My god, what have I done?

The O-Ring size on the high pressure fitting is critical, you want it to be a tight seal and require a bit of pressure to push the banjo fitting over it into place so it seals well. 

#15 in this diagram: 

Top O-ring in this pic is what you want to be tight, if not the banjo fitting may leak under high load (like moving a car in a driveway!)

In reply to engiekev :

Thanks! That's what I thought might be the issue, I appreciate the confirmation. 

If it gives you too much trouble, do you even need power steering?  I'm unfamiliar with the level of steering effort on one of these.

It is quite heavy with manual steering, a lot of weight on the front end.  You can "depower" the rack ala Miata by removing the internal seals but the effort is still pretty high. There is a manual rack out there that came on the 1.8L models (very very slow) but that is extremely hard to find now, that has a slower ratio rack so steering effort is slightly less than a "depowered" power steering rack.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I hope to scale it eventually, but I bet 30% of the total weight is in front of the axle centerline. 

Finally finished the battery relocation tonight. That was definitely a bigger project than it should have been, but I'm happy with how it turned out. 
 

The box really isn't big enough for 2x 3/8" rods plus the battery, but I'm pretty good at stuffing 40lbs of E36 M3 into a 5lb box. 
 

And the relocated cutoff switch. 
 

I also adjusted the front toe & got about 1/8" total toe-out(ish I just eyeballed it). I discovered that either the steering rack(or wheel)  isn't centered or something is out of alignment though, as I had to adjust the driver's side all the way in.

Oh, and I cleaned up the PS fluid mess, installed a thicker o-ring & topped off the fluid. It was late though, so I'll try bleeding it tomorrow & see if it works. 

Steering wheel is probably on some number of splines crooked. Not that I've ever had to noodle through that problem due to my own mechanical ineptness or anything. 

So technically that's not a proper battery box.  The tech guys let them through last year but the big part is SEALED vented box is the rule.  

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

I'll be honest, I don't know E36 M3 about this. I've been sending Tom pics & questions, and he said it's ok. 
 

It wouldn't be too difficult to seal this box if needed though. A bit of old bicycle innertube should work.

I went to the courthouse & got a tag for the car today, but it wasn't completely without issues. First, apparently MS doesn't allow antique tags for vehicles purchased out-of-state, so I had to get a regular 1-year registration, then next year I can go back in & get an antique tag(which is a 1-time fee for a permanent tag$. Oh well, the 1-year registration was only $43. 

However, the original builder of the car apparently wrote his old address on the title, then scratched it out & wrote his new address, when he sold it to AnthonyGS. That may not be allowed, but they sent it all into the state for review. So it's registered for a year(at least, I only need to take this registration back in next year), but I may not get a title back in the mail...

After that I tried getting the PS leak fixed again, and failed again, but I took it for a drive around the block anyway. A couple observations:

1. I've driven dumptrucks with better shifters. Seriously. First & second aren't too bad, but 3rd took several attempts & I couldn't get it into reverse at all. I think I'll probably have to buy new shifter cables after the Challenge. 
    
2. We have boooost! There's a bit of lag in first until probably 3k, but it pulled pretty decent through first & second up to around 60mph. It doesn't feel like the 350-375hp it's theoretically capable of, more like 250-275 by my backside, but I didn't blow off any couplers, nor were there any problems or noises that I noticed. Unfortunately I didn't log any data, nor think to check the boost gauge(I was 2x over the speed limit at that point), but it did give me a boost of confidence in the car(pun intended).

I found the specs for the PS o-rings, so this evening I'm going to see if I have/can find the right ones. If that doesn't fix the leak then I'll start trying to find a non-destructive way to loop the lines & bypass the pump. 

So apparently using the correct sized o-rings berkeleying matters. Who knew?

Oh, and eventually I need to find some ~1" shorter springs for the rear. Even with the coilovers dropped all the way down I'm still an inch higher in the rear vs. front. 

What length/weight springs do you need?  I've got a bunch sitting in my basement

In reply to docwyte :

Thanks! I'm not sure yet on rate or length, but tomorrow is the first event, that should give me an idea of how it handles. What's on there now are 300#, but I'll have to measure the free-length. They'd need to be no more than about 420# since that's about max for Koni Sports. 

Loaded up & pre-registered, it's been 14-weeks exactly since it got loaded on the trailer & brought home. 
 

Unfortunately, after a short drive around the block this morning it was still leaking power steering fluid. Desperate times call for drastic measures, so I looped the lines, and pulled the pump & belt. I didn't want to cut up the stock high pressure line though, so I made a trip to the parts store & $50 later found a random one that bolted up to the stock fittings. Damn near OE-looking, eh?

So I either need to figure out how to keep the pump from leaking before the Challenge, or find out what vehicle the part I bought is intended for & try to find one in the junkyard. 

I've put about 10-miles on it so far. I even got stopped in traffic for a mile or so this afternoon, but the temp gauge didn't climb at all. I logged a couple drives today, but haven't had a chance to look through them yet.

I think I underestimated the HP though, or maybe it's running better now that I put some fresh gas in it. It still doesn't feel that fast, but as soon as it hits boost everything else around you starts approaching very very quickly. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'll get arrested if I keep driving it on the street. 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'll get arrested if I keep driving it on the street. 

Sounds perfect!

gumby (Forum Supporter) said:

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'll get arrested if I keep driving it on the street. 

Sounds perfect!

Sweet, I'll call you for bail money - thanks!

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Let me know.  I'm sure I've got a bunch of 6 and 7" springs in about that rate in my basement

Looks great! Big turbo cars can be a bit misleading on how fast they feel from the driver’s seat. You don’t get that sudden hit from a small turbo, more like a smooth swell of power. Combine that with AWD, no wheelspin, no tugging at the steering wheel- just the speedometer reporting much higher numbers than you were expecting. What is the boost set at? 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

I've been too busy watching the rapidly approaching scenery to glance at the boost gauge much, but I saw 10psi at one point before I shifted. I logged data on a couple drives yesterday, hopefully I can find some time this week to see what's actually going on. 

More details later.

Oh wow! That went from zero-to-squeal in no time!

Awesome!

I'd typed up a whole long post earlier, but when I grabbed the link to the vid above safari refreshed the page I lost everything.

Here's the course map from today, I believe this was intended to be a TnT last month, and it worked out well for testing the car. 
 

The format was set for 3-runs for both heats in the morning, and a repeat of that after lunch. With Aeromoto & I codriving, I took my 3-runs, then he did his. Unfortunately the lack of power steering exasperated his bad arm, so with that coupled with a few points I'll outline below, we decided that 3-runs each was plenty of a test for the first time out.

First, overall driving impressions:

• The power delivery is smooth. Certainly more torque off the line would be nice, but there's no problem with it as-is.
• The brakes work well. Today's course didn't have any hard braking areas to really push their limit, but they felt balanced. 
• You need to LFB to get the car to rotate. I experimented with it around the two loops on the course, the car would understeer as soon as I took my foot off the brake, but the front would tuck back in with just a bit of brake. Not surprising at all for a nose-heavy AWD car. 
• The lack of power steering cost me time, but I think with some more seat time, and possibly a larger wheel, it wouldn't be a problem. Ultimately it will probably come down to a combination of budget vs. whether I can stop the power steering from leaking. 
   

None of my 3-runs were clean, but that's ok. I wasn't really pushing that hard, and didn't compare my times with anyone other than Aeromoto - I think he probably beat me. He was slower, but his runs were clean.

There weren't any real problems with the car, but they were:

• There's a slight mist of oil from the dipstick tube, which apparently is pretty common on DSMs. It wasn't enough to notice any change in the oil level.
• There were a few dribbles of gear oil out the vent tube I put in the xfer case.
• I'd filled the gas tank last night, and I think there might be a hole in the vent tube. We smelled gas, but didn't notice any leaks until after we loaded it back on the trailer.
• I think the camber on the RF corner might have slipped, so I need to pull the wheel & check it out.
• I need to step up to 10w-40 when I change the oil this week. I had 10psi at cold idle, and plenty when I glanced down on my first run, but idling hot in grid it dropped to around 5-6psi. I'm currently running 4qt of 10w-30 & 2qt of 5w-30(cheap) oil, which probably contributed toward that.

One good point, despite the ~90* temps during our heat, the temp gauge never climbed to 1/2-way. We confirmed the primary fan is working, and discovered the secondary fan runs when turning on the HVAC fan & pushing the AC switch(the AC system is long gone).

The only real disappointment of the day was regarding event safety. It's been about 20-years since I've been either an event chair, solo Safety Steward, or club autox chair, but at that time if there was any thunder or lightning the event would be paused & workers called in until at least 30-minutes had passed without either. During our work heat there was about 15-minutes of thunder and multiple cloud-to-ground lightning strikes before the event was paused for an early lunch. When we went to work our afternoon heat the storms returned, but the event continued uninterrupted. 

It sounds like it's running great in the video!

Awesome progress!  Glad to hear its off to good start for first test.

For the dipstick tube, a popular mod is to add a spring if the tube is blowing out a little due to high crankcase pressure.