The Bavarian

[tenwierdufos]

Well, you asked for it...


Here is my current project. Not my first attempt at diesel tuning although the first diesel BMW i have ever owned.

As a forewarning, this is going to be a very SLOW progressing project haha. Partly due to time and money, mainly down to the fact that i want to get it right, first time wherever possible! Lots of head down researching action

I have before me, a 1998 BMW 318TDS Touring, it weighs 1400kg and is very lacking in the power department.

The engine is a "M41D17" which is heavily based on the "M51D25" that you find in the 325tds. The pistons are identical, the head design is the same, etc etc, in fact 86% of the engine is, but they lopped 2 cylinders off, hence the odd displacement!

It has 1665cc to play with... 107,000 miles, a cast iron block, ally head, Garrett GT15 and an electronic controlled pump like you get on the XUD11BTE, allbeit Bosch and a lot stronger AND has an electronic lift pump in the tank, which seems totally unnecessary to me, but makes bleeding the system a total breeze.

90bhp and 140lb/ft torque as it and most of that seems to be used by the belt driven rad fan (needs to go get lost somewhere!)



The first things that are going to happen, is stuff that is needed before its next MOT (Jan) brake lines, bushes, a good hit with the underseal stick.

Clutch, its a bit "soft".

Then coilovers, and i want to send it on a run up the poddington strip, think of it as a way of seeing the difference


At the moment i am thinking of trying plonking a TD04 on it, purley because thats what came on the 325TDS, which means its a bolt on mod. No funny business. But i do eventually want to end up in VNT land. Low down boosts is super fantastic!


I dont have to worry too much about the power the standard clutch can take luckily BMW use the same part on the small 4 cylinder engines as they do on the 6 cylinders up to the 328i, which has muchos more power, so there is some fair room in that and the drive train. Good times!


The main concern i have with this engine, is, keeping EGT's down, the only example i have to go off is people who have tuned its bigger brother, and they have issues with the heads cracking if the air inside gets too warm. Dont fancy cracking any heads... they arent amazingly easy to come by!




Pictures, everyone loves pictures.

The day i got my hands on it.



Rear shocks were a bit, erh, faulty.


Surprising how much interior has to come out to replace them, didnt even have to jack the car up though!


The important bit, look at all that ROOM

The plastics on the left hand side of the engine is actually an air box, that sits just above the exhaust manifold and turbo, so much more room to be had with a different air filter re-located somewhere.

Its canted over to the left, just as the pugs are canted backwards.


Radio in, priorities guys.


And the most recent update, e38 wheels Low offsets are good offsets (if you put coilovers on these without low offset wheels the coil presses against the tyre and it wont even turn! Found this out the hard way on an old project...)

Also its not actually lowered here, just has a boot full o'crap!

[THE_Liam]

Will be keeping an eye on this, always fancied a 325TDS but their actually pretty poor on fuel so I hear.

[tenwierdufos]

The 325tds will do 40mpg on a run from what i can find, i am averaging about 48 in this so far, with some motorway some a/b road driving. Which isnt bad when you consider the heavy rwd setup.

The 325tds's big let down though is the fuel pumps, they are very weak, very common to fail and cost more than the whole car to replace. Otherwise i might have been tempted myself.

[Poodle]

Unusual to see one of these tuned, look forward to following your progress!

[zx_volcane]

TD04 might be a good simple bolt on upgrade, came on the 525 as well I think (same engine?)

But might aswell go straight to vnt, you could control with a boost can to get you going

Nice and easy to swap out turbos on these anyway, might aswell chuck in an egt gauge while you're there and see how it goes.

[tenwierdufos]

Unusual to see one of these tuned, look forward to following your progress!

Yeah, for sure, which is going to make it a nightmare haha.

TD04 might be a good simple bolt on upgrade, came on the 525 as well I think (same engine?)

But might aswell go straight to vnt, you could control with a boost can to get you going

Nice and easy to swap out turbos on these anyway, might aswell chuck in an egt gauge while you're there and see how it goes.

I guess so, we will see, its probably not going to get any power mods until after march/april, but i will most likley start collecting parts ready

Yeah its the same engine as the 525, also the P38 Rangerover and Vauxhall Omega.

What is a boost can? Will probably get an EGT guage in before i start looking at upping any power, just so i can guage whats "normal" now, save panicking over it later. If i blank off the EGR which needs to be done anyway it leaves an ideal space to put a wee sensor.

[Scott]

Ah cool, just seen your location. You should come down to Ace Cafe this Saturday, a load of us are meeting up for a day of banter and talking about cars. It'd be a good way of getting to meet everyone, with the added bonus that a few of the attendees are very knowledgable about turbos

[tenwierdufos]

Ah cool, just seen your location. You should come down to Ace Cafe this Saturday, a load of us are meeting up for a day of banter and talking about cars. It'd be a good way of getting to meet everyone, with the added bonus that a few of the attendees are very knowledgable about turbos

I would if i could, but its very rare i get a weekend off work. Am i right in guessing its not an evening thing?

I just had this weekend off but wont see another one for a while!

[4WayDiablo]

11am-4pm fella for Saturda. Ace day

Looking forward to the project. Tyre smoke/diesel smoke/sideways is FTW

[MCH]

WOW those rear shocks look like they've been in the sea!

[tenwierdufos]

So, i was a bit bored this afternoon and decided to investigate how much room there is down the side of my engine with the airbox out the way, answer is a lot, downside, all the space is above the manifold, not below it where the turbo is (because of the steering column) so probably cant fit anything bigger in there without making a new manifold.






The current turbo-ings, there isnt any play at all in the way i would think is dangerous, but there does seem to be a bit of "shaft float"? i.e. back and forth, this is normal though isnt it?

All the oil will be from the oil breather with belches directly into the turbo inlet currently.



But then after reviewing my photos i did notice something, first of all, is that pipe even on the boost side properly?! Looks like its not even clamped up to me haha. Guess i will have to strip the airbox off again and have a look before i drive again.

Also, someone has definatly put glow plugs in it at some point, because, i just found an old one hiding behind my fuel pump...

[Dum-Dum]

Your gonna make me miss my E36 325TDS estate, it was epic, utterly slammed on coilovers, M3 bodykit, massive straight through exhaust and tan leather. One of my favourite cars Ive ever owned (apart from the tyre bill and finding the rear spring mounts were made of rust).

For the air filter stick a bit of pipe in the turbo elbow and locate the filter there the washer bottle is then get a 1L kit car washer bottle off ebay and locate it elsewhere (ill find you pics of mine if you want)

[tenwierdufos]

Your gonna make me miss my E36 325TDS estate, it was epic, utterly slammed on coilovers, M3 bodykit, massive straight through exhaust and tan leather. One of my favourite cars Ive ever owned (apart from the tyre bill and finding the rear spring mounts were made of rust).

For the air filter stick a bit of pipe in the turbo elbow and locate the filter there the washer bottle is then get a 1L kit car washer bottle off ebay and locate it elsewhere (ill find you pics of mine if you want)

If i can do that then i will call it a successful project haha.

Did you ever get into any tuning with your 325tds?

[tenwierdufos]

I like boost guages.

[tenwierdufos]

Well i went for a drive today, to see what kind of boost this thing is actually doing, and also to see if it smokes

Answer seems to be, a lot more than i originally thought, on both counts

It will boost 18/19psi between 2500 and 3500rpm

But at 3500 it jumps up! to 22psi right until the power dies at about 4500rpm. (its quite a revvy wee engine)

Also, it smokes at full throttle, on boost, off boost at any rpm. Not sure if either of the above are things i should be concerned about, it doesnt go any faster for the extra boost about 3500 haha.

Not noticed it smoke before but in the dark right now you can really see it in the headlights.

[Scott]

If it's still smoking then you need more boost

[tenwierdufos]

If it's still smoking then you need more boost

Haha well normally i would have though that, and if it was about 14 psi at the moment i would agree, but it evenly smokes on and off boost, as long as i have it planted, and topping out at 22psi is a lot more than i was expecting! (kind of makes me wonder if there is the room for more :S)

[Midnightclub]

If it's smoking on boost, but is still producing decent boost on the gauge I'd say you've probably got yourself a leak somewhere

[Dum-Dum]

Thought Id show what my 325tds did to a 30psi gauge

[tenwierdufos]

If it's smoking on boost, but is still producing decent boost on the gauge I'd say you've probably got yourself a leak somewhere

I am measuring the boost on the gauge at the inlet manifold, surley if there was a leak the pressure would drop too? Im wondering if i have a blocked exhaust at the moment, going to rip the cat off tomorrow and see if it helps

Thought Id show what my 325tds did to a 30psi gauge

Hahaha, im surprised they can take 30psi! Did you get much into tuning with it?

[Dum-Dum]

Hahaha, im surprised they can take 30psi! Did you get much into tuning with it?

No, 324tds pumps are like rocking horse shit and the 1 I did get hold of was f*cked. shortly after i found out that my rear suspension was made of rust so i scrapped the car. Find my project thread for it and youll see.

[tenwierdufos]

Cool, i shall go find it now

Im an going to avoid replacing my pump if possible, on to some leads as to reprogramming the ecu.

(They are read only, but very old school tech, you can pull the map off with USB ROM readers, play with the data, and write the new stuff to UV erasable chips)

Its like computing in the 80s all over again!

[tenwierdufos]

Cat gone...

No longer smokes + it revs to about 5 grand before the governor kicks in. Winning

Also seeing as all it has is a back box standard now the cat is gone it sounds epically agricultural.

[Scott]

Good progress! This thread needs more pics/videos!

[Poodle]

Hahaha this has got to be the best free mod for any turbo diesel engine! I was going to suggest bigger intercooler, but you've already solved the issue lol.

[tenwierdufos]

Good progress! This thread needs more pics/videos!

Don't have a picture of the new or a video yet. But I will work on that.

The old cat was blowing really bad... The previous owner had wrapped it in heat wrap and kitchen foil :/

Also the wishbones seem to be brand new and someone has already done the rear brake pipes, ideal

   

   

[Ruan]

Cool, i shall go find it now

Im an going to avoid replacing my pump if possible, on to some leads as to reprogramming the ecu.

(They are read only, but very old school tech, you can pull the map off with USB ROM readers, play with the data, and write the new stuff to UV erasable chips)

Its like computing in the 80s all over again!

From reading they're MSA11s.

I think they have x2 chips in hi-lo if they're anything like the MSA15s - they're an odd ECU as they're partially 8bit data and partially 16bit data... Not fully 16bit like the EDCs...

Should be able to get some flash erasable chips for it, rather than the UV ones, I think they use 27C256 in PLCC32 - although the 27C designation would indicate they're UV erasable, in PLCC32 they can't be erased - they haven't got the tab you pull off to expose the window to blast it with some UV, you'd have to smash open the package - by which point it's f*cked anyway.

You can just buy some 27SF256 in PLCC32 and jam them in - then you can shove them in your Willem and flash away - keep the originals for if anything happens.

[tenwierdufos]

Cool, i shall go find it now

Im an going to avoid replacing my pump if possible, on to some leads as to reprogramming the ecu.

(They are read only, but very old school tech, you can pull the map off with USB ROM readers, play with the data, and write the new stuff to UV erasable chips)

Its like computing in the 80s all over again!

From reading they're MSA11s.

I think they have x2 chips in hi-lo if they're anything like the MSA15s - they're an odd ECU as they're partially 8bit data and partially 16bit data... Not fully 16bit like the EDCs...

Should be able to get some flash erasable chips for it, rather than the UV ones, I think they use 27C256 in PLCC32 - although the 27C designation would indicate they're UV erasable, in PLCC32 they can't be erased - they haven't got the tab you pull off to expose the window to blast it with some UV, you'd have to smash open the package - by which point it's f*cked anyway.

You can just buy some 27SF256 in PLCC32 and jam them in - then you can shove them in your Willem and flash away - keep the originals for if anything happens.

Cheers for the info! I have been investigating getting a EPROM reader and some uv erase able chips to play with.

There are a few companies that sell a chip with a map for 120bhp so my plan was to buy one (they are about £80) and compare it to the data on my standard chip to see how it's done.

I know on the 6cyl diesel they have two chips but I have been reading (if this info is correct) one has the injection amount request map on and one had a smoke limit map that throttled it back again with the help of a maf sensor.

However I don't have maf sensor at all.

So don't know what it will have. I am going to crack my ecu open in the next few days I think, saves all this guessing business!

[tenwierdufos]

A wee video.

Its very tractory, and make wistley noises, but also very clean. Before the cat came off it smoked something rotten.

[tenwierdufos]

Looks like i need to get some mad soldiering skills to put some sockets on my chips...