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[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]

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.