cameras ready prepare to flash

[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.
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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.



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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

[ForcedFirebird]

As far as the GoPro, I have a fake one (GoPro2-esque specs), and it took some figuring out to get good video. I have found if you film in 30fps instead of 60, the video will be smoother. Also, the mounting makes a HUGE difference. Most of the roll bar clip on thingies, and even the suction cup mounts tend to let the camera bounce a lot.

EDIT, We use these: https://www.ioportracing.com/i/o-por...eras-i/o-port/

I actually happen to have a couple videos taken the same endurance race, but we had 2 cameras/mounts so they were getting rotated so one is on charging while the other recording between drivers. My stint ended up with the fancier GoPro (mine is a Swann Sports camera aka Chinese copy) on the crappy GoPro mount and aside from the 720 vs 1080, the cheap camera video played better.

[s14brent]

***my last post was flagged since i was trying to figure out how to post a youtube video lol!*** so i'll just repost it and see if this works.

so the week R3V was down.....i took the car out to get an alignment because i found out I was working Friday morning/afternoon and could make it to the vegas drift night event to try things out again now that there aren't any clearance issues up front.




I also readjusted my parking brake since it was "loose" from last event. I really need to get the rest of the hydraulic hand brake parts (maybe $300 more? main thing being the actual brakes to rebuild, the stainless lines, and wheel bearings - again)



A year ago I replaced the fuel pump last minute with some autozone drop in unit. It's starting to get loud, (funny though that it wasn't loud at all during the drift event - on a full tank of gas). Anyways, i ordered some submersible fuel line and a walboro kit and fixed up two units as backups. The other is a bosch unit that was pulled from a junkyard....not sure i want to risk it with that one but I set it up anyways.



I'll throw in the walboro next time my tank gets low.

I totally fail and didn't take any photos at the drift event. I did setup a gopro inside the cabin and hopefully you can view this clip (i really want the 7black for stabilization now). Overall very happy with the car, it self centers again, slightly more angle over stock (nothing crazy).

I only started to figure it out towards the end of the night, and unfortunately these semi-new bf goodrich tires did not survive the journey ending my night a little early.

[s14brent]

That's a nice looking cluster. I really like the black trim rings. Reminds me of 80s 911 gauges (especially if you paint the needles red).

I've had luck restoring my cluster plastic with Meguiars PlasticX polish. It's not going to take any deep scratches out, but it does wonder on cleaning up everything else.

Thanks, I was kinda going for that porsche cluster look/feel with the black rings, very subtle upgrade, kind of keeps it feeling classic also. I am concerned about the painted needles and visibility at night. I'm not sure I want a dark needle at night if that makes any sense. The more I think about it, the more I think I'll just leave it as is, I'm actually very pleased how this turned out.

sidenote: I haven't had any luck finding any e30's at the junkyard or any local part-outs lately, so finding spare parts (cheap) to experiment on just doesn't seem likely anytime soon.

[mike.bmw]

That's a nice looking cluster. I really like the black trim rings. Reminds me of 80s 911 gauges (especially if you paint the needles red).

I've had luck restoring my cluster plastic with Meguiars PlasticX polish. It's not going to take any deep scratches out, but it does wonder on cleaning up everything else.

[s14brent]

I finally ordered the recaro seat base hooks & straps, shoulda got the 3" ones but I really don't care as I'm using a bucket seat currently. I just wanted this to be fixed already.





I decided to check the ground on the fuel gauge. I've been meaning to take it apart for some time now. Finally getting around to creature comforts - which is pretty nice for a change. Upon taking it apart, the first thing I noticed before was that the vdo bulb covers were melted/deformed.



The gears and si board were replaced by my friend/previous owner, so half the work was done on this already. I ended up buying some sylvania amber LED's for both sides.



The contact posts on the fuel gauge cluster seemed clean but i hit it with some sand paper, and soldered the board side ground just in case that was the cause of the erratic needle.



Lastly I sprayed some silver gauge rings with SEM trim black and threw it back together. silicone sealant and some zipties to hold it together to dry.



After all said and done, I found out the (coolant gauge side) 194 bulb socket was bad, luckily I had a spare from either an e36 or e39 that was identical. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten the old one to work, looked a little corroded - that's all.



tested it out before putting all back together, I must say it's really nice to have a cluster I can actually see at night now, it's not SUPER bright, but a huge improvement from before. I think if i revisit the cluster in the future I will get a spare cluster to grab the clear cover off of (mines not in the best shape- but you can't really tell from the front thankfully), I'd also like to grab the needles from the spare cluster and take my time painting the needles red and see if i like that, also spend a little more time cleaning the contacts. I was just trying to get this done today and not having the car all apart during the weekend.



edit: here's one of it fully illuminated in the dark, it's a huge improvement visibility wise - however i wouldn't mind an overall brighter LED next time as this is currently on max illum

[s14brent]

Something that could mess with your measurement is if the wheels are turned one way or the other. Maybe it's just me, but in the "after" picture of the wheel with SLR plates, it looks like the wheel is turned to the left a bit. It might make it look like the SLR plates helped more than they did?

I agree, the wheel does look slightly turned in, but here's one from last night that's pretty straight.






still quite a bit of improvement over the fortune auto standard camber plate

[Northern]

It really is a huge difference, and I was actually going to pm you. Do you think your GC's have that much affect? I was talking to Paul @ slrspeed via email, and what got me curious about going back to the fortune auto plates was what he wrote " Adjusting caster at the camber plate does not affect wheel position in the wheel well to any significant extent since the ball-joint position doesn't change, only the inclination of the strut." but almost an inch of adjustment is pretty darn significant in my opinion. I did not expect THAT much of a difference.

I agree with what he said because it's going to pivot about the lower control arm as you move the camber plate. Since the hub is only ~6" from the balljoint on the control arm and at least 4x that distance to the camber plate, you should only get (super roughly) 1/4 of your adjustment at the wheel.

Something that could mess with your measurement is if the wheels are turned one way or the other. Maybe it's just me, but in the "after" picture of the wheel with SLR plates, it looks like the wheel is turned to the left a bit. It might make it look like the SLR plates helped more than they did?

[s14brent]

well...the gc camber caster plates will just have to wait. threw the slr plates back on...and well... i'm cheap and did the old e36 camber mod..and i'm actually happy.

Grabbed some grade 8 12x1.75x 25mm bolts and 12x m12 washers. the 25mm bolts had the original amount of threads after the 3 washers. blue loctite'd jic.



The three washers actually gave me more camber than desired which is actually perfect because I could adjust the SLR plates a bit more forward (which i think gives me more caster due to its position). I took a picture of the slr plates finally (yes i know the nuts are loose here), couldn't believe i didnt have any other pictures of these plates installed. Basically when you give it more positive camber it moves the strut towards the front of the car increasing the caster minimally. however, adjusting these plates are a bitch, and i end up dropping the coil down to make adjustments. I'll take the car to an alignment rack to make sure everything is in spec (hopefully soon).



so this is how it currently sits...and i'm actually okay with this.



I'm going to sign up for either august auto-x or vegasdrift (both night events thankfully due to the desert heat), but i think I want to take it to the auto-x more to try to dial it in a bit - try to eliminate any understeer issues first before taking it out to a faster track.

[ForcedFirebird]

Akg's all the way closed down are pretty equivalent to treehouse. I just sold my pair because they did not help any with this issue and i'd rather have adjustable option. does that touring have e46 LCA's also?

Not sure if I still have the correspondences saved, that was many years ago now - but I do know he used the steel control arms, e46 give too much camber (and actually wasn't a "thing" back then to use e46 CA's). I saw your donor car was a '97, so the knuckles are the correct offset - the 95 m3 and non-m make matters even worse. There are also 2 different control arms. 95 m3 and all non-m3 got shorter control arms which would make you problem worse.



Vorshlag went though this in their GRM build since they used 5 lug...

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=1899183&postcount=15

[s14brent]

That looks like a lot of change(>1"?) for just the camber plate. I don't understand how it made such a difference when it's so far from the wheel/control arm pickup points

It really is a huge difference, and I was actually going to pm you. Do you think your GC's have that much affect? I was talking to Paul @ slrspeed via email, and what got me curious about going back to the fortune auto plates was what he wrote " Adjusting caster at the camber plate does not affect wheel position in the wheel well to any significant extent since the ball-joint position doesn't change, only the inclination of the strut." but almost an inch of adjustment is pretty darn significant in my opinion. I did not expect THAT much of a difference.

I built the front struts for this touring in Chile, with regular camber/caster plates and the treehouse style lollipops, the wheel is pretty centered in the wheel well...

Not sure how much offset the AKG allows, but there's a local here using the same with similar results (96+ knuckles, GC camber plates, treehouse style lollipops).

Akg's all the way closed down are pretty equivalent to treehouse. I just sold my pair because they did not help any with this issue and i'd rather have adjustable option. does that touring have e46 LCA's also?

[ForcedFirebird]

He already has AKG adjustable CABs. I'm not sure how adjustable they are, but likely equivalent.

I built the front struts for this touring in Chile, with regular camber/caster plates and the treehouse style lollipops, the wheel is pretty centered in the wheel well...

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=3230101&postcount=79

Not sure how much offset the AKG allows, but there's a local here using the same with similar results (96+ knuckles, GC camber plates, treehouse style lollipops).

[Northern]

He already has AKG adjustable CABs. I'm not sure how adjustable they are, but likely equivalent.

[ForcedFirebird]

The Treehouse style control arm brackets helps a lot. They bring the rear of the control arm further outboard than any of the other offerings (causing more caster correction than the strut tops will allow). Might be worth looking into.