Hi, Chris from down under again with my smashed b230FK 945s.
Probably not looking at BMWs anymore.
Today I discovered a leak from the gasket where the turbo meets the exhaust manifold. None of the bolts that I could get a spanner onto seemed loose so I presume the gasket is knackered. These turbo engines whilst generally quite reliable seem to be a pain in the rear when it comes to working on them with poor access, too many pipes and fiddly extra bits especially when unmodified it has a worse power to weight ratio than the normally aspirated version.
Since I can't find or at least haven't seen one advertised yet 965 or V90 in Australia perhaps I should try to find one of those also rare 16 valve wagons. Does anyone have an opinion on them?
I can't think of another safe seven seat wagon available in Australia with a 9.8 metre turning circle and I might ad that once you get used to that every other car seems lacking.

Cheers,

Chris

I would try and find a penta inboard- outboard motor. They have the bullet proof bottom end with a stroked crank so that you have a 2.5 litre displacement. Then find a 16 valve head, use a hyndai 3.0 timing belt and 16 valve electronics and you have a pleasent and fast brick. The bottom ends on the 16 valve motor are very week and with the use of a belt to drive the oil pump, tedious at best. Good luck.

I would try and find

The 16 valve engines are a bit more of a maintnence pig, but if you want fast, those things really scoot! I work on a couple for some folks and they'll both leave my 93 940 turbo in the dust from a dead stop.
--
-------Robert, '93 940t, '90 240 wagon, '84 240 diesel (she's sick) , '80 245 diesel, '86 740 GLE turbo diesel, '82 Mercedes 300SD for sale

Chris,

I'm assuming you're talking about a B234 16 valve engine. There was a recent discussion on this board about the relative merits of various engines. While I have little experience with the B234 (I changed the waterpump and timing belt on one once), at least one participant in the discussion felt like it may not be the best choice of engines. You can read his opinion by clicking on the link http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=940952, and see the entire discussion by clicking on the Thread Expanded link.