cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

so this past week was the annual SEMA show here in Las Vegas. I worked a gig for a tire event about 80 miles out of vegas on Tuesday, and I tried to go on Wednesday and then this happened.



I suddenly lost power as i was approaching the strip. I swear the e39 HATES ME. Totally sucked, towing from the strip is extra expensive but luckily there was a cat-bus area i could push the car into. As soon as I got home, I tested the battery and it was at 8.9v, so i took it to O'reilly's and they ended up replacing it for free. I did a lot of other things like check the fuel pump wiring, checked fuel pressure, tested coils, did a compression test, cleaned MAF, serviced AFE intake filter, and replaced the spark plugs. Turned the car on, thought everything was good to go and went to sleep thinking I could hit the show Thursday. Thursday morning comes along and I backed out the car to find out I had no power steering. Noticed a trail of PS fluid on my driveway and pulled it back in. Opened the hood and found my belts had broke and wrapped around the PS pump bending and cracking the pump support bracket.





Upon inspecting the damage, I found out I needed to replace the alternator idler pulley and the tensioner pulley (as they both had 1.5-2mm of play). I'm not sure why this happened since all these were replaced prior to the m54b30 swap. So I hopped online and ordered from 2 belts, two pulleys, and next day aired them. I found a PS pump bracket locally from a 328i (same part #). Pelican has the fastest shipping to vegas, I wanted to order from FCP for the warranty but it would have cost more money and it wouldn't guarantee arrival. I tried to borrow a family members car to go to the show on thursday but unfortunately that didn't work out. I refuse to drive the e30 anywhere near the strip. Lots of break-ins or thefts there and I don't want insurance totaling it out for stupid shit. I literally only take it out to the speedway and back home and maybe an occasional meet. I ended up getting a car for Friday so I headed out to the show, and checked my security cams to see when the package got delivered. I was there from 8a-3pm, and holy crap I don't know how people did 4 days straight, my legs are still hurting. Installed everything when I got home and it runs great again.....I really don't trust it since I have no idea why it happened in the first place, but I was super close to taking out a loan to buy a new truck. I really hate getting stuck and basically without a reliable daily. The car is so fun to drive though on the other hand....I'm just glad it didn't break down on me on Tuesday when I drove out of Vegas.
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e30:

Today I guess my curiosity got the best of me....I took out the jam nut on the AKG solid fcabs.



hopefully no more b*tching and complaining about caster from me for a while now. I'll post up some pics from sema maybe tomorrow. It's been an exhausting week.

[s14brent]

^ yeah, that's what i figured via the google machine and yeah i like your approach more.
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e30 update:

I finally had time to put in the chasebays reservoir. Here's a side-by-side of the two reservoirs, the reservoir was replaced with new during my swap and as you can see it's been puking a lot from the cap breather.



and one from the top



unfortunately that's the only update for now. I was hoping to do more but I've been having issues with the daily.

e39 wagon update:

so fuel pump went out on me. I replaced the fuel pump relay first thinking it was that, the location is pretty stupid (behind the glove box) but turns out the e39 fuel pump is just so quiet compared to the fuel pump in my e30. I got some china lifetime warranty pump from o'reilly's because I needed something immediately, not proud, but lifetime isn't so bad.



while I had the back seats out, I decided I should put in the rear seats I pulled over a year ago from a local part-out. I believe these were dyed, but he did a pretty good job, but the plastic trim near the seat belts need a refresher. Also the headrests aren't in great shape, but ultimately I think they're better than the grey ones I had in there prior.



Same thing goes with the front seats. (not the best, but good enough for now). Wish I had time to swap the carpet, but I have work in a few hours. Did as best I could in the given time to vacuum inside and clean the carpet up.



and finally



The headrests are electronic, not sure what combination of seats these are, but they look like 7 series headrests if i'm not mistaken. either way I think it looks wayy better for now. Hopefully nothing else needs to be replaced on this thing for a while so I can dump more moneys into the e30.

[ForcedFirebird]

The previous owner might have been doing an outdoors welding job - some people will use flux core with gas to double up on the shielding. It doesn't work that great because the flux gasses coming from the core are meant to react to oxygen, which will be unavailable with the co2/ar, so some of the chemicals may end up contaminating the weld. There is, however, a flux core wire called "dual shield" that is meant to assist with shielding in windy areas.

I have always just used a board of some sort to minimize the breeze and turn the gas up a little on the regulator.

[s14brent]

haven't had the time to work on the e30 at all, but i guess this is more of a garage related update. I had a friend text me this past weekend saying his friends dad was giving away his Craftsman 110v mig welder to someone who could use it, and I turned out to be the guy (which is perfect because i low-key wanted a 110v welder to weld some chicken wire onto my gate (kind of having a wild rabbit problem lately) and fix some things where 240v isn't accessible.

I got it home and took off the side panels and blew out all the dust and crap inside. After going through it, I was kind of confused, he had some flux core .030 in there (on the .024 side of the roller) but it was wired in the wrong polarity for flux core and he had everything for a gas setup. I'm running .030 in my lincoln powermig 215 (240v), so I decided to order some fresh .024 solid mig wire. I did this because I want to try it out on sheet metal as well and being only an 80a welder the thinner stuff might produce better results. (if it works well, I may use this for the e30 rust repair) It came with a pretty nice (made in usa) regulator (i actually have the newer version of it on my 75/25 bottle right now). I fired it up to run the old flux core out of the line. The machine sounds super healthy, I'm pretty stoked! I really hope it works decent, It should be okay, I found out Century made this machine and all components are made in america, so at least I know it'll last a while. It also came with a folder with the original manual and the receipt from 96', and the regulator was purchased later in 99'. Not sure why there was flux core in the welder when he had it setup for gas. I have a smaller bottle behind the machine, but it's helium tri-mix, so i'd have to swap the bottles when I test it out. I may end up getting back a 2lb spool of ER308L (.030) i gave a friend about 2 years ago because swapping out rolls on this machine is so much easier for small stainless repairs, I just don't think it can handle the thicker materials (once that bottle is empty, i'll probably swap for another bottle of just 75/25 now).

I don't think the mig wire will be here until SEMA time next week, but I ordered some .024 and .030 tips, and another set of mig pliers. I kind of hated my HF welding cart for my AHP tig which I need to practice with a lot more, so I decided it would be the perfect time to upgrade. Turns out HF has their new Vulcan welding machines and carts. I ended up buying the 350lb welding cart. ($86 after coupons before tax). It is leaps and bounds better than the shitty old cart I have, solid rubber wheels, and feels much more solid. I really wanted to just make my own, but i only have 2.5" mild steel exhaust piping in my scrap box, so for time and money this is pretty bang on.

sorry the garage is such a mess right there. the welding helmet in the back was part of the free shit I picked up. Not sure what to do with that thing since I have 2 decent masks already. I really need to look for more welding projects to do here at home now.

[s14brent]

that pic is awesome! glad it's all working out so well. You honestly get me motivated to finish my current project so I can drive my damn car... and make aero bits. lol

Thanks! I love that picture, and I'm super happy with the car currently, I'm just trying to make it as problem-free as I can for now. I accepted a 9-6 job starting Monday for the first time in a long time, so I'm not sure how much free time i'll have doing both jobs. I don't think it'll be too bad this winter, so I've gotta try to fix those rust spots and redo the pedal bracket before busy season in 2020.

You're my drifting twin with 2 extra doors! I had to do a double take when I first opened the thread to the last page and saw a few photos. Nice work and nice car. Looks like you're having fun with it

twinning!! yeah, you posted on ig last week and I got super confused when I saw it, especially since you don't post that often! I wish we had more open track days here or canyons in our backyards like socal does. It wasn't meant to be a drift car. Just lack of road racing in our state kind of only left scca or vegasdrift events (which is usually on the same day), and vegas drift is a lot more lenient on like half days or showing up whenever you want - which helps and no cone work lol

edit: i quit already. day jobs are the worst LOL

[Sh3rpak!ng]

You're my drifting twin with 2 extra doors! I had to do a double take when I first opened the thread to the last page and saw a few photos. Nice work and nice car. Looks like you're having fun with it

[jeenyus]

that pic is awesome! glad it's all working out so well. You honestly get me motivated to finish my current project so I can drive my damn car... and make aero bits. lol

[s14brent]

Forgot to say this, and if I edit my post it'll just get flagged... I forgot to mention that I used the ProVent 200, and another problem is that it's an absolute unit size-wise, so finding a home for it in a turbo 24v engine bay is an exercise.

That AKG jamnut might also be tightening up any thread slop, but that will go away anyway with enough thread engagement, or if it's threaded to the point that it's shank bound at the end of the threads.

I've had my posts flagged for editing...i usually just copy/paste/delete it after that LOL. yeah, i plan on taking off the intake boot after every event and monitoring for any blow by. I had a hard time figuring out where to put this catch can also just due to the mounting design, the catch can doesn't have the best bracket design for this chassis. Hopefully the can does the job, I don't want to redo this whole thing again. and yeah, i figured with most of the fcab heim threaded in I'm not sure I'll get the alignment done soon, not until these tires are done. I have so much uneven camber wear in the rear, I'm just going to flip the tires and kill them off first.. no plans for an event next month. I actually think next month might be a competition type event so I'll be probably looking more into mini-moto track dates in socal instead.

I was surprised at the tire wear. this track was a lot smoother pavement, and I ran for 4 hrs and they only started to chunk (minimally) towards end of day.
It was getting so hot lining up at grid back to back (usually about 4-5 laps in a row before going off for water, or a piss break) I actually ran A/C during a few of the runs just to test temps. It was actually super nice, and it was still in the 90's during that time of day. I think the car is pretty solid. I want to believe all the venting at the hood did the trick...

I also know my fuel gauge sender has to be going bad., prior to the event I went to fill up gas to ensure no starvation issues. my gauge showed a little over half a tank, but 10.5 gallons went in. Wish those things weren't so expensive.

Also got this awesome picture this morning from @caitlynshoots on ig.

[Northern]

Forgot to say this, and if I edit my post it'll just get flagged... I forgot to mention that I used the ProVent 200, and another problem is that it's an absolute unit size-wise, so finding a home for it in a turbo 24v engine bay is an exercise.

That AKG jamnut might also be tightening up any thread slop, but that will go away anyway with enough thread engagement, or if it's threaded to the point that it's shank bound at the end of the threads.

[Northern]

You could try aeroquip startlite hoes, that 180* bend will be tough.

The best catch can / separator I’ve used was Mann Hummel provent. For how much oil the engine consumed, it was impressive how clean the intake was.

I ran one of these to try to plumb CCV into vacuum pre-turbo and it really didn't perform how I thought it would. I had oil sitting in my compressor inlet after a week-ish. If I weren't running a MAF I probably wouldn't care so much, but I eventually removed it.

[s14brent]

Ok that makes sense. I'm curious if the longer hose reduces it's effectiveness to capture blowby though. Seems like a lot of it would just get caught in the hose. I'll admit I'm a noob when it comes to catch cans though.

I'm in the same boat, no clue, I pretty much had the same thoughts. i kind of don't care much about the looks right now, I'm just trying to have the car ready for track use. I'll end up changing things here and there, but it seems at this point everything I want to do is $400+ on the low side of things. I think my current list of "want-to-do" mods is over $2k right now. So it's been funny trying to prioritize list of mods in order as it seems to be constantly changing.
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So on Sunday I went a little off-roading at the event on accident. I got there a little late 12pm and stayed til the end 4pm. I really should have showed up at 10 for more seat time, but i worked the night before and was running on 3hrs of sleep. This event was a partial section of the LVMS inner road course. The tire wear wasn't as bad as last time because the surface is much smoother than the outside grid, but it was so slippery initiations were pretty simple, almost felt like ice, and for some reason the car wanted to scrub W-I-D-E. I really f***ing love the hand brake setup. It took some time getting used to it, but it's seriously so nice. If going too wide, a small pull would point you in the right direction. There were some parts of the roadcourse that were pretty tight and i went off track more than I'd like to admit. overall super fun time out there.



After I went off a couple times there was a clunking in my steering.....got super worried something bent, but it turned out to be my sway bar endlinks coming loose, and ultimately being too short (i put shorter turnbuckles on my custom endlinks when i first put the coils on the car and had it adjusted MUCH lower at the time. stupid oversight when raising the car to its current ride height.) Luckily I still had the turnbuckles at home so I swapped them back in yesterday and got rid of the the sway bar preload, which makes me wonder how bad it was affecting the front end handling, usually preload increases understeer and causes binding.

The next day I gave her a hand wash, pretty sure this is the first car wash of 2019.



I went out and bought 5' of aeroquip socketless hose (black) to replace the short sections for both catch can lines, i also bought some brass hose connectors vs the plastic parts i had in there for a cleaner install plus for the heat. Prior to installing hoses I ended up taking off the intake boot and checking that and the throttle body for oil film/residue. good news! both the intake boot and throttle body were oil-film free and catch can had maybe a drop of oil if that. At that point I decided to run most of that new line (probably close to 4.5') from the intake boot to the catch can, so right now i have that short mis-matched section of blue aeroquip hose for now, - doesn't really bother me as much as I'd thought. The aeroquip hoses are rated up to 300 degrees I believe, and the unnecessary dei heat shielding is good to 500, so there should be no problems at all with the hoses collapsing from heat.


After track thoughts: I may put LCA's on permanent hold, e46 arms are already +40mm track, and extended e36 lca's are at +100mm, kamotor standard flares are at 31.75mm front flares and 48.26mm rears, and until I can drive the piss out of the car in its current config, I do not need the extra steering angle for now at the cost to do lca's, flares, and wheels would still be sticking out well past the new 50mm front flares. So instead, I'd rather do a chase bays powersteering kit first. I'm pretty sold on their baffled reservoir. Even with the current powersteering cooler setup I had some fluid boiling over by the end of the day. I've been kind of curious about modifying mine a bit first before dishing out $420 for their kit though. I remember e46 uses banjo bolts with built-in restrictors. I'm wondering if this would help slow the pressure down back to the reservoir on the return line. I already have the 4mm restrictor in that line like OEM, but the line is longer due to adding of the oil cooler. I was thinking of adding a 2nd restrictor higher up in the line along with the banjo bolt and seeing how that works out (i think it would work because that whiteish-clear tube is perforrated throughout and i'm not able to replicate this because i'm not using crimped hose or -AN currently. here are some pics per charlie's thread (sh3rkpark!ng) to help further explain. Both e36 m3/e46 racks use the m14x1.5 banjos.
(I ended up just getting a chase bays reservoir with standard hose fittings since my hoses are all new anyways, just need to fix the boiling over issue for now, and the reservoir will take care of that. I'm still going to mount this on the s52 engine mount arm, and the chasebays reservoir comes with the bracket to fit in stock location at no additional charge, and I figured if I had to drain the system to tryout the banjo's, I should just get this (triple) baffled reservoir instead since it slows down 120psi to 12psi and it has a baffled cap to block fluid from spilling (main issue here). Everything else works perfect power steering wise.




Also, I think I'm going to remove the locking nut on the AKG fcab's next time i go in for an alignment. There's gotta be almost an inch of thread adjustment to be had without that giant nut.



and here's a shit video of me driving the other day

[jeenyus]

Ok that makes sense. I'm curious if the longer hose reduces it's effectiveness to capture blowby though. Seems like a lot of it would just get caught in the hose. I'll admit I'm a noob when it comes to catch cans though.

[s14brent]

Could you mount the catch can where the three relays used to sit? Over by the coolant overfill?

no, i have my wilwood brake bias valve mounted there. I love the simplicity of the way its routed right now and will leave it be. It didn't have any issues at all yesterday and the short/straight lines are appealing and probably more effective. I didn't have any issues with coolant temps on track yesterday granted it was cooler than last event by 10 degrees, but the needle on both gauges did not budge even after I did 4 runs back to back. I think the hood vent and spacing the hood up worked phenomenally. The real test will be next summer, but so far so good!

[jeenyus]

Could you mount the catch can where the three relays used to sit? Over by the coolant overfill?

[s14brent]

I have a cheap catch can in mine, but here is another option for routing. Will be interesting to see if the bend upward through the intake manifold screws up flow...

I had mine up in the battery tray prior, and didn't like how long the hose was. I had the hose routed over the motor, so yours is a slightly better location than my previous setup, but I need to keep that location clear for possible boost application in the future hopefully! I like how if there's any problems with the hose, i can take off the 180 bend and reconnect the other hose bypassing it all simply. The one downfall of this setup currently is I was planning on making a custom fan shroud which will be in the way of the hoses now. I talk about a lot of future mods here, but I think I want to figure out what's needed first and foremost which would probably go: e36 m3 extended lca's (slr speed, but most likely will need larger flares to accommodate extended track - longer than e46 lca's), then chase bays powersteering cooler kit with -an lines (or something custom/similar), then a 2 or 3 quart accusump. I'd also love to get a fuel surge tank, but I have just been taking the car to the track on a full tank and haven't suffered any starvation issues yet thankfully. turning this more into a track-prepped street car I suppose. Not looking forward to the accusump because I'm running about 10-10.5 qts of oil with the oil cooler and slightly overfilled for track use, so 13-14qts of oil is gonna be expensive. The first event I did in the car in 2018 I had some valve train noise towards the end of the day that eventually went away, but still something I don't look forward to hearing again if possible. I also have an achilles oil pan baffle in the e34 pan, which should help the sloshing around, but it.'s not enough.

Once i get some photos from the event yesterday and hopefully some gopro footage I'll post up some thoughts/comments on yesterdays track day.
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