Betty the Black E21 BMW 320i

[Jeroen]

[TaylorGoesFast]

I'm taking care of a buddy's 2002 for a while, so Betty has company! Unfortunately, they both sleep outside on the street since the race car and my roommate's car stay in the garage.

[Jeroen]

What a lovely couple!

[uwbuurman]

Yeah! Great, that is what I call a sight for sore eyes.

[TaylorGoesFast]

New plugs and wires, and then a reset on the timing. She's running better than ever when warm.

Still seems to have a leaking injector. Running super rich and lots of pops and burbles on the overrun. I think that's my warm start issue too. These injectors are not serviceable, so I'll swap to the other set I have and start saving my pennies for some new ones.


Cold start takes a second, seemingly like there is no fuel in the lines and it has to prime. Warm start is quick, but will stall immediately unless you mash the accelerator. Then it will miss for a second like it's too rich, then clear up. If you do not catch it and it stalls in the hot start, then it takes forever to start. Like 30 seconds of cranking.

My thinking is an injector is leaking and pooling on top of the intake valve. On a cold start, it's had enough time to leak past the valve and it's just no fuel in the lines. On a hot start, there is still liquid fuel sitting on top of that valve. You get a chance to fire it off on the first crank since that fuel on top of the valve just falls into the cylinder and you can keep it alive with a lot of throttle. If you don't catch it, then the air fuel ratio is way off with that liquid fuel in there and it doesn't start, plus the lack of fuel in the lines. I think

Also, posted a video on Jake's thing of some brake service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h82iQE8 ... otorsports

[Jeroen]

Sounds like a correct analysis and this either causes a rich start or initial fuel starvation as one of the lines has emptied itself. Better start saving then but they're not the most expensive ones around either.

[TaylorGoesFast]

The manifold heat shield bolt holes had rusted out, so I welded some washers on and painted it.

Also finally bit the bullet and installed a cheap head unit. Huge upgrade. The stock one wasn't outputting a good signal to the left side of the car and was barely driving any of the speakers at all.




I swapped ignition coil, ignition module, and all of the injectors around and only made the issue worse. I think of the 8 injectors I have, at least 6 are leaking. Time for rebuilds!

My roughly prioritized list for what I want to fiddle with next?


Get AC working
Battery relocate with rear shock tower brace
H&R lowering springs
New shocks
Get the engine running 100% (warm up regulator, frequency regulator, new injectors, tune fuel mix, get ignition timed)
Valve adjustment
Oil pan gasket
Control arms
Engine mounts
Revert to stock transmission mount (too buzzy)
Shifter rebuild? (Feels fine)
Replace all fuel lines
New hard lines for fuel accumulator
Rebuild fuel accumulator
Repaint wheels
PDR
Get sunroof 100% fixed so I never have to worry about it again (may not be possible?)
New headliner
New carpet
New Dash
New Blower Motor bearings
New windshield
Deep cleaning/detail of underside and engine bay
Euro Bumpers ($$$$$)
Source tan recaros
Source LSD
Source rear sway bar

[BertjeConti]

Lots of plans, my idea: install a wideband gauge, and you’ll know whats going on with the injection system, and you’re able to trim it.

[TaylorGoesFast]

Lots of plans, my idea: install a wideband gauge, and you’ll know whats going on with the injection system, and you’re able to trim it.

That's a good idea. My understanding is that the lambda controlled cars are hard to read with a wide band. The car dies when you unplug the O2 so I feel it's really compensating for something.

[TaylorGoesFast]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHo6RluO24k

[TaylorGoesFast]

[BertjeConti]

Nice couple

[uwbuurman]

Sweet!!

[Jeroen]

2 lovely toys!

[TaylorGoesFast]

Still chasing this hot start issue and popping from the exhaust. I ordered new injectors and a tool to adjust the fuel trim. Without the lambda sensor plugged in, my O2 readings bounce between .3 and .7 a volt with .45 being stochiometric, so I believe this is correct as the frequency valve should be operating at the default duty cycle. Even with this, I still get a pretty rhythmic "pop" out the exhaust like it's running too rich or lean at idle and I get a "pop pop pop" when decelerating in gear. This could either mean too lean or too rich. I can not find any vacuum leaks and I've replaced a lot of hoses.

I'm getting a cold start injector cleaned right now, so that's my next course of action. After that, I may replace fuel lines to see if they are sucking air. Beyond that, maybe I'll try to replace the fuel accumulator (not sure how yet since this part is NLA) and replace the fuel filter again since I replaced it when I got it running again, but I assume i've shaken up a good bit of 30 years of dirt and rust from the tank at this point.

I've got spares of the WUR and some other fuel system parts that I may swap around, but I want to be sure I'm methodical with this. The car runs and drives fine after all, I can just tell something is wrong from the sound of the exhaust and the hot start issues. Other than that, it's fine, and I'm not sure those two are related.