cameras ready prepare to flash

[dmanb2b]

PM sent...great build thread

[jeenyus]

That's some luck man. Good luck with the city, but I see that being an uphill battle with anything government. Sometimes things like this happen for some sort of reason, even when those reasons aren't completely obvious. I am impressed with how quickly you just get those things done and move passed them.

[s14brent]

jeenyus - good progress man, I haven't had time to tackle this yet. Been super busy with work and trying dealing with this post...lol

I was trying to keep this thread e30 only content for a while, and I was doing a good job for a bit too, but this is just so ridiculous I need to post/vent about it....So last week Friday on the way to my 3rd gig of the day I ended up getting stranded in a construction zone. I blame the raiders stadium nearby. There is a stretch of road near the stadium that is 600ft and has 6 uneven metal plates on the ground from construction. The metal plates are driven into the asphalt with what looks like rail road spikes....but they're not sitting flush, and sticking out over an inch in some places.




If there's traffic in the left lane and you're stuck in the right lane like I was, you're aimed at 24 of these heads (12 on ea side of vehicle) sticking out of the plates. moving traffic in that area was about 30-35mph...which leads to this


^LF and then this LR





also my m5 rep bumper side brackets broke off clean on the left side and broke 2 of the 4 prongs on the right. super fun times while you're trying to get to work. So I abandoned the car for a couple hours in a nearby lot, went to work and then had my brother meet me with some of my tools. I ended up going to a 24hr tire shop to get a used tire since I got rid of all my 17" spares recently. I talked to insurance, and I'm going to try to get reimbursed from the city instead of filing a claim through insurance since it's a $500 deductible, and my rate would probably increase post-claim. So now it's the waiting game to hear back from the city.



After assessing the damage to the bumper a couple days later, I decided to get some plastic epoxy and just booger it on since it's a rep bumper anyways. New brackets would not have fixed this anyways. A local e30 buddy of mine hooked me up with some e60 style 124's. (18x8+20 18x9+32) with some nexen tires (245/40 & 265/35). Thank goodness for the few bmw friends i have locally. I couldn't really afford anything more than this with paying health insurance the same week. I actually think they look great. I have 20mm spacers up front and 18mm in the rear (same spacers i used to rock the mpars before...reduces hub size from 74.1 to 72.56.



I should have left it at this ride height, but i'm super sick of the car bottoming out at the casino parking garages for work. I took out the preload off the coilover springs so there was actually a ton of adjusting i had to do. I feel like i'm probably back at stock ride height now. It actually might be better here in case I want to sell this thing (been thinking about selling it and getting a truck sometime in 2020 - it just makes more sense for all the hauling and transporting the mini bikes - it just doesn't make sense for all the trips I make out to socal)




Anyways, the wagon needs an alignment still, and a small checklist of things to do now. About a month ago one day after work my driver side window regulator took a crap on me, and I had to replace it on a Friday before work that evening. It's been a stress case for sure. Luckily I did the passenger side about a year ago and it was really straight forward.

And lastly....i got a new custom knob made for the e30. I wanted something similar to my last one but with aluminum threads instead of into straight wood. I also had it made out of a slightly darker wood to match the Nardi's mahaganey. I think it looks phenomenal.



Hopefully I'll have the e30 ready for Oct. 13th vegasdrift @ LVMS inside road course. I'm really looking forward to that.

[jeenyus]

Yea I've cut that whole corner out and I have broke it up into three pieces to be welded together. I'm using a flux welder, which has made this whole process a harsher learning curve for me, bit still doable and I'm speeding up. This is the size of the hole I had to cut out to get all the creeping rust. Not the most ideal size, but it will be much nicer than it was before, especially since I had to remove the "jack stand" square that serves no purpose. Now it's a nice smooth area for the air to travel down.

[s14brent]

FTE - OEM?

Do you have the clutch pedal return spring setup?

Ive seen that fool with clutch fill hose and elbow.

FTE is listed as the OEM supplier, and yes I have the clutch pedal return spring setup. i'll have to take another look but I don't think that was what caused the problem.

you're gonna want to use.....

Thanks man, i got that pretty much from your thread the other day, did you go ahead and start cutting/welding? I'm going to have to shop around for sheetmetal. I've been kind of wanting to box in the front end (radiator support area) with sheetmetal, and eventually create some kind of fan shroud also. I just don't have as much free time lately to work on the car, so downtime is definitely a concern vs before.

[jeenyus]

you're gonna want to use an epoxy primer for the welded portions and then seam seal it. When you weld in the patch panels, cut small, try to get the new patch to fit as good as possible (this makes things way easier in the welding department). It is a time consuming job the first time around and i would say that a majority of the time is spent on prepping, kind of like painting. epoxy primer is two part, so there is a catalyst. This will prevent any more rust from being able to breathe so it stops it dead in it's cancerous tracks. The floor i think is 18 gauge steel. I went with 16 gauge steel for the patches, mainly because that was available to me at Home Depot. things that make welding in the patches easier, those little magnets that flush-up the metal and hold it in place are crucial. a good hood is also crucial to helping you see and as well, some good lighting in the area you're working on. clean the metal super well before you weld as well. You got dis!

[moatilliatta]

FTE - OEM?

Do you have the clutch pedal return spring setup?

Ive seen that fool with clutch fill hose and elbow.

[s14brent]

I had the car back up on jackstands for a few days, I took out the clutch master cylinder thinking I could replace the plastic hose fitting, but turns out the seal had some major cracks - which is super disappointing due to the limited use that it got. Sure wish I bought it from FCP for lifetime guarantee, but since I was on a crunch for time I ordered a replacement FTE clutch master from pelican (they have a california warehouse so it was $13.xx for next day ground shipping vs close to $30 (next day air) from FCP. - I definitely didn't want to buy another febi clutch master, and the FTE was more expensive, so it's gotta be better right? lol) i replaced the hose with some of the extra length stock I had from last time around. I actually installed it a little longer than normal just in case I need to cut off split ends in the future. I also installed a new brake switch while I was there. The old switch had some plastic missing on the button part...so you know ...while i'm there.....why not!
I also rebent the clutch hardline and used the OEM mount to secure the clutch line. I didn't do this before and occasionally I would hear the clutch line flex and hit the bracket or frame..... Speaking of noises....I think my transmission input shaft bearing is making noise. When I'm in neutral (clutch depressed) I can hear it whining, but when I engage the clutch the noise disappears (also pilot bearing/TOB were replaced (oem/sachs) when I did my clutch job) All these damn noises since I took out the carpet!! UGH!! I guess I'll just live with it for now, I still have my spare zf trans that I did the detent pins on. I don't think I trust myself splitting the trans attempting to replace that bearing, and i'm sure it would cost me more than another spare zf trans to fix at a shop. Kind of lucky that zf's pop up at the local junkyard pretty frequently.

I took out the driver side sound deadening to see if there was any more rust issues that i'm going to need to address in the near future. I found a couple spots of surface rust. I'll probably get some 3M mar-hyde or POR-15 for those areas, but i found another tiny pin sized hole behind the gas pedal. I'm going to have to read up a bit more on this before I tackle this. I'm pretty sure I'm okay on the inside of the cabin, but i want to prep and seal the bottom after welding in patch panels - so i 'm going to have to do a bit more research on those steps. Also guessing I'm going to have to do the rust converter AFTER the welding part is done.. gotta figure out what products work best with what primers etc. Super not looking forward to doing this.



I got the MASSIVE hartge style dead pedal. It wasn't completely bolt in...I had to bend the mounts and add a stack of washers under one of the holes. But I'm super happy with the feel. I threw some grip tape on while I was there. I actually prefer that feel over rubber covers (for brake/clutch) for sure.

I just need to mount my 4 spares, and check if I can take Oct 13th off. There's a local vegasdrift event on the inside road course that I want to go to. I'll try to take more pics of the car now that the 100+ degree weather seems to be officially gone here now! I'm trying to keep the car as simple and reliable as I can for the time being and get the most seat time I can get before I decide to do anything else. (extended e36 m3 LCA's are for sure on the list still), and I'm kind of really liking the big duck club sedan m3 over fenders. I could totally take out the rack limiters after I did both those things. We'll see..I should have done the kamotors ultra-wides the first time around (still a possibility)

[s14brent]

I like the hood vent. Any plans to paint it black?

yes...i ordered a ton of 1/8 aluminum black rivets to revisit this in the future. I also have an alpine white driver fender that I started to cut for flares since my driver side fender isn't in best shape, but I plan to paint flares and new fender bronzit and the hood vent black. I'm kind of digging the N15 side vents.
-------------------------------
barely an update:
said fender cut up...not the greatest shape, but better than my current believe it or not.



I ordered a dead pedal from MASSIVE. I can't wait for that to get here - kinda bummed they don't offer the hartge style anodized in black anymore....
I also ordered another new brake switch and the plastic hose connector for the clutch master. Unfortunately I found a slow drip right from there. For those who aren't super familiar with the build, I replaced the clutch master (febi) and the plastic nipple broke off after like a week? So this is my old one being reused, I can't remember what brand I got in the past, but ordered a new oem bmw part in hopes for a quick fix. - I hope i don't have to replace the clutch master assembly again after this. I really wish bmw didn't put plastic parts on critical components, even though the piece itself isn't "critical". we'll see...I just hope this fixes it.

I also did a ricer mod and spaced out the hood a little bit...just enough to get air escaping from the back of the hood. My hood isn't in the greatest shape...the more air flow the better at this point. I also threw on a stupid aem dry filter. The last time i took the car for a car wash i spaced it, and had to throw a grocery bag over the filter last minute.



I picked up a spare set of 16x8 bbs style 5's, so I officially have spares. I just need to mount a pair of 205/45's to keep on hand esp for drift events i guess. I'm going to try and figure out the gas pedal bracket. I think i have the 2 clip (wide), and will probably replace it with the SRS bracket when i fix the two small rust spots in the floor. Won't be posting an update for a while, work is getting crazy.

[rzerob]

I like the hood vent. Any plans to paint it black?

[s14brent]

This is pretty awesome man! you most certainly gonna be able to stop now!

Thanks! hopefully it won't be used too much for "stopping" though!!
------------------
So here's a little more in-depth on some of the upgrades I've been doing and things I would have done differently.



welding of the secondary caliper brackets. Probably best to weld one full side with caliper mounted. I can tell they warped a little - which would mess with pad wear. but i fixed it by shimming the caliper mount with a washer on each side. no big deal there.

I probably should have asked someone for help putting the rear end back into the car. It got a little sketchy this time around, or maybe it was the lack of sleep, but here it is in place.



chasebays hydraulic handbrake line kit. - bad ass.


interior lines - check bulkhead fittings in corners. (no drilling, just remove rubber drain grommet)

just add washers on both sides.

caliper side fitting.

As for the main rear caliper, since i was using an e30 front brake line (little longer than the rears) I only needed a 12" section that I picked up at o'reilly's near my house and made a few quick bends to fit.



while i was there, I did a lot of hardware upgrades for the exhaust system, and longer/stronger rear bolts for the rear shocks. (if you're wondering why all the washers, those are e36 m3 fortune auto rear shocks. e30 FA rears have a built in spacer for clearance and a longer neck between mount and actual shock.



garagistic abs sensor block off plates showed up. They fit perfect, but the fronts unfortunately don't really fit as well on the e36 m3 spindles. I could probably trim them down to fit better, but I still have to button up this job first.

Since the diy exhaust had to be pulled down (yes it's ugly, but it actually has been working REALLY well) , I had about 10' of dei titanium wrap laying around, which I added another 25' to thinking it would cover a lot more than this. The Y-pipe gets incredibly hot, so I did the front section (nearest transmission) and I had just enough left to do a small section near the differential.



I also saw oreilly's sold the 50' kit, but i'm kind of tapped out until next month's bills are all paid for. I also really think if i wanted to wrap something it'd be the headers. The driveshaft is bolted back up, exhaust just needs to have bolts tightened, and I need to torque the bolts at the driveshaft/differential and I'm golden. I actually would like to rebleed the secondary calipers one more time. but I'm hoping to test drive it sooner than later. More updates soon hopefully!
------
edit: buttoned up everything listed above but didn't have anyone to help me bleed the secondary calipers a second time around. Just pretty damn excited to get the car off jackstands. This was a fun little project I didn't mean to tackle so soon.


I put the bmw rubber floor mats in after this photo, and it actually looks really good.

funny what a little black paint does (on the cut console areas)

love how discreet everything is on the exterior. you can't even tell behind the 16s.

and lastly one of the full car. I put the federal ss595s up front so i can burn up the bfg's in the rear first.
-----------
edit: so I had time today to do some measuring and cutting on the hood for the n15 center vent. cut-off wheel, reciprocating saw, and a finger sander made it actually very easy. the long part was the placement & measurements. I wonder if this piece I cut out can be used to fix the floor board/rust repair. That would be pleasantly convenient but I doubt it.








Probably won't have an update until my next event. I don't have anything else to install at this point LOL! took the car out for its first test drive. The car is definitely "louder" inside the cabin without the carpet. It's nothing horrible, but I found myself listening to the car more and wondering if the sounds were normal. Hood vent placement turned out to be great. you can literally feel the heat escaping even after short drives. oh...and i also just found out I need to buy a dead pedal, i forgot the stock one is just foam under the carpet. Right now, I'm probably leaning toward massive since I've had a few of their products and the quality has been top notch! MKAH if massive is out of stock of the hartge style ones.

Also, make sure to retorque your wheel studs once in a while. I noticed mine were under the recommended 25 ft/lb torque spec MH recommends (which imho seems low).

[jeenyus]

This is pretty awesome man! you most certainly gonna be able to stop now!

[s14brent]

My 205/45/16 federals showed up Saturday and I got 2 mounted at the tire shop near my place. That meant I could finally move the car around again!



I got up early Sunday to go get another set of 16x8 style 5's but the guy never answered, so I decided to get started on the secondary caliper mounts. Down came the rear end AGAIN.....




When I installed my subframe bushings I had a friend cut them down on his cnc. I was still having problems being able to adjust the toe eccentric bolts so I just decided to cut the bushings down. (I really doubt this will affect performance at all, just looks like crap and I really need to be able to adjust my toe.

Before:

After:


The main thing is that I can actually get a wrench in there now. I then started to cut up the brake dust shield even more...i've got about 1/4 of it left...



Just mocking up the SRS concept secondary caliper mounts and e46 caliper adapters. You can tell the difference in quality between the SRS adapters and the ETA ones.



After a long time of mocking up the secondary caliper and adapters, I finally got the courage to tack them in place. It's super close to the ABS sensor, but luckily I'm not running ABS, so I decided it was time to order a set of those garagistic billet sensor plugs clean it up.



Here's what it looks like all mocked up. I'm pretty excited!!


I also ran the chasebays hydraulic hand brake lines through the bulkhead. I'm pretty impressed by the kit, It really saved a lot of time. After I finish welding, I'm going to have to purchase some new hard brake lines, i'm guessing only 7-9" is needed since I'm running front SS brake lines in the rear on my e46 rear calipers. I'll be routing it below the shock mount vs going up and around the heat shield/trailing arm.

And just like the last few posts, I'll probably update this post later when I get some more photos in the day time.

[s14brent]

So I updated the last post with some new goodies.....I ended up doing a bit more that I think deserves its own post.

I got the level-ride hydraulic hand brake mount. They make a 3/16" plate that fits e30/e36/e46. They offer it in a 1" longer version (v2), so I ordered that one not sure which would fit better, figuring I could cut it if needed.



well it needed a bit more than an inch cut off since it was hitting my seat. 3/16" steel is really shitty to cut. I didn't get the backing plates, not sure if I actually paid for it or not, but I had more than enough left over steel to make my own (just not as uniform).



test fit after cutting it down some.... I then positioned the handbrake to my liking, marked it and drilled 2x 8mm holes to mount it. I counter sunk the holes and fitted some flat head bolts. (sorry for mismatched hardware, I used what I had laying around)



I ended up mounting at a little more angle than initially planned so i cut my backing plates out (2 skinnier)



was super hard to mount up by myself, ended up putting my milwaukee impact on top of each bolt that I was trying to tighten down.



here it is mounted up, console/trim is just mocked up here. I had to cut way more of it than expected.



So currently I'm waiting for the chase bays hydraulic hand brake-line kit. I also just ordered a set of federal ss595's that i'm waiting on (i ended up selling all my spare style 5's)....the car is on jack stands in the rear since the event. After that I need to drop the rear subframe down and weld on the secondary caliper mounts. I already ordered new wheel bearings.



pictures can be deceiving, there is plenty of space to grab this now.



I ended up selling my Recaro SE's. It's going into a different chassis, so I ended up keeping the rails which is important in a minute. I ended up packaging them up inside a home depot -wardrobe box (24x24x44). Took the headrests off, and wrapped them up separately. (yeah i used trash bags lol)




That same day...to my surprise, I found a Recaro LX-B for sale online which was fresh off the boat....or container. It was just my luck the guy was located in UT, but was driving through vegas to socal later that evening. Fast forward to this.




(sorry about the megan racing bucket next to the recaro....lol but i really like this seat at the price i paid. one day i'll find a recaro spg with a kevlar back lol) The bolsters are so much taller/firmer on the LX seats vs the Recaro SE's (which is basically the recaro entry level seat so of course the LX would have improvements. The lower seat bolsters are slightly under the height of recaro sr3's for reference, so they will do a much better job holding the passenger). I'm super stoked on finally having one of these seats (especially with the basket style head rest!). I also mounted the fire extinguisher in front of the passenger seat this time vs behind the seat. If anyone needs a driver side (MASSIVE) recaro seat adapters, hit me up!! I don't think I'll ever be using them since I want to stick with a non reclinable bucket seat for myself.



Now I'm just waiting for parts to finish up what I started.I had to hack up the garagistic gauge pod...which really sucks to do on a new piece, but I do think everything will be a lot more functional for my needs. Oh and I also purchased a n15 center hood vent to throw on my shitty oem hood for now. It's just way too hot in Las Vegas especially at these track events.
---------------------------------
edit: update

messing with the seats and rewiring the gauges I've noticed the brake pedal is much higher than i'd like. I decided to add some threads onto the porsche booster to lower the pedal height. I wish i added like 2 more threads (it's just a little higher than the clutch), but it's much better now.




The VDO gauges don't play well with the garagistic gauge pod so i rewired them and used some flag connectors. (had to buy new crimper just for these connectors) I may revisit this again with an accessory distribution block in the future, just working on a tight budget to get this ready for next event.





Here's where I'm at with the console. A lot of cutting was involved. I thought I could run just front L/R window switches, and use the rears on the panels if needed. (pulled up the wiring diagram for the window switches and found out I just had to ground the black/yellow & blue/green wires from the console rear switches.)
I opted to use this gauge pod to try to reclaim a little console space, I was almost at the point where I was going to just not run the oil temp gauge, the volt gauge is just a filler gauge really but it does let me know when to throw the battery tender on LOL. I added in a doorman cigarette lighter (my stock one sucked anyways) and drilled another hole for my aux cable (lol). I think I did alright with keeping the essentials though.



I rebuilt both calipers (new seals, guide pins, bleeders and all the rubber components. I'm waiting on new tires (for the rear) currently so i can center the car in the garage for the next few steps to finish up this job. currently my car is blocking in my welder which i'm going to need to weld on the secondary caliper mounts, new wheel bearings again, and going to flip the bolts for the toe adjustment OR purchase/replace rtab poly bushings for the condor adjustable ones. Federal's actually got delivered earlier than expected, so I'll hopefully drop the rear subframe next week!!

[s14brent]

yeah, the footage was pretty trash at night. but I ordered the wrong helmet mount style for my AGV corsa and it was also a night event. I really want to sell my gp5 black and get the 7 black since a bunch of my riding buddies have them and the stabilization is impressive.

I decided I think I'm going to sell my Recaro SE's and just throw a non reclinable bucket seat in for the passenger side. The recaro's are nice, but I don't really NEED them and would rather spend the money elsewhere on the car I think. I started to pull the seat out and wasn't pleased with the condition of the carpet. I'm also going to start mocking up the hydraulic hand brake hopefully when parts start to roll in.



The carpet on the driver side was pretty nasty/crusty and had a weird funk to it (i'm thinking it was old brake fluid or something) so I decided to pull the carpet.....which ended up pretty permanent for now since i ended up cutting it out behind the dash. I found some really bad news under it by the gas pedal. I thought the car looked good from underneath being in long beach for most of its life..oh well.



I think i'll tackle that repair when I decide to upgrade the fuel lines - which are nearby underneath.(not sure how to i'm going to tackle it (most likely cut the whole area out). Unfortunately for now i'm just going to have to live with it, so i threw some dynamat on top so I don't have to stare at it every time I'm in the car.



there. all fixed. j/k....at least it's just a small amount I guess, it could be worse for sure. Just adding shit to the never ending list of what this car needs. I'm also looking at changing the gauge pod to the garagistic ash tray style. I'll be moving the oil pressure up by the cluster and eventually adding a fuel psi gauge in the cabin. I'm going to replace the cigarette lighter with a dorman unit while i'm there and probably put it somewhere behind the stock location (in that cubby). I need it for phone charger/air compressor for tires. I'm excited, despite the rust patch, the car is finally coming a long and feels great.



oh yeah and i found this ONE picture from last event. wish it was in the higher speed areas, i'm curious to see what it looks like at lock.



-------------------
update 8/19 (since i don't think this calls for bumping the thread)

I threw my 350mm Nardi back on, I think i prefer the 330mm size since I'm used to that from previous cars, but the 350 just looks soo good, and since its deep, it's gives me a little more clearance from the wiper stalk vs running spacers behind the wheel. I also put the oil psi gauge in front of the cluster with the water temp gauge because I don't think I'll be adding a boost gauge there anytime soon.



I also went to the junkyard to pick up a few things. Mainly another set of e46 325i calipers. got home and started to clean them up. I have fresh seals, guide pins, and pads waiting.




I also found an auto 4dr late model (probably was put out a week prior - most the good stuff was already gone), but I took the driver side fender, console, front bumper struts, coolant reservoir, check panel and front hood hinge (most of these are just for spares because i think this is the 2nd e30 that was at either junkyard all year. I ended up leaving the hood there because there was actually multiple dents near the accent line. If the dents were in an area I was planning to cut out for a vent I would have taken it, but I keep leaning towards a frp vented hood more and more. Probably end up going that route eventually, i just wish there were more options in the $300-400 range. It seems to go from IE $250 to $500+. i've seen the cliqtuning hood that sits right in the middle of that price range and checks both boxes, but I didn't plan on going aggressive on the exterior.
A few days prior I picked up a non-airbag coupe console that I started to hack up for the hydraulic hand brake. The garagistic ash tray gauge pod arrived, i think i prefer the looks for sure. I am only going to be running the front window switches (everything else isn't needed since the rear doors have their own switches). I have to figure out where to run the doorman cigarette lighter socket after everything is test fitted. I also took the driver side fender because mine isn't in the best shape, and I also ordered some ebay 50mm front fender flares that I wanted to mock up so at least I can start with one side and still be able to change my mind.



Just waiting for a few things before i can move forward, hopefully they will start rolling in. Parts include the hand brake mount, hand brake line kit, and i just ordered new rear wheel bearings again. I've got a lot of local interest in my recaro SE's. It kind of sucks to get rid of, but I think I'll get a cheap sonic motors p2 bucket seat with bracket. Definitely not as nice as a recaro, but weight savings for one, and when I had a passenger for a ride-along, I did notice they were sliding into the console/door pretty violently, and I think I've decided I want the car to be a little more driver oriented and would hate to see these ruined and not even get to sit in them myself lol