Das Beast: My E30 track / street build

[dvallis]

Ground off some paint, welded struts to castings and repainted. Still looks good.



Finally got back to putting things on the car instead of fabricating. I found it was easiest attaching the sway bar to the front subframe before installation.



Here's a side shot. You can see the IE reinforcing brackets don't sit exactly flush with the subframe rear tabs. It takes a few washers or whatever to get a solid fit. Getting the control arms back on is easiest if you leave the subframe pivot loose and work the arm back and forth. Eventually the bushing carrier slides into the frame guide pins. I'm liking how solid the fresh control arm bushings are. Suspension should be really tight.



I'm pretty much stalled until the stuff I need arrives from ECS Tuning and Garagistic. (Secondary diff mount, steering rack boots etc.) Decided to goof around a bit and clean up my Craigslist suspension.

Once I got all the dirt off, you can see they are Eibach 6" length, 2.5" ID, 400 lb/in.



Rest of the Ground Control stuff cleaned up well.



That's it for today

[dvallis]

Front wheel hubs went on fine with a hammer and socket tapping on the bearing inner race. Then I used the wheel nut to pull it the rest of the way on. Nut is not torqued or crimped yet.



End result looking good. That's more like it.

[dvallis]

The Brake Plan

Brakes are shaping up. What I've got on the bench so far:

Front calipers: Wilwood 120-11133 1.65" x 4 pistons
Front rotors: Hawk DTC HR8000R/L vaned slotted 11.75" x 1.25"
Rear calipers: Wilwood 120-11127 1.25" x 4 pistons
Rear rotors: Hawk DTC HR8000R/L vaned slotted 11.75" x 1.25"
Massive 300 x 32mm front and rear brake kit

Here's the plan:

Tilton Pedal Box 72-608
Custom pedal box bracket
Tilton 5/8" Master 74-625U x 2 (Brakes)
Tilton 3/4" Master 74-750U x 1 (Clutch)
Tilton remote bias adjuster 72-509
Hard brake lines, 25' x 3/16 stainless
3AN male fittings for hard lines
4 x 12" 3AN-F braided stainless lines
1/8-NPT male to 3AN male caliper adapters

[dvallis]

My plan was pretty close. Should be using the Tilton 75 series short masters, instead of 74 series.

Anyone doing custom brakes from scratch should read this thread. Really nice work by Madhatter. I'm going to copy this setup. Except for left hand drive. :devil:

[dvallis]

Needed to work out the details before tearing off madly in all directions. Here's the brake system design. Part numbers and general idea should help some of you guys in the future.

[dvallis]

Diff Mount

Today's project is secondary diff mount. With a 500 HP turbo engine, there's always a possibility of shearing off the single diff mount, so we're reinforcing it before there is a problem. The Rogue Engineering dual ear E36 M3 diff cover is really nice, but $600 is a bit steep.



Garagistic has a $150 product that gets the job done. Installed it on The Lump today. Fits fine. Tomorrow's job will be installing a secondary ear mount to the frame. We can't drill through the floor and just use their standard mounting hardware as it will get in the way of the fuel cell. Will have to weld to the frame instead.



Test fitted a front strut. Sway bar drop link is looking much better. Everything rotates smoothly.



I refreshed the short ratio Z3 rack today. Replaced the end boots and tie rod ends. Aftermarket crimps are too small for the inside end. Need to go see Lee.

[dvallis]

Brake system parts and tools are here. Will be installing this weekend.

[dvallis]

Worked on the rear suspension tonight. Here's the refreshed and strengthened subframe bolted in place.



Diff bolted in no problem. We drilled the floor tonight and will bolt the secondary bracket in place this weekend once we get specialized hardware.

[dvallis]

Brake extravaganza

So, all the brake parts are here (mostly). We're finally getting to build the brake system. One thing you'll need is this handy piece of kit: a tube bender. (Imperial Tool 470FH Triple Head 180 Degree Tube Bender)



It has a fatal design flaw. The bend stop is a bit too large. Won't let the tool do a full 180 degree bend. We just took a dremmel tool and chisel to it.



We used copper wire to prototype the hard line. Before someone says "You can't run brake lines inside the car!" .... you can. Do a google search and you'll see why. 99% if ITS cars in SCCA run the rear brake line through the cabin to install a brake bias proportioning valve. In fact, my last SCCA car had just that thing. As a nod to safety, we did run the line on the other side of the drive shaft hump. In case of a leak, brake fluid will not spray in my face. :devil:



3/16" poly coated brake line comes in a coil. You have to unroll and straighten it. A straightening tool is $300! (cough) We used a couple of 2x4. Bang, bang, bang.



Next its on to making the brake lines. Flare nut goes on first. :devil: You start with the tube in a "vice-like" clamp with a bit sticking out. The round die is inserted into the tube and pressed down with a screw clamp. At this point the end of the tube has a 45 degree bubble flare in the end of it.



Die is removed and tip of screw clamp presses the interior flange back into the tube. This is why it's called a double flare.



Here's the end result.



We used the copper wire as a template and formed 3/16" steel tube on the bench. (Much easier this way) Here it is installed. Tube clamps have not arrived from eBay so we can't clamp it on. That fitting on the left is a 3-way inverted flare female (IFF) T-block. There will be a F-F flare join block on the right. Why? So we can replace a short run to the rear master if required, instead of the whole long run.



We mocked up a caliper on a trailing arm to get an idea of brake line clearance and routing.



There is not a lot of room from the inside of the caliper to the wheel well. In fact, there is only about two inches between the caliper inside face and a bracket sticking out from the car. Will definitely require a 90 degree NPT to 3AN fitting, instead of the straight one we have. We looked at mounting the hard line above the caliper as shown, but were not liking it.



Here's what we ended up with instead. View is from the ground, looking straight up past the trailing arm. We drilled straight down through the trunk with the fitting shown in the upper right. Fitting you see is 3AN male, which mates with the 3AN female SS brake line. Inside the trunk is an inverted double flare female socket.



Here's what it looks like from inside the trunk. Nice and clean.



View from inside the cabin. Main line running from the rear master to a T-block feeding each caliper.



That's all for hard lines today. I needed to run and get more tube. (We messed some of it up. :devil:)

Here's the Tilton pedal box partially assembled. It's a nice piece of kit. We are definitely going to cut out the entire steering column bracket and existing pedal assembly to mount this.

[dvallis]

More brakes

We're starting with a clean sheet for the pedals area. Notice Rob removed the steering column and various brackets. We'll fab what is required. The gas pedal is going as well. Looking for an aftermarket replacement.



Here's the starting point for a brake line. We run a length of copper wire and shape a template.



Brake line? No. We messed up one of the bends, so this became a practice tube. :devil:



Here's the real thing. Notice the similarity to the template. Which is a good thing.



Front brake lines installed, minus retaining clips. (Still not here. Ugh) There will be a short run from the front master to the brass T. Makes for easy maintenance and master changes.



View from inside the wheel well. We retained the same hard point mounting and replaced the metric bubble flare fitting with an IFF to 3AN male. Mates to the stainless 3AN brake hose.



That's all for a bit. Need to design the fuel system and order more parts.

[She loved E]

Just read the whole thread. My brain feels bigger but it also hurts a little. I really admire your ability to shrug off the speed bumps (bent valves) and make audible calls along the way (scrapping DTM kit).

[badwella]

Nice brake lines! What flaring tool did you use? I bought one of the hand crank ones, but what I'd do for one of those hydraulic powered ones. . . . . .

Also, if you need sections of 30 inches or less, you can get preflared sections from local auto parts stores. They have a selection of straight brake lines with the nuts and flared ends already on behind the counter you can choose from. Various lengths 6", 10", etc. Really good price too.

[dvallis]

Hello She_Loved_E. Welcome to the Das Beast adventure. Thanks for taking the time to read everything. Now that everything's going back together, things will get really interesting. We've got some cool surprises in store, so stay tuned.

[dvallis]

Badwalla, I used an OTC 6502 Master Brake Flaring Tool Kit. It's a nice piece of kit.



Also used an Imperial Tool 470FH Triple Head 180 Degree Tube Bender for major bends:



We did in-place bends with Brake Line Tube Bending Pliers:



It's way easier to just make your own runs than try and adapt pre-made lengths.

[dvallis]

===== massive brakes ======

So, the brakes kicked our ass this weekend. Just could not get the caliper brackets fitted. (more on that later) I decided to put a Whup Ass on it after work today.

Here's the starting point. Massive Lee's 300x32 front rotor hat. He sells some really well machined parts.



Here's the hat mounted on a Hawk DTC8000R 300x32 rotor. It's huge.





Now, here's the problem. Lee's 300x32 caliper bracket does not fit on an unmodified stock shock strut. To his credit, the included instructions do say "cut off the dust shield ear". However, the instruction picture is illegible. And engineers don't read instructions. :devil: Lee graciously pointed out my "personal issue".



5 minutes with an angle grinder and problem was solved.



That's better. Caliper mounts to the inside of the bracket.



Oh yeah.





Now for the moment of truth. Do the wheels fit? (STR518, 17x9, 4x100, ET22, 73.1 bore with 10 mm hub centric aluminum spacers, 57.1 mm to 73.1 mm aluminum hub rings) 245/40/17



Good clearance outside the caliper.



Good clearance from tire to the strut.



Finally, here's the 12" SS brake line check. Fits perfectly.