Our mid-engine Insight has one more year of competition in her, but then in 2018 we'll have something new. Well, we already have it.
Here it is.
Our mid-engine Insight has one more year of competition in her, but then in 2018 we'll have something new. Well, we already have it.
Here it is.
Yes! E28 ftw.
Adam
Sweet.
Time for some more detail about the car.
It's a BMW E28 528e. This means that it has the M20B27 engine, which is stroked version of the engine from the 325i/525i, but has "efficiency" optimized head and cam. It made around 125hp when new, but I suspect a few ponies have escaped.
The car is in overall great shape, especially for 210k miles. The radio works! AC blows ice cold! We drove it back from Savannah to Atlanta with no problems. It was available for challenge budget because of a title snafu (but we're reasonably sure it wasn't stolen).
So what's the plan? Our goal is to increase the horsepower by a factor of at least 4. Because right now it refuses to do a burnout. In the wet. With a neutral drop.
For the love of all that is holy and good on this earth, TUCK. THOSE. BUMPERS.
what's the plan to quadruple the HP? Keeping the current engine in it?
In reply to 4cylndrfury:
Don't worry, it's in the plan.
In reply to onemanarmy:
The plan involves more cylinders, more displacement, and more turbos.
In reply to 4cylndrfury:
What's wrong with diving boards? They might want to go swimming
Okay, finally time for some updates. We've mostly stripped the car, and we're approaching time to start putting things back in.
We thought the headers would clear the steering linkage and subframe, but in fact, they would not. The nuts had long rusted in to oblivion, so we broke out our favorite tool, the plasma cutter.
Disassembled the engine, as the crank, rods, and pistons are the most sellable part. Installed in a normal M20 block they give a 2.7L low-compression, boost friendly stroker engine. The engine components are all in great shape.
Some of the most impressive weight savings was in the doors. We weighed them as we took them off the car, including windows, power window mechanisms, power door locks, etc, and total they came it at around 220lb. After removing unnecessary hardware and doing some cutting, all four total 108lb.
We also started cutting out the trunk floor.
That's all you've done in 6 months?? Oh I suppose winning the $2017 got in the way...but come on let's pick up the pace!
In reply to maschinenbau :
We were just a bit busy with the Insight, you know, winning and all. We've done more too, this thread is a bit behind reality. The engine was pulled and disassembled before the Challenge, but the floor cutting happened yesterday.
We picked up a pair of LS's a while back, a 6.0 and a 5.3. These LS's are out of Chevy trucks, like the early 2000's Silverado and Escalade. The 6.0, which was our first choice for a motor, was fine except for one cylinder, where a lean air-fuel ratio melted a hole in a piston, which got stuck all over the cylinder wall. After 45 minutes with a dingle ball hone, the cylinder wall looked appreciable, but we decided to go with the 5.3 if it looked okay since it presumably had 8 solid pistons. We tore that apart as well and found it to be in good shape. After replacing piston rings and rod bearings, we put her back together.
We also picked up a GM TH400 automatic transmission as well. This is a solid 3-speed automatic designed in the late 1960's that came in various big block GM vehicles as well as Jeeps, military vehicles, and more. It bolts right up to the LS6.
As for the rear end, we decided to go with a Ford 8.8. They're plentiful and can definitely handle the power we're planning on making. We found one in a Ford Explorer.
One side is about 3.25 inches longer than the other side, so we picked up an extra short axle and shortened the axle tube so that it would fit the width of our car a little better. Needless to say, an E28 is a little slimmer than an Explorer.
Up front, we're using an E36 subframe, which we anticipated might just bolt up. It did not, but was close. It's about 3 inches wider than our stock subframe, so we'll have to weld in new subframe mounts.
We've cleaned up the body a good bit and are still working on removing as much material as possible. With a great deal of pain and suffering, the sunroof finally came out last night.
Apart from all this, we've been planning stance out quite a bit, as you can see...
Here's the offending piston from the 6.0 liter LQ4:
Yesterday we cleaned up and removed unused wiring from the engine harness. EGR, AC, transmission control, among others were removed.
We're down to just power, starter, tach signal and OBD wires that have to connect to the rest of the car.
Conveniently, this also gives us a big pile of 16/18/20ga wire to use elsewhere in the car, for free!
Neat project, but going to a solid rear axle seems like a step backwards...e28 differentials are pretty strong. I know several people who have swapped in an LS engine, and as far as I know their rear ends are holding up without any problems. If you need more strength, I believe the larger differential from certain years of the 7 series can be swapped in without too many issues.
There's a ton of information available on these cars over on the mye28.com board.
stuart in mn said:Neat project, but going to a solid rear axle seems like a step backwards...e28 differentials are pretty strong. I know several people who have swapped in an LS engine, and as far as I know their rear ends are holding up without any problems. If you need more strength, I believe the larger differential from certain years of the 7 series can be swapped in without too many issues.
There's a ton of information available on these cars over on the mye28.com board.
We've never built a drag focused car and the goal of the E28 is to dominate drags over autocross, so we decided on a solid rear axle. The diff that came in our E28 was also an open diff.
In reply to carrera32 :
The Midget was made with the same intention as well. Looking forward to seeing progress on this. Y'all do any lap sim to get ideas of ETs with your powertrain choice? I remember that being really helpful when deciding to switch from Powerglide to TH350 on the MG.
We CNC now. Front subframe adapters made to mate an e36 subframe to the chassis.
Hey, who put this engine in our car?
You can see the E36 subframe and steering in place under the engine. Since the manifold on the drivers side es going forward, there's tons of space for steering.
Here are the nice CNC'd bits that weld to the car, and bolt to the engine mounts (gold).
Hard mounted V8? Such rumble. I like those subframe adapters. How did you do your 8.8 3rd link?
A lot has happened since our last update! With competition less that a week away, we're extremely close to driving the car.
First, our three link rear suspension has been finished for a while. We're using a shortened Ford 8.8 rear axle, which has a limited slip differential. We welded a tube between the rear shock towers as the rear shock mount. More pictures to come of the three links and where they mount inside the car.
Up front, we adapted an E36 subframe and coilovers and built our own control arms.
It was exciting to finally get the car on the ground the other day!
Today, we installed a harness bar. Next year we plan to build a roll bar, but were limited on time this year.
Oh snap!
You guys berkeleying win, man. Don't ever let anyone tell you that being an English major is worthwhile. Salad shooters + LS swap + Ford axle = berkeleying win! Keep posting and proving that some college majors are still totally worth the time and investment.
I cannot explain how awesome this would be to own. I actually DREAM of something like this as a daily driver, gutted interior and all. (I’ve daily driven gutted vehicles for years and I love it!).
this is right as rain,
but the Dude in the Blue Sweat shirt............ with the hands in his pockets..................ya know that's a requirement to Work at Lockheed. so keep practisin' Love Tech best luck on a Repeat
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