cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

I called around town, got quoted $350-400 for powdercoating. I was about to drop them off before the weekend, but I forgot i had a pair of e36 style 5's with 205/40's on them (somehow i ended up with 6 17x7.5 style 5's).....so I decided to test fit those first. Threw on a 15mm spacer and took out some camber. Then I hammered some shit for clearance...and they seem to fit with an effective +26mm offset (which goes against all the info I found online) so confused/annoyed.




I'm not happy about the tire size (yes i'm going to lower it eventually to fill that huge gap, but I also don't know if a 215/40 will clear. 215 is 0.4" wider than a 205 so 0.2" less clearance or like 13/64" (or 7/32") on the inside which actually might rub in it's current configuration. I hate these small 205's and the only tires i'd be interested (up front) in that size are azenis rt615 or toyo r888r, where as 215/40 has federals, dunlops, falkens, zestino...etc

another option i'm considering is seeing if i can rotate the camber plates to adjust caster instead, and just shim the coilover to spindle with washers and longer bolts (for camber) and see if i can run larger tires in that configuration. I'd love to get GC's camber/caster plates, but I don't really want to spend close to $400 for them. I've been looking at engagement rings and all the toy's need to be just limited to track days, and general maintenance after tires if possible.

Kind of sad I'm not going to run the schnitzers right away, but also saving $$$ since they'd only probably fit with 50mm flares.

[TheWipprSnappr]

+1 silver

[2mAn]

Go Silver, you know at some point you're going to get bored or want to change it up so you dont want to screw yourself on resale appeal/ value

[jeenyus]

I'm a big fan of metallic silver wheels. Goes well with anything. Bronze would work on your car. Highlighter yellow... [emoji2961] Lol

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[s14brent]

haven't had time to work on the car in forever... I finally started to refinish the wheels, started by getting rid of the curb rash on all 4 wheels and am wondering now about powdercoating color....





what do you think? oem silver finish, or bronze? high lighter yellow? LOL i'm leaning toward silver obviously, but just thinking if it's all the same cost, why be normal besides resale value LOL

[jeenyus]

Ah yes that's right! Would it also work on the rear you think?

I used a e39 bumper gasket for my front bumper.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[s14brent]

I've been looking, so maybe I'm mistaken, but did you out some sort of rubber gasket on the rear bumper? Like from a 5 series? I could be mistaken.

I used a e39 bumper gasket for my front bumper.

[jeenyus]

I've been looking, so maybe I'm mistaken, but did you out some sort of rubber gasket on the rear bumper? Like from a 5 series? I could be mistaken.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[s14brent]

So what happens if that brake fluid gets really had and overflows inside the cabin of the car?

never happened to a single friend of mine, but if it does....time to rip out interior and do a roll bar with door cages I guess

edit: i reread the first part and don't even know a situation where this would happen...it wouldn't be constantly held down to create those types of temps or pressure, it would be a hardline inside the car for a few inches to under the car down to a T fitting to more hardline and SS brake line at the calipers (more than capable of 2000psi max - i think normal working pressure is around 800?). I mean when does that situation with heat ever really happen in your engine bay (even with road racing). I used to do 20min sessions with HPDE out in phoenix, az and never had my brake fluid boil over, but i've had to flush fluid after the race day due to fluid color changing.
---------------------------------------------
Thoughts on the SLRspeed mini angle kit right now.....there are cheaper kits out there, but USA made - and everything is machined very well, cadmium coated stud, the tie rod alone are works of art...RH/LH threaded and smooth as butter! Teflon lined heim joints (tie rod ends and outer ball joints for lca) and corrects roll center and ackerman...I feel this was money well spent. I do think the e36 inner tie rods could benefit from a few threads being cut but I'll make that decision after an alignment.

[jeenyus]

So what happens if that brake fluid gets really had and overflows inside the cabin of the car?

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[s14brent]

so this is a don't do what i've done type of update LOL.....



my slr mini angle kit arrived.



pressed in the outer ball joint/heim



Ran into problems immediately....lca came was hitting the rotor dust shield and the rotor itself.....soo i recommend not using meyle HD lca's even though they have the upgraded ball joints vs oem.



after cutting the dust shield and grinding forever.......I finally had the wheel clearance (lock to lock)



also...got hooked up on a set of 17x8.5 +13 AC type II's (super excited about these on the e30)



doing some test fitting....i think I need to run a 225/45/17 up front vs 235/40/17

also...new hand brake arrived



tore up some of the carpet under there and will need to figure out a mounting bracket in the future..going to LA for a few days, will have to figure out wheel fitment when I get back but it looks like I need 50mm flares up front.

[s14brent]

not a substantial update, still waiting on parts unfortunately!

quick comparison of the female threaded e30 vs male threaded e36 tie rods (moog)



akg fcab fitted onto e46 lca



Comparison shot of e36m3 lca on top of e46 lca. basically the same length on the spindle/fcab distance, but the inner ball joint is further out.



I had a helluva time removing the balljoints from the Meyle HD e46 lca's. I ordered a 21 pc kit from Astro and it didn't have the 1"7/8 or whatever receiver tube I needed, nor did the more expensive powerbuilt kit that autozone rents for $220ish. I ended up ordering a $37 kit from 8milelake but it did not fix my issue, just helped with the removal & installation process.





I ended up cutting the ball joint stud so i could get a socket to fit over it. thankfully all the original ball joint boots were ripped and worn or I would have felt bad doing this. (actually sucks the boots were salvageable...i'll get to that later)



finally ended with this...it took so long just to get to this point it seems.



As I was pressing in the inner ball joints, the first one went in seamlessly but the second shifted as I was pressing it in ....not thinking anything of it i continued...but fml I ended up pinching one of the boots.



After spending a lot of time online I looked around for some replacement ball joint dust boots and found nothing. I actually found some poly replacements that would probably be badass but the seller is on vacation and won't be able to ship them from bulgaria until after the 10th, and shipping would probably be 2-3 weeks, so I went with some ill-fitting energy suspension covers which will hold me over until the new ones arrive.



As you can see they fit questionably and really only stayed fit when compressed but due to its location they should actually be alright to run this way. I'll install the LCA's with antisieze so it will be easy to swap the dust boots in the future in case I get anxious and install early. (LOL they look like babybel cheese).



Oh yeah, i grabbed a cell phone holder from racegerman since I didn't want any electronics running when the car is off....3d printing isn't smooth but it's barely noticeable installed

will update this post when slrspeed mini kit arrives. I should just have to press in the front lca ball joint and outer tie rods and be good to go! (on to the wheel fitment issues LOL)

Next project is already lined up...I was mocking up a hydraulic hand brake from ASD, I decided to not use it since it was a pull-up version (I ordered this when I thought I would use the MASSIVE e30 dual caliper kit which gets rid of your factory parking brake - which I didn't want to really do, and wanted a vented rotor setup in the rear) so I ordered up a wilwood vertical hand brake (photo below for reference) and SRS twin caliper mount (weld on ears) and another set of e46 rear caliper adapters. I'll have to pull another pair of calipers and "T brake fitting" from the junkyard next time I make a trip, but I'll most likely replace piston seal and guide pins again like the first set since it's cheap anyways (edit: since i just reminded myself of this I placed an order at FCP, caliper repair kit seals, pins, rattle clip, bleeder screws and bosch brake pads cost roughly $77). I found pulling the factory handbrake odd and uncomfortable in position and just too much work holding the brake button in. I've always wanted a hydro-handbrake setup so why not right!?



So I also dropped the idea of a drop-vent in the oem hood. The oem hood weighing in over 40lbs' is just not where I want to be at really from a starting point. So a FRP vented hood of some sorts will be on the list of to-buy parts, been looking at the dtmfiberworks m1 frp hood which they advertise as 16lbs and mounts to factory location - just not looking forward to dumping $600 into a frp hood currently.

Also priced out a small fuel system upgrade which consists of a nuke fuel rail, nuke or aeromotive fpr, and radium surge tank setup with an estimate on an fittings and lines....lolol i'll just make sure to track with a full tank of gas for now but may be in the future when I actually road race the car.

Also it's been 2 weeks since the drift event. Car hasn't moved or been turned on and it's still at 12.4v so I think I nipped that issue in the bud.
-------------------------------------

small update....my rear right window wasn't working at the drift event. I swear it was working prior but who knows. All I know is that a replacement regulator is $351.xx at ECS so there was no way that was going to happen. I would have done lexan rear windows before even considering that at all. Anyways, decided to take it all apart and take a look at the motor.



I actually started to clean off the rust prior to this picture but it was basically in that general area just caked on thicker.



after cleaning up the rails and reapplying silicone paste, lubed up the shaft (huehuehue) with 3-in-1...and added silicone paste to the worm gear and reassembled/reinstalled.



^ press play > It actually moves quicker and sounds better than the rest of my windows now!

[s14brent]

Interested to see what you come up with. With the events I've been to, it doesn't seem odd that have coolant shooting out of your overflow at times. lol

It won't be anything fancy at all, actually it will be similar to the stock plastic stuff really (just sheetmetal), I just need it to have tighter tolerances to really box that area in....
I'd love to get a kooglewerks diffuser+canard setup, but I really want something that can more importantly close off the gap between the front bumper and radiator support.
------------------------

So in comparison to my e36 m3, the power steering cooler I added did an amazing job....no issues at all this event! The oil cooler worked well, but towards the end of the day I started to hear some valve tap which went away after idling for a bit. I know some guys have had some issues with this who do track days/auto-x with their s52's and they usually seem to overfill their motors to help with starvation, but I think the s52 pan has a larger capacity than e34, so I'm not really sure how safe it would be especially since I'm not trailering the car to and from the track. My e34 pan has an achilles baffle welded in there, and I was hoping that would bandaid any of these issues, but apparently I need to look more into depth on this.
edit: If it's still hot as balls in October (next time I can take it to a local event) I will try and run 20w50 as a friend from phoenix suggested who still runs NASA events with his e36 m3.

I dug out the e46 LCA's and talked to sean at SLR and ordered up a mini kit. It works out that I purchased inner ball joints since the slr kit replaces the outer. I also purchased a 20pc ball joint removal kit since it'd probably be a good thing to own. The only thing I'll need to make this whole setup work is inner e36 tie rods (male rod vs e30 female rod).





I decided to round off the FCAB mounting area instead of buying the slrspeed hex shaped ones because I already have my akg race ones and never had any luck selling my treehouse fcabs so I don't plan to make a collection. What really sucks now is that I'll probably have to get new wheels and possibly tires again and possibly flares
---------------------------
no substantial update so i'll just add onto this one.

I figured out my go-pro mounting solution for now.



I might run these 17x8 style 32's with the e46 lca's (with spacers) since I hear you need to run low offsets. I would have tried to find another pair of style 5's but I got these from a local s52-swapped e21 buddy for a DEAL. sucks about the chrome, but at least I have wheels here on hand. I probably need to sell the set of 17x7.5 style 5's I recently picked up just to get more garage space again. I've been finding some pretty good deals locally.



Moog e36 tie rods came in. I'll be selling the e36 outers since you run e36 inner tie rods with the SLR mini kit instead of doing the whole e90 inner/e36 outer setup. Ball joint service kit comes in this weekend, and hopefully next week the mini kit will come in so I can start taking things apart.

[jeenyus]

I watched a thing last night where they had designed the air ducts with such efficiency you could stand and blow toward the car and feel that air flow in certain key areas of the car where it dumps all that air circulation. It was pretty amazing. Interested to see what you come up with. With the events I've been to, it doesn't seem odd that have coolant shooting out of your overflow at times. lol

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[s14brent]

So earlier in the week I woke up to my battery being dead again, so I decided to find the parasitic draw. I checked current from the negative battery terminal and barely found any changes after pulling each fuse one by one. I then started to check out the relays I had added and found the problem. I rewired my hella supertones from 2 relays down to one, and my 12v fuel pump relay. I ditched the chinese specials that I had in there from amazon, and picked up some metra 30a relays from an audio shop nearby (probably made in china also, but I've never had issues with metra ones ever.) I went from a .174 amps to .025 (which is within normal spec) so no more dead batteries yay!

I took out the stock antenna finally (it was just hanging there unplugged) and finally put in the z3 antenna. I'm not sure if I want to actually mount it in its' normal spot or keep it hidden for now. Reception actually works now, so I may just keep it hidden.

I made it to the vegasdrift event on Saturday. It was a night event 6p-12a, but I got there way too early because I didn't want to drive to the speedway in traffic. I got there about an hour before the drivers meeting, so it gave me enough time to setup



a buddy took these snaps for me









The car felt pretty impressive. It's very solid, stays decently flat throwing it around. It was 108 yesterday, and I had some cooling issues (as along with everyone else) getting to about 220 degrees after 3 laps, so basically it was 3 laps per session. I'm going to ask a friend about possibly doing a drop vent on my hood, and also doing some sheet metal ducting. If he charges more than I can afford, I may end up trying to do it on my own, but I'm looking for ideas. It wouldn't bug me so much if I didn't hit traffic on the freeway, It was a bit sketchy watching temps rise, but it cools right back down with movement.

I'm going to end up doing e46 lca's and SLRspeed mini kit. It's what I wanted and I won't be happy until I get a bit more track and steering angle. I'll have to figure out the fender flares/wheel fitment after but yeah, probably the best "break-in" method for any of my builds.