Tom's Track Car - BMW E46 -Engine Number 3



that focus didnt last long under your pressure :excited:

Yeah. Pulled away on the straights but found that do manage to presssure a lot of cars though the corners. Only way to get past some people on track at times especially if they have high powered cars.
 
Very nice Tom loved the videos, great driving, mr smooth??:wink:

Thank mate. Smooth is fast as you know, but love to keep it near the limit.

Weekend update... Also off work for a week so spent the day in the garage working on the new project... Hope you're all ready for updates like this for the next few months.

Picked up a Miltek 3" decat down pipe and link pipe for a Megane Engine.

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Engine into the garage and mounted on the Engine stand. Easier said than done with no garage door just a standard width door in the side of it as it's more a workshop than a garage.
Started to take photos and have a little look how everything goes together.
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Started to strip it down. Inspecting everything as it comes off.
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Stripped everything off it. degreesed and scrubbed down. It's come up really well to be honest
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Took the plugs out and put a camera down into the engine to have a look at what it looked like internally.
Turned it over and took the sump off.
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Keeping everything nice and organised, labeled and bagged as it comes off the engine.
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Starting cleaning up some of the larger engine panels like the sump. AC/Alternator bracket and cambelt cover and painting them... Will put those photos up when I've painted the whole engine and got it back together.
 
Silver paint would look good Tom...
Have you got the build all laid out in your head Or making it up dependent on parts available?
 
Silver paint would look good Tom...
Have you got the build all laid out in your head Or making it up dependent on parts available?

Actually decided to paint everything silver in the end. Nice and clean, my gearbox is that colour but that's got to come apart at some point
I've always had an idea in my mind of what I would do if i ever did a Meg conversion. I've sat and planned it out recently and been collecting parts for it. Hopefully do something a little different, still got a few bits to buy but moving in the right direction.
 
Sump off. Painted and cleaned. New gasket fitted and reinstalled.

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Starting to give the head and block some paint. Decided with silver. Nice and bright and clean looking. Will add some black highlights as I go.
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Whole block painted silver. If a jobs worth doing it's worth doing properly.

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Starting to build everything back up.. Start with the fuel rail and manifold

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Boost hose brackets sorted to keep the vac lines in place and painted back with silver bolts.
Fitted a new Throttle body as I found out the one with the Engine had a broken return spring.

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Put a few more brackets into place, alternator bracket and engine mount back then laid the Meg loom out around the engine. Chopped out a few bits I won't be needing and started to tackle the wiring side of things now. Started a new thread in the Engine Tech area for that though.
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well look at you..no messing about,is it?great effort Tom..glad you are taking your time to do it all properly..it will pay off in the end..
did you go spray paint or brush on??
 
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well look at you..no messing about,is it?great effort Tom..glad you are taking your time to do it all properly..it will pay off in the end..
did you go spray paint or brush on??

Brushed the paint on. Apparently you get better coverage and longer lasting with that type of paint, some of the brackets and highlights have been spray painted black though. Yeah coming together nicely now the wiring is sorted in my head, just waiting on ordering a few parts and starting on the gearbox rebuild to make it more suited to the Megane Revs.
 
Brushed the paint on. Apparently you get better coverage and longer lasting with that type of paint, some of the brackets and highlights have been spray painted black though. Yeah coming together nicely now the wiring is sorted in my head, just waiting on ordering a few parts and starting on the gearbox rebuild to make it more suited to the Megane Revs.
:thumb::thumb:
 
Productive Friday update...
Had some time to fire up a lathe and get on with some projects i've been thinking about. Making a conversion for the rear of a BMW E36 for my friend to run stiffer linear springs. Turning the top spring seat. Just for scale that's actually a 1" drill bit in the tail stocks chuck.

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Full kit put together. Upper spring seat made from a block of Nylon. Aluminium spacer to bolt the adjuster to the suspension arm and adjusted the diameter of some coilover adjusters I had knocking around. Both spring seats machined in the back with tapers to fit onto the stubs on the chassis and suspension arm.
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Car was filthy not only from the roads on the way to and from Anglesey last weekend but from putting a couple of wheels off the track and onto the grass running a little wide on the first corner. Time to get it on axle stands and washed while the weather is nice today.

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Gave the brakes a quick inspection. Still got 7mm on the front brake pads. Had 8mm before Anglesey so going to try and get Spa out of them at Easter rather than replacing them before hand.
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I was happy with it's performance at Anglesey and it was serviced just before the track day so that's it now washed, cleaned, hoovered and mechanically sound ready to Spa. So I've tucked it away on the other side of the drive ready to go. Won't be driven until then now.
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Few parcels arrived in the post today, the remaining gaskets for the turbo side of things also some new exhaust studs, just waiting for some manfold/turbo studs to come this week.
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Got as far as mounting the manifold onto the head with a new gasket, just waiting on a few parts like a new Turbo actuator and recirc valve from Matt. Need to get a cambelt kit ordered so I can finish off painting the block and get it timed up and built up with the turbo in place.
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Also made a few changes to how I'm going to run the alternator on this engine, no longer going to be running the smaller lightweight crank pulley and AC delete, going to just run the AC pump in situ. Was going to strip it and remove the pump portion of it but pointless really for a few KG so that's back on and mounted on the other side of the block, just waiting for a freshly built alternator to go on this engine too.
 
Great work as usual Tom. Any clues on what turbo you’re going to run?

Just the standard Turbo like I said last night Ben. Trying to keep This simple for the time being, potentially upgrades in the future when it's in and running properly and had some miles run on it. Looking forward to trying it though now, but I know I'll miss NA.
 
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nice work Tom..are you heat wrapping your exhaust manifold??

Not the manifold at this moment in time. The down pipe was done when I got it.

Not done anything on it this week. Got my hands on the Renault Timing tools for a few weeks so ordered a Cam belt kit and water pump from RPD while they're on sale this week at £135 free delivery.

Need to start the hunt for a gearbox but also need to be saving to go to Spa.
 
Little update, things have slowed down a little bit now but going to keep this going up little updates as I do a few things.

Started off the week with a few parcels, new timing belt kit from RPD, picked it up for a great price of £135 posted.

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Firs step is to pop out the Cam Covers from the gearbox end of the head. Spin the cams so they are under and just short of horizontal and slowly rotate the engine until the timing pin drops into the crank locking position. Then the cam locking tool can be put into position to lock the cams.

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Then onto removing the tensioner, idler and cam belt. Using the second tool locking the cam pulleys into position you can then unbolt the pulleys without damaging the cams, these were extremely tight had to crack out the long breaker bar and put more force though them then I ever had to before.
Then started to clean up that end of the block and paint it before fitting a new water pump and cambelt... To be continued...


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Then spent a little bit of time working on the loom. I've put a few hours into working with the Clio loom and producing new wiring diagrams and tables with my own version of the loom as I couldn't find any information of anyone doing it the way I wanted to do it using the PH1 loom. I've also been sent some really shocking photographs of some peoples/mechanics works who are doing these so much happier doing it myself and showing people on here how it should be done.

Started by depinning the wires from the ECU plug that I'm going to be adding to the Clio loom.

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I'd previously laid the loom out around the engine while it was on the engine stand and marked the areas of the loom I wanted to remove with the green insulation tape so they could be easily spotted. Traced the wires back to the ECU plug and removed them ready to go into the Clio ECU plugs. To be continued...

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