cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

got about half my order delivered this week so I got to work.



Meyle HD front sway bar endlinks since these were blown/shot



I got impatient and tried to buy an ac belt from oreillys, but they gave me a 4 rib belt that I had to return. continental 5 rib in the back is the correct one for what I needed. Even after correct belt was replaced, ac was not kicking on, checked the 2 fuses in the fuse box (glove box) and checked the aux giant fuse from underneath. I really hate that location, my hands are not small enough to contort for that.



I pulled off the front bumper and started to remove some broken panels that will eventually get replaced. I found the aux plug hanging and found that the switch was corroded inside. Because one of the prongs broke off - I had to just cut the plugs off and do some male/female spade connectors for now - I really just wanted to see if the aux fan was dead or not.



got it wired up temporarily for now, turned the car on and turned AC ON, fan kicked on and I had cold air again!!




I also threw on another pair of 15mm spacers (up front) that I purchased, tried my best to match camber angle with one of those magnetic gauges mounted on the rotor. Overall happy with this ride-height and fitment. Overall, I think it's been a great success so far! I am waiting for rear sway bar bushing/endlink/brackets to show up and I'm ready to put some miles on it.

[s14brent]

Weekly wagon update! i got these 30mm fortune auto spring perch spacers. Basically to take up some space running 7" springs vs 8"!







did some wire clean up this week, got rid of all the leftover auto-trans harness stuff that was left behind. also ripped out the HID 9006 fog light bulbs and stuck in some generic 9006's i had in a box. Getting rid of the warning lights one-by-one LOL!!



Finally washed the wagon, i actually pressure washed off the plasti-dip on the window trim. It wasn't Terrible like 10 years ago, but it was showing its wear and needed to go! I actually got a moving permit for it, and insurance. I need to drive it around and get the car ready for smog!



245/40/18 kenda kr20a's all around - might want to drop the rear another 1/4" again.....won't have time until maybe Thursday this week to mess with it though! I also have a few things on the way like windshield wipers, front sway bar endlinks, and refreshing the whole rear sway setup (turner metal swaybar brackets, new bushings and endlinks). I'm going to try and aim to take this to autocross on the 20th, but there's a lot I still need to do before then! I also have to download the PAsoft software and try to code out the SLS error message since I couldn't get it to access on INPA





-- edit: 04/09--
I did manage to get the rear ride height to my liking. I was worried about 245/40 being too small of a square setup but I think this will work out fine. I do think 265 is too wide for such an underpowered pig.



Getting PAsoft to work on an old windows 10 laptop took way longer than I'd like to admit, but I did successfully code out the "SLS INACTIVE" warning that was living on gauge cluster. Down to two warning lights (airbag and DCT - both caused by removal of steering wheel/clock spring unfortunately). A better condition stock wheel is not out of the question here, however I do like the setup I have in there currently



Also, good news, car is officially ready to smog!! However smog checks here are only valid here for 30 days, and I could only get an appointment at the nearest DMV on May 15th, so I will wait until after the 15th of this month to get it done (pre-auto-x if i can make it!!). I actually do remember suffering trying to get these monitor checks in the green when I first did the swap on this!

[s14brent]

I love the lines of the E34 and E39 tourings. I keep coming back to the idea of owning one as a long term car because I want a wagon and besides an E9x, some kind of AMG C/E (which look good but I know nothing about, or a SPA V60/V90 Volvo (also hard to find, too new to tinker too hard, no manual), there's not much else out there. But they're really hard to find around here in reasonable shape.

Low boost setup on stock ECU to give it a bit of oomph, maybe slap a 6 speed in it eventually but try to keep it relatively cheap/simple otherwise.

Thanks, i thought i responded to you, my bad! I think the perfect touring is the cadillac cts-v manual/supercharged v8. I'd really love to have one of those, but used prices were basically near my brand new (at the time) tacoma which makes it not a responsible daily choice LOL! The e39 touring is in a pretty rough state. i think my friend/PO's kids added a ton of dents into this thing (i'm guessing this because most of the dents are all the same height, and probably my guess - caused by bicycle bar ends), and the paint/clearcoat is faded in a more areas now including the door handles/rear 1/4 top of hatch.... I've never had a easy time keeping cars looking perfect unfortunately. So I'm not sure what the plan is exterior wise yet, probably leave it for a while tbh....But I've actually already had the thought - after the e30's boosted finally, if i end up liking this platform i may want to do some power adders but not enough to have to do a rear end swap esp if i plan to put a fancy diff in this.... However, I don't necessarily like the idea of having to recode anything as i'm currently having issues already just trying to access the dme/lcm in INPA to get rid of the "SLS INACTIVE" display. I had a local buddy who has the whole e39 inpa bundle come over and was booted out over and over again.....I've had this problem in the past as well with this car so I ended up sending out my LCM/DME to a bimmerforums user almost 8 years ago and had him do the coding for me.

It is very blue but I don't hate it

its growing on me, and i'm not going to swap it out anytime soon because I need to really stick to a tight budget on this car! its a pretty firm seat and will do the job just fine! seating position/height was easy to dial in and its on sliders so it checks all the boxes- its just terribly ricey looking. I still need to figure out how to get the horn to work on this thing. The steering wheel tilt feature is currently not hooked up because it is held in by the factory clock spring setup which i believe completed the horn contacts. I did adjust the wheel prior to removal so ergo feels just-right which is exciting!

[econti]

It is very blue but I don't hate it

[s14brent]

I actually got all the parts I was waiting for on Tuesday and got everything sorted by wednesday night.




Turner makes a nice 1pc silicone intake boot that replaces the 2pc design for m54's. Pretty sure I caused this tear in the stock boot upon removal. Either way, it was ready to go.




fuel filter/fpr got replaced as well with the fresh fuel injector o-rings and filter baskets. I had a small section of 8mm gates fuel line that was just enough to replace all 3 of these hoses luckily.

after a series of diag steps and crossing things off the "could be wrong" list, I realized it was a stupid error on my part. I got the car with the manifolds removed and simply mixed up the o2 banks. However, everything I replaced was needed, so I don't see it as a full throwing money at parts kind of diag thankfully.




I also got a bright blue PrismaLab FIA seat on a drifthq's garage sale. It's very.....blue but the FIA rating is good through 2027 and I can fire sale it after that. It probably fits a 34w comfortably, i've never had a bucket seat as wide as this one to be honest but the price was right and fit the budget for now. I kind of hate it....but it will work fine for auto-x/hpde goals.



Tires are next, I'm actually thinking of running a fresh set of kenda kr20a 245/40 square vs 235/40 & 265/35. I think for this car I actually prefer the current look/size surprisingly. Next is insurance, moving permit then smog, and registration i suppose. Once I get that done, I can move it out of the garage and work on the e30 again without worrying about our fabolous HOA (sigh).... I'll probably get that started in 2 weeks when my schedule opens back up a bit.



been cleaning up and adding in a few of the leftover black trim pieces the PO didn't swap over......it's looking really good but I need a bottom bench seat and a matching rear L side door panel.....Fortune Auto parts should be delivered this week. I'll button up the suspension end of next week and then reinstall the cargo area panels after that (hopefully). it's starting to feel like a complete car again vs a car full of parts!!

[s14brent]

Hmm...I had a whole bunch of this update not show up.....I think I was saying how basically I'm going to move forward with the plans to Auto-X/HPDE the wagon.

I talked to Ray from KAAZ and dm'd racingdiffs about their e30/e36 lsd retrofit into e46/e39. Turns out the 188k unit in both e39/e46 can be swapped with each other. MEANING....i could technically run a kaaz 1.5 way diff into the e39 if I do decide to make this the dedicated HPDE/AUTO-X car. Lots to think about - lots of monies. (I still need to order tires for this thing, planning on maybe kendas since I'm liking them a lot recently. Will probably run the tire sizes I used to (235/40/18 and 265/35/18).

I did an oil change, diff fluid change, and brake fluid flush. All 3 were very much needed. I had the oil filter and diff drain/fill plug seals on hand surprisingly. The right rear brake bleeder was leaking, and for now I put a front e36 m3 bleeder valve in its place. (same thread pitch/amount of thread -just shorter in overall length).



I got lucky and found out the window regulator was indeed the one I replaced a while back - which means lifetime warranty. So I swapped that out.

I scored a planted seat bracket off a group in fb. I had the slider and side mounts, and i believe thats an e30 seat belt receptical



bilstein b6's arrived, and febi top hats.



sls rear suspension got pulled - still in the process - need to install springs and start adjusting ride height soon.

I reused the fortune auto e36 m3 spring perch in the rear. It's pretty exciting to see this - and i hope it rides decent when all said and done.




meanwhile I decided to do the valve cover gasket & spark plug o-rings. I pulled the plugs prior and 3,4, and 5 were leaking oil past the valve cover o-rings. I replaced with single prong BK6RE's gapped at .035 - most of the plugs were pre-gapped from NGK at .032-0.034





It was part of the PO's to-do list, but the car is still stumbling/throwing misfire codes...I think the gas is just old, and the injectors might be a bit clogged. I ordered a rebuild kit and will have to wait for that. My spare set of injectors of course have no o-rings so I can't even test them. I did however swap coilpacks over from the s52 and ruled that out.



I dug out all the spare injectors I could find in my storage. threw them in my ultrasonic cleaner just to have cleaner parts laying around I guess.



6" 9kg swifts installed up front. I did a quick clean up of threads and tried to spray them with silicone lubricant. spherical and radial bearings were cleaned up before reinstall.



Turns out the last 2 pairs of swifts I have on the shelf are 7" 7kg and 5" 14kg. I opted to use the front 7" 8kg fortune auto springs I just took off the fronts to use in the rear. Fortune Auto actually recommended to me 9kg/8kg for the touring, but I feel like 8kg rear seems low? Either way, 5" swift spring is a no-go unfortunately.

I also ordered a new silicone intake tube from TURNER for m54b30. They have a nice silicone 1pc intake tube design available now vs the 2pc bmw one.

more updates soon hopefully!

*edit* 03/22 no need to keep bumping this post.

I guess I forgot to take a pic, but I installed new m5 ATE front brake pads because the PO bought some and never got around to installing them. Old pads are of unknown origin, but also a little under 50% life. I just remember not liking them from a long time ago, so fresh pads is nice.



and the photo I've been dying to see (car fully on coilovers now)



Ride height isn't final, but I also told myself I can't order new tires until I figure out the engine misfire issues. Still waiting on parts, but I also think I'm out of free time for the month.

[Northern]

I love the lines of the E34 and E39 tourings. I keep coming back to the idea of owning one as a long term car because I want a wagon and besides an E9x, some kind of AMG C/E (which look good but I know nothing about, or a SPA V60/V90 Volvo (also hard to find, too new to tinker too hard, no manual), there's not much else out there. But they're really hard to find around here in reasonable shape.

Low boost setup on stock ECU to give it a bit of oomph, maybe slap a 6 speed in it eventually but try to keep it relatively cheap/simple otherwise.

[s14brent]

E39 wagons are just an absolute peach. Had many a fun time with a mate's 528.

yeah i'm excited to have it back in the stables, but I'm not sure if Hagerty will accept it for classic reg...online quote got denied for some reason.

E39 Touring:



I got the headers back on with the OE heat shield gaskets. I hate these things. It was not fun at all putting on the 16 copper nuts on these things. I also had to clean up the o2 sensor wiring as it was in pretty bad shape.

The header/exhaust gaskets that he got had to have the bolt holes extended a bit. Used a rotary carbide to make them fit.



Threw on a s52 oil cap I had, the one on there had a pretty bad looking seal, so why not. I also threw in the old chasebays PS reservoir I had from the e30. I really liked this thing so I've had it set aside since the deal on the wagon was made (almost 2 years ago). I also replaced the hatch shock - PO replaced one side previously. I replaced the OE airbox the PO put on with the old AFE setup I had in originally. I cleaned the filter and put on a drysock to help keep it clean. After priming the car a few times, the car actually started up and ran REALLY well. I was scared there was some kind of surprise waiting for me. The only real surprise was how soft and loose everything felt on the test drive. the shift knob flew off when i shifted into 2nd, and I forgot how soft a stock clutch setup is - it was kind of a funny moment. Brake fluid service, oil & diff fluid change are on the to-do list next (i think), I forgot how to reset the service light on this tbh, will have to have a refresher soon.



The plan after the fluid change is to replace SLS rear suspension with bilstein b6 (already ordered)+febi top hats and see if i can fit some of my old e36 m3 perch + swift springs back there. I actually have spare 14kg rear swifts and 9kg swifts that I can throw up front When I refreshed the fortune auto fronts in the past I threw on 8kg Fortune auto springs. I'm really hoping to just recycle as many parts as I can to keep the costs down!!

Quick little start up video!



I actually decided not to look for another e39 steering wheel, since most of them are $250+ in good condition. I opted to just keep things simple and go with a momo hub (e36) + momo prototipo since this won't be a daily driver. I will probably test this car out at the local auto-x and possibly skid pad drift events when the e30 is down, so a bucket seat will be added soon. I already sourced a planted drivers seat bracket for cheap. I'll be using sliders on this setup vs the solid mount route I went with on the e30.

RacingDiffs has a LSD retrofit kit that they offer for e46/e39. It uses a e30/e36 LSD core able to fit 188k housing but requires machining of the output flanges. This is great because I have a spare LSD core that would need a rebuild - just sitting on my shelf. (the problem is, i'm not sure I can find anywhere local to do a radial groove in the output shafts for me.) I am actually interested in trying this out, with the stage 4 or 5 rebuild kit they offer for e30/e36 188 diffs, I could potentially rebuild it as a 1.5 way differential vs a 2way. The other option for e39 is welded diff - which isn't great for auto-x or road courses I feel, OR 210mm diff upgrade which only comes in 3.15 or 2.81 open diffs or 3.15 lsd from e39 m5 and require axles and possibly drive shaft - which is a bit too long of gearing and overall too expensive for a car i want to slowly build/test.

https://racingdiffs.com/collections/differential-tuning-parts/products/bmw-e46-lsd-swap-kit-e30-e36-e34-zf-006-unit

----
E30 update:



HarperFab oil pan arrived. There was some small shipping damage at the edge of the flange, kind of not a problem as it will be easy to blend in, just sucks because this is such a beautiful piece and literally nothing can be done.

I also got the link ecu combined pressure/temp sensor...I think thats the last of what I needed to get started wiring things up for the initial NA tune.

[econti]

E39 wagons are just an absolute peach. Had many a fun time with a mate's 528.

[s14brent]

expensive weekend..... local 318ti guy had these arms (MRT dual adjuster DTM setup) up for grabs since he scrapped the project. These were properly built on a jig and tig welded.



they did have bit of flash surface rust on them, but it was easy to clean up. looks like the mounts are the same so i'll be running the e46/325i rear caliper/rotor setup again but this time with 318ti hubs vs z4.



of course 318ti wheel bearings are smaller than late model e30's.....ordered up a new pair



was gonna scrap the hubs, but apparently ti hubs are $150-160ea and bmw only.....i find that odd



I already had some garagistic trailing arm reinforcements and secondary caliper mounts when they went on clearance at ECS. I went ahead and ordered the rest of the subframe - differential reinforcements RSB and will mock things up to weld soon.

If that wasn't enough, i bought back my 02 525i that i manual swapped (zf320) + m54b30 swapped.




It's currently exhaust manifold-less, i just need to replace a few studs and throw the header/gaskets back on there. I'm undecided what this is for, but for the price, having a spare zf320 isn't a bad thing. It even came back with m-pars and pilot sports FTW!!
plans after its running is to convert rear sls to diy coilover spring (reuse my 14k swift springs) setup with bilstein shocks....maybe throw in a 528i 3.9 welded diff and have a spare fun car while the e30 gets some work done! who knows.....All I know is that while I drop the rear subframe out of the e30, I really should check out the gas tank while i'm there and finish up the rear fuel system (relocate fuel filter + install surge tank), oh and finally weld in the stim tech rear strut tower reinforcements. super happy to have it back though. it was a lot of work converting it all the first time around, can't wait to be able to drive it around the block or something. Kinda opening a bag of worms with another project car..

[s14brent]

woke up on friday and decided to sign up for vegasdrift last minute. ended up spending most of friday/saturday before work doing nut/bolt checks, i'm surprised i still have to reference torque specs still tbh.



lotta cool cars came out from socal





rome cp brought his e36 out




nikita's sick 190e



and a couple other sick e36's showed up also.

i picked up some solid akg 24v swap mounts and trans mounts from a local while i was there. i'll eventually go solid mount when i replace the oilpan/subframe.



had a blast out there, but my alignment has changed with all the ride height adjustments. i found out on the way to the gas station it pulls to the left now, which i was fighting most of the day. oops.
I was having issues on the main track. turn 1 was kicking my ass and after seeing a few cars hit the wall there i got spooked and took the e30 off-roading and then called it a day.



with my little offroad adventure i almost had a blow out apparently.....after the wash i found all these rocks lodged in the left rear bead. Feel so lucky I made it home on those wheels! I used my fun little emergency debeader and got all the rocks out and luckily there was no damage to the rubber and it sealed right back up. There is some scuffing on parts of the wrap. thankfully all in one piece, and not upset, the wrap did its' intended job! I really need to figure out the trailing arm route i'm going asap and get a fresh alignment soon.



i havent seen many photos get posted yet, but here's one of me going pretty straight LOL

[s14brent]

I still love the colour. New flares look great too

ty! i'm glad i stumbled on the set.

------
i haven't had very much time to do car things so far this year. I got the LINK can-lambda finally but now I'm thinking I should order up a couple pressure/temp sensors for oil and fuel before moving forward.

everything i've done is pretty much out of boredom on days off like reverse-mounting the rear speakers so the speaker cover would fit.




and of course I noticed my rear spring adjuster was a bit cock-eyed/possibly binding, so i removed the shock so i could reset it and lowered it a bit more. My left side coilover collar/adjuster has more threads than the right but visually its even, the right side collar is bottomed out. It is somewhat frustrating because I guess if I wanted to ever go lower, I'd probably need to change to 4" springs vs 5". (i doubt that would ever be an issue that would come up). I'm happy with how its set currently.



The front is as low as i'm comfortable with. it's got a little less than a 1/4" at full lock, but also at full lock my front end does lift up a bit due to caster I believe.



I reached out to someone about getting the ball rolling on different set of trailing arms. If that doesnt come through, I think the extra-long garagistic/serrated adjusters and stimtech sphericals will be the play. hoping to go with a custom set of trailing arms at this point. buy twice, unhappy wife or whatever....LOL

There is a March 2nd local drift event i'd love to make, but I get back in town on the 27th, so we'll see how i feel. hopefully more significant updates soon.

[Northern]

I still love the colour. New flares look great too

[s14brent]

just washed. had to share a photo with the color matched flares all clean!!

[s14brent]

so i've just been keeping myself busy and stumbled across this AFE intake pipe i had from my old e36 m3, unfortunately i don't have any of the maf adapters for it, but nothing a silicone reducer can't handle. I have a brand new AEM filter for this as well, and this will be the setup used once i convert it over to MAP.
I also have a straight foot of 3.5" aluminum piping if I decide to just extend my current setup.



I have always had the thought of going to obd1 (M50 vanos) valve cover. I actually have one but don't like the condition of the casting and wanted to hold off to find another. Meanwhile, I did find this oem s50 vanity cover for cheap. I had to do a little jb weld repair on the back inner side, but I got this for cheap so it's perfect. (if i go m50 valve cover - there's a big chance I cant run this because I'll be running -AN bulkheads for catch-can setup.

bought myself a new track-day jack from HF. the old 1.5ton was giving me issues last event so an upgrade was well needed.

KAmotors ultra-wide flares showed up and they had some imperfections that i wanted to fix before fitting (jokes on me i did it like 3x!! It's a shame so many parts are unavailable now, I would have loved to just buy a pair of front ODI/GruppeBAV fenders and call it a day. I epoxied some areas (mostly edges) and sanded them down and cut to fit all 4. After that basically used the pnuematic finger sander to sand the inner edge/lip down flush and made sure each flare was to my approval prior to sending off to get wrapped.

what's cool about the kamotor flares is that the bolt pattern was the same as the standards. I only had to do 10 rivnuts up front instead of 20 all around.


Since I went back to the stock swaybar I could reduce the spacer size up front. I essentially swapped the spacers around, 25mm to the rears and 10mm up front. I also lowered the front end a bit and i'm tempted to do more. I will finish up the flares, and drop them off for wrap first, and drive around flare-less to let it settle a bit, but I definitely am happy with the flare-swap.

Also....turning the car lock to lock to test clearance, there was some vertical play in the china/flashpower short hub. I tried remounting it and torquing down the nut more, but the pot metal probably ovaled a bit. Thankfully I kept my momo hub and threw that back on. Strangely I now want a thicker spacer/ nardi adapter to bring the wheel back to where it was previously with the quick release. I won't miss the quick release, i dont think i took off my wheel once since I put it on!!

Here's a final pic before i remove the flares and drop them off to my wrap guy.



I want to wait for the harperfab oil pan before it goes down any lower, but it will probably only be another .5"-.75" max - not really about that low-life, i just want it to look good at full lock LOL!!

---
I also fixed the hunting idle issue.....maybe since 2 events ago - it was kind of stalling out at stop lights or would stumble after revving at idle and was throwing that o2 sensor code (replaced o2 a month or two back) and it was getting quite annoying. I even tried swapping out the 3.5" maf sensor just to rule it out. Turns out my idle air control valve was getting a little sticky. I just needed to do a little cleaning on it to loosen it back up but I replaced it with the spare I had (from the spare s52 parts bin) and cleaned the original part to keep as another spare. (turns out i found another spare ICV in my storage, so I'm good to go if this thing ever causes problems again LOL!!


old ^


pretty happy I completed the check list I made before end of year! I particularly wanted to fix this idle issue before I change over to the LINK setup. (driftHQ said they are waiting for link to get restock of the can-lambda's in NZ and will drop ship it directly in about a week - we'll see!)

edit: 01/01/2025

wrap-buddy got the flares done QUICK!! Threw on some fender welting and slapped them on with some all black hardware like the rest of the car!!





super glad to have these knocked out quick! I am tempted now to take it to a dyno to get my base numbers pre-link ecu.