Sprak's E21 315

[Sparkle]

Discuss? - //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/29495-sparkles-bmw-of-supermega-happy-hell-yes/

Well, it was time for a BMW again. Have had a few, which included a E30 318i, E21 320, E28 535i, and a couple of parts cars including a E28 528i and E12 M535i

Have wanted an E21 again for years after selling my 320 6cyl, and looked for around half a year for one before I brought my 620.

I have wanted this particular car for 3-5+ years. A E21 315. The smallest engined 3 series ever. Finally saw it again after trying to track it down on the day I arranged to go buy my 620, and grabbed the rego. It didn't go any further as I brought my 620.

Have always loved the single headlamps more, and always wanted a 4cyl model so that I could one day run a 2002 block and E30 318i head combo w/ sidies.

By chance I looked up old bmw's the other night and managed to find the particular car that I've always wanted. Problem is, that it has been de-registered due to accident damage

But, because of this, I picked it up for a steal.

Drove it home from the wreckers yard this evening.

Plan is long-long term, like ten year project. In no rush to do this. Want to do it properly when I can afford to.

As far as wheels go, probably 15x8/15x9 BBS RS, oh, and I have some E30 steels in the shed that I've had for around two years ready to widen for when I got a E21 again

So I know own one of my "dream" cars, a single headlamp, four cylinder, E21

Below are the pictures off trademe;

[Sparkle]

whats this...

[Sparkle]

So, this week is consisted of getting this thing registered.

Caught a ride down with Richy for swapmeat. Got tyres, and a quick service sussed over the first few days.

Got the panelbeater to repaint the valances, and sills as per factory (think it looks loads better), removed the horrible aftermarket mirror on RHS door, and of course, fixed the damage.

Then yesterday, picked it up from the panelbeaters at about 2pm, and took it straight down for it's re-check.

Drove around local VTNZs to see which plates were available, think the plate I choose out of four options, was probably the funniest/least relevant. (10 off small block, mate.)

Hissed round to Cam's, bolted the plates on, and then left Palmy for Auckland about 3:30pm.

Just out of Feilding, entering the Rangetiki district

On the desert road

What eruption?

Stopped in at Dave's for a lush dinner

Horrible grainy photo at Lake Taupo, had to stop at the BP for a 10 min nap, and a triple shot coffee.

Went via Hamilton to find another coffee, most places were closed, and BK's coffee machine was down. Moved on from below and grabbed another coffee at Ngaruawahia/fared for my life

Then from here managed to jump on to expressways/motorways, to get back home.

Luckily to keep me sane 'the sound' was playing the following in full. Made close to an hour of motorways pretty sweet;

aldjyTZINKQ

Pulled in the driveway at 1:45am after just over 600kms.

[Sparkle]

Lost that sweet/super yuck muffler above.

Dropped some spare struts into MRP for him to make some coilovers up using Fortune Auto stuff. Fingers crossed everything's done for Nationals.

Also, got these back today. New mini steels, changed from FWD offset to 0, and widened to 8". Super fucking sweet job by Steel Surgeon.

[Sparkle]

Rarrr! I'm a lion!

/Hopefully should be finished within the next couple of days.

[Guest Sparkle]

/Hopefully can cure my ride height soon, ese'

[Guest Sparkle]

Coilovers were in at midnight last night. Got a wheel alignment today.

Had a bit of problems with the tyres hitting the valence/lower part of the guard, may need to look at adjustable castor to get it any lower/probably won't work anymore as the tyres are pretty much stopping me go any lower.

But, it's exactly the look I was after, beefy tyre with tyre tuck(or close to). Semi racecar-ish look, but not really.

Rambling cause I'm tired.

[Guest Sparkle]

Forgot to add, got these bushes chucked in yesterday before the alignment. Managed to squeeze close to a degree out of negative camber.

Toe was wack as shit, like wayyyy out, and these managed to get it back to factory toe settings. Ruled. Good decision to get them in, in the end.

http://www.whiteline.com.au/product_detail4.php?part_number=W62188

Also had help from the sheep dog to biff a 320 rear swaybar in a while back, made a big difference.

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/29495-sparkles-bmw-of-supermega-happy-hell-yes/

[Sparkle]

Got some super sweet shots from Richy on the weekend.

 

 

rest here... http://www.flickr.com/photos/snoozinrichy/sets/72157633413882414/with/8705655705/

 

 

 

 

 

dizcus;

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/29495-sparkles-bmw-of-supermega-happy-hell-yes/

[Sparkle]

Felt like I wanted a change on teh wheel colour. Happy with how they look, they're a bronzey/beigey/silver. Basically harlequin modgies.

 

 

gooby pls

[Sparkle]

 

Went out to a choice jokers place in Pahiatua over the weekend to get a new carb.

The only difference between the 315, and 316 is the size of the carb, so thought I might unlock a lil extra peppy for the trip to nelson.

I was mid way through yarns, as cam was ripping the housing off the other one, and oo0o0 aii son, it has a dgv 32/36 on it.

Whoops entailed, and we took that instead!

 

With Cam once again doing 90% off the work, it was on, on Sunday, but seemed a little flat, and according to the "G TECH PERFORMANCE METER", we had exactly the same horsepower, hah!

Dropped it off at Ian (Eurotech PN) today for him to have a fiddle. Funnily enough, it was running lean, and an increase in jet size has made a big difference (we didn't think would be lean, as came off a 1800 bmw motor)

Was hoping for more (as the 316 is apparently 15hp more) but testing with us fatties in the car again netted a gain of approx 8-10hp at the bagz.

 

Runs a lot better though, and revs sooo much more freely. Peppy increased.

[Sparkle]

The radiator in this thing was looking pretty worse for wear, and couldn't recore it due to being plastic tanked. Cam and I looked for ahges trying to find a replacement in something slightly bigger, basically for future proofing. Nothing was the right sizes, as it's a bit odd, and the bottom tank has two little feet that sit down the bottom.

Managed to find a standard replacement, but even that was wrong due to a wrong outlet. It seems that theres quite a bit of different on the faceleft models (1980-82), even radiators are different.

 

Managed to score a radiator off the same car that I nicked the weber off, and the core looked pretty good in the car, once out though, and looking at the fins on the front side of the car, it looked a bit knackered. No biggie. The tanks were bronze, so I could get this recored. That's what I thought. Seemed some dude had gone to a shitload of trouble to repair a standard plastic tanked radiator, left the standard bottom plastic tank, and got a bronze one on the top. Aaarrghh.

 

One option was to try and find a standard 323i one as theres a little panel that can be pulled out and the radiator sits forward. I didn't really want to do this though, was quite keen on leaving it as it came.

 

After scrawling through old threads on here, and recommendations from Richy/Sheepers, I gave a call to 'Real Deal Radiators'. These guys were super G.Cs, and made me a super choice radiator that's wider and thicker than standard in alloy for cheaper than what I got quoted for a new bronze bottom tank and recore for the above mentioned radiator.

Dave and Mark were fantastic to deal with. I really gave them a hard time as far as stupid measurements, last minute changes, and pressure to get it done asap. Can't recommend them enough.

 

Heres the pretty looking thing, just need to make the rest of the engine bay looking as shazaam now.

 

[Sparkle]

So Beave and I were yarning about sweet old seats. An 1980s era Autosport seat came up for grabs in Welly, so Beave grabbed it to give it a go. He wasn't so much of a fan/bit of a mission for his interior so he offered for me.

Have always digged these seats, and by golly it's comfy. Had some choice dudes help me make up some mounts, and looks pretty lush in there tbh. Have got the standard seat sitting in the datsun cab, so can biff it in if I decide to change back at any point.

 

Managed to finally pick up a 2 litre/convince a contact of mine to sell me one of his. Pretty lucky as it's out of a 4 cylinder E21 320, which was only made for a couple years, and they're pretty rare here. Mounts up different to the 2 litre from the 2002, and has electric ignition/apparently a good head. Only downside is these motors have super dumb standard compression. I think somewhere around 8.3:1.

 

Tempted to change the oil/get rid of the yuck carb and biff it in, but in reality I would really like to get porting/rob cam/sidies/bottom end refresh before it goes in. Could likely use 2002tii pistons which are 10.5:1 to get it up.

 

Stayed at Maria and Daves the other night, and pilfered this off Dave in the morning. Need some sidies/bright orange trumpets a la Alpina steez

[Sparkle]

Ok,

With the kind help of those top blokes cam and blizzo, the engine got stripped, and made a plan to have 2ltr in for nats.

Plan originally included a relatively stock rebuild, with a bit of porting, a cam that makes label label noises, and more than likely the 32/36 weber that I have.

I then found some high compression m10 pistons on ebay australia. Landed them for nix, and found that they wouldn't work due to them being for a 02 engine rather than an E21 (didn't know that combustion chambers were basically mirrored)

So, because I started on that track, I couldn't back track amirite?

 

Head as standard (mine on the right)

 

Head as of today

 

Hasn't got much more cutting to go, before polishing begins.

So current plan includes some JE pistons, a 294 cam, 45mm webers, maybe some headers, and some other misc bits from these fellas;

http://www.racetep.com/bmwmainframe.html

 

So yeah, fingers crossed I'll have more than double my current horsepower at nats. Should be pretty nippy round town.

 

discuss;

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/29495-sparkles-bmw-of-supermega-happy-hell-yes/

[Sparkle]

OK. So there was no way that the engine was going to be ready for nats, so I held off a couple months whilst the dollar went everywhere. Clicked the button/called the dude in cali a week before nats and got the bits ordered.

They all turned up today, and look to be all there, and in the appropriate amount of pieces that is correct.

DORT BITS!

 

 

Pictured is;

2x 45mm webers

headers

arp head bolts

total seal gapless rings

TRP 294 cam with appropriate valve springs

rocker arm lockers (to replace springs that let go at approx 6800ish?)

steel head gasket

lightened factory flywheel

oil pump + timing chain

bearings, gasket set etc

 

oh and these little beauties, which should pop me up at a nice compression ratio

 

 

 

talking about it;

//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/29495-sparkles-bmw-of-supermega-happy-hell-yes/

[Sparkle]

 

Block all bored, decked and painted. 2.1 litre capacity!

 

In other news, even though totally the wrong stud pattern, I couldn't pass these beauties up. 14x7 BBS mahle, with probably a fairly low offset.

Have always wanted to run 14s on the car. So now it's decide to run E12 5 series front hubs, and redrill? rear, or run some adapters. Regardless, these will probably be a while off yet. Should look pretty shmick all polished up with some 185 55s or similar

 

[Sparkle]

I was dizzy with shock when this turned up today

 

 

ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPP

[Sparkle]

 

 

[Sparkle]

Well,

not quite ready for nats, but good things take time right?

On Thursday evening it fired into life for the first time. After lots of fiddling, and a round of fish and chips, we shuffled the E21 onto the dyno at approx 9.15pm. Big thanks to Roskilda autos! Rodney and Ari are great guys who know who to get stuff sorted, and went hard to get me doorting for the weekend!

After the first run was worked out properly on a calculator on my phone translating to "old barry horsepower" figures, my face turned to a big notbad.jpg

Things only improved from there. I rang the engine builder the next day to tell him the numbers. Pretty sure it's one of the only times I've heard him curse. We were both pretty happy!

 

152wrhp/190hp at the engine

 

 

 

[Sparkle]

Dyno plots, one in 3rd, one in 4th