Very nice! Maybe I missed this but what -if any- mods have been done to the engine which makes it put down so much HP?
TIA!

What exhaust did you wind up with?

i think it's probably not putting down quite that much HP. i do think the headers, muffler and intake setup add a bit of power. the headers are ebay / surewin & the muffler is a stebro race exhaust. the intake setup is a BMC airbox w/ fabricated plumbing as shown earlier in this thread. i probably need to calibrate the vBox for the car having lost a bit of weight. also, in lower gears, a light weight flywheel will show up on a chassis dyno as a power gain. this effect wanes in higher gears.

my guess is around 320 - 325 based on the butt dyno. it's nice!

UPDATE:

passed the 500 mile mark on the new motor yesterday. she's running beautifully. i think the studs on the transmission mounts are still a little bit too long, though. i hear an occasional clunk that sounds to me like the studs hitting the subframe. at the 1000 mile mark, she's going back up in the air & i'll address this issue. i also plan on new oil / filter along with another Blackstone Labs oil analysis report to make sure everything is peachy.

this thing is a riot; i really love it. funny story, though: when i blew the motor in march '09, it was my daily driver (yes, my track car was my daily driver). i bought an '02 XTerra 4x4 that i planned to use as my daily. literally a week after i finished the boxster, the motor in the XTerra went south!! comedy really is all about timing......

i popped that baby on craigslist for $3k and it sold in five hours. we picked up an X3 for my wife last week & i'm driving her G35 coupe now. good times.

might as well buy up some scratch tickets!


love the conversion... keep us updated.

for some odd reason, it hit 62 degrees in atlanta today. i took an opportunity to see if my paint could clean up at ALL.

i've been nervous about this. when the motor blew, i lived in an apartment. i bought a cover & the car sat outside for six months. the cover, it turns out, was not waterproof....... the car was COVERED in crap. mildew, gunk, slime, dirt; you name it.

turns out some water and a LOT of soap can do wonders . thanks, glasurit!

It looks great! Nice interior too.

Lookin good. Were you able to buy just the 540i maf housing, or did you buy it with a sensor and toss the sensor?

Your red interior trim looks great. Did you paint them or was it a factory option?

i found a guy on bimmerforums who had one. when they sell the new BMW sensor, it comes with the housing. there are lots of old housings lying around.....mine was $20.

thanks! i actually did it myself a couple of years ago. my interior was totally black and a little boring. i went a little nuts with the guards red, but it turned out pretty nice!

Update
 

well, we hit 1,000 miles on the 3.4L. it's been running great, with the exception of a single lifter that seems to be sticky & loud at idle. also, there's a wierd clunk under braking from immediately behind the passenger compartment firewall.

so, up in the air it went. checked fastener torques, looked for leaks, removed the transmission mounts & cut the studs shorter (i had a theory that the clunk was from the studs hitting the subframe). i also drained out the syntec 5w-30 and replaced it with syntec 10w-40 and a new oil filter. i collected a sample to send off to blackstone for analysis & comparison with the oil that shipped in the motor.

fired it back up......the lifter is quiet! it really seems to like the 10w-40. buttery smooth. still getting some clunk under braking. need to inspect my motor mount.....

finally, test drive. now in atlanta this weekend, we had TWO 70 degree sunny days in a row! perfect; the porsches were out in full force! my car FEELS really fast, but i have been looking for an opportuninty to prove it with....field research.

wish granted....twice! i was going up a hill on the way to an AWESOME set of downhill twisties. there was, unfortunately, a minivan in front of me. behind me pulls up a silver 996 3.6L. the minivan turned off! perfect. i nail the throttle and so does he. the boxster walked away from that 996 with NO problems; he absolutely could not keep up. phenomenal!

yesterday, the wife & i were out driving around, enjoying the weather & the twisties once again. as i roll toward a stop sign, i see a flash of red go through the intersection, followed by an unmistakable banshee scream that was obviously a GT3. SO, i of course promptly turned left to try & catch up. sure enough, he hit some traffic & i wound up right on his tail. 2010 997 GT3 that didn't even have license plates yet! still had the dealer temp tag. we got to a stop light & traffic cleared a bit; we both turned left & he HAMMERS it. so do i. at this point, i am fully expecting him to pull WAY out in front.....but he doesn't! he is definitely pulling away from me, but not by much. we were on a two lane weaving through traffic at a VERY brisk clip. the boxster hung on with no problem. MAN that GT3 sounds sick at WOT!

so, the verdict? i LOVE this car. it is an absolute joy to drive & seems to be stupid fast. i need to get it on a real dyno or take it for a 1/4 mile run or something. i can't wait to get it to the track & see how much of a difference this makes on lap times.

i will post my oil analysis when i get it back from blackstone. until next time, cheers.

Great stuff! Thanks for the update, insite.

Thanks for the update. Good to see that your transplant is working out so well!

Now... how did you manage to find a wife like that? ;)

Regards, Maurice.

for whatever reason, her tolerance to my driving is OFF THE CHARTS. she doesn't get sick & doesn't complain when i go full maniac. i think a lot of it is because she's ridden with me at the track & she trusts my driving & trusts that i slow down a LOT when there's traffic, blind drives, lots of cyclists out, etc.

she can actually read & send iphone emails while we're a little sideways......

lol she sounds like a champ.

LOL!!!
Does she have a sister?

Regards, Maurice.

So i understand that for the build you removed all secondary air stuff. Who took care of flashing the DME to ROW. I am interested in removing the secondary air system and o2 crap.

tholyoak (forum member) did the flash. the RoW program eliminates the secondary air stuff and also eliminates the second set of O2 sensors. it also disables the clutch start safety switch so you can start the car without pressing in the clutch.

Fun isn't it :) I've had my 3.8 Boxster neck to neck with a 997 GT3 and it was just about a perfectly even match. Unfortunately, even with B&B headers and FabSpeed exhaust the GT3 still sounds intoxicating comparatively....

We had two 60 degree days here the other day and I had the Boxster out, during one of the days I pulled into a BP station to get fuel and noticed that there was a 987 Boxster there as well. As I get out of the car, the guy says to me "that's not exactly stock, is it" with a smile, and I said "no, not exactly." We chatted for a bit and he asked if I'd give him a quick ride, so he parked his car and hopped in and we ran around for a few miles. By the end, I almost had to pick his jaw up off the floor LOL. As I was dropping him off, he just smiled and said "wanna trade?" Needless to say, I politely declined :)

it is quite a lot of fun. as to the exhaust note? the 997 GT3 and my car sound VERY similar. the stebro race exhaust is ridiculous. it's also ridiculous in the cabin, though.....

quick update; got my oil report back. the first report is in the column on the right. that oil is of unknown type & unknown viscosity, but the best guess is that it was Mobil 1 0w-40. it sat in the engine for eight years. you can see that there was a lot of fuel & a lot of silicon in it, which makes sense. unburned fuel from the combustion chambers slowly seeped past the rings & carried some lokasil with it into the oil.

the most recent test is the column on the left. this oil was castrol syntec 5w-30 with about 1000 miles on it. sort of a break-in oil. my guess was that, since many of the oil passages hadn't had oil flow in eight years, we'd see high metal oxides in this batch, and we do. aluminum and iron are high. silicon is still high, but decreasing. no fuel in this batch, so rings are looking good. all in all, this is about what i expected. i'll do another shorter oil change interval this time (2000 miles or so) & expect the numbers to look 'normal' at that point.

car is running very well & is a riot to drive. only weird issue just started the other day; when the car sits for awhile, it doesn't want to start. it pops & coughs. finally it fires up w/ a little smoke and all is well. leaky injector? we shall see.

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t...uff/E43841.jpg

have you put the car on a dyno? do you think it is more than enough power for a boxster? I was thinking of doing an engine swap as I have the 2.7 and the most cost effective way for much better numbers is a different motor. would u reccomend the 3.4 or a 3.6 or what have you.

Lobo,

do a 3.6 :) 3.4s can be had a bit cheaper though if it matters.

J

Lobo -

the power is awesome. depending on the year of your car, a 3.6 can be more difficult to install i think. that having been said, it could use a little more low end torque, which i think the 3.6 has in spades.

i haven't put the car on a dyno yet, but i plan to do it. i think it will be quite a lot. right now, i still have the stock cats & pipes from the 2.5L, but used in conjunction w/ headers & a race muffler. i will probably put some cat bypass pipes on it first & see how that works out.

it's a LOT of power for a boxster. it will blow the doors off a 996.

next up: weight loss. i'm going to pull the AC & a bunch of other crap.

Insite, where are you in the Atlanta area. I would love to take a ride in that monster.

i live in smyrna & work in marietta. i'd love to give you a check ride. supposed to be 60 degrees on sunday.....

Nice job, could you elaborate on how you moved the pins on the DME harness?

sure. there's a tool that can be used to gently remove a pin from the harness at the DME. after that, it can simply be pushed into another slot.

i don't have the tool, though, so i bought a pin with a segment of wire attached to it. i pushed it into the correct 'new' slot, then clipped the wire & soldered it to the new one.

I met Insite and went for a ride in his car. I can say this car is insane. It sounds amazing, and is crazy fast.

He took me on some great curvy rodes in Atlanta that I didn't know existed. He has coil-overs and great brakes installed also. Thank God, because we needed them.

Thanks for the ride Kevin, it took me a few hours to calm down. :cheers:

glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks, any tricks or guidance on safely opening the plug housing so the pin can be inserted?

Where can we obtain the pins with the wires attached or did someone with correct pin tool remove one from a used harness?

Any chance you can make a video of the sound a quick ride and post it to YouTube? :dance:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Thanks, any tricks or guidance on safely opening the plug housing so the pin can be inserted?

sure. this is for the OLDER '99 DME; the newer ones are a little bit different.
1) disconnect the harness from the DME
2) cut the zip tie and open the back of the socket cover
3) use a small screwdriver to remove the weather seal from around the socket
4) remove the phillips screw from the outside of the socket
5) push the far end of the socket down; it will rotate forward & out of the cover
6) pull the socket through the cover

you how have a totally exposed DME connector. the pins are removed / inserted from the back of the plug.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Where can we obtain the pins with the wires attached or did someone with correct pin tool remove one from a used harness?

i got mine from a fellow forum member; it had been removed from a used harness. i probably have some if you need one.

i'll give it a shot this weekend

Thanks insite for the great info! :cheers:

quick update. car is running great; it's a real rocket. i've ordered an accusump that i'll be installing in a week or two. i finally feel comfortable that i've shaken the car down enough to hit the track. april 11th is the day. i am going to set the car up EXACTLY the same as the day i blew the engine:

same weight, tires, alignment, etc.

the goal is to isolate the time difference ONLY from the engine. also, i'm a little rusty. it's been almost 2yrs since i hit the track. my bogey time is 1:11.6. anything below this is all engine. obviously i'll tape a session or two.

one other note: when i drilled out the exhaust manifold bolts, i meant to post a link to the centering tool i used to get the pilot holes so nice. this thing is AWESOME. it's called the quikcenter and i highly recommend it:

http://www.qbaroo.com/QuikCentercom/

until next time.

how does that product work exactly?

the M96 motors, especially the earlier ones, can suffer from oil starvation in track conditions. it has to do with sump depth, poorly designed sump baffles, and inadequate oil scavenging in the heads. each head has a scavenge pump, but it's located at one end of th car. this means that if you're accelerating or deccelerating while in a sustained high-g corner, it's possible for oil to pool in the cylinder head AWAY from the scavenge pump, running the sump dry & killing the engine.

there is an easy way to address ALL of these problems. the accusump looks like a bomb in your trunk. it's' a big cylinder that holds two quarts of oil under pressure. when the oil pressure in the engine is greater than that in the accusump oil flows into the accusump. if the engine oil pressure drops, the accusump will make up the difference by feeding oil into the motor until pressure returns. it makes sure that, even in adverse high-g driving conditions, there is a steady supply of oil to the engine's wear surfaces.

Firstly, I want to apologize for not being clear. My question was not about the accusump (which seems to be a great product for the price compared to other oil starvation solutions) I was just curious how the qwikcenter tool works. I went to the site but it did not really spell out how it is used. Furthermore I will be changing out my headers within a week or so and it may be something I will need. Never-the-less, thanks for the info on the accusump your explanation clears up any questions I may have had on that particular piece of equipment. I do plan on getting one some-day but I will probably do a motor swap first.

P.S.

what other tools did you use for drilling out the broken bolts? for re-threading? and what bolts did you use afterwards anything special?