My quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Document your Sixer project here.

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ericono
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My quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Post by ericono »

This first post has turned into a rather lengthy backstory. I enjoy hearing about the owners and why they do certain things with their sixxers nearly as much as hearing about the cars themselves. If you don't fancy this side of things, I don't blame you. Feel free to start from post #2 and skip all this nonsense.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I thought now was a good time to start a thread about my 1985 M635CSi. This is as much a diary to help remind myself in the future of what I have done as it is a way to help anyone else who may be working on their own sixxer.

First, a little history. Why the e24? In the mid-80's I was 15 years old, totally into cars and the perfect age to find the car of my dreams. My father was into cars and we always had anywhere from 5~10 clunkers around the house, of those 2-3 usually ran. They were mostly older American iron, '50s and '60s GM products, Fords and Chryslers along with some other independent brands. We had a couple of '52 International 1/2 -ton pickups, a few '63 Lincoln Continentals, a '65 Dodge Polara 500 Convertible and requisite coupe parts car, numerous '65-’66 Mustangs, a ‘66 Econoline van, a ‘66 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, etc. I can’t remember them all. We were always dragging some heap home. Sometimes they ran, a lot of times they didn’t. For a kid I thought it was pretty cool. All kinds of different designs to admire and crawl around in. Except the Econoline. At the time, I didn't find that to be a very cool vehicle to be dropped off at school in. For all his love of American cars, he was also really into old VWs as well. I have no idea how many ‘60s and ‘70s Beetles and Vanagons we went through. I guess there were so many Beetles on American roads at that time, and maintaining one was cheap and easy, so that it almost seemed like they were just another American car. By that, I mean they didn't seem exotic. Just another car on the road, albeit much smaller than most anything else we usually had in our stable. Having said that, he did occasionally venture off the beaten path and would bring home a European car, and the only new cars I can ever remember him buying were 2 Hondas; a ‘70-something Accord hatchback, I think it was the first gen Accord, and an ‘84 or ‘85 Civic 4WD Wagon with a 6 speed transmission! On the European front, I clearly remember the yellow ‘77 Saab 99. Unfortunately it was the 4 door sedan and not the cooler 3 door hatchback, but I liked the car nonetheless as it was the only Saab in town for probably 2 decades or more, and I tended to be drawn to the different and obscure. I actually learned how to drive a manual transmission on that Saab. The smell was different from all the American cars, and I thought it was kind of cool. The engineering involved was also different, not to mention the styling. All of it was different which, for a rebel without a cause (or is that clue) teenager, made it that much more interesting. I almost forgot, he had an Opal fetish for a little while owning 2-3 Kadets, but those never really got my attention. He had a couple of X1/9s, on the other hand, that did get my attention. They were parked more than they ran, but when running, those things were a blast to drive!

I was constantly helping my father work on our cars: pulling engines, bleeding brakes, replacing parts. The best part was cruising junk yards. Since we always needed parts to fix something then we were regularly searching junk yards, or people’s back yards, for parts and parts cars. Looking back on all this now I can definitely see where my father had hoarding tendencies, but as a kid, it was like playing with well used full scale Matchbox cars. One of my most vivid memories was when he purchased a 1965 Chrysler 300 convertible. It was the typical non-running,, but complete, car with a good bit of rust. One of those projects that would have required way more money than we had to actually make it right. Unfortunately, after towing it home I don’t believe it ever saw the road again, but for one last glorious day she cruised the back roads of southern Mississippi, not under her own power unfortunately, but being towed by chain behind whatever large car or truck we had running at the time. Being towed by chain meant someone had to steer the Chrysler. My mother really didn’t get into the budding car collection so that meant I was called up. For a kid of 14 or 15 who didn’t have a driver’s license, this was awesome. I could sit in the driver’s seat and pretend I was cruising down the road in my convertible picking up girls. Never mind the fact that the only engine noises were coming from my mouth and the convertible top had holes in it. That wasn’t part of the fantasy. Anyway, by this time I had already commanded multiple land yachts behind a rope or chain so I was pretty good at braking enough to keep the line taught so as to minimize jerking when taking back off. On this particular excursion we had a 30~45 min. drive through the countryside where my father found the car to our home back in town. Everything was going great through the backroads. The steering was heavy since the engine didn’t run, but it was manageable. Manageable until the steering got very light all of a sudden. I did some quick side to side action on the steering wheel and noticed that the front tires were not responding in kind. I quickly started waving my left hand and arm out the driver’s side window and slowly applied the brake in an effort to get my father’s attention. Luckily it worked, and before we got to the next curve in the road we were able to slow down and stop. My father popped the hood and quickly figured out that a pin had fallen out of the steering shaft, disconnecting the steering wheel from the front wheels. He rummaged through his stash of miscellaneous stuff, found a closely sized nail, shoved it through the holes and bent it downward so it wouldn't fall out, and then we proceeded on homeward with no further incident.

So how did a kid who grew up with mostly American iron in the yard get into European machinery? I always found the stuff he brought home interesting, and I still love ‘50s American cars especially, but I was also a teenager and like most teenagers wanted to separate myself from my parents. In addition, the ‘70s and ‘80s were not highwater marks for American cars. There were some exceptions, of course, but in general the designs and certainly the technology in them didn’t interest me much at all. Plus, as stated above, I was always drawn to the odd and different, and in small town Mississippi most anything from Europe or England (with the exception of the aforementioned Beetle) qualified as exotic. Sitting at home reading my old copies of Road & Track and Car & Driver I could imagine being behind the wheel of all kinds of sporty cars from the other side of the pond. Enjoying the unlimited speeds of the autobahn, cruising through scenic Italy, maybe taking part in a Millie Miglia revival. It’s always good to have dreams. I always loved 2 seater sports cars, preferably with a top that went down, and was especially drawn to little British roadsters, Triumphs in particular. I also liked GT coupes with their sporting character, but a hint of practicality in the +2 rear seats. I always loved great style, but I liked it tempered with a dose of reality. I guess that’s why I am an engineer today and not an automobile stylist.

So back to the original question, why an e24? As an early teen I wasn’t loyal to any one brand. I just liked cars, fun and interesting cars. While consuming as many road test articles as possible about contemporary cars of the time, Ferrari’s and Lamborghini's were certainly high on my lust list, and Porsche was making some really cool cars as well. One magazine article in particular sticks in my mind. It was a Road & Track article about the fastest factory road cars available in the world. In this article, the minimum top speed of a car had to be 150mph to even qualify. At that time there weren’t a lot of factory cars that could hit or surpass that mark. The usual suspects were there; Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche. There was also a bruising Aston Martin Vantage amongst others, and included in this elite club was a BMW M635CSi. Of course the M6 didn’t win the competition, but for me that wasn’t really important. The fact that it was even in the same company as a Ferrari 512BB, Lamborghini Countach, and Porsche 930 and was a proper GT car that you could live with every day and drive on normal roads was what I thought was cool. The exterior shape certainly didn’t hurt either. From nose to tail I could find all kinds of viewing angles which flattered the car. The forward protruding nose positively screamed at other cars to get the hell out of the way, the long hood/short trunk proportions were spot on, the sharp angle of the Hofmeister kink, the deep front spoiler, the offset rear exhaust pipes; all of these features came together to form one of the best looking GTs I’d ever seen. Luckily moving to the interior didn’t disappoint. Those were some of my favorite seats, and I loved the adjustable thigh support. The chunky (at the time) 3-spoke steering wheel with the tri-color flash at the bottom looked purposeful. I loved how it was driver-centric and seemed like the perfect place to helm such a piece of mechanical art. I also loved the shape of the individual rear seats, although I of course imagined myself in the driver’s seat. From a design standpoint, inside and out, I loved how it looked muscular and aggressive while at the same time wasn’t too flash as other cars of that era could be. It struck the right balance for me. But all of that may have paled when the hood was opened and the DOHC straight 6 emblazoned with the simple statement, “M Power”
Last edited by ericono on Thu May 24, 2018 7:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.
'85 M635, '00 528iT, '98 Z3
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Post by ericono »

From here I’ll try and keep more focused on the technical aspects of the car.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I was still harassing the previous owner prior to purchase he had sent me a to-do list of items the car. His sister owned or managed a BMW dealership and he had her dealership go over the car and develop the list so I felt it was reasonably thorough. All this meant that I knew going in I had a list of things to take care of, but none of them prevented the car from being driven.

One of the first things to do was replace a rusty exhaust. The exhaust manifold was fine, but the under car assembly had some holes and was, in general, in a bad state. I had ridden in friends’ cars with aftermarket exhaust and was never happy with the droning sound they seemed to produce so I decided to go back with stock. Little did I know then that at that time getting a stock M635 exhaust was going to be such a pain. When I started calling around to a couple of reputable independent parts suppliers and then the local dealer I was told that there were no more in the system and none in Germany with no ETA on when they’d be available again. I was given some leads and phone numbers to call. So the hunt was on to see if I could find someone in the US who had what I needed. My search finally ended with a guy in either Ohio or Indiana, I don’t remember which now, who owned a BMW dealership and had his own personal M635. Because of this he had purchased 2 exhaust systems for his car and squirreled them away. After a little begging on my part he agreed to help me out and let one of the systems go. This whole paragraph took about 4~6 months of real time during which my car was parked so that wasn’t fun, but it all finally worked out and I eventually got the car back on the road.

While this was going on I also went through the brakes, replacing the master cylinder (my brakes were locking up after just a few miles of use, fronts if I remember correctly), brake lines, pads and rotors. Later on I started getting the dreaded wooden brake pedal feel and, after researching the subject on the forums, determined it was the brake bomb. Swapped that out and all was finally well. Since then I haven’t had any more brake issues and have been running this setup, other than new pads and rotors and flushing the fluid. I do have bigger plans for the brakes but will cover that later.

Somewhere early on I performed the standard preventative maintenance stuff like replacing hoses and belts, coolant, easy to access gaskets, the fan clutch, etc. I also paid someone with far more experience than I to check and adjust the valve clearance. I also swapped out the tensioner for the e36 M3 type which quieted things down on start up a good bit.

Another issue I had with the car after driving it for a while was the fuel system. I could tell the engine was being starved for fuel. I called myself testing both pumps, in-tank and external, and ended up replacing the external pump twice and the internal pump once. As you can imagine this was getting expensive. Luckily the second external pump was replaced under warranty, but I didn’t like the trend that was developing. I started doing a lot of research and calculations on required fuel pressure and fuel flow for the M88 engine and looking at what my aftermarket options were. I finally settled on a Walbro in-tank pump and figured out how I could use it in place of the stock in-tank pump. At first I thought I would also need an additional high-flow external pump, but after running more calculations I decided that the in-tank pump should be sufficient. The idea of a single pump appealed to me from the standpoint of keeping things simple and also making it very easy to diagnose pump issues. My prior experience had sometimes left me frustrated trying to figure out if pump whine was due to the main pump failing or the aux pump failing. If I had one pump then it made it that much easier to isolate the issue. I had to do some fabrication work on the in-tank pump assembly that slides in the top of the fuel tank, but all in all it seemed to go smoothly. I remember I unsoldered the original wires as they were a very small gauge and soldered in the correct gauge wire called out for the pump. In addition I took this as an opportunity to go through the entire fuel system. I pulled all the injectors and sent them off to be cleaned and balanced. I replaced all the flexible fuel hose. Did my best to clean out the hard lines. Replaced the filter, of course. Replaced the fuel pressure regulator. And the big item was dropping the fuel tank and cleaning it out. It wasn’t leaking or rusted through, but it did have scale rust on the inside which was contributing to my pump failures. I put some BBs in to act as aggregate and rolled and shook it up, then cleaned it out with some cleaning chemical and finally coated the inside with the POR15 fuel tank liner kit. I have been happy with the outcome and would recommend it to anyone. Once all that was done I left a fuel pressure gauge hooked up in the system so that I could monitor if the fuel pressure dropped during WOT. I ran it like that for a few weeks and never saw an issue so I removed the gauge from the system and tightened everything up. I’ve been running with the single pump for 5~6 years now with no issues I’m glad to report, including some track days at the BMW test track.

I'll post a few pictures of the car that were sent to me when I was still dreaming about it in the next post.
Last edited by ericono on Tue May 15, 2018 12:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ericono »

Image

Image

Image

Updated links away from Photobucket.
Last edited by ericono on Wed May 16, 2018 12:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by ericono »

Here are a few shots from one of the track day events that a buddy of mine took for me. I've probably posted some or all of them elsewhere, but I wanted to have a copy hear to help show the story of my sixxer.

Image

Image

Image

And she made the cover of our local chapter newsletter:

Image

I'm not done with the work I've done on the car to date, so I'll have to add more details after I catch my breath (and give my fingers a rest...)
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Post by GazM3 »

Some nice long posts there Eric.
It's always interesting to here the psychology of why someone chooses their particular cars.

For me BMW has always been a but of an underdog and they compete with the more sport specific cars (Porsche Ferrari etc) by having good dynamics rather than outright power. They also appeal as being more practical for road use etc.

The e24 esp in euro Motorsport spec ticks a lot if the boxes as a classic car. Relatively affordable, cheap to maintain, economical(sort of) to drive, and beautiful to look at.

The other thing that appeals with the m635csi is there is a Motorsport link both with the e24 and the m88/3 (sadly not together) so improve can be made to handling and much more can be had relatively inexpensivly to liberate more horses still keeping it looking factory fresh and not devaluing the car. It's nice as an enthusiast to things still to do on the car to improve it.

It's already starting to happen but these cars will start to skyrocket in value. I wouldn't be surprised if they start fetching $100k+ in as little as 5yrs. Maybe sooner. So every dollar spent in improvement will give back 2 or 3.
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84 E24 M635csi
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Post by tschultz »

Very good, thanks for sharing :)

Can you further explain how the car has compared to your childhood expectations, and what you like about it at this stage of your ownership vs other more modern cars?
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Post by ericono »

Gaz,

Thanks for the kind words. It sounds like you and I are drawn the M635 for much the same reasons. I don't know if I consider BMW much of an underdog anymore, at least here in the States, and especially where I live (~15 mins from the BMW factory) they are quite common, and I have to say I am not as enamored with the newest turbo M engines, but at least they are still staying loyal to the straight 6 (for now) so it's not all bad, but certainly back in the '80s I completely agree, I viewed them as underdogs then. And, as you said, successfully competing with smaller, sports car focused companies.

I also agree, it seems like the e24 should see it's stock rise sometime, sooner than later, but honestly, I don't really care as I have no intentions of ever selling it so it is in effect value-less to me. I only say that from a monetary standpoint since from an emotional standpoint it is priceless.

tschultz,

Thanks for posting and those are some very interesting questions I had not anticipated. I'll give it my best shot.

As for comparing to childhood expectations, that's a bit complicated. Visually, of course, what can I say, I love it. When I drive her into work (or anywhere for that matter) I still turn around on my way in for one last look (or two). The shape still does it for me. Obviously I'm biased, but I don't think BMW has built a better looking car. Sure there are a few details I could get picky about, the main one being that I wish it were a pillarless coupe, but that still doesn't mean that I'd have another BMW over the e24. I still love the seats and the steering wheel. What a great office to sit in when driving. And I still like to stare at the M88 sitting under the hood.

From a performance perspective, if I am honest...we're not there yet. I don't fault the car though. As I said in the second post I knew going in that the car needed a fair amount of attention. I'm also constrained by my fun money so I try and give the car the love it needs and take care of anything that requires immediate attention while also doing as much preventative maintenance as I can. Currently I've got some money saved up so that I can finally get serious about the suspension and next on the list will be brakes. I prefer to get those two subsystems squared away before tearing into the engine. And besides the engine will be another level up on the cost scale to do what I want to do with it. With that being said, the engine is currently nowhere near it's original 286hp. I was hoping that once I went through the fuel system I would feel an improvement, but, other than fixing the starvation issues, it didn't really change much. One thing I haven't had done which I am kind of thinking should help at least some is balancing the ITBs. I had the valves done as stated before, but I didn't realize until more recently that balancing the ITBs could have a decent impact on power. The car is still perfectly drivable, but is not in tip top shape. Again, it hasn't lessened my enthusiasm for the car. I just have to pick and choose what my priorities are and how I want to proceed. I'm in it for the long haul and have a pretty clear overall vision of what I want to do with the car. So I try and make sure I stay on target and move forward. Sometimes that may involve big steps, but most of the time it's a lot of baby steps. Brakes are another area that I want to improve. On the street it's been fine. No issues I can think of, but when I have tracked the car, the brakes have stood out for there lack of endurance during repeated abuse.

For the second question, what I like about the e24 compared to other more modern cars, it's the whole experience for me. Some of it is just popping in some '80s tunes and being transported back in time. I also feel like the driving experience is more engaging in the e24. It strikes the right balance of just modern enough to be confident in highway traffic, but still a driver focused machine rather than a electronic laden, wi-fi, coffee house on wheels that it seems like cars have morphed into these days. I know when the e24 was new people complained about it's weight, but nowadays 3300lbs seems fairly svelt. I'd still like to get my car down as close to 3000lbs as possible, but I'm not complaining where she's at even right now.

Sorry I rambled on there again, but I hope I answered your questions. How about you, what are your thoughts on those same questions?

In the end, there are times when I have to remind myself that I actually have an M635 sitting just outside the doorway. When I do, I just smile. Dreams do come true.

Eric
'85 M635, '00 528iT, '98 Z3
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Re: The quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Post by ericono »

Well, after a cough short cough delay, I am back on the M6. Life has a way of changing directions a lot, doesn't it. Got my daughter into college, constantly trying to keep my son headed in the right direction and took a big trip to Japan, which was great since I hadn't been there in nearly 15 years sadly.

After looking through my previous posts I don't think it is clear, but unfortunately my sixxer has been sitting patiently and waiting for me to get my act together. While I wasn't able to work on her, I was still doing research, formulating plans and building up my stash of parts, helping to spread the financial pain out a bit.

After using it for a number of years as a daily driver, I really wanted to take care of a bunch of nagging issues with the car: the suspension (including all rubber pieces) was nearly all original which meant past its due date. The drivetrain had a nice coating of used motor oil on and around it. The air conditioning had devolved into just air, without the conditioning. Pretty sure I was down to just 1 broken speaker on my stereo system and a few other random details I am forgetting right now. Thankfully the car only has about 80k miles on it so it’s more a function of time passing than any other issue.

To get this long journey started, I tackled the front suspension first. By that I mean I pulled everything out: struts, control arms, anti-roll bar and the front subframe. I sent the front subframe and an e28 rear subframe and e32 control arms to a local powder coating place and had them weld in the M Wrench steering fix in the front and the camber and toe adjustable plates in the rear subframe. I got the e32 control arms because I wanted to use the factory spherical bearing setup they originally came with. I also learned the M635 front subframe is slightly different from the 635/535 subframe as the M635 subframe has an extra provision or 2 for heat shields that that 635/535 subframe does not. I had gotten an extra front subframe because I wanted some extra front strut housings and compared the 2 subframes before sending one to the powder coaters. Glad I double checked first. Here's a link I found for another thread where I was discussing this topic: http://bigcoupe.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.ph ... =spherical

Regarding the extra front strut housings, I cut the spring perches off and sent those to GAZ shocks in the UK so that they could fabricate some coilovers for me. I also got coilovers for the rear from GAZ. On the fronts, they were kind enough to box weld the anti-roll bar mounting tabs so I am feeling confident I should see no issues in the future there. GAZ was very good to work with. They answered many weeks of questions I had for them and the product they sent back certainly looks nice and to a high quality. I haven’t installed them yet so I can’t comment on performance yet, unfortunately.

Regarding the anti-roll bar mounting tabs. I wanted to get them beefed up because I finally procured a set of anti-roll bars from UUC (27mm F and 22mm R). I say finally because it took nearly a year from when they appeared on their website for sale to getting them in my hands, and even then there was a quality issue with 1 bar and missing bushings which I had to keep pushing for, but in the end they finally made it all right. I am glad I have the bars in hand, but the whole process didn’t get me excited to order more of their parts. We’ll see.

One final note of the anti-roll bars, I also got some reinforcement plates that need to be welded to the chassis itself where the bars mount to the chassis. These were fabricated by an individual on either here or BF (or maybe both). So I am feeling fairly confident that I should have addressed any potential weak points regarding the anti-roll bar mounting.

For my control arms I already had been running one of the “softball” spherical UCAB, the version that included a layer of urethane between the spherical bearing and the UCA housing in an effort to allow for some compliance in this connection point. I ran them for ~10k miles before parking the car, and was very happy with the results. I also got some new e31 LCAs ready to install once I get everything back together. I also got some adjustable camber plates for the coilovers. I decided to get the ones from Ireland Engineering which allow me to still use the factory rubber upper strut mounts, again trying to find what I believe to be a good balance between rigidity and compliance.

Right now I have a bunch of suspension parts and my front suspension removed and the next steps are engine clean up, gaskets/seals replacement and the infamous timing chain renewal…
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Re: My quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Post by ericono »

More activity recently. Still in disassemble mode. Today I tackled the starter motor. What a bitch. Thankfully I found this thread: http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?f=3& ... er#p969631 which was invaluable in helping me understand what I should be doing. I checked my trunk tool kit and did not find the 17mm box wrench. All i had was the open end wrench. Don't use it, I tried my best to round off the lower bolt head. Thankfully I didn't succeed. I ended up sacrificing a 17mm open end/box end wrench and ground down the outer surface until it would fit inside the tight confines of the starter motor flange area. Here's a pic showing how much I ground off, and a non-ground 16mm wrench to compare:
Image
Once that was done, it was fairly smooth. I used the same wrench to tackle the top bolt. Well, the same wrench and a cheater pipe to break it loose. See green pipe in picture below:
Image
Once the bolts were removed I had to use a block of wood and a hammer to tap it loose. I am assuming it had been in place since the guys in Dingolfing put it in on at the factory. I am planning to put a smaller high torque starter back in so this is hopefully the one and only time I have to deal with this bulky starter.
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Re: My quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Post by Shipper 01 »

Great write up. Loving this topic
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Re: My quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Post by ericono »

Thanks Shipper! It is still a slow process, but I am working my way through things as time allows. Still a ways to go before reassembly starts.

I wanted to add some links (for other's reference, as well as my own) that have been very helpful to me in understanding the details of how things are assembled on the car. I'll add other links at later dates as well so they are generally clustered in this post.

Some general links:

This guy has some VERY detailed explanations of the work he did on his car. Looks like he sold it, but I hope the site remains up:
http://www.1988bmwm5.com/

Another guy who has done a ton of work and kindly documented it:
http://www.m535i.org/officers/ra.html

This guy is my hero. He's got an e34 M5 and has done some incredible work on it. He is also very pleasant to interact with and generous with his time and knowledge. His thread is an inspiration and certainly helps to motivate me.
http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/e34-m5 ... build.html

Another inspiration for me as we seem to eerily have the same thoughts about how we want our M635s to end up. However, he is definitely further along than I, so hopefully I can learn from his work.
http://bigcoupe.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=29096

More M88/S38 specific:

This link has been great for the timing chain replacement:
http://bigcoupe.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=155

Came across this page with an xls for documenting valve adjustment and thought it was handy:
https://www.e30gruppe.com/wp.../bmw_s14 ... m3guru.xls

A great thread on balancing the ITBs. I have recently purchased on of his manometers.
http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=132257

A/C related:

Alot of great work here explaining the A?C system and how it functions:
http://bigcoupe.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21047

Cooling system:

Not sure yet, but this company's products look interesting. I'll keep you posted if I go this route or another:
http://www.autocoolguy.com/

more to come...
Last edited by ericono on Mon Jun 18, 2018 2:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: My quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Post by GazM3 »

Nice to see u still playing with the m635csi. They are a wonderful car and when u get them mechanically to their former glory (or beyond) there are one of the great driving cars that you could ever own in your lifetime. Being an appreciating asset money spent within reason will not be just poured down the drain.

I think for old cars they are great when everything works. Things like a/c, and other electrics are awesome when they work. Also fresh suspension on our cars can’t be underestimated.

I’ve just finished (well not really but major work is done ) my e34 540i/6. The poor old e24 need some live now. Driving with a slippy clutch and non functioning lsd is not cool. Also close to staring the haltech ecu upgrade. It’s a big step but it will unleash the m88 away from the Bosch flap door based ecu.
BMW’s
84 E24 M635csi
90 E34 M5 3.6
94 E34 540i/6 SC E85
97 E36 M3 euro SC U/C
97 Z3 2.8 widebody

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11 Audi S5 3.0 SC
19 VW Amarok V6
User avatar
ericono
Posts: 500
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 1:51 am
Location: Spartanburg, SC

Re: My quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Post by ericono »

Thanks Gaz,

Good to hear from you again. I love seeing what you are doing as well as I think we are on a similar page as far as what we want from our cars. I am especially excited to see how your Haltech installation goes. I agree, a modern ECU opens up a number of possibilities for a better driving/performing car.

It certainly sucks when I have to move other cars or responsibilities up the priority list over the M6, but that's life. It certainly doesn't mean the M6 is forgotten, just means more planning and research going on... :wink:

Eric
'85 M635, '00 528iT, '98 Z3
Shipper 01
Posts: 791
Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2008 5:26 am
Location: Sydney Australia

Re: My quest for the ultimate driving machine...

Post by Shipper 01 »

Ericono you have Gaz wrong. Gaz goes for speed. He lives the fast life of loose women and martini's. He's Melbourne's James Bond but too polite to boast about it. All his cars, when finished, far out perform the stock version. I'm positive he will not stop with his M6 until he has 350hp plus and sub 5 second 0-62mph times.

Gaz is right however re the drive-ability of the 6 series. Before my S38B38 swap into my 633 (tuning now, I too am aiming at the ultimate driving machine) I often went to the track and the 6'er is so so throw-able. A real hoot on the track with dial in (using your right foot) oversteer that is relaxed, progressive and easily controllable. So controllable that it is like having a switch, only with your right foot.

I look forward to hitting the track in my M6 rep with Gaz. We should leave some much more fancied cars in our wake.

I think the M6 is the next BMW to follow the E9 CSL and E30 S14 M3 re re-sale values. They were asking AUD$30k to $45k in Australia in 2009. Now they are asking AUD$80k to $116k. In ten years they will more than likely fall in the AUD$120k to AUD$200k range. These are the 286hp versions and over here they have great race heritage. Still, invest wisely in yours and you should see good increases in resale values in the coming years.

My wife is O/S later this year so I might drive the M633 CSi down and have a Martini (beer) with Gaz Bond and go for some solid drives through the twisty bits.

Keep us up to date with your build. More photos of the car too!
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