cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

so i ordered a 2pk of v-bands and these ones came with flat sealing surfaces vs the stepped ones.....so i had to order the same one initially.....weird. yeah the pipe looks like crap inside. part of the reason why i wanted to replace that whole section tbh.



cut up the 45 degree bend i ordered off amazon....new bandsaw jig works great.



I really am having a hard time working in my small space....i used my mig to tack up the new section in place. its a little bit more tucked up than the previous as well.




I realized later I should have used jackstands to help with the positioning.I really think radiused o2 sensors are the way to go. I have used the two worst style ones so far. I also used some spare fresh pipe bends I had laying around. I kind of wish the material matched, oh well....



skip to the next morning....exhaust all lines up perfectly and no leakage.v-band clamp can be rotated up further so it looks like better clearance this time around. feels good to have this step completed. Going to drop the rear section of the exhaust next and start prepping to drop out the rear subframe mid week. I've made an appointment for an alignment already so I have a deadline to reach. FUN!!

[patrick88m3]

i mean....yes for sure.. pretty sure they will have similar gains probably comparable to turners "shorty" headers which has been documented for decades now for e36 m3's.. to sum it up...not as much top end gains vs long tube headers but mid range torque is usually the power range increase with the shorty design. Sadly most long tubes don't fit ideally in an e30 due to the subframe clearance so the best would be a custom made set or a modified existing set of long tubes or even a modified euro s50 oem set... the china long tubes are made of pretty thin material enough that you can dent it in for clearance, I'm actually surprised they lasted this long under the abuse it was under. The SDW "shorties" would fall in the happy medium I'd say, and for my driving style and long term goals, the mid range torque is actually more ideal for hot lapping and the quality of the header is a big upgrade from what i was running beforehand.

But the 180 dollar price tag on them speed daddy headers is tempting lmfao.

[s14brent]

I mean, no reason why you can't reuse most of it either way (stainless or not, if it works it works.). If you're going to turbo it down the road, you should be able to reuse everything aft of the firewall. (Although maybe you move that vband forward for ground clearance if it becomes an issue)

I MIGed my 304 exhaust with 308L wire when I did my swap, then did my downpipe again when I added the turbo. I bought the rapidspool manifold, so I didn't need to backpurge that, and my WG dump was also MIGed.
I TIGed my new vband flange to that downpipe, and when I recirced the WG, but I didn't back purge any of that either.

I also find Vbands always warp, especially the nice vibrant ones because there isn't a lot of extra meat to them. I try to clamp one flange to the other and leave them assembled/in the same orientation so when they warp, they warp together... Also had decent success with TIG not warping that one flange, and the cheapo HFS clamps from amazon seem to be a good cheap-good-more meat to resist warpage combo.

Well my current setup is 2.5", and if I went turbo I'd def want to go 3". I cant really move the v-band forward enough to make it worth while because its a 2-1 merged section so it would be slightly out of round anywhere in front of that o2 sensor location. I did actually look into this before hot glue gunning it all together.

So this is kinda....lulz.....but you totally reminded me...I actually have the mig setup to do SS if i wanted, even have a 55cf bottle helium trimix and should have a small spool of er308L/309L! I actually forgot about that. However, I really am preferring tig over mig now days, but i will dig out those spools and set them closer to the mig now that you reminded me.

as for v-band warpage.....strictly modified makes a very nice back purging cap/heat sink for v-bands but they're about $100 ea size but I will just be ordering an extra set of v-bands for the time being. I don't plan on doing a lot of them after this tbh!
I don't think HFS makes 2.5" v-band clamps for some reason. I see 1.75/2/3/3.5/4 offered, just my luck!

Thanks for all the feedback, its definitely been useful.

[s14brent]

The SDW headers look nice. I wonder if they'd gain much over stock s52 manifolds.

i mean....yes for sure.. pretty sure they will have similar gains probably comparable to turners "shorty" headers which has been documented for decades now for e36 m3's.. to sum it up...not as much top end gains vs long tube headers but mid range torque is usually the power range increase with the shorty design. Sadly most long tubes don't fit ideally in an e30 due to the subframe clearance so the best would be a custom made set or a modified existing set of long tubes or even a modified euro s50 oem set... the china long tubes are made of pretty thin material enough that you can dent it in for clearance, I'm actually surprised they lasted this long under the abuse it was under. The SDW "shorties" would fall in the happy medium I'd say, and for my driving style and long term goals, the mid range torque is actually more ideal for hot lapping and the quality of the header is a big upgrade from what i was running beforehand.

[Northern]

^this is true but if i go full stainless i feel like that is a commitment to staying NA that i'd rather not do at the moment..still have turbo dreams eventually. And i'd rather build a SS system for a turbo setup honestly.

I mean, no reason why you can't reuse most of it either way (stainless or not, if it works it works.). If you're going to turbo it down the road, you should be able to reuse everything aft of the firewall. (Although maybe you move that vband forward for ground clearance if it becomes an issue)

I MIGed my 304 exhaust with 308L wire when I did my swap, then did my downpipe again when I added the turbo. I bought the rapidspool manifold, so I didn't need to backpurge that, and my WG dump was also MIGed.
I TIGed my new vband flange to that downpipe, and when I recirced the WG, but I didn't back purge any of that either.

I also find Vbands always warp, especially the nice vibrant ones because there isn't a lot of extra meat to them. I try to clamp one flange to the other and leave them assembled/in the same orientation so when they warp, they warp together... Also had decent success with TIG not warping that one flange, and the cheapo HFS clamps from amazon seem to be a good cheap-good-more meat to resist warpage combo.

[s14brent]

Nobody is ever going to see the sugaring, and if a piece breaks off there's nothing downstream that it can damage anyway.

^this is true but if i go full stainless i feel like that is a commitment to staying NA that i'd rather not do at the moment..still have turbo dreams eventually. And i'd rather build a SS system for a turbo setup honestly. I'm getting kinda tired of re-doing things on the e30 so many times over, I am trying to mark off days in the next 2 weeks to start on the rear subframe & trailing arm swap.
----

Meanwhile I started the car up......ended up moving the factory o2 sensor up onto the new bung and got the car up to temp 3x yesterday. There wasn't any hiccups or CEL's but there is a small misalignment of the v-band. I decided the right thing to do is to replace that part of the mid section + v-band (on the dirty material side). The whole point was to get rid of ALL exhaust leaks, so a 2.5"- 45 degree bend and another o2 bung+vband was quickly ordered. I can get that knocked out in the time frame I gave myself as long as its delivered on time.




Rain is on the forecast from today until next Friday, so any painting will be impossible within this timeline. I'm going to just reassemble the trailing arms with new wheel bearings and hubs and just send it. However if you're a f1 fan, the weather will make for an interesting practice/qualifying for sure. est. high 40s/low 50s and wet on las vegas blvd sounds like a bad time.

[patrick88m3]

The SDW headers look nice. I wonder if they'd gain much over stock s52 manifolds.

[Northern]

Hot take on backpurging stainless... not worth the argon unless it's upstream of a turbo.

Welds will still be plenty strong for an exhaust system. Nobody is ever going to see the sugaring, and if a piece breaks off there's nothing downstream that it can damage anyway.

[s14brent]

Looks like I took 2 months off from working on the e30 but I finally started working on it this week! I think last month I had a buddy over and let him use my garage to install his cage kits in his NA Miata, and I got pretty burnt out after that full weekend. I'm actually leaning further away from wanting a cage now, I think a roll bar should be sufficient. Anyways, I got sick and tired of the exhaust leak/intermittent CEL due the leak being before the o2. Soo this was definitely the priority fix. Fingers crossed no issues tomorrow on first start up. It's long overdue.



up on stands and wasted no time, pulled the header, and and studs in 45 min. Not too shabby.





I think about half of the nuts came off normally, the other half I had to double nut off. I think* i got these studs/nuts from bimmerworld the first time around. I decided to go e90 studs like I did on my hellrot e36 m3 long time ago.



god those look so cool. too bad I probably won't even gain a single horse. At least the quality is a huge upgrade vs the ebay long tube headers I had on there previously. These are the syncro design works e30/24v shorty headers that I bought last year?!. I really wish they went v-band vs the 3 bolt flanges. Those were a PITA. Also the header-back section is from their early run exhaust system which was mild steel only. I got lucky to get the front chopped section, it really did make this so much easier to diy. The full kit they offer now is stainless btw.




I did not know there were so many different type of o2 bungs. Of course I only had the worst type on hand (stepped) so welding was a bit tricky since you're basically welding on the edge of the hole. (I should also note, I'm trying to stay on a strict budget to make a december drift event so I decided to tie in my existing exhaust system for now). I know the o2 bung welds aren't pretty but i'm positive it will be just fine. It's just capped off for now, but that's the second o2 bung on the exhaust for the wideband o2..yes I'm still planning on installing the LINK ecu. Even though my setup will be very.....stock-ish. The only good thing about that stepped bung was that it was mild-steel to mild steel weld. I'm not outfitted with 2.5" purge plugs or v-band plugs for shielding. I probably need $250-$400 of tools for future stainless work, so that's a good reason the new exhaust was off the table right now since all new stainless piping would have been around $250-350 and i'd want a new resonator, flex pipe, and muffler......it all adds up so quickly.




2.5" evil energy mild steel v-band actually welded decently to clean material. The other side......not so great. old dirty material, with minimal prep due to time.....never a good combo.

The exhaust is all bolted up now, but its a bit too late to fire it up in the neighborhood. I actually can't wait to not have any more leaks. I think the next priority job is finally doing the rear subframe/trailing arms and getting another alignment after that. I think* that's doable before DEC 07, but I know we're expecting rain, so that may throw a wrench in the timeline.

[s14brent]

been a while since i could make time to work on the e30. Here's a small update.

SRS e30 to e46/325 caliper adapters w/matching e46/325i rotor combo



SRS 318ti to e46 caliper adapters w/z4 3.0 rotors



I knew there was a difference. I'm glad I placed that order. I also ordered new parking brake hardware for 318ti but I'm not 100% its actually going to fit on this setup (more on that later).



cleaned up the spots with surface rust on the backing plates. unfortunately I had to sacrifice some new wheel bearings (meyle/made in china) to mock everything up. I just ordered some FAG bearings last night.




I picked up some brembo ceramic pads for the mock up also. I'll probably run these on the main pair of calipers all said and done and swap over the old pair of brembos to the secondary calipers. Funny enough, my rear pads on the e30 have a ton of life still



fancy brake pad packaging ^



I'm unsure if the parking brake hardware will still be usable because I had to actually trim so much more on these dust plates vs on my e30. I will only know once its all swapped over - I did not order a new star adjuster or cable adjuster so I won't know until I have the parts off the e30.




I mig welded the secondary caliper brackets on last night, but i'm not super happy with the results. I had to up the argon flow and up the stick out to get the back side of the bracket but i'm not super happy with the results. I'll take a look again after I break the setup down again. I'll have to pull the wheel bearings out again and back to paint. This whole section is taking way too long with my limited garage time. I however have been getting some tig time in and its slow progress but i'm enjoying that - even though it just makes me want more and more tools lol

[s14brent]

Clean unit now, its really come a long way in a short time

thank you! i'm trying to keep it this way for a bit and enjoy it. I really need to get start cranking out the work on the e30!!

--------

I usually keep the bmw(s) on a trickle charger but randomly the touring lost charge mid week.



dang these are HUGE and pricey. I really hope I don't have any issues with the wagon for a while! I think the last battery had a 2019 sticker on it......hoping this one lasts a little longer!




started stripping off the rubber coating and sanding out any slag/imperfections. Huge waste of time that could have been skipped imho, but my ocd got carried away!

Meanwhile, I decided to order up 318ti to e46 caliper adapters.I have the strangest feeling the e30 to e46 caliper adapters are thinner based on pictures alone. I didn't want to find out and have to wait how ever long from poland to get them.





Sprayed 2 cans of the eastwood rust encapsulator so the parts wouldn't be sitting around bare metal for too long. The next steps will be repetitive, but basically I need to install the wheel bearing & hub, then mock up the secondary calipers/mounts with the z4 rotors on and weld those on. JUST to remove most of the parts down bare again to do more rust encapsulator on the caliper mount area....and finally epoxy paint coating (vht or rustoleum). I'm excited, finally some progress!! I need to fire up the tig and start practicing for the exhaust work needed. I want to enjoy the e30 when the weather gets cooler if i can,but there is just so much to tackle at once!

[econti]

Clean unit now, its really come a long way in a short time

[s14brent]

e39 wagon update:

got a few things sorted this weekend that i wanted to do post-drift event.



I found a pair of height adjustable BC rear shocks since the bilstein b6's didn't feel right with aggressive driving.



I got rid of the 30mm spring perch spacers that I put in, and am back to the ride height I was at with the SLS+lowering links. I also changed out the diff fluid since I figure that was a proper break-in with the welded diff.



I got a e39 specific fire extinguisher mount from garagistic. (its only a generic ABC rated - would definitely prefer purple K and will probably upgrade this one and the one in the e30 as well)



I wanted to finally remove the A/T cooler that I left in during the swap. I also wanted to throw in my stacked 12row PS cooler that used to be on my e30.



Since the radiator/fanshroud/fan was all out I replaced the AC tensioner and belt again. This is a strange one, the m54b30 (pulled from an e46) has 4 ribs for the AC belt, my AC compressor however has 5. This is why it was flinging off belts.....Anyways, I ordered a kevlar reinforced 4 rib belt from ECS and installed that - hopefully it doesnt fling off & shred anymore.




I cut off the ends of the low side hoses and made a bracket and spacer for the cooler mounting.




This is where I ended up mounting the cooler. I ended up using some different fittings on the cooler so I had to clean/prep all that. I don't have the intake duct stuff up front like a factory e39 would so theres plenty of room there and plenty air flow.




bumper back on, i had to run around town and find a replacement radiator drain plug. The o-ring and the plastic was pretty mangled. I really wish it was just a screw vs the twist and pull. I actually bought a whole radiator since it was only in stock at a store 30 min away, but i returned it to the one 5min away after I confirmed it was just the plug. Filled/bled the PS and coolant. accidentally made a mess with the coolant, but everything is fine and working great. This is exciting because its the last things on the to-do list that I had planned for the e39, which means I can finally start working on the e30 here soon.

also: here's a photo from the last event that I was just sent a few days ago

[s14brent]

No e30 content on this update. local buddy wanted to take his m62-6spd e39 touring to the night drift event. Figured I'd join him just to kind of gauge the whole....."will it drift" question i've had.


this is usually the MAX of what i can fit into the e30, granted i have stacked in an ez-up, chair, and a few other things into the e30 that are not shown here. the wagon has so much room for activities!!

made it passed tech inspection...roll in was 5pm, first tech drivers meeting was set at 6pm and second was at 8pm.....it was 104°F and I remember getting heat stroke or something last year, so I showed up around 7:30p and everything was just so much smoother.


took it out and first impressions were incredible, smiling ear to ear and laughing at the hilarity of it all. Its so long and heavy in comparison to my e30.....I was definitely scared of getting too friendly with the k-rails, but man...the car can be a great practice tool with a few more upgrades.
The m54b30 e46's look so much faster in comparison, but I just feel like everything is in slow-motion. The LUK clutch/sachs flywheel combo is great for daily driving right, but with clutch kicks it doesn't really grab the way its supposed to. Its very subtle jump in rpm's and not very upsetting bite. I probably want to upgrade it to a FX kevlar/sprung full face disc and chromoly flywheel (later). That combo shouldn't be as aggressive as the 6puck in the s52. Second, I may cut up the powersteering hardline/coil that passes through the radiator (stupid design imho). I have my old barbed ps cooler from the e30. I may eventually pull the bumper off and figure out where i can mount it once i dig it up from storage. Reason for that is simple, reservoir was puking up fluid by the 3rd hotlap every session. Thankfully its on the intake manifold side and not near the exhaust side. Speaking of that, i do want to figure out a fire extinguisher mount of sorts for this car as well. Might have to add that project to the welding white-board. Third is kind of already in-progress so I'll make this a two-fer. The bilstein b6's are just not damped properly at all for these activities. I already posted a wtb and paid for 2 rear BC racing dampening/height adjustable touring specific rear-shocks. I need to not have the rear so bouncy, it makes for a weird "boat going over a wave" feel which can be counter-productive if you try to transition right as the car unloads... The other part is I ran the event with the AC on.....cooling did not go past the middle the whole evening. Pretty unreal, i planned to turn AC off before each run, but I forgot a few times.

This car has been notorious for flinging off AC belts, and well it did by end of the night.....I'll be ordering a new INA ac belt tensioner and maybe* ecs kevlar reinforced accy and ac belts.....I looked it up and 525i/530i ac compressor/tensioner/belts are all the same part #'s. If it still flings belts after the upgrades, its either the ac compressor pulley or the crank pulley either being out of alignment or something....but let me tell you having AC out there was friggin phenomenal.
I probably only did 5 sessions consisting of 3-4 laps ea. Enough time to kind get a feel for it so i'm happy. Swapped rears 3x, still have a good amount of life left for next time!!

i was also doing ride longs with my e39 touring buddy and giving him some pointers throughout the night so it felt like non-stop. I have a small gopro clip for track layout, i was trying to avoid straightening out and just linking the whole course as smoothly as possible like normal. The 3.46 e39 welded diff did great!! I kind of overbuilt the e30 for what it is and its very apparent with how little this car actually needs. but wow this would be the car to do the LS swap on I feel - i just have to do some more research on suspension options out there.

tldr: car did surprisingly well, way better than I expected. I definitely feel a lot better knowing this now and the e30 can be not-rushed on upgrades.
--------
edit: 07/18 got some more photos!!

[s14brent]

lil video he posted on ig!!