PranK

So, some plans for the old girl... Blackline LSD - Given the cost, its doable over the RacingDiffs LSD conversion. I can get it landed for about $1200. Currently I'm the only car in the family that can't get up Bec's mum's crazy steep and slippery driveway. All other cars are fine but I sit spinning one wheel. How embarrassment. An exhaust - I'm not sure what I want here but something just cat back as I can't hear my exhaust at all from inside the car and I need to constantly check tach on the track to see if my shift was accepted (gearbox wont allow high rev downshifts and I need to check the gear or tach a lot to make sure it went through because I can't hear it). Either solid aluminium or super hard poly rear subframe bushings - The back squirms a lot at the moment, if I give it anything at all on a slight turn or on unhappy surface it just moves around too much. Apparently very little nvh with the aluminium bushings but these can damage the underside because they dont give anything. A little undecided. I got a replacement headlight for my 'fish tank' headlight. I'll sand both headlights back and clear coat them. I've found this is the best way to restore horrible BMW headlight covers. Rear adjustable camber arms - I'd like to be able to dial a little bit of camber in on the rear. I would still like a cheap fixed seat to swap in for the track. I flop around everywhere in the stock seats despite them being the M Sport seats. I'll need to change my oil filter housing gasket soon as I think I have a small leak. I'd like to check the condition of my intake/valves because the direct injection doesn't clean them up and if theres buildup I'd like to clean them. Tho, I don't see this as much of a common issue in AU over the US. I'm not sure why. Thats all I can think of.

1:53.837. ya happy now?

I do have a tiny tiny misfire occasionally but I think it's because I got a little fuel down into a plug tube so I'll pull the coils out and see if I can dry those out.

Ok, so here the embarrassing 'fess up' post. Here's the crack, or broken part of the old valve cover. Pretty obvious break and in hindsight it's quite the face palmer 🤦‍♂️ but let me explain why I didn't think this was a problem. This side part of the valve cover is an additional piece, it protrudes from the main valve cover and it's also where the fuel rail mounts..... You can see the rail at the bottom and you can see this external piece hanging off the side of the cover. It almost looks sandwiched in this pic. Here's another cover with that side piece ... On top of this, when looking at the inside of the cover, there were no openings(*) for that section. So I really just thought I'd broken some crispy plastic mount for the fuel rail.... Until somebody drew my attention to the air openings at the BOTTOM of the cover, not INSIDE the cover. So, I had a ginormous PCV leak. The cover needed to go and I should have taken everybodies advice and got a new one in the first place. The original one is just fried, its really brittle. It was nice to have the new one be really snug in position and the screws were slightly tight to do up which was completely different to the original ones that almost undid themselves.

We're back! The new valve cover arrived on Friday and I fitted it Friday night and in the rain on Saturday. The car runs perfectly! Also as it gets through the residual oil there's less smoke which is really nice. Hopefully that's all gone after an hour long drive today. Anxious me will go around the whole cover tomorrow with a mirror and torch to make sure gasket is where it should be and that oil is also where it should be. It was a much tighter fit! As you'd expect and I did the torque sequence twice as it kind of settled into place. I might go around it again just to be sure.

Dang. I'll have to up my game.

Dang! Thats quick. My daughter got her P's two days ago. Can't pry her out of the car. I'm going to take her to my next track day, who knows she might get interested in GT7 also (But I doubt it).

Yeah I think I need a seat and frame. I recently bought a 32" 4K Samsung monitor to use and its just so good! It made a real difference for me. Are your pedals load cell / pressure ones?

Oh damn, thats seriously cool. I have the Thrustmaster T248 which is the entry level one. Its really good but I have no basis for comparison as I've never used a better one. I'd like to change the pedals for the pressure ones (cant remember the name) and get a proper frame and seat because I just have a stand for the pedals and wheel now and I need to brace them against things so they dont move when I'm trying to pull up after a long straight! 🤣 EDIT: These ones; https://www.thrustmaster.com/products/t-lcm-pedals/

Thats nuts. I'd like to get all gold but man, some of them are hard. Do you have a wheel & pedals ? Not sure you could do it on the pad.

I love Catalunya. Got a 1:54.632. The AMG is a hoot.

I must have read 100 DIY's and watched 200 DIY Youtube videos with most people saying just grab a new cover and, well, despite my normal aproach to these things (replace it all!!) I didn't get a cover. I don't know why I didn't, I'd already ordered a bunch of bits from FCP and it would have made perfect sense to put that in the order. Anyway, I'm not getting OEM as its just crazy money, even from the states its 900 ish delivered. So, I got an OE Elring one, same as they sell at FCP but local so I can get this fixed this week. Our X5 is waiting for a new diff so we find ourselves in a common scenario of having 2 broken BMW's on the driveway! 🤣

Wow, they are some big images! 🤣 That's quite the intake from Stillen! Theres 3 things you can use a bed for and one of them is laying out car parts. I love it.

Damn that's cool.

Found the problem. I cracked part of the valve cover when trying to pry it off. Theres a big leak there. I did see this when I did it but the part that I cracked looked like it was just for mounting the fuel rail on and not for vacuum. After asking on Reddit, it appears that part is 100% pcv related. I'm slightly irritated at having to swap it out for a third time but also super happy to have found the problem. I can fix and move on. More fuel for you N54 haters, the valve covers are plastic.

I booked it into a diff place, Monday week. 2500 for the full rebuild. Expensive but even if I went the Chinese option it's over 1k to fit and I'd much prefer the genuine one rebuilt. Shit part is that the old girl is up for sale soon. 😩

Do we need to add a question to the rego form?

I was able to improve to a 3:46.7 which was .5 slower than silver. I just couldn't do any better but then I was able to just link the sections so nicely and got a 3:44.6. stoked with that. AMG around Barcelona looks good. I'll save that for the weekend.

Definitely a psychopath.

Then sell it and buy a BMW! I can totally relate to this (except the money part! ). I think for me I need to remind myself that I do enjoy the process and to stop being so damn impatient and eager to get it done. That just leads to frustration and broken stuff. Built not bought. Wait. Fixed, not fought? No ... Definitely fighting things. Definitely not fixed, I give up. Cars are pain.

This week is the McLaren F1 GTR around Le Man. I have a 3:48 ish I think (from memory) which is 2 secs off silver. My issue is that I did a heap of the current daily race c around Le Man with the 787B first and switching to the McLaren is hard.

I've replaced a heap of vacuum lines, some visibly leaking. Made no difference.

So, after going through everything multiple times and even cleaning plugs with contact cleaner, I am making no inroads at all. I found one post from a dude who had a little pinch in his gasket and so I'm convinced it has to be a loss of vacuum caused by this. So, I'll take it all off (it'll be much quicker this time) and inspect and reseat the gasket. Its a genuine BMW rubber gasket, hopefully theres no damage. Also, as the valve cover is plastic they can crack. Mine inspected ok last time but I'll have an extra close look this time. Thank god I work from home. Can't believe the X5 has gone out in sympathy though. It needs a new front diff or diff rebuild. 🤞

I have driven it slowly around the block, didn't notice any issue with the brakes. It is a vacuum brake booster.

Yep battery was off the whole time. I did have to reset about 1000 "adaptations" in the various ecus but no love. I might pull the throttle body out and give it a clean but I'm not convinced. I don't get why it runs fine at higher revs. The cold start today was beautiful!