Category: Vehicles

Despite complying with horribly oppressive EPA-imposed emissions restrictions, the “D” still manages this:

Admittedly, it was under ideal highway conditions after filling up in Cheyenne yesterday, heading south on I-25 and setting the cruise at 85mph. I snapped this pic about an hour later on the other side of Ft. Collins. Interestingly enough, the real hand calculated figure is always around 3mpg higher than the car’s computer thinks it is. Not too shabby for a 3-liter twin-turbo diesel making 500 ft-lbs. of torque.

How I do love this car. I mean, anyone with the sense God gave a chimp would have gotten rid of it long ago. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed to see how far it gets me before the next problem crops up when the extended warranty expires, probably around early next year at the current miles-clocked rate. Fortunately that CPO warranty came through again and I’m only out-of-pocket for the cost of a new battery + registration and 4-wheel alignment.

It had a bad January. Around the middle of the month I failed to avoid the largest-ever pothole, no – pot canyon, on the I-36 eastbound Boulder entrance ramp. I pulled off at the next exit to inspect for damage because the steering wheel was cocked noticeably to the right after hitting so hard it almost threw me into a skid as I rounded the turn at 50mph. You have to be extra careful about tire damage under these circumstances as well, because run-flats are so good people have been known to unwittingly drive them until they come apart. You might not even know you have a flat without a TPMS warning. Another benefit of the run-flats is great wheel protection. Conventional tires suffering this hard a hit would have also incurred serious wheel damage.

So the next day I gave it a rough alignment adjustment by guesstimate to hold it over until I got an opportunity to have it done properly. Then in my infinite wisdom due to a stretch of bad weather, I drove the 2500 and left it sitting in the garage for over 2 weeks and the battery died. Ordinarily not that big of a deal. Sometimes I miss the days of purely mechanical vehicle maintenance. It gets a little dicey when the computer-controlled magic specter of intelligent charging systems and carefully synchronized electronic creature comfort rears it’s angry head. After a full re-charge the car seemed fine from a cranking, starting and running perspective, but the iDrive was unresponsive – lights on, but nobody home.

That iDrive controller (little round joystick control knob with buttons in the center console) is an $800-to-replace BMW-only item. So I left the “D” with Gebhardt the day before yesterday, and they expect to have it until Monday. The 428i loaner they gave me is a pretty sweet car, but it ain’t no E90 335D.

At the end of the 2nd row starts the pics from the D’s water meth install:

335D Pics

I think it worked out really well.  Total parts bill came to around $200.  The hardest part of the whole project was finding the right tank that would hold at least a couple of gallons and tuck into the rear quarter trunk area without taking up too much space.  eBay came through again with that as well as a very nice stainless medical-grade gear pump that seems to match up with the chosen nozzle quite well.  The pump was only $50 so I got two to have a spare, but doubt I’ll ever need it.  I suspect they probably cost hospitals using them in dialysis machines a few more bucks than that. The most time-consuming portion of the work was fashioning the pump mount bracket.  It had to be hand-crafted from scratch, pseudo-forged with oxy-acetylene from a muffler clamp and steel strap rounded to match the inner fender curve it’s bolted to.  Activation is achieved with a simple boost switch grounding the pump at around 20psi.  There’s a power cutoff switch in the cabin by the trunk release in case it ever runs low away from a water source.

Initial road testing was done with the feed line running into a gallon jug in the cabin.  This way I was able to easily determine boost switching behavior.  I guessed setting it at 20psi might be close to what it needed and that was a good guess.  it comes on at anything more than modest acceleration but does not engage at cruise on the highway until about 85mph on level terrain.  That probably equates to something like a 10-20% duty cycle for typical driving, running enough to hopefully keep the intake clean and providing a little kick and cooling when needed.  Consumption is coming in right where I wanted it on the Aurora commute at about a 2-1 fuel/water fill-up ratio, or consuming a gallon of water-meth per tank of fuel in typical driving.

With the JBD fueling chip now also re-installed and adding another 90hp, the car should be running over 350hp and well over 500ft/lbs torque.  My butt dyno confirms these figures, and the “D” is now a real sleeper corvette-killer.  Roll-on thrust at highway speeds above 70mph is just phenomenal.  The best part is the CCV and water/meth injection mods should keep carbon buildup at bay in the future.  The W/M adds maybe another 20hp over the “on paper” 350hp guess derived from the factory rating + 90hp in additional JBD fuel.  It’s only one small nozzle, but seems well-matched to the 3.0L powerplant.
Only a Motorguard bypass oil filter remains to complete the D’s planned mods. I have a Cat fuel-water separator I’d like to put upstream of the factory unit, but cannot yet see a way to do that.

I’m kinda proud of the way the 2002 Chrysler Sebring we bought new just before I retired from the AF in Colorado Springs has made it to 145k miles. The 2.7 engine in it is notorious for some catastrophic failure modes involving the timing set and water pump systems and associated sludge issues. Poor design maybe, but I believe the oil bypass filter I installed early in it’s life did the trick. The only costly repair we’ve done to it in 12 years ownership was the water pump which failed normally last year with an obvious slow weep hole leak. They are known to fail leaking internally fouling the oil with resultant massive damage.

I am re-installing that bypass filter today after it’s rubber lines finally degraded beyond further repair. We were lucky the car didn’t die from an oil leak due to that after I found it leaking with the umpteenth bad hose connection and 2 quarts low after Phoebe brought it home one day last week. This one last time I will re-install the bypass with copper lines and compression fittings for the long haul. After a few more maintenance items coming up in the near future like struts, CV joints, injectors, coils and maybe a cat gut we’ll see how long it goes. It’s all icing on the cake now for a car that was reputed to be one of the worst of it’s era. Just goes to show what the “pundits” know.