Canadian Calypso E30

[Le_Garagiste]

Brought home my car from the paint shop after work. Looks amazing. In the sun, it looks a few shades too light but it's super smooth and consistence.
Got to let the chemicals gas out and bring it back for a few touch ups. Other than that, it's insured and back on the road. I'm still piecing together
all the trim but other than that, it's done.

New colour at around 21:30. Lighter and more sparkly.



Old photo for comparison from a couple years ago. It's in different lighting but still shows the difference.

[CRBR30]

That came out great. Oh and nice interior!

[Northern]

Looks good. I need to address similar trunk pocket rot on the driver side sometime soon for the second time.

[E30_Pare]

Those centras tho! You should sell me a pair since I need them!

[Le_Garagiste]

Those centras tho! You should sell me a pair since I need them!

They're a side project's (190e) project that's now gone. Only these wheels are left. Painted them smoke grey on the face with black inner/outer barrel. I did it for fun since the e30 was out and there was nothing to work on.

[Le_Garagiste]

Pick up some single adjustable R&T Öhlins coilovers that I'll attempt to fit. Hopefully it works, if they don't I'll install them on my E91 that they're meant for.
Rears are about the same length but the fronts will need to have the kingpin modified.

[Le_Garagiste]

Finally got around to working on the suspension. I figured that fronts would need a clamp-on type carrier so I went to pick up a set of E46 king pins. Sizing seems to be good with only a difference of 20mm in height. I still need to pick up a ball joint separator to take out the old strut completely. I haven't seen anyone else try this but it's worth a shot, hopefully things work out, if not it's back to square one. Offset will be a lot higher and caster may change but should be in range where a caster/camber plate can rectify it.

Any thoughts on how this will work?

[Jb325is]

I've looked into this in the past, you're better off starting with a stock e30 knuckle and building it from there. There was a guy working on something similar on s14.net a few years back, I'll see if I can find it

[Jb325is]

[Le_Garagiste]

I've looked into this in the past, you're better off starting with a stock e30 knuckle and building it from there. There was a guy working on something similar on s14.net a few years back, I'll see if I can find it

I thought about doing something like that but wanted to try existing parts, they're cheap enough. If it doesn't work I'll look into that clamp on the E30 king pin. Another reason is for bigger brakes later on which have better selection in 5x120 pattern.

[Le_Garagiste]

Finally got the old strut separated from the lower control arm with a ball joint separator tool with a huge bang which caught me by surprise. It's also heavy as hell. New Öhlins coilover and E46 king pin went in without any fuss. Everything seems to line up nicely but I won't know for certain until I get proper camber plates. I also threw a style 160 wheel on, 17x8 ET34, for size. Took a gamble on an unknown task but it's working out good so far. This was a test fit so nothing's bolted up completely. If you're wondering, I went with this set up because of the coilovers and brake kit that's to come, 5-lug is just a byproduct on the parts used. I would rather stay 4-lug because of the RS' I have but you can't win them all.

[jeenyus]

very cool. looks great.

[PimpinWalrus]

Love the Uberkaro. Great work man!

[Le_Garagiste]

Had some time to bolt everything up today, unfortunately I ran into some alignment issues which were disappointing but partially expected. Like an E36
5-lug swap, the E46 kingpin doesn't line up properly in the E30 wheel well. On the flip side, my ride-height concerns have been answered with decent
resting position. Initially I thought it would be too low.

Next step will be to get some E36 M3 control arms and offset E30 bushings to hopefully rectify this positioning.

[Le_Garagiste]

After messing around for months I finally decided to get a friend to modify the stock strut assembly. We chopped the old strut leaving a few inches and then added tubing with a bolt-on clamp so that the coilover can be removed for servicing. Compared to stock it's 3" shorter. Initially I thought it would be too much since most people remove 1" or 2" from Ground Control systems but it ended up sitting nicely. For the rear we made a offset vertical to horizontal mount adapter. Even though the strut is 2" shorter than stock, the ride height isn't very low with adjusters at the minimum height - might go to a 5.5" instead of 6" right now. Camber plates and monoball rear shock mount were also used. Front springs are 60n/mm (243 lbs/in) and 70n/mm (400 lbs/in) rears. For the time being I'll be tuning the ride height and rebound. Will upload a photo when the sun's a little lower.

Is it overkill? Probably
Is it more work than necessary? Not really
But I already had the coilovers around so why not. It's just car jewellery.