these for the first installment


They need work for sure but I will keep these , and ill be sending the other Rs's to my buddy in Florida ( SWeber on here ) for the price i got these other Rs's for cause I'm a homie like that . Hes gonna be building them up with massive lips and putting them on his w124 E500 on air .

I'll update when I get to work on the cool stuff, I may pull my good camera out and take some proper pics on the weekend !

[12vsex]

Whoa, those Riken's are crazy cool! I have never seen anything like that before, you're doing a lot of good work on this man! Any progress?

hey thanks man! im in the middle of re-doing the Rikens . I will be selling them , so ill be putting them up for sale if your interested.

Thanks for the compliments too , its been kinda lame having to spend money on rebuilding dumb things but its how it is with older cars. I will be starting the tear down of the RS's tomorrow so ill have a little update on them

[99sil-teg]

Wow nice progress so far, those eps are amazing.

[philohlean]

hey thanks man! im in the middle of re-doing the Rikens . I will be selling them , so ill be putting them up for sale if your interested.

Thanks for the compliments too , its been kinda lame having to spend money on rebuilding dumb things but its how it is with older cars. I will be starting the tear down of the RS's tomorrow so ill have a little update on them

Really? I'd be seriously interested in those things, definitely shoot me a message when they go up for sale! I just hope I have enough change for em . Keep the updates coming!

[12vsex]

Really? I'd be seriously interested in those things, definitely shoot me a message when they go up for sale! I just hope I have enough change for em . Keep the updates coming!

I'll for sure send you a p.m when I sell them . Funny thing is I actually bought them from a guy who had them on his volvo 240 wagon . Obviously he used adapters but It looked awesome .

[12vsex]

Wow nice progress so far, those eps are amazing.

Thanks Bud !

[Kriss Hansen]

Love the work you put in to this! Now start moving that fusebox

[12vsex]

Love the work you put in to this! Now start moving that fusebox

Haha ! Thats the plan for this summer , mild tuck

Havent been too busy , just been doing small things . Im laying low with purchases until the spring . I have a big vacation planned so thats my priority right now. I have a few things to keep me busy until then ...
Found another wheel that I like.. so I bought it , I think it will go well with the interior since its all black leather , I will run the wood one most likely in the summer only .




Test fitted the 16x10 Rs's before I split and re-finish them . Will work out perfect imho .






front poke


rear poke


Not sure what color I will do the centers. Part of me wants to stay gold since its vintage , maybe throw some flake in .
Part of me wants to do silver with flake . Thoughts ?

In the mean time , Ive begun to split the wheels . Easy as hell if you ask me . I dont see what the fuss is all about , takes me about 20 min per wheel to split them . No oven or anything.


also picked up a mint dash pad for $50 . while i have the dash apart I'll be going on a cleaning spree, prob pull the whole interior and go to town .


That'a about it for now , I will be starting a little Rs build within this thread as soon as I acquire all the bolts and stuff to finish em up !