LS1 BMW takes a trip to D.C.

Well sorry it's been a long time since I wrote. There hasn't been much exciting to tell. I've just been driving the car. Nearly every day. It has been super reliable. Guess I can tell you about the BMW's first big trip away from home.

I Sold my Rx-7 and was going to meet up with the buyer about 2 hrs away from home to exchange the car on a saturday morning. The Friday afternoon my wife totals the family car (nissan maxima). Uh.... now what do we drive. Well what do you know my hot rod's a family car too. 4 doors room for four people. That'll work. Oh wait my wife just wrecked her car. Is it such a good idea to have her driving my high HP custom car. No real choice guess I'll have to risk it.

We decide that after we hand off the rx-7 to it's new owner we'll head on over to the nations capital to visit family. The car has had some heating issues in stop and go traffic. Since we're heading to the big city I decide not to risk disaster and I wire the second electric fan to be on no stop.

The BMW makes the drive to winchester VA at the hands of my wife and Rx-7 hand off is completed. Bye Bye Rx-7 my first swap projet. You will be missed.

I'm back in the BMW driverseat and we point the car toward's D.C. A few hours later we're in the captial in crowded streets, big buildings and endless stop lights. Not what the car was built for. We make our way to the National zoo to see the Panda's and meet up with some family. All goes well.

During our stay I take my Nephew Grant, who appreciates good cars, for a ride in the BMW. Hard to find a place to show off the blazing acceleration but we hold up traffic on an on ramp long enough to flare tempers but create enough space infront of the car for a full throttle, wheel spinning run from 20 mph to freeway speeds before having to hit the brakes to keep from plowing into the slow cars in front of us as we merge on to the freeway. We visit a few sites and then sunday head on home.

All goes smooth until a Virgina police officer decides to pull us over. What the..? Wife asks why we are being stopped. I reply "I don't know" Wasn't speeding at the time (a few hours before... well that's another story). Officer comes up and starts asking about my muffler. What? He's kidding right? I was so shocked I didn't know what to say. Wasn't sure I should be mentioning that the one he's looking at is only ONE of the mufflers. There's another buried farther up stream. He seems to be clueless that the car now has a V8 though it idles the whole time we talk. I figure it's not in my best interest to mention it and just take the ticket. I figure it could only get worse. I figure he stopped me more for the look of the muffler than sound. It's not excessively loud. I've passed numerous local police and state troopers near my home with no questions asked. When I went to pick up my wife from her crashed car I drove by a sheriffs officer with his window open then got out and talked to him. But nothing can be done and I wasn't going to drive 2 hours to fight a ticket even if something could be done. I sprayed the muffer AND exhaust tip with flat black high temp paint. Been through many speed traps and followed by police since and no problems. I think the other guy had something against BMW's.

Car performed well and got 23.7 MPG for the one tank of gas that was consumed during the trip. Though the car was a bit smaller than the Maxima we all made the trip in relative comfort.

Couple more weeks of driving.

A few more weeks have went by. I've been driving the car every day now. It has done quite well. Even with me getting on the gas quite a bit it makes 18 miles to gallon on my to from work drive. A little less than my other car but much faster and bigger. The biggest complaint I had with this car is the noise. I finally took a stab at fixing the noise. I added a 3" high flow cat and a Magnaflow Straight through muffler in place of the prescilencer. It has brought the volume levels down to liveable. On the freeway I have begun to notice wind noise again. Which with the previous exhaust i couldn't hear.

In addition to the exhaust changes I finished replacing the trailing arm bushings and bearings (now both sides are done) and replaced the rear springs and shocks with M series springs and shocks. I think the next most annoying issue may be the front struts. Looks like the next project.

2nd week of Driving.

I've now completed my second week of driving the car. It's all been quite uneventful. Car starts right up and runs great. No new noises. Biggest issue this week was the heater not working. If it weren't for the heated seats I would have had to switch cars.

I finally got a chance to really look into what was going on. I removed the heater valve which I suspected was the problem. I found it worked perfectly but noticed it only allows flow in one direction even when open. Could it be I had the in and out on the engine switched? I went in the house and found my original heater line sketches. Car matched the sketches. Looked at some information I had on the computer and Uh Oh. I had them backward.....how'd that happen. Oh well. Trouble is that the outlet from the LS1 is 5/8 dia and the return is 3/4 dia (I have it right this time. Outlet is smaller than inlet) So it wasn't just a matter of switching the lines. I had to change the connection dia of the hard lines I made. Not all too bad as I used all the same dia lines for my hard lines but just soldered on different ends depending on the dia of rubber tube that it hooked too. I removed one line and cut off the 3/4 dia end leaving just the ring on the end of the pipe making it perfect for the 5/8 dia hose. Then I heated the other pipe and removed the ring it had and soldered on a new 3/4 dia end. All and all not too bad.

I filled it with coolant and test ran it and HEAT again. Driving it this week will be much more enjoyable. For the record the right way to hook it up is: 5/8 dia line on the engine goes to the Heater valve. Mine is dual zone so it goes to the lower port which is centered. The 3/4 from the engine goes to the return line from the heater core. On mine this is the line on the passenger side.

Also this week I took the car in for it's required anual "saftey" inspection. It passed. I've also ordered a 3" high flow cat and muffler to install on the car. It is to the point where the noise is definately the biggest issue I have with the car now.