Project: Lela! (she loves it on all fours :) )

[imwhyteyo]

You might remember "Mila" - the BMW Performance Magazine cover car of January 2010. a 500+whp screamin demon.. well her younger, and soon to be hotter sister just moved into town!

Ladies and gentlemen, i present to you Ms. Lela - a Diamondshwarz, 1991 Bmw E30, 325IX Coupe, Turbocharged, automatic transmission with a soft and beautiful tan Sport leather interior, tinted windows, and a 3'' turbo-back exhaust.
She was spotted cold and lonely, stripped of her beautiful voice (all stereo components including speakers, tweeters, factory amp, and head unit) in the New england patriots hometown of Foxboro MA. Being offered for a unbeatable price.. i absolutely HAD to pick her up and bring her home to be sorted in the best manner possible.

Anyways.. Here she is when i got her.








Can anybody identify this turbo for me? I will look at the markings further on once i pull this engine and post more information.



Heres the fancy re-upholstry on the bolsters. Black suede and some clean ass leather butt/back sections



Didnt take long for me to start hacking into things... awful gauge selections, creating horrible spaghetti messes! :hitler:


only 136K !


Here are my girls!! Mila (left) Lela (right)





So without hesitation i started to clean up the little odds and ends, and put a few things into her that have been waiting on the shelves!
someone was a skii'er (sticker removal!!! hate stickers.. ;P)




Heres the front end before!


And after! Repainted some old euro grilles i had lying around, removed the ugly metal license plate bracket, and installed some ZKW german smoked signal lenses



Also installed my spare german check panel (havent got it working yet, think its something in the wiring)




And thats all for today folks, another quick shot on my way out before locking up! plenty of high paced action in this build so stay tuned!

[imwhyteyo]

So the donor car showed up! We named her Hilda. Shes a diamondshwarz 4 door 325ix w/ 190k give or take. heres some fun facts on Hilda!

problems it came with:
80% rattlecan black paint job, brite orange kidneys and mirrors, misc sticker bombs and graffiti
Torn/missing headliner, torn heated grey leather comfort interior, missing skii pass, ugly door panels. rusty fenders.

Goodies it came with:
Brand new in box H+R sport lowering springs, rally armor mudflaps, Ansa Sport catback exhaust, 4 Brand new 15'' studded snows AND 4 brand new Khumo 15'' tires for weaves, Kenwood 200watt aux front head unit. other than surface rust on fenders, chassis and underbody and solid suprisingly for a new england winter car. definitely going to clean her up and make a nice 4 door project down the road!
but anyways.. back to the pics!



my ambition was high! ive been waiting forever for this car to arrive so i could strip out the engine and get all the parts back into Lela, so i couldnt wait, and immediately went to town removing things:






all done just the way BMW intended! (mostly :) )

[imwhyteyo]

Got Lela's guts out too, stripped the motor and tranny right out of the top this time, dissassembled most of the crap, being that i have intentions of sandblasting everything humanly possible.






started cleaning up the engine bay from all the grease and ATF fluid from leaky hoses. cant tell from these pics, but well have a better shot once i put the subframe back up to give it a wash outside.

[imwhyteyo]

Started to take everything apart and do some serious cleaning!
Started with sandblasting and painting the subframe, swaybar, and steering rack!






notes: everything cleaned and wiped with brake parts cleaner, then sandblasted 100% bare. paints used:
VHT chemical/heat resistant "real red" for swaybar, steering rod, and rack cap. VHT chemical/heat resistant "epoxy black" on steering rack. VHT chemical/heat resistant "wrinkle black" on engine mounting brackets, and "wrinkle red" for swaybar bushing brackets. 2 coats SEM chemical/heat resistant alloy wheel clearcoat on the bare aluminum sandblasted subframe, not painted.

Can anyone tell me where to get poly bushings for the OEM front swaybar??? or maybe tell me what option there is to get new swaybars for the front? people are mentioning e46 but i dont see that happening anytime soon.

[saurey]

Can't wait to watch this all unfold. Looking insanely professional and gorgeous so far.

I was in a situation with my IX where I had a rusty ass one that I could have taken a lot more donor parts from but didn't.. it went to the junker with a 5-speed, mtech steering wheel, leather interior, and 2 extra basket weaves. Or perhaps they got sold.. anyway. Cheers dude!

[StinkE30]

Subscribed! Diamondshwarz 4 door iXes unite!

[kid325e]

Sub'd. I've got a DS Mettalic 4dr/5sp as wel. Love it! Lets' get this iX subforum poppin'. Keep it up, love the attention to keeping things clean!

[Northern]

There's someone on ebay that sells ix front poly sway bushings

[DIIRTY-30]

I sat here a little tipsy trying to figure out why the PS rack / subframe loooked funny, then I realized I was looking at an IX.

Looking good so far! Good progress

[litu]

Cool project :)

[imwhyteyo]

Heres some teaser pics of parts to be put in!

started to get things ready for turbo, heres a teaser! a homemade top mount turbo manifold meant to attatch right to the factory manifolds. not the most efficient design, but it will work for now!


uuc braided clutch line


this little bad boys getting alittle modifying :D


finally was able to finally find some polyurethane IX front swaybar bushings, mating with meyle HD swaybar endlinks, should really tighten up the front!


alittle heat wrap for the downpipe! (going with a red accents for the engine and bits if you couldnt tell :D )


6pc stainless braided brake lines sleeved in red:


JB racing 8lb flywheel, sachs sport clutch set, HEAVY duty pressure plate :D


and last but not least, the heart of the beast.. an extremely low mileage, super clean IX engine prime for the building newly shipped up from Floriduh!... will be getting a new oil pump, 2.7 crank, rods, pistons and new bearings, so i can lower the compression ratio. considering highly putting in the 274 cam from "myster E performance".. ARP headstuds, MLS headgasket. and lots of blasting, and powdercoating. :D

[imwhyteyo]

also started removing the manual swap components from hilda's engine and chassis.. removed the pedal cluster, master and slave cylinders + lines, removed the driveshafts/guibos and started to really clean the crap out of every last little bits of things via degreasing and sandblasting..

i need your guys help!
things im looking to upgrade and looking for alittle help with locating:
1: short shifter that fits the ix, and the necessary bushings to make it nice and tight.

2: which exact parts to rebuild the transfer case with and especially the output seals on both ends.. ill be taking the VC from my automatic, as i assume the one in the manual is beat to piss. OH, i severely need the rubber mount, or perhaps an upgraded mount for the brace/crossmember that holds it all up. the center was completely separated from the rubber inside the sleeve, and i imagine this cant be good for the drivetrain.

3: The guibos/flexdiscs! while this is all off, and clean.. ive noticed that they are still in fair, working order. but there are signs of alot of dry-rot, and cracking.. which means to me, its time to replace. theres a large one inbetween the transmission and T-case, a medium one for the T-case to rear driveshaft, and the small one for the front driveshaft to the front differential.

heres the pics from the 2 hours i was there lastnight.

removing transmission/transfer case.


whats the deal with this? little alignment o-ring or something?


nice and axle greased T-case. i assume fluid leaked all the heck out of this thing. this is why i need to tear it down and seal it all back up.


heres the other side:


then i soaked it with degreaser for an hour while i worked on other things around the shop. quite the improvement!!!


heres the "other things" i was doing... :) made a nice set of seats! (you can see Mila peeking in the background.. she must be jealous of Lela.... lol)


looks good on this end..


then i started inspecting the transfer case closer and the driveshaft... splines dont look so bad!



splines look great inside also, but noticed damage to the seal, and to the housing of the case itself. look closely to the right of the output.



it appears theres broken tabs as well? anybody have a picture of what this should look like, not damaged?




where can i obtain just a half? thinking i could potentially repair of it with some "s-metal" machining resin that i have, its extreme industrial machine repair stuff.. works well.. but id really like a solid peice, even if its dirty, things like this just never sit well with me.

thats it for now.. i have a long list of seals, and parts i need to get to ordering, so ill be taking a day off from the garage tonight. will keep on updating!

[imwhyteyo]

havent updated in a while, so i figure ill post up what i was able to snap pictures of real quick inbetween wrenching. i do all my own work so getting the phone out to snap pics of stuff isnt always my first priority

[imwhyteyo]

decided even though the calipers looked to be descent, id get ahead of them before they started getting bad.. so i completelllllllllly disassembled them and will be painting them red (typical) and putting all new parts, seals, and slides in them.










g2 paint system, descent stuff, not pleased with the color output, was hoping a bit brighter.




and figured what the heck, the brakes are getting fresh everything, might as well start cleaning up that booster! lol so i sandblasted and painted that as well. lubed it, put a new gasket on, and whipped her back on.




found myself a legit strut bar from schmeidmann, and apparently the last one they had in red. matches quite well with my other red bits!

just resting on top of the towers to get a good visual.

[imwhyteyo]

picked up a few new toys to go along with the makeover and clean up the looks!
glass smileys:

better, more flowing filter:

figured this design would be more suitable for turbo...

smoked euro fender markers.. going to be putting crazy flux amber leds in them.