Projects
2013 BMW 328i Xdrive Build Details
The piston and rods are CP Carrillo clones from China, but are really high quality. If you put the two side by side you couldn't tell the difference. I was hesitant to tell anyone on the channel before I was able to put some time on them and push the car a little. So far they have been excellent, perfectly balanced and extremely tight tolerances.They were about $700 shipped for pistons/rods/rings/ARP rod bolts and an upgraded wrist pin. The kit supports over 800hp but I would guess you could go 1000hp safely. I would recommend them to anyone as long as the quality control remains the same.
ARP Head Studs are from an EvoX. They are only the 6 11mm middle studs. I haven't found a 10mm outside stud yet. I have seen someone else timesert the corner bolts and make them 11mm but that adds another layer of failure and they have had the head lift on cylinder 1 and 4. I recommend using the stock 10mm until you can find some 10mm ARP's that fit.
Timing kit is any standard kit but make sure you get the upgraded gear with the laser etching, this helps with the timing not slipping under high load.
If you don't have the tools to time the cams and lock the oil pump, you will need these:
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Tools
Parts List and where to get them!
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Note: These are only the middle 6 head studs, you will need the 4 outside 10mm bolts, I have not been able to find an ARP equivalent yet and will update this when I do! (Contacted ARP and they would need to be a custom run @ $200 a bolt)
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3/8 6061 Dowels (I bought 5 of these and had 2 left over)
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1/4 6061 Dowel (You will only need one of these for the cylinder 1 wall)
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Lower Timing Gear with etched teeth
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Rod Bearings: Get 2 packs since they come in pairs of 2 4 per box. You will need 8 total.
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How to semi close the deck with hardened aluminum rods.
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To semi deck the block I used a drill guide (see below for the link) and a big C clamp to hold the guide in place. I bought the highest quality drill bit I could find at home depot, make sure it has a smooth or triangle shank, otherwise when you put it in the drill chuck it will be very hard to center it to make sure it doesn't have any wobble which will make your hole bigger. You will need a 1/4 drill bit and a 3/8 drill bit for both hole sizes.
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1. Mark the 3 points on each side of the cylinder where you want to add the dowels using the gasket as a guide to make sure you aren't covering the water jackets for the head. I didn't use the gasket but got lucky with my placement, realized after I did it I could have gotten them a little more centered.
2. Mark your drill bit with tape so you know when you get about an inch down into the block, make sure to account for the height of the drill guide. This also doesn't have to be an exact science, all of mine varied in length.
3. Drill your holes, they don't have to be the perfect depth but make sure they are as straight as possible and go SLOW. Sometimes the drill will catch if you push too fast which can elongate the hole.
4. Insert your dowel (it might be a little loose which is completely fine. When the block heats up the metal slightly expands and when you clamp the head down it will hold the dowels in place. If it is tight, reinstall the drill guide and slowly clean up the hole. Use a razor blade to mark the dowel where it is even with the surface of the block so you know what length to cut the rod.
5. Remove the dowel from the head and cut it as close to your mark as you can. I used a belt sander with a finer grit to get them perfect. You want these as close as possible so when you surface the head you don't have a ton of sanding to do and you remove as little material as possible off of the head.
6. Once all dowels are cut and placed in the head you will need to do a poor man's surface job unless you want to see if a shop will do it. I used a long aluminum bar stock with some 600 grit sandpaper to get things close then finished off with 1000 grit to smooth the surface.
Drill Guide: Drill Guide
For the decking, it really was a shot in the dark, I thought I was going to screw something up but as long as you don't drill through your cylinder wall or go too deep you should be fine. It really was pretty easy and straightforward, it took me a total of 3 or 4 hours to drill all the holes and cut/sand the rods. I ended up drilling all of the holes first and then cutting the rods, this seemed to be the fastest way. I was looking for drill presses and all kinds of stuff trying to get everything exactly perfect but in the end I went with a hand drill and the guide which turned out great. Some holes will be deeper or slightly bigger or small than others which is totally fine.
I am confident in the build except the corner 10mm bolts since I couldn't find an ARP stud that had the same fitment so I will need to upgrade these at some point. I did not want to drill and use a timesert since this would add an unnecessary failure point. I also didn't change the stock bed plate bolts that hold the crank in, I am not 100% sure if that is necessary since the crank is forged from factory and my stock rod bearings looked brand new. I didn't want to crack the bedplate off and replace the bearings if I didn't have to. I can always do this step in the future without having to pull the whole motor. I haven't heard of a single car stretching those bolts under high load in the N5x cars. As for the rest, you will need all of the fluids, filters, and seals. I didn't replace my rear main but did the front, the axle seals and gear oil will also need to be replaced (if you have xdrive) along with the oil pan gasket. The oil pan bolts are recommended to be replaced but I reused them and haven't had any leaks.
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Fueling
For fueling I went with the IPOS motorsports E85 kit that includes the S63TU injectors (EU5 pre 2014, if you have 2015+ get the EU6 injectors) and Supra High Pressure Fuel Pump (B58TU). For the low pressure side I am looking at the stage 4 Precision Raceworks setup with the dual pump.
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Turbo
For the turbo, I went with an Aeroflow performance turbo. I honestly have never heard of the brand but saw they came out with a 9 blade high flow turbo for lower displacement engines supporting big horsepower for a 2.0. There are several options but I went with the 78/75 Gen1. I almost went with the smaller dual ceramic bearing but went with the cheaper journal bearing one for now. Might switch it out in the future depending on the spool times and how it runs but, for now, I am super happy.
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Manifold and Piping
For the manifold I am reusing the stock N20 manifold with the old turbo cut off. I just ordered some schedule 40 304 stainless to try and weld together something that resembles the B58 kit, I am not a welder and am not sure what this is going to look like when it's done but I hope it works! I am going with a 50mm Tial BOV and 44mm Tial clone WG with the GFB Geforce 3 boost controller.
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Head Gasket
When I first put the car back together I went with an Amazon head gasket which I thought was OEM but it was a very cheap knock off, I ran it anyway and got about 2k miles before it blew. I did lose a coolant hose and overheat so that probably had something to do with it. I ended up going with an Athena composite cooper ring gasket that bites into the head to hold higher compression. I hear people pushing some big numbers on these, you get all the support without having to machine your head to fit rings. Going to try it out and see what happens, the only thing I am worried about is the composite side of the gasket sealing the oil and water jackets. ​
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I got mine here but there are quite a few sites that sell them.
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Head
I thought long and hard about modifying my head, I looked at new valves and springs as well as port and polishing but to be honest the head is pretty efficient as is. The valves and springs are good to push big horsepower, upgrading will only increase longevity, the intake and exhaust ports are also casted really well. I might do something in the future with getting custom cams and all of that but I think I am going to push the stock head and see how far we can go!
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That's about all I have for the build right now, I will update this info as I go along. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and feel free to get in contact with any questions!
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1990 Ford Bronco XLT
I picked this Bronco up from Marketplace for $1600 with the engine torn apart and sitting in boxes in the back. The heads were missing and everything was a complete mess. I rebuilt the motor and put some 1990 Mustang GT heads on it. I had big plans for this thing but ended up picking up a Suburban and eventually sold it.
2007 Suburban
This one is super clean, it was bone stock and was in really good shape other than having 220k miles. The engine was replaced at some point but I didn't know that until I started digging into it. I replaced a ton of cosmetic pieces to make this thing stand out. New Grill, lights, wheels, badges, and touch screen dash. I have a lot of performance parts for the motor but haven't gotten around to installing them just yet.
Fast intake manifold
Long tube headers
E85 sensor for tuning
Upgraded Aeromotive 340lph Fuel Pump
Racing Heads
102mm Throttle Body
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Definitely some more videos coming on this guy, it's currently my Wife's daily driver so I don't want to tear into it just yet.
2009 YZ450F
This was the first video I made on the channel and it was terrible quality haha! I was trying to use a GoPro and DLSR camera I had thinking I would be able to get better quality footage but it ended up being a nightmare to edit. Can't beat a cell phone these days, all of my videos now are filmed on my phone!
This one was bought off of my favorite place for deals, Marketplace. The engine was completely seized, the main crank bearing welded itself but at least the case halves were saveable. I ended up going with a hot cams crank and Namura piston. This I kept this bike for a few months and beat the hell out of it, was really fun to ride.
Random Projects
Before I started the channel I had a ton of projects from cars to house stuff. I was doing a lot of Motorcycles, Dirtbikes, and ATV's as well as fixing electronics.