hybrid

Posted November 24, 2013

Posted November 24, 2013

Posted November 24, 2013

Some nice shots while I was out this winter.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

A rather cool oppertunaty came up to purchase a brand new e30 m3 260kph speedo.  I almost passed this up but a couple of things made sense. My speedo's odometer had just crapped out and stopped reading K's and new units dont come a long for this price very often.

Big thanks to Dylan for this as dylan was replacing a needle in his car and didnt need the whole unit. (long story)

 

Anyways, photos.

 

Unboxing

 

Inside the box

 

Pulling apart the cluster and removing the old Odometer

 

 

Installed the new e30 m3 260kph odometer  

 

 

Seriously .. I hate reinstalling this dam bitch nut!

 

 

and all installed ready to click over to 000000  Everything works perfectly, including my rev gauge was giving issues as it was down 500rpm, this was because of the needle was out on the spindle.

Posted November 24, 2013

 

 

 

 

More updates:

 

 -- this is actually leading to something 

 

 

 

small update ... kind of pointless and expensive to do, but i'm a details guy :/

 

Before

 

 

 

 

After: Genuine recover

 

 

Roof rust be gone

 

It was pretty bad if some of you remember ... decided it was more than time to get something done about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rocking the RXs for the time being while I put it back together 

 

 

Wet weather weekend stuff rules  

 

So starting to put the final touches on the car of all those little bits that have annouyed me. Will have some more interesting updates come soon but for now you have this 

 

I decided to splash out on some new OEM replacement pre-fl tail lights. Will just thank Jon the Pom for pointing me in the right direction for these.

 

unboxing

 

 

 

Old tail lights doing what all e30 tail lights do best and cracking. Still not bad for 26 years old. The right side had spider webbed pretty bad

 

 

 

And the left side had the usual inner piece fall off. Its so strange that this combo always happens to every car?

 

 

 

Removed the old lights and cleaned up the area the new sealing gaskets would sit.

 

 

After messing around with the wiring and plugs which had started to loose their bite on the terminals .. here they are installed!

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

Myself vs an e60 m5 ... great battle that I really enjoyed going toe to toe. I backed off a couple of times in the sweeper as I didnt want to plow into it! as he was pushing it pretty hard.

 

FUN!

 

 

enjoy.

 

 

Road interior nearly complete.

 

Nappa 

 

 

 

 

 

Have some other goodies but its pissing down outside and I cant really photo it in the garage .. Maybe tomorrow night.

 

 

The stock BMW cooler was pissing me off so I replaced it with a big ass Earls oil cooler / lines (under number plate)...which  extends up to the top of the bumper  with the blue lines through the grill. Its all isolated and rubber mounted as not to twist the cooler frame

You can kinda see the brake cooling ducts. 

All set for summer of time attack  

 

 

 

 

 

So been a bit busy ordering some new stuff.

 

New Oil housing with the elusive pressed in Oil Thermostat, yes you have to buy the whole housing just for this one bit. My old one is poked shut.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And while im at it I installed a new Ratiometeric 0-100psi, 0-5 volt industrial grade pressure sensor (Thanks to conrad for help locating one)

This will eventually connect to my new GPS datalogger project  (watch this space)

 

 

Just sitting it in the housing, will seal with alloy washer once locked in.

 

 

 

Nothing too special .. but got a second set of race wheels and a supply of slicks.

 

Wheels: BBS RX 17x8 et38

 

 

Test fit on car

 

 

Caliper Clearance for BBK

 

 

.. slick supply .. went halves with james

 

 

 

Been working on the brakes recently to hunt out a few issue with over heating

 

Changed out the pads to something a bit more race orientated and less best of both worlds

 

Followed Ollies Gee's path and went with the V8 Super Car / NZv8 route. Performance Friction Pads

 

 

Type 81 Medium Compound

 

 

 

Bevelled edges for  noise reduction, my neighbours will probabaly love me now instead of the screaming from the other pads which normally happens on warmup

 

 

 

 

 

Also thanks to Ollie McDermott working on some prototypes, these are back from the laser cutters and currently being welded up. All alloy light weight.

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

Some new toys 

Dunlop 240/625r17 D11's and 17x8 BBS RC 304 

 

 

Two spare slicks on the right. 

 

Off to be refurbed next week 

 

 

 

 

 

Slicks are fun ... 

Now to get use to their limits.

 

 

enjoy

 

 

 

 

Some additions.

 

I was very suprised how light these all were.

 

Front strut brace, rear strut brace and under body chassie brace.

 

 

Front strut brace installed. It cleared the s50 perfectly and more importantly the brake fluid well.

 

 

 

 

The rear brace was a little bit more difficult to install because of my ground control rear top mounts and tower re-inforcement plates. I had to remove both wheels and drop the top bolts out.

 

 

 

 

and installed

 

 

Ill install the under body brace tomorrow and upload the result.

 

 

 

 

Time for some new goods.

 

Brake bias valve to dial out some rear brake pinching under hard braking when the tanks half full.

 

 

 

 

 

annnnd finally got this done .... makes a crap load of difference .. like driving the car at winter time. Floor it in the first 3 gears = wheel spin

 

Stoked.

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

 

 

 

Put it all back together and reconnect the battery and test.

 

All Done! 

 

 

 

 

 

So was messing around and got GT1/DIS44 working finally with the Carsoft interface.

 

Also managed to buy a new set of tyres which fit a lot better and allow me to turn full lock without touching. Which will allow me to have the car certed. Yay.

My spare set of LMs with FK-452 18x8.5 on 225/35r18

 

Going to send this set in to have curb rash removed and cleaned up a tad. then its time to roll the fenders and lower. I currently have the shocks wound up to the hardest setting to reduce travel .. its solid as s**t and not much fun on the back however will put this back once fenders are rolled. Its gonna be tight but worth it I think. Also note stack of sacrificial rubber     

 

 

Out on the track

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick photo shoot tonight of Hybrids Tech1 m325i s50b32 BBS LM 18 inch, Jamez's m325i Tech 2 BBS RS 15 inch, Aprils Black Cab e30 BBS RS 16 inch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More coming...

 

 

 

 

 

Some updates:

Fuel system added (before hampton actually) but heres a shot of it anyways.

Specs: normal pre-fl tank feeds the external accumulator (high volume, low pressure) feeds a 2 liter surge tank which inturn feeds the Walbro 500hp (low volume, high pressure 5 bar++) pump (not pictured as its underneath). 

The 2 liters is a bit over kill but also acts as a nice reserve if the accumulator would ever to fail.

Accumulator and primer is wired in a relay and then to the DME so when EWS enables engine start .. both pumps fire a primer of gas through the lines. It leaves the pumps on the security system which is nice 

 

And an interior shot so far.

mostly stock, e36 window switches and e34 leather hand brake (e brake) grip.

 

 

Engine bay as promised

 

 

Seriously one of the crappiest jobs you could hope to do on an e30. Now to work out how to remove a few KGs of spent KY like substance from my garage.

 

before

 

 

after

 

 

 

Some recent additions.

 

Replaced the pre-fl metal head lights for some light weight nylon frame Bosch projector elipsoid 'Smilie' headlights -- next is 6000k h1 HID

 

 

 

Sparco 330mm / 39offset black suede wheel

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

 

 

AN Oil lines to cooler.

 

 

 

First off, having a full functional ODBII port in the e30 has maximum novelty factor and its not wearing off! 

 

Was mucking around tonight checking the live data and decided to give the car a scan to see what had popped up over the past month and a bit.

 

error 42 translated means speed signal was interupted at some point.

 

error 48 translated means the Air-con relays aren't responding, thats cause there are none 

 

I also reset the service interval

 

 

 

Faults cleared and only the air conditioning relay fault (which the car doesnt have) so im happy with that) I will continue testing to see if the other error comes back. Its not a major however is just the speed sensor.

 

 

 

So today thanks to Ray @ Hellbm (http://www.hellbm.com) converted my horrible e30 window switches to then nice 'click' feel of the e36 switches.

 

I first tried some green base switches which as I found out dont work. This is because the later model switches are infact digital encoder switches and only tell the general module (GM) to activate the electric window relays. E30's obviously didnt have such technology so I went for a white base switch.

 

 

 

So I decided to include a small write up to help others, this also includes a wiring diagram from the info I had at hand.

 

Green base switches (dont use these!  )

 

Green base digital encoder

 

Green base pulled apart

 

 

 

White base switch (Use this or Blue base). Notice the thicker wiring

 

Inside the switch

 

Proper high current switch contacts to deal with the current from the electric window motors.

 

 

 

Before starting any of this DISCONNECT YOUR BATTERY FROM THE TERMINALS 

My brother has had a high current burn before and it burnt a hole right through his hand once, crossing these wires will do the same if you short them

 

So lets get started, 

 

Remove the gear shifter boot. and remove the e30 window switches, unplug the e30 loom end and we cut the plug off.

 

 

 

Twist the wires on following the wiring diagram carefully. Use electrical tape to shield the wires from each other (make sure you have it all covered) and reconnect the battery, turn the key to postion 2, and test you windows. You should also have the LED light up (you switch should glow)

 

After this, disconnect the battery and tin / solder all wires on the switches and e30 loom end.

 

Right nows the time to enlarge the switch hole in the console to fit the larger e36 switch. I took my time with this and used a half round/flat file. I thought about using my dremel but there is a risk of over shooting the mark and cutting too much off. constantly test fit the switch and surround

 

 

BEFORE you solder the wires together, run them through the enlarged hole. You dont HAVE to do this .. but it makes it easier to locate the switch.

 

Use heat shrink and a heat gun to shirnk up the tubes.CAREFUL  DONT MELT YOU CONSOLE! 

 

 

Repeat all of this for the other side, obviously following the wiring diagram to suit your switch type. My second switch was from the rear e36 switch panel so it had different colours I have included it in the wiring diagram.

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

Back home now after some final prep at rays. 

2

Now its home we will work on the tidy up tasks and interior bits and pieces. Also some final bracket fabrication.

 

The whole thing hasn't quite sunk in yet haha ..

 

The drive home was pretty interesting .. third gear pull to above 200 was pretty much a mouse fart for this engine. Its left brendon driving the 330 1/2 a K back in no time. no question .. F**k it moves.

 

I must say im really enjoying the e30 smell again in my garage .. with added extra of other burning sh*t. Something I dont miss, the smell of e30's haha.

 

 

 

 

 

HybridNz, I have now updated my project thread with pictures of the oil pan after modification.

 

 

Nice work! 

 

In other news

 

Finally got some more update photos.

Ireland Engineering adjustible sway bars are now in and clear the headers .. 

Rear sway bar installed -- drilled into body as its a lot more re-inforced than the stock mount points

 

 

New 2ltr alloy surge tank. Complete with base plate. I looked into getting one with AN fittings however the price of running 4 x fuel lines went up quite a bit. The AN oil line was around $450 

 

 

 

 

Got the car back tonight from the welders tonight. 

 

* Permantly mounted brackets for expansion tank and ODBII

* Flanged removible center muffler with straight pipe insert

* Ireland Engineering Front and rear sway bars with adjustible links

* Drive shaft loops

* Custom battery mount for supporting smaller lighter batteries in the boot.

 

 

High flow center muffler thats quitened it down a nice amount for the road. But still has its bite, just legal 

 

 

 

Straight pipe option I can bolt in for track days.

 

 

 

 

Rear re-inforced swaybar blocks drill through to the boot

 

Front sway bars connected to the control arms

 

 

De-loomed washer tank and sensors, mounted expansion tank and ODBII connector neatly tucked in the corner. I have a replacement clutch reservoir and arm, just need to install it 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

 

 

 

 

All finished and I tested it up to temprature and connected a battery pack to see it bring the temp down .. it worked 

 

Also note the FL smile headlights im gonna chuck on 

 

 

MMMMMMM smilies

 

 

 

 

e30's are the only car I know of that actually look just as tuff with no bumpers as they do with them

 

 

 

Update [special edition]

 

wheels are back.

 

testing the caps (not pressing them in just yet .. will let the paint harden another week)

 

custom black anodised bbs bolts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

 

photos 

 

 

this is seriously the best way to prototype  

 

 

Sorting out the fold lines with the perf tool

 

whole system

 

 

 

 

Needed to make some room first ...

 

Out comes the PITA bracket

 

VIDEO: Time to cut some sh*t

 

 

few adjustments to make as you can see .. I also need to buy a silicon 135 bend and alloy 89mm joiner

 

 

 

 

 

After this I ran around and re measured everything and marked it on the prototype where changes need to be made. We will do this process again and try the card up at the car next time. Once its all matches its off the the laser cutters to cut this out of anodised alloy 

 

 

 

I also decided to give mounting the new radiator fan a crack... was plesantly suprised it wasn't the end of the world and I didnt need to fabricate any mounts. I just used old parts kicking around the workshop for brackets .. worked a treat! 

 

e36 pusher fan

 

gave it a clean up with some decreaser and an airgun

 

 

placed it in the location to workout if it would fit .. and it does

 

 

The bumpers were just getting in the road so off they came 

 

 

Needed to make up some brackets from old parts.

 

The bottom just bolted pretty much to the bottom lip

 

 

the top just needed some extra metal .. which I found and converted 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

 

Update:

 

TITS!!!

 

P.S it was up to operating temperature before I did this 

 

 

Video link

 

 

 

Wiring pics as promised .. 

Finished up the covers weds night. Things left to do are sort out permanant earths for the engine etc, Sway bar mounts modified, clutch and expansion tanks mounted on OE brackets to body and sorting out the radiator fan and wiring.

So it starts..

Removed the e36 cover to expose the wiring. Lots of un-nessecary coppper in these things bit of a birds nest too for straightning out.

 

Separation of the loom DME plug so with fit through the firewall. I hear all sorts of stories/posts of people enlarging the firewall holes with a hole saw .. I dont get it? just pull the plug apart and feed it through and re-construct back on the other side.

Great thing with Siemens and Boshe plugs, they are meant to be pulled apart for pin additions. Taught ourselves that when doing my e46 satnav retrofit.

 

Through the other side.

EWS and DME wiring

Reader coil wiring and chip placement.

Fuse box wiring back to ignition

A nice little spread sheet of the e30 pre-fl vs e36 engine loom with colours. 

Packing the loom together behind the new plastic shrowding for a nice OEM look and finish

 

 

UPDATE:

 

Time to step this sh*t up a bit. 

 

Cold Airbox time.

 

Big thanks for Ollie's cad skills in sorting this out from his airbox design and to my dad for cutting the mock ups and no thanks to stationary warehouse for charging me $20 per sheet of 1.5mm thick cardboard. 

Dad runs a cutting business which specailises in cutting materials / foam / plastics / composites etc. Company is called cutlines.

 

Anyways here we go.. 

 

Top down view

 

 

3d

 

 

The design at Dads work.

 

 

measuring the card

 

 

VIDEO: explaining how to program the design for the different tools (Pen, Knife, pizza wheel, hole punch etc)

 

 

 

Setting up the drag knife for depth

 

 

Tooling up the head

 

 

 

Air pressure check.

 

 

Marking the the 'origin' on the card with laser. This will be the return or known point on the card.

 

 

VIDEO: card being cut

Posted November 24, 2013

 

 

 

And the ever important fluids.

 

They don't seem to stock redline 10w60 in this country *rolls eyes*

 

So Castrol 10w60 edge sport it is.

 

Gear box is a secret blend of 11 herbs and spices .. for gearbox chatter (from the lighten flywheel) nahhhh its just Redline 75W140 ns and MT-90 added to taste.

 

Some coolant

 

Some Castrol Dot4

 

and the saraficial lamb in yellow (4 liters of $40 engine flush oil before the good stuff goes in)

 

 

 

Still working on the wiring at the moment. We now have the starter motor working on the actual 'starter' key position and not ignition. It was to do with the starter circuit pin out differences on the loom adapter for face lift vs pre-face lift. I have a pre-face lift obviously  a quickish re-route in the fuse box sorted the start problem out. However we are still not getting 12 volts down pin 15 or pin 16 down the diagnostic port. pins 14,15 and 16 should have 12volts running through them. We again are checking the dfferences in the pre-face lift loom. Confirmed this on Ray's M-Coupe.

Anyways so not startup glory today so instead I took a trip down to see how the new wheels are getting on.

They have finished the barrels and are just working on the inners., black bolts still to come but ill save that for when they are mounted on the wheels.

With out further ado, Arrow wheels work their magic

This is the bit they used to drill the PDC and the caps they press into the holes.

Welded and in the middle of being milled.

new wholes ready for caps to be pressed in

A new colour they have made up for me, Ill name it hybrid gunmetal  Tested on one of their spare centers to show me what it will look like and give me approval for the go ahead. Note its tastefully darker than the standard silver (in the back ground)

Barrel win. Polished lips 

 

enjoy..

 

 

Update.

More wiring (12 hours of it) and connecting up of misc stuff like booster air lines etc.

What a day yesterday was.

EWS is a steap learning curve, We started out but checking the loom and electrical diagrams for the e30 and e36. by about lunch time we had found that the pin 15 voltage problem actually wasn't a problem at all. Its just that the e30 doesnt have an EGS/IKE/etc to put 12 volts down the line back to the diagnostic port. So we jumpered it across from another ECU pinout.

The pin is only used to tell the diagnostic equipment that the ECU and modules is present and accounted for. 

With that problem out of the way and confirmed, we could suddenly take reading from the ECU. YAY!

however we were having issues addressing the EWS. So back to the diagrams.

I noticed while I was looking that the EWS unit we had only had 'EWS' written on it. I asked ray to check his 2000 M-Coupe and it had EWS III written on it. AHA! we had an EWS I unit, crap.

SO out we went to search for an EWS II + key. again turned out to be a bit of a mission. We had worked out they (EWS II) were only produced between 95 and 97 so finding something was going to be hard. We searched all 5 series and 3 series cars and finally found one in a 318ti.

Awesome, so here we go again. (the sun was going down at this point)

Plugged in the EWS II and got a different bunch of error messages saying the EWS unit couldn't find the key. YAY! at least the GT1 computer had found the EWS module. 

Brendon had read somewhere that you need to make sure the key is in the right position, so he adjusted it, we cleared the fault codes and tried again.

Success!

Cool so were not had a working system ready to code.

Brendon and I complete n00bs with progmanSSS ray made a 8:30pm on a saturday phone call to the dealer and he explained the start proceedure.

Reading all instructions and linking up extra batteries for constant current while programming, we set off to code.

message: you need atleast 13 volts to performing coding

Crap! .. time to bring in a running vehicle and jumper cables.

right now we had 13 volts.

We could now code. We tried and tried and tried but go stuck at the need part number for replacement module screen. so at 10:30pm we decided to call in a night.

We are going to look at using my carsoft software as its not so anal about part numbers etc etc and has a simple function to just align DME -> EWS. So will give that a go.

Once the EWS is aligned the car sould just start.

Posted November 24, 2013

 

 

 

Here are some random images I thought may be mildy interesting of the workshop the car is in..

 

Tune rocking out on our local rock station, notice the taped down tuner so bad people dont go change it something bad. (Im being PC here all right! )

 

Whats this ... another M-Coupe which is being decided on its future. Its sitting in our little car bay where the e30 sat for over half a year .. 

 

 

Have you ever played lego as a kid, well this is the adult version and one of 5 or so around the shop. We'd be lost with out it and I can thank it for many a cut finger. I have a love hate relationship with it now.

 

 

Some other headers I have

 

 

New parts storage

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And this is what sits under neath it when the e30 s50 is sleeping 

 

 

 

 

Anyways .. another big update tomorrow ...

 

 

 

 

these turned up today.. 

peow peow

 

 

In the mean time, some photos of incoming parts.

Simota 89mm neck and 130mm air filter .. anything bigger I don’t think will fit. Thing I like about these filters is they withstand engine heat and have a life time guarantee. This one will sit inside a cold air box once its fabricated up. (and anodised black )

and a close up of the new centers for the new wheels

They really do look 3d, the red isn’t a bright red its more a ruby colour which is awesome!

 

 

More 'parts' so to speak...

 

245/40zR18 rears

 

Posted November 24, 2013

 

 

 

Then came the exhaust which I have actually had for weeks, I just took it off before I could photo it  .. anyways here is the new pride and joy, light weight stainless 2inch (to retain torque) to the 3 inch collector at the rear to the e60 550i muffler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a completed shot from underneath rear and front

 

 

 

 

Part 2 of today 

 

So feeling pretty stoked we got everything done underneath we started on the wiring and I modified the radiator supports to hold the radiator better.

 

I love the hellbm parts bin .. with out it I would of never of found half the solutions I would have to this date for small little annouying problems.

 

 

 

 

Next was the throttle cable, we tried the e30 one but as thought it was just two short.. so went for a nicer e36 one instead 

 

 

and my cheesy first time pressing the throttle video, with the legacy e30 cable

 

 

 

Right after that excitment, on with more and more wiring. stunning messy engine bay picutures, however you can see the new covers and how they will give this engine bay a truely factory look when completed.

 

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

 

 

 

Installed the fan belt.

 

 

Plenium installed

 

 

 

 

Installed the radiator and new mounts.

 

 

 

Installed the e36 pipes

 

 

Stock sensor position in the Fluidyne radiator

 

 

 

 

Money ... 

 

 

 

Thats all for now...

 

 

Update: 

 

Fuel Pump - Walbro 255lph '500hp' external to keep up with the 5bar pressure requirements 

 

 

The cover was then added, after an intense 30min session with industrial grade degreaser and a water blaster.

 

before

 

 

 

after

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

The cover was then added, after an intense 30min session with industrial grade degreaser and a water blaster.

 

before

 

 

 

after

 

 

 

Then came the exhaust which I have actually had for weeks, I just took it off before I could photo it  .. anyways here is the new pride and joy, light weight stainless 2inch (to retain torque) to the 3 inch collector at the rear to the e60 550i muffler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a completed shot from underneath rear and front

 

 

 

 

Part 2 of today 

 

So feeling pretty stoked we got everything done underneath we started on the wiring and I modified the radiator supports to hold the radiator better.

 

I love the hellbm parts bin .. with out it I would of never of found half the solutions I would have to this date for small little annouying problems.

 

 

 

 

Next was the throttle cable, we tried the e30 one but as thought it was just two short.. so went for a nicer e36 one instead 

 

 

and my cheesy first time pressing the throttle video, with the legacy e30 cable

 

 

 

Right after that excitment, on with more and more wiring. stunning messy engine bay picutures, however you can see the new covers and how they will give this engine bay a truely factory look when completed.

 

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

It took some time as I run a pre-facelift which run an external low volume-high pressure pump and a intank high volume-low pressure pump system. This is different to the facelift single intank pump with baffles in the tank.

We removed the fuel dampner (little bell looking think) as I dont think it will be up to the task of as you say 5bar fuel delivery, It will also provide for some nice vaccum backfires . We also removed the rear regulator (pre face lift thing) as the s50 has one up on the engine.

 

I had to run two fuel lines the one from the tank to the fuel pump was larger diameter and the one from the pump to the main fuel line was smaller. The oem pre-face lift configuration about explains why. 

 

BMW were very clever with this system as it means that the pre facelift was setup for cornering and nil fuel starvation from the get go. Weight saving, costings and the potential for more parts to go wrong in the fuel delivery systrem saw BMW change this to the single intank system.

 

If the internal high volume low pressure pump can't (it should be able to) keep up with the new pump at sustained high RPM, I will look at installing a swirl pot system instead. But thats for a later date. We worked out pretty quick that there are no published Pre-face lift s50b32 euro builds out there. (im sure they exist just not in our part of the world)

 

 

 

here is it finished

 

 

 

 

So another long day but we got a lot done. In fact we got more than a lot done! .. We think by the end of tomorrow we will be powering up and aligning the DME <-> EWS2 .. which means (if the oil lines and fan is completed by monday) we will be firing it up on weds night. 

 

Anyways, picked up the new modified steering coloum. Countersunk allen head screw caps .. hot

 

 

 

 

And a machined and shorten linkage connector rods which now mates the DTM shifter and ZF nicely.

 

 

 

 

Which now brings us to drive shaft installation .. I know this is pretty boring for most of you, but again as usual nothing was as it seems and with out modification. e30 m3 grp-a driftshaft thanks to conrod, we spent about 2 hours getting the diff end bolts pressed in *rolls eyes* and pre-loading the hanger bearing. Thanks to ray for all his help and the guibo bolts which turned out to be e39 ones!  m12 10.9 @ 115 NM torque thank you very much   

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

cheers fellas 

 

MK II 1.3 golf brake booster update:

 

Back from Percision Autowerks, treated and double coated with a factory satin hard shell finish with the added feature of having chemical resistance to common engine bay fluids 

 

Before and after

 

 

More close ups ... 

 

 

 

 

All rust was removed from every nook and cranny

 

 

 

Another update today:

 

Unbolted the whole front subframe and shock assembly / engine and gear box to finally install the clutch. Turned out the first time we attempted (at 1am in the morning I might add) we bumped the alignment tool and just couldnt get the input shaft into the spigot bearing on the crank. Today was pretty challenging as well, took us 5 goes and 3 practice runs before we could get it in and the gearbox fully on with torqued and loctite'd pressure plate bolts.

 

anyways .. some cool shots of the engine and suspension.

 

A video of us dropping it out.

 

 

Prep work.

 

 

and out she comes 

 

 

gearbox / clutch mounting time..

 

All a bit of a tight fit in the bell housing. But its finally in! 

 

 

Took the time to tidy up a few other things while the engine was out

 

Put the new copper nuts for the extractors on and torqued them.

 

Also modified the s50 water pipes while we had a chance... as it sits in behind the engine between the firewall .. there is much room to move, but we have sussed it now 

 

Finshed off now not hitting the number 6 pipe and now allows the heat shield to be put back on. Which is a wise move as a rubber hose sits on that pipe.

 

Also modified the steering rack so it has 3-4mm clearance from the sump  .. as I said before this whole thing has been very very tight.

 

 

Thats all .. we are now on the home run! .. next just bolting all the misc stuff to the engine and hanging the radiator etc etc. re-hang the exhaust that we took off earlier in the week  .. will photo it when its back on for ya'll to see.

and then itssssssssssss.. wiring time!  Will re-align the DME <-> EWS and we should be ready for the first test fire in the next week or so ...

 

 

[Teaser]

Posted November 24, 2013

Wheel design revealed ... Going in tomorrow for their two week surgery.

 

18x8.5 and 9.5 are going to be this.

 

Polished lip, gun metal silver centers,  black chrome bolts (see second photoshop image below), reverse face for extra toughness and red cap centers (on order)

 

reverse face vs non reverse.

 

 

Long day today..

 

Worked on trying to get the rest of the exhaust hung but unfortunitly over looked the legnth of the linkage into the gearbox. So have decided the best way is to sort this is to weld a short link rod onto this rod so the gearbox end fits perfectly.

This held up the drive shaft which I've managed to swap the hanger bearing on.

 

Got everything else done like re-installing the heater pipes / new painted booster and master cylinder and plenium.

Also installed the alloy race radiator.

 

 

too long .. time to modify

 

 

 

Welded oil cooler lines for AN fittings.

 

 

and the engine

 

 

 

Starter motor wiring.

 

Posted November 24, 2013

Bought some more stuff today 

 

Having searched high and low for a atleast dual 2 1/4 input that wasn't made from playdoh .. I opted for something else 

 

Remus e60 550i single 3.5 inch input and dual 2.25 output. 

 

This thing is huge 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I will have a second 2 into 1 collector at the end of the 2.25 stainless dual pipes.

 

 

Also a first pic of the MSS50 Siemens DME.

 

 

New Walbro 500hp external fuel pump and mounting kit. I had the option to go to a bosch 044 but it really would have been over kill @ 700hp.

 

 

 

Also a shot of a MSS50 map dump Im mucking around with

 

 

 

Hopefully have another cool update for wedensday all going to plan .. but you will have to wait and see 

 

 

 

cheers

 

Exhaust update:

 

Guess what bitches ... it fits!!!!111one

 

So some pretty major work has been done to get the z3 2.8 turn rack (from the 4.0 standard rack) everything ended up being 'tweaked'.

 

You can also see the new runner pipes from the collectors. After some advice from Gavin the runner size was kept to 2 inch to retain the b32 torque. Going 2.25 inch will get you more peak, however the pipes have been calculated to handle 400 HP nicely as it is. Which is bang on the money we reckon for the range this engine will be operating in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 550i e60 exhaust re welded to clear the M-Coupe diff 

 

 

 

 

 

Like a glove 

 

 

Thats all for now. The complete system should be done Friday afternoon as with the Oil cooler.

 

 

This is an older post of images of how the underneath was built .. more for you guys who haven't seen it. Yes it will be dropped down, I have a bit of panel work to do after the engine is all in. As you can see the wheels come out past the gaurds a wee bit.

 

Brakes at 332mm Wilwood SL-6's and M-coupe 315mm rears.

M-coupe rear end, half shafts, diff, trainling arms

GC / koni / Eibach / GC camber plates all round

e30m3 front struts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted November 24, 2013

Update:

 

Next on the list was the intake plenium clearance. The heater pipes were in the road.

 

 

Brendon took around an inch off the pipes. to fit the new samco heater pipes. Yes .. bloody samco heater pipes. lol

 

 

Out the come. Tissue paper to stop my pet hate of coolant all over the carpet

 

 

Needed to shorten the pipes. And I wanted to test out my new dremel tool 33,000rpm cutting tools rule.

 

 

Test fit the hoses, had to sort out the gromet to fit the hoses. More dremel action. No photos on this, but I needed a face mask as it was like doing a burn out in rays workshop .. the smoke that came off it was insane.

 

 

 

 

 

Inside fitment

 

 

finished position .. will clamp it up when everything is put together

 

 

 

Next is the oil cooler and headers mock up. Also a shed load of parts inbound from BMW

 

 

Sorry for the lack of updates .. We have actually been working on the car just doing a lot of prep work and setting up for the new modified headers.

 

Quite a bit of cutting on the #6 pipe and re shaping. While keeping it eqaul length and no sharp angles was no mean feat. A friend of the missus has done all the welding work, having gone solo after spending his time working on some big budget race car projects in his time .. and his tig welding workmanship shows. Great to have some one like him on board.

 

4 areas of concern

 

1 #6 hits the firewall

2 Rear pipe collector touched the Sway Bar

3 #6 fowled the steering colum

4 Post collector long pipes need to be modified to hug the body better while retaining the correct length to the mid muffler as not to effect torque.

 

With out further ado.

 

Test fitting the new modified pipes.

 

 

 

 

Top view.

 

 

Underneath.

 

 

 

Shortened and reflanged to provide a more liner path. O2 sensors to be retapped into new secondary pipes.

 

 

Tig welded factory flanges .. super stoked on the job done so far.

 

 

Welded to factory outlet flanges.

 

 

This is before we installed the steering rack back in to check. you can see the lack of clearance  we have to play with.. but we will get there 

 

 

 

Now the steering doesn't quite clear the number 6 just yet .. so a little rework is going to be needed .. however we will have something later this week hopefully 

 

 

 

 

No photos this time ... Still playing paddy cake with the headers vs steering rack input shaft vs steering coupling vs sway bar. Its pretty got darn complicated so we are shipping the car down the the welders workshop for him to complete.

 

While it's down there it will be getting a custom twin 2 1/4 inch mandrel bend stainless exhaust system to be welded up. Complete with X Pipe. Still sussing the muffler out .. but we are looking around two weeks for a test fire 

 

A LOT of parts in bound from germany .. hopefully some of the last orders ... I feel sorry for Gary @ JC. My email to him today went something like this.

 

"Hey mate, Sorry to f**k up your friday afternoon  .... " 

 

erm .. Oh and I managed to drop the brake booster into be painted.

 

That and I curbed my right rear Works wheel on the e46 yesterday .... most of the way around ...   

 

It will be off to Arrow wheels on moday to be sorted out. Its only curb rash .. but it broke my 2 1/2 year record of not stuffing them.

 

Oh and a massive thanks to Ashkan for the lend of the gearbox cross member while mines on back order. cheers dude, without it we could complete the headers next week.

Posted November 24, 2013

Sorted out the clutch / pressure plate today .. 

 

 

Went for Carbon / Kevlar instead of a metal composite to keep the drive train rattles down and will be a little nicer to drive in traffic. Perfect mix of hard core driving / track days and heavy street and ablility to drive in rush hour without glazing up the clutch.

 

 

 

I had a 3035 ft pound pressure spring mated to a new OE sachs housing. Is good for 450rwhp.

 

 

All assembled ... 

 

 

 

 

 

Off to be balanced tomorrow

 

 

 

Update:

 

Sorry for the lack of photos on this one .. Will click some off tomorrow, forgot to bring the memory card up in the camera.

 

So just to tidy up the last post, I had the pressure plate / clutch and flywheel and pressure plate bolts all balanced. 

Not much was needed to be removed and suprisingly the Sach pressure plate housing was apparently a 9/10 balance .. which was nice to hear.

 

Ok so today was pretty epic.

 

The brake booster  was removed and the new laser cut brake booster relocation plates worked perfectly. Thanks to Brendon for getting the measurement bang on and Ollie for sorting the CAD and laser cutting. 

Thanks to westy, he fabbed up and welded an extension to the brake booster swing bracket from the brake push rod. Just need to get the e34 brake push rod into it.

 

All in all the Brake booster was moved around 60mm to allow the s50 plenium to fit.

 

Tomorrow the z3 2.8 3.0 ratio steering rack goes in and e36 6 cylinder power steering pump and steering pump reservior goes in and will run the new brake lines.

 

 

Later in the week the 5 series sump and oil pick-ups go onto the new engine and we will attempt to shoe horn it and the gear box into place to check for final clearance.

 

 

Thanks to Ray and co, Westy and Brendon for today.

 

 

Some photos of the handy work over the past few days.

 

New hole cut in the firewall

 

Firewall side relocation plates. There is a plate on each side of the firewall 3mm thick stainless.

 

Booster installed (yet to be painted still mocking up) Brake lines are still to be done properly ran out of time today.

 

The brake swing bracket on the interior side which has been extended to handle the move.

 

E34 brake pedal push rod was re threaded with a tap and dye set today and installed. It fitted perfectly.

 

 

New z3 Steering rack which we found out was a 2.8 lock to lock ratio one! .. win. A date with the degreaser and a hose, it came out new

 

Installed

 

15mm Spacers installed into the rack. Will investigate maybe putting these at the bottom to lift the rack to reduce bump steer however this all depends weather it will clear the engine, wont know that till the engine goes in.

 

 

Thats all for today ... more friday going to plan.

 

 

Another successful day.

 

Tidying up the brake lines and swapping the e34 sump / new revised s50 pump / e34 pick from the 'old' engine to the new one. 

 

Brake line tidy up, Brendon managed to work some pretty cool solutions, like the e36 square brake fluid reservoir.

 

 

While brendon spent literally all day in the engine bay I lined up both the S50b32's and started work on swapping the oil pans and oil pumps.

 

 

 

S50b32 oil pick ups from the new engine to come out.

 

 

Little sh*t of a oil sprocket nut .. known for coming off. Left hand thread.

 

 

Pump removed .. noting the pick up support bracket is connected to the main bearing cap bolts. I removed these and re torqed them back up with my new toy.

 

 

 

 

New oil pump and pick up 

 

 

 

 

Cleaning up the sprocket shaft and sprocket for loctite blue and torqued.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And one last stupid photo ... 

 

We couldnt figure out weather to make a 3 engine 6wd e30 ... that and thought there isn't a photo anywhere where you would see 3 s50b32's in one spot  

 

Posted November 24, 2013

Bought a new toy today. 37k's .. basically only run in

 

 

 

 

More toys turned up...

 

DTM Short Shifter

 

 

Spherical ball race bearing / Alloy plate

 

DTM Shifter and s50 -> e30 loom adapter

 

 

Its been 5 weeks in the making and fair bit of CAD work plus mock up from westy's e30/e46 flywheel / pressure plate setup (cheers tony)..  I bring you the billet s50b32 single mass flywheel.

 

It weighs in at 6.23kgs and had the dual mass ring gear put onto it to match my starter setup.

 

 

Old s50 dual mass vs the new single mass (quite the difference)

 

 

 

Should rev like a bitch now...