Econti's Lazurblau 318is twin builds

[econti]

I remember when older Porsche's weren't that coveted. The trashed ones were parted out with out much thought.
As soon as they became hot ticket items, it made more financial sense to repair body damage that years earlier would have consigned them to the scrappers torch.

While my car isn't really toast, it has some damage that needs a fair amount of work. It's still very driveable in the mean time.

What variant of porch? I'm a decent fan of them but I'll likely never afford any 911 and the front engines variants don't do much for me. Though my mrs dad has a 928S with the burgundy interior in his shop at the moment, and the interior is deluxe to be in.

No E30 though...

[spanish pants]

What variant of porch? I'm a decent fan of them but I'll likely never afford any 911 and the front engines variants don't do much for me. Though my mrs dad has a 928S with the burgundy interior in his shop at the moment, and the interior is deluxe to be in.

No E30 though...

I wish I could find that article, it's driving me batty. Hard to believe, but I referring to old 1970's-1980's vintage 911's. I remember when you could find them for 10-15k US.
There was picture of one sitting in a corner of a shop with the entire roof caved in. I mean it looked like someone had dropped a palette of bricks on it, but they were talking about restoring it.
I would love a 911 but if I want to retire in the next 10 years I will just stick with a 1st or 2nd gen Boxster.
The 928 is a great looking car, as well as the 944-968.

[econti]

Decent day today. 6 ish hours and here we are.

Killing it with that Baja ride height



29:30 hours total work

[econti]

Decent day today. 6 ish hours and here we are.

Killing it with that Baja ride height



29:30 hours total work

[econti]

Loom removal

It's been a while! Just finishing up the restoration on my Ducati 600ss, which is why the E30 hasn't had much love recently.



Still need to block the fairings back then put the stickers on, get the seat re-trimmed, and do a twin disc conversion for front brake

ANYWAY

Got properly bent out of shape last night at my mrs birthday house party, was feeling a little dusty today so it was perfect time for some methodical work.

The car's got some small surface rust spots forming, and I need to re-weld a few seams to strengthen them so I have to sandblast the car.

To do that I have to remove the wiring loom entirely, for obvious reasons.

In order to do that, I had to fit a plug as there are 7 wires that were inextricably run behind the tube that sits just on top of the rear seat base.

Connector used was a Deutsche unit that a friend of mine retails.

Very easy to fit, and perfect join once done.

Strip the last bits off the wires, crimp pins on




Push crimped pins into connector housing




Rubber insulator (which is slid on to wires before they go into housing) is pushed up to seal the connectors




Pins sticking through housing (didn't take a pic of the insert which holds the pins in with no movement)




Once other side is done just plug it together




And there you have a completely waterproof military specification connector.

If you're doing wiring stuff don't fuck with spade terminals, do it properly.


With that fitted, I was able to pull the entire loom through the firewall and remove it all.
I wrapped it in glad wrap and tape in the rough layout to make it easier to put back in once it's done.

Laid out on the floor:





And ready for storage






I'm heading to Europe for a few weeks on Sunday, when we get back I need to get a rotisserie and have it sand blasted once the last few bits are removed.

Le Man 24h here we come

[E30Bug]

Hey mate, I really like those plugs you used. They might be good for those dreaded headlight plugs that go brittle and break. You said a mate retails them, have you got any more info on them please?

[econti]

Hey mate, I really like those plugs you used. They might be good for those dreaded headlight plugs that go brittle and break. You said a mate retails them, have you got any more info on them please?

On ebay, autosupplies_au
He has heaps of very cool stuff. Reluctant to get into BMW parts no matter how hard I push, despite previously building a big power 1jz swapped e30....

[E30Bug]

On ebay, autosupplies_au
He has heaps of very cool stuff. Reluctant to get into BMW parts no matter how hard I push, despite previously building a big power 1jz swapped e30....

Thanks econti, I'll check it out.

How's the progress on your project? Any pic updates?

[varg]

Nice work getting rid of some of the god-awful disintegrating connectors they put on these cars, dammit europe you and your silly middling environmental initiatives. I hope I can give my E30 the full rotisserie restoration someday.

[econti]

I actually do, yes.

Waited way too long for a rotisserie to arrive. But arrive it did!
Cost $950 or something. Super chinese. But I'm very impressed with how it operates for the price.

It's got twin hydraulic rams, one at each end, to raise and lower it. Has multiple pins to secure it in place.

To make mounts I found some 8mm 90 degree angle at work. Just drilled holes to suit the bumper shock mounts, and put some holes in the arms that came with it.
Left it hanging in the air for 3 days and the aluminium didn't bend so it must be fine.









I'm pulling off the last remaining things on it so it can be media blasted. Not long now!


In the time I was waiting for the rotisserie I swapped 1000ss front end and rear wheel onto my 600ss, a big improvement. Much better forks, twin disc brakes, lighter and wider wheels





I also bought a shitbox. SS Commodore for cheap as chips. This is LS1 V8 and manual box.
Did some work on it and took it to the track. We were meant to be in my mrs brother's modded Golf R but it shit itself the morning of the event.
Rolled the commo out of the shed, put the diff bush back in, did a test skid, stickered it up and ripped it. So much fun

It's a garbage car, but that means I don't care about crashing it. Not particularly interesting however so I won't post anything.









So that's about it for me for the moment. More things soon.

[varg]

Noice.

V8s are good. Wouldn't mind having a cheap as chips US market cousin to that, the GTO, but they aren't very cheap and they're so ugly I'd probably get sick of looking at the thing and put the drivetrain in my E30. Imagine the fun that could be had with the 400hp drivetrain from a 3,700lb car in one that would end up being 900lbs lighter when all is said and done.

Wink wink

Nudge nudge

[E30Bug]

I actually do, yes.

Waited way too long for a rotisserie to arrive. But arrive it did!
Cost $950 or something. Super chinese. But I'm very impressed with how it operates for the price.

It's got twin hydraulic rams, one at each end, to raise and lower it. Has multiple pins to secure it in place.

To make mounts I found some 8mm 90 degree angle at work. Just drilled holes to suit the bumper shock mounts, and put some holes in the arms that came with it.
Left it hanging in the air for 3 days and the aluminium didn't bend so it must be fine.









I'm pulling off the last remaining things on it so it can be media blasted. Not long now!


In the time I was waiting for the rotisserie I swapped 1000ss front end and rear wheel onto my 600ss, a big improvement. Much better forks, twin disc brakes, lighter and wider wheels





I also bought a shitbox. SS Commodore for cheap as chips. This is LS1 V8 and manual box.
Did some work on it and took it to the track. We were meant to be in my mrs brother's modded Golf R but it shit itself the morning of the event.
Rolled the commo out of the shed, put the diff bush back in, did a test skid, stickered it up and ripped it. So much fun

It's a garbage car, but that means I don't care about crashing it. Not particularly interesting however so I won't post anything.









So that's about it for me for the moment. More things soon.

Looking good. Now the work begins. Ask me how I know.

That's a good looking setup, I just used two $80 engine stands to do mine. It didn't flip all the way over but it was OK.

[econti]

Noice.

V8s are good. Wouldn't mind having a cheap as chips US market cousin to that, the GTO, but they aren't very cheap and they're so ugly I'd probably get sick of looking at the thing and put the drivetrain in my E30. Imagine the fun that could be had with the 400hp drivetrain from a 3,700lb car in one that would end up being 900lbs lighter when all is said and done.

Wink wink

Nudge nudge

When the Commodore gets put into a tree, and it will, I'm intending to buy the shittest E36 I can find and make it do really really good burnouts

[econti]

Had a good half a day to put in some hours. This saw almost everything remaining on the car removed. Both subframes, steering column, brake lines, bonnet mechanism, handbrake, fuel filler and delivery/return pipes.

Having the rotisserie makes it so easy. To get the hardlines and their clips from the underneath of the car we just flipped it over. So easy I could have done it by myself, but requested the assistance of my brother as I didn't yet trust that I had the COG correct and that once the retaining pins were pulled it wouldn't turtle itself and smash the roof into the ground.
I must have got it pretty spot on however, as it did not take much effort to flip but did not feel like it wanted to run away from me.

You can clearly see how bad the underbody is even for a cared for car like this one. All those km of road grime add up.
Conversely you can see how clean it is under the fuel tank etc, that the factory coating is still OK like that.













There's really not much left now. Boot hinge mechanism, boot lock, a few more trim pieces and that's about it. Hopefully not long before it's time to media blast!

[econti]

Last weekend I got everything stripped off. Totally bare shell. Intention was to send it off to the media blaster and get it all taken care of.
It was not so.

They informed me that trying to blast the underbody seal off would take many many hours and be very expensive. Apparently because it's rubber the grit just bounces off. Same issue on old Porsches.

So, I geared up, and got dirty.

Got a thin bristle wire brush for the angle grinder. It wasn't particularly quick, but it did the job nicely.




I was aiming to take off the rubber underbody seal and leave as much of the factory primer as possible. It will be media blasted later, so leaving the factory primer until then would prevent against rust.
You can see here the greenish grey is the primer, and obviously the bright parts are where I've gone too deep back to bare metal.

It took me around an hour of solid grinding to get to this stage. This seal is tough.




And the mess left on me, and the floor. It's amazing how much crap comes out of a thin layer of seal.






And once that section was done, I just put a layer of primer to stop it rusting.
In my area of the world any bare steel gets surface rust after a few hours of being in the outside air.





Just nudging up on 60 hours to this point.


-edit-
Also note the slightly bent floor. I had no idea it was like that until I stripped it back. I'll fix that and the frame rail soon.