Sold my Silverado, bought a BMW. Not a v6 :-P

[04SilveradoMykk]

These cars have some weird mechanical quirks. I was reading up on how the oil pump bolts will back themselves out and will sit loose in the bottom of the oil pan, some folks get as much as 7 loose bolts. So during an oil change I opt'd to drop the oil pan and check it out. Well, I did indeed find a nut from the oil pump laying in the bottom of the pan. I will go through and add lock tight to every bolt on the pump and get the pan back on before filling with $95 worth of fresh Mobil 1 0-40.... ick.

[FullThrottleV6]

[MusicMan]

Wow that's bizzare for sure. Make sure you clean the threads good, loctite doesn't like oil.

[04SilveradoMykk]

Okay, oil pump hardware cleaned & torqued with loctite. Oil pan on, filled with fresh 0w-40.

Got the engined fire up, brought up to operating temp. The cooling fans do a good job of keeping things cool, however I am blowing large amounts of white smoke. A sign that the head gasket(s) have given up doing their job.

I have a bottle of Blue Devil Head Gasket Sealant in there now, the gearhead in me knows this isn't the right thing to do but I can keep from having to pull those heads I will be stoked.

Made a little blue devil video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTseByTSDTk

[04SilveradoMykk]

The white smoke subsided, so I'll run the blue devil for now. I've got a new radiator on order and figured I'd take the downtime to install the velocity stacks intake manifold, after a repaint. Third times a charm, and hopefully I won't butcher it this time.

Strip old paint, again:



Bascoat VHT Red Fire:



Topcoats of Metalcast Red:



When I pulled the intake I found the crankcase vent (CCV) drawing in raw oil into the intake manifold, and thus burning it adding to my smoke problems. So I modified the CCV to run an external hose to an oil catch can. I sacrificed a vacuum port to run the hose out of the CCV, I needed a vacuum source for the brake booster so I drilled a hole and mounted a pipe fitting with a hose nipple sealed with Right Stuff.





Luckily everything fit on the test, the CCV with hose to the manifold and new vacuum port to everything else going on behind the motor.



Now I just need to pickup a new o-ring for the crankcase vent tube that runs under the manifold and bolt down the new intake, and then still wait for the new radiator to arrive.

[04SilveradoMykk]

Wrenchin' and drivin' it.

With the duplicolor engine rebuild done, I figured it could use a duplicolor brake job. The pads and rotors looked good, I was surprised. Every thing else mechanical on this car has been neglected.



The 6spd shift knob pulled off on me, I replaced it with an ebay pistol grip. That is the most comfortable & natural feeling shifter I've ever used.



Bypassed the power steering cooler that had a nasty leaking hose. I'll install a finned PS cooler once the warmer months come upon us. I will need to replace the PS pump soon, when I got the car the PS reservoir was empty and I have a feeling it was driven that way because now the pump grumbles and occasionally has a ton of resistance.





The first wash in god knows how long. It really does feel good to drive.





An Ignition Solutions Plasma Booster came my way off of a Mustang 4.6L, it feels like it picked up a little bit in the higher rev. Not nearly enough to justify the cost or install time.



I've noticed the engine responds drastically to temperature. Started making heat shields for the intake, still working on shielding for the air filter from engine compartment heat.

[triple_l82]

this is all pretty cool man. i like seeing different builds like this.

[04SilveradoMykk]

Thank you.

Today I decided to just take the car out and drive it hard. Went to a neighboring town on the other side of a mountain:

[04SilveradoMykk]

Here's an example of my nerdery, as if we ever had any doubts.

I got this idea to try golf ball dimpling on the throttlebody, once I have an idea I need to make it come to fruition before it consumes me.

So I sat with a die grinder bit in a drill and started making dimples in the throat of the throttle body. I also took my spare TB housing and ported and smoothed it over as the comparison. Whichever TB had a positive reaction on the street driving feel would stay.





The ported and smoothed TB felt better on the street.

So then I had another idea, and I wasn't ready to give up on the dimpling. Airplane wings use Vortex Genertors to prevent boundary layer separation at extreme angles.



Now imagine the top of the wing is the backside of the throttle blade, but since the blade starts vertical and eventually opens up to horizontal the uncontrollable turbulence is on the trailing edge of the blade right off of idle. (if there even is any "turbulance" since it's under a vacuum).

The front of the blade remains smooth, backside textured.





I may actually be on to something, the car feels more responsive off idle and during low throttle transitions. However, my butt-dyno isn't scientific and as long as it feels good to me I'm happy.

[04SilveradoMykk]

Update the thread:

The car has had a few changes lately.

[04SilveradoMykk]

I've also made a crazy decision to get away from the MAF and go "Speed Density" via a MAF Translator Pro and a 3bar MAP.







This crazy idea is in conjunction with another crazy idea, that will come later.

[skimphish]

Is the crazy idea throwing a V6 in the back that drives a massive turbo that feeds an even larger turbo for the engine up front?!?!

[04SilveradoMykk]

Is the crazy idea throwing a V6 in the back that drives a massive turbo that feeds an even larger turbo for the engine up front?!?!

No, no. Nothing that radical. Just a 4cyl to drive the turbo's

[04SilveradoMykk]

Replacing the clutch and flywheel, lightweight flywheel and 6 puck sprung clutch disc. Decided to pull the drivetrain as a whole. Seal up a few leaks, install a set of headers, duplicolor rebuild (engine degrease and paint), clean up and paint engine compartment. Convert to manual steering, remove dead A/C components. Dial in camshaft timing.... going a few degrees advanced on intake and tightening up the lobe separation a bit.










I really think every OHC engine manufacturer should use adjustable cam gears OE, seriously.

[04SilveradoMykk]

Degreased, pressure washed and painted:

[04SilveradoMykk]

Cleaning up the body/frame before the drivetrain goes back home.



Removed ABS pump, added manual brake bias valve on the rears. Replaced the hurt 540i steering gearbox with a 525i box converted to manual steering.




Spec lightweight flywheel and Spec kevlar clutch. A blend of oils to help keep gear chatter down with the unsprung clutch.







The aftermarket headers didn't clear the body of the car, primarily the steering box and steering shaft.



Before giving up on headers I wanted to try a set of the S65 V8 exhaust manifolds. Although they would have fit the engine with minor modification, they didn't even come close to fitting in the car. But I really liked them so they are now painted and hanging on the wall waiting a future project.





I finally gave up on the hopes of upgrading the manifolds and settled on heat wraping the OE manifolds and putting them back on.





I've been fighting getting the valve covers to seal. I've been wanting to seal up any leaks before getting the car to my exhaust guy. My plan is to run a single 3" all the way back with a Flowmaster Super 40 at the end and dual wall stainless tips out the OE location. If the single Flowmaster has some gnarly interior resonance I'll then add the vibrant resonator after the Y-pipe.



While the engine was out and I was dialing in camshaft timing I marked the harmonic damper of the true TDC of both forward cylinders on each bank. Using a spark tester to extend the coil boot in order to get a timing light on it, I'm working at dialing in ignition timing to actual crank degrees and not theoretical timing from the computer control tables. I'll continue this process once the exhaust is made so I'm not trying to do this with loud open manifolds and then I'll also have my wideband O2 back to maintain fueling adjustments as I change timing around.

As of right now I have a stock tune loaded on the Ostrich 2.0 chip emulator just to fire it up and move it around as it's being put back together. With my timing light trick I can see at idle it runs around 10 degrees after top dead center. I can't believe it even runs there, I assume they did this to heat up catalytic converters. My plan is to having it idling around 10-15 degrees before top dead center and then max timing will be around 30 degrees.



To-do list:
1) Bleed brakes.
2) Have single 3" exhaust system made.
3) Lowering coils and alignment.
4) Finish wiring front end lighting, cooling fans and tail lights.
5) Tuning, Tuning, Tuning.
6) Replace front seats.
7) Repaint car roof and trunk lid.
8)Rebuild differential with 3.64 gears and limited slip.
9) Wash, wash again. Pressure wash. Wax.
10) Install stereo for tunes.
11) Drive the freakin wheels off