cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

not a substantial update, still waiting on parts unfortunately!

quick comparison of the female threaded e30 vs male threaded e36 tie rods (moog)



akg fcab fitted onto e46 lca



Comparison shot of e36m3 lca on top of e46 lca. basically the same length on the spindle/fcab distance, but the inner ball joint is further out.



I had a helluva time removing the balljoints from the Meyle HD e46 lca's. I ordered a 21 pc kit from Astro and it didn't have the 1"7/8 or whatever receiver tube I needed, nor did the more expensive powerbuilt kit that autozone rents for $220ish. I ended up ordering a $37 kit from 8milelake but it did not fix my issue, just helped with the removal & installation process.





I ended up cutting the ball joint stud so i could get a socket to fit over it. thankfully all the original ball joint boots were ripped and worn or I would have felt bad doing this. (actually sucks the boots were salvageable...i'll get to that later)



finally ended with this...it took so long just to get to this point it seems.



As I was pressing in the inner ball joints, the first one went in seamlessly but the second shifted as I was pressing it in ....not thinking anything of it i continued...but fml I ended up pinching one of the boots.



After spending a lot of time online I looked around for some replacement ball joint dust boots and found nothing. I actually found some poly replacements that would probably be badass but the seller is on vacation and won't be able to ship them from bulgaria until after the 10th, and shipping would probably be 2-3 weeks, so I went with some ill-fitting energy suspension covers which will hold me over until the new ones arrive.



As you can see they fit questionably and really only stayed fit when compressed but due to its location they should actually be alright to run this way. I'll install the LCA's with antisieze so it will be easy to swap the dust boots in the future in case I get anxious and install early. (LOL they look like babybel cheese).



Oh yeah, i grabbed a cell phone holder from racegerman since I didn't want any electronics running when the car is off....3d printing isn't smooth but it's barely noticeable installed

will update this post when slrspeed mini kit arrives. I should just have to press in the front lca ball joint and outer tie rods and be good to go! (on to the wheel fitment issues LOL)

Next project is already lined up...I was mocking up a hydraulic hand brake from ASD, I decided to not use it since it was a pull-up version (I ordered this when I thought I would use the MASSIVE e30 dual caliper kit which gets rid of your factory parking brake - which I didn't want to really do, and wanted a vented rotor setup in the rear) so I ordered up a wilwood vertical hand brake (photo below for reference) and SRS twin caliper mount (weld on ears) and another set of e46 rear caliper adapters. I'll have to pull another pair of calipers and "T brake fitting" from the junkyard next time I make a trip, but I'll most likely replace piston seal and guide pins again like the first set since it's cheap anyways (edit: since i just reminded myself of this I placed an order at FCP, caliper repair kit seals, pins, rattle clip, bleeder screws and bosch brake pads cost roughly $77). I found pulling the factory handbrake odd and uncomfortable in position and just too much work holding the brake button in. I've always wanted a hydro-handbrake setup so why not right!?



So I also dropped the idea of a drop-vent in the oem hood. The oem hood weighing in over 40lbs' is just not where I want to be at really from a starting point. So a FRP vented hood of some sorts will be on the list of to-buy parts, been looking at the dtmfiberworks m1 frp hood which they advertise as 16lbs and mounts to factory location - just not looking forward to dumping $600 into a frp hood currently.

Also priced out a small fuel system upgrade which consists of a nuke fuel rail, nuke or aeromotive fpr, and radium surge tank setup with an estimate on an fittings and lines....lolol i'll just make sure to track with a full tank of gas for now but may be in the future when I actually road race the car.

Also it's been 2 weeks since the drift event. Car hasn't moved or been turned on and it's still at 12.4v so I think I nipped that issue in the bud.
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small update....my rear right window wasn't working at the drift event. I swear it was working prior but who knows. All I know is that a replacement regulator is $351.xx at ECS so there was no way that was going to happen. I would have done lexan rear windows before even considering that at all. Anyways, decided to take it all apart and take a look at the motor.



I actually started to clean off the rust prior to this picture but it was basically in that general area just caked on thicker.



after cleaning up the rails and reapplying silicone paste, lubed up the shaft (huehuehue) with 3-in-1...and added silicone paste to the worm gear and reassembled/reinstalled.



^ press play > It actually moves quicker and sounds better than the rest of my windows now!

[s14brent]

Interested to see what you come up with. With the events I've been to, it doesn't seem odd that have coolant shooting out of your overflow at times. lol

It won't be anything fancy at all, actually it will be similar to the stock plastic stuff really (just sheetmetal), I just need it to have tighter tolerances to really box that area in....
I'd love to get a kooglewerks diffuser+canard setup, but I really want something that can more importantly close off the gap between the front bumper and radiator support.
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So in comparison to my e36 m3, the power steering cooler I added did an amazing job....no issues at all this event! The oil cooler worked well, but towards the end of the day I started to hear some valve tap which went away after idling for a bit. I know some guys have had some issues with this who do track days/auto-x with their s52's and they usually seem to overfill their motors to help with starvation, but I think the s52 pan has a larger capacity than e34, so I'm not really sure how safe it would be especially since I'm not trailering the car to and from the track. My e34 pan has an achilles baffle welded in there, and I was hoping that would bandaid any of these issues, but apparently I need to look more into depth on this.
edit: If it's still hot as balls in October (next time I can take it to a local event) I will try and run 20w50 as a friend from phoenix suggested who still runs NASA events with his e36 m3.

I dug out the e46 LCA's and talked to sean at SLR and ordered up a mini kit. It works out that I purchased inner ball joints since the slr kit replaces the outer. I also purchased a 20pc ball joint removal kit since it'd probably be a good thing to own. The only thing I'll need to make this whole setup work is inner e36 tie rods (male rod vs e30 female rod).





I decided to round off the FCAB mounting area instead of buying the slrspeed hex shaped ones because I already have my akg race ones and never had any luck selling my treehouse fcabs so I don't plan to make a collection. What really sucks now is that I'll probably have to get new wheels and possibly tires again and possibly flares
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no substantial update so i'll just add onto this one.

I figured out my go-pro mounting solution for now.



I might run these 17x8 style 32's with the e46 lca's (with spacers) since I hear you need to run low offsets. I would have tried to find another pair of style 5's but I got these from a local s52-swapped e21 buddy for a DEAL. sucks about the chrome, but at least I have wheels here on hand. I probably need to sell the set of 17x7.5 style 5's I recently picked up just to get more garage space again. I've been finding some pretty good deals locally.



Moog e36 tie rods came in. I'll be selling the e36 outers since you run e36 inner tie rods with the SLR mini kit instead of doing the whole e90 inner/e36 outer setup. Ball joint service kit comes in this weekend, and hopefully next week the mini kit will come in so I can start taking things apart.

[jeenyus]

I watched a thing last night where they had designed the air ducts with such efficiency you could stand and blow toward the car and feel that air flow in certain key areas of the car where it dumps all that air circulation. It was pretty amazing. Interested to see what you come up with. With the events I've been to, it doesn't seem odd that have coolant shooting out of your overflow at times. lol

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[s14brent]

So earlier in the week I woke up to my battery being dead again, so I decided to find the parasitic draw. I checked current from the negative battery terminal and barely found any changes after pulling each fuse one by one. I then started to check out the relays I had added and found the problem. I rewired my hella supertones from 2 relays down to one, and my 12v fuel pump relay. I ditched the chinese specials that I had in there from amazon, and picked up some metra 30a relays from an audio shop nearby (probably made in china also, but I've never had issues with metra ones ever.) I went from a .174 amps to .025 (which is within normal spec) so no more dead batteries yay!

I took out the stock antenna finally (it was just hanging there unplugged) and finally put in the z3 antenna. I'm not sure if I want to actually mount it in its' normal spot or keep it hidden for now. Reception actually works now, so I may just keep it hidden.

I made it to the vegasdrift event on Saturday. It was a night event 6p-12a, but I got there way too early because I didn't want to drive to the speedway in traffic. I got there about an hour before the drivers meeting, so it gave me enough time to setup



a buddy took these snaps for me









The car felt pretty impressive. It's very solid, stays decently flat throwing it around. It was 108 yesterday, and I had some cooling issues (as along with everyone else) getting to about 220 degrees after 3 laps, so basically it was 3 laps per session. I'm going to ask a friend about possibly doing a drop vent on my hood, and also doing some sheet metal ducting. If he charges more than I can afford, I may end up trying to do it on my own, but I'm looking for ideas. It wouldn't bug me so much if I didn't hit traffic on the freeway, It was a bit sketchy watching temps rise, but it cools right back down with movement.

I'm going to end up doing e46 lca's and SLRspeed mini kit. It's what I wanted and I won't be happy until I get a bit more track and steering angle. I'll have to figure out the fender flares/wheel fitment after but yeah, probably the best "break-in" method for any of my builds.

[s14brent]

I took some pics to illustrate wheel rubbing issues. Here is where the tire rubs the frame rail on both sides



this spot exactly (covered in light rattle can to check if it rubs off on next test drive)



It was also rubbing behind the fender here



That spot is fixable by either pounding with BFH or by running a smaller tire, or by adding caster, which I don't want to do either at the moment, so I went with the BFH method.



i went at it a few more times after this until i had enough clearance - if more is needed I'll end up adding caster from this point.
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Here is the steering angle currently as viewed from above





as viewed from the front



and from the back



I got the tie rods off, and I'm waiting for the rack limiters to arrive tomorrow. I'll add some photos hopefully showing some frame clearance, but ultimately I now know I need longer LCA's to get the angle I wanted and getting the tire off the frame rail at lock.
However....that also means I'm limited on fender clearance/space so unless I want to run a ton of camber I'd need larger fender flares. *sets wallet on fire* I guess I'll just have to see how much the rack limiters actually limit...and really just deal with it for the time being.

---------UPDATE---------------

So....ECS sent me the wrong rack limiters (e30 m3 instead of the e36 m3 ones I needed) but I don't have the time to return these so I just hit it with a a dremel sanding drum to open up the passenger side limiter.




the driver side went on with a light pass.



the passenger side....not so much. the rack has a step lip i guess so I had to try my best to sand at a slight taper. I did this slowly (8-10x checking clearances) because if i went too much there was no way to return this (being modified).



loctited the tie rods and put the new lock washers in place.

here is the clearance from the frame now. first one is from beneath looking up




I'm super confused. Apparently you don't lose any of the steering angle by adding the rack stops or limiters.




I am almost thinking I should have added a few rack spacers while I was in there but I didn't want to risk messing up the alignment so soon after getting it done even if it's only just closing it down the same mm as rack spacers added. At least the rack limiters do their jobs (given that the people you buy it from send you the right one!) I'm pretty content right now because I was worried I'd have to get longer LCA's, new inner/outer tie rods and the whole wheel fitment thing...which would have lead straight to larger front flares....crisis somewhat avoided temporarily!

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So...i'm over fog lights....I think I've replaced the fogs 3x already with 2nd hand oem units, this time I noticed the reflector lens or whatever on my driver side fog was out of alignment. I ordered up some fog lamp delete covers with that last ecs order, I'm just waiting on some SEM trim paint from amazon to arrive. I pulled out the fogs and the ducts right next to it already. I'm getting pretty anxious to drive this thing more!



I also noticed there was clear plastic covering the logo on the strut bar.....which made me wonder why I didn't remove the logo in the first place. some goo gone and hitting it with a 3m rubber wheel and then a quick clean and polish it looks 100x better.


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no real sense to keep bumping the thread so I'll just keep adding to this one. SEM trim black paint got delivered early today. Brand new oem fog lamp delete plates and ducts got sprayed down asap, and I installed the fresh/new oem bumper seal.




Much better!!

[Danny]

Ecu controls the idle bump for A/C in the e36 cars. I’ve had no luck with the same routes you’ve taken. I caved and just installed a chip with a 1000 rpm idle and it seems to be okay with the A/C on.

[s14brent]

No pics or real updates for this one but I have a few questions for you guys!

anyone know how to fix the AC idle bump? I tried a few of the methods I found on here (which is basically the same thing):

- tapping a wire on pin 64 (violet/grey-413dme) and running it directly to ac 12v switch
-pin 64 but to the red/black 12v pigtail from ac lead.

I've done both and not a single difference. both were checked for 12v when AC was running. The idle stumbles very briefly when ac is switched on but does not jump up and down like other threads have mentioned. It drops maybe a couple hundred rpm but it jumps right back up and holds. (is that the fix? I have not tried unhooking this because I did it a long time ago since I knew this was a known issue) In all actuallity this isn't a huge issue, but I'm trying to go through the car and check everything before actually taking it out and beating on it.
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The main concern right now is that I'm having rubbing issues, frame pinch areas (above the wheel) have been hammered flat and given the clearance needed. I'm rubbing on the frame rails at full lock. I can't afford to destroy front tires constantly or risk the car locking up from rubbing the rail so this is more of a concern right now.

97 e36 m3 rack (the 4-5mm of rack spacers I had previously have been removed a few months ago) so it's pretty straight forward swap right now. I have e36 m3 lca/spindles for 5 lug and I'm only running 17x7.5 +41 bbs' but with maybe 10-12mm spacers (i've changed it a few times now). I really hate having to run such high offset up front. oh and 235/40/17's federal 595RS

Anyways I've ordered the TMS rack stop kit which should definitely fix the rubbing issue, but I have a hard time believing this is an issue for the tons of of others who have the same setup. I know some people chop them down so they don't lose a ton of steering angle, but would I benefit from a SLR speed Mini kit (stock LCA kit) and full size TMS rack stops....or would I run into the same issues. I feel like the only way to figure this out is spend the $500 for the kit and just find out for myself honestly. I would call up sean @ SLRSPEED but I might wait a while until I actually order the kit because I have a few other things that need attention at home first. So I'd rather call and ask when I'm ready to buy. However they are on sale for $498 right now...hmm....

I'm going to install the rack stop kit when it arrives next week and try to compare before and after to see if i lose any significant steering angle. I plan on doing some open track days and local drift events (nothing serious) and would love to have something similar to my old track cars feel. I'm not looking for stupid angle, just something legit that can fix the bumpsteer/akerman angle and benefit from the additional steering angle.
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[s14brent]

is the e39 a manual? did they come in manual?

yep! but they are pretty rare and from what i've seen there were more manual 528's than 525's but never came manual in 540 trim. My wagon was converted by the previous owner (pretty decently but they never coded the cluster or ran the reverse light wiring for the most part. Oh and the transmission needed input/output seals and the shifter stuff was worn so it was all replaced/upgraded)
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Last night I finally realigned the front bumper, bumper shock was just set too low on the passenger side. thank goodness it was an easy fix. I was looking at Digitalwave's build thread and saw he used an e39 bumper seal on his bumper and loved the way it looked. I will probably order a new seal eventually, but I had my old e39 bumper in the backyard, so i used the old seal that had overspray on it just to see if it would work for now. cut to length and viola no more gap!



My viper 2 way alarm key fob apparently just stopped working over the years of sitting, so I ordered a single channel remote to just have my keyless entry again. I programmed the remote and got that working again - which is kind of nice!

I had a pair of rear "premium speakers" so I gutted the speaker/tweeters and just threw the covers on top of my ultra non-premium speakers (infinity replacements), pretty much because I love how they add that 80's feel to the interior I guess



I need to take it out more, but I'm slowly getting all the little things checked off. I also LOVE the way it feels compared to the ground controls I had on there previously. The GC's felt like a comfortable sporty street setup for sure, but the fortune auto's feel way better on this car (to me) vs the e36 m3 (which they were meant for). Maybe with all the poly bushings and reinforcements it just ties all together so nicely, pretty sure there's little to no body roll and it just holds. Basically I couldn't be happier because this is what I was aiming the car to feel like. (a mix between my na miata and my old s14). Oh and I raised the front end to get rid of some of the rake. I officially have wheel gap up front and I'm torn.

The diff does have some low speed chatter (in turns obviously) which was surprising (I thought was surprisingly nice actually since it's a factory diff) not sure if it's just a really healthy lsd or if it's because the rear end is all poly now (i'm thinking probably both). but it sort of reminds me of a slightly toned down version of my na miata kaaz 1.5 way.

[jeenyus]

is the e39 a manual? did they come in manual?

[Ludwig]

[...] I'd love to see the machined caps for it though, so keep me updated!

will do!

[s14brent]

Those pics look awesome, I like the wheels without the caps, it looks more appropriated for this car. Any plans to paint the flares?

Thanks man! I got tired of taking photos of it in my garage or around my neighborhood! I actually like the wheels with no caps as well! I still need to work on lining up the front end better - possibly thinking of an aftermarket hood or a custom vent, but the hood i have is not in the best shape to begin with.....basically flares will probably get paint matched if the whole car gets painted. The car does not look as good in person as the photos depict (and this is the good side lol!)

[2mAn]

Those pics look awesome, I like the wheels without the caps, it looks more appropriated for this car. Any plans to paint the flares?

[s14brent]

Took the e30 out on a short drive, theres a few things I still need to check, brake bias feels good now. The rears definitely don't lock up like they used too (which is a good thing! - under hard braking the car stays straight, so that's a win!) I'm only going to run the 235/45's in the rear for a while, I got a bunch of tires in decent shape during this wheel swap, so I'm going to hopefully burn them up and get my monies worth! Going to raise the front of the car also, I hate the rake, but wouldn't mind the extra pan/skid plate clearance. I'm too old for that low life apparently! Pretty excited with the progress!! I'm definitely feeling like I made the right choice by keeping it and all these little things should have been done long ago except I lost motivation for whatever reason.

[Ryan...]

Thanks! I'm wasn't sold on the pmc knob. Also, when I ordered my PMC shifter they did not offer lengths at the time, so I'm not sure the size without measuring.

Once they get back to me I'm going to order the larger knob, if I don't like it I'm going to copy you and find a nice wooden knob :)

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[s14brent]

I absolutely love that shifter setup and the wood ball :up:

Thanks! I'm wasn't sold on the pmc knob. Also, when I ordered my PMC shifter they did not offer lengths at the time, so I'm not sure the size without measuring.

i have to admit i never liked the center caps. I always put 70mm roundels (the ones that go into the center caps) directly onto the wheels. It' easy on the e30 15s, because they directly glue on, but a bit more challenging with these wheels (i have the same on my e30 m3), as the center hole is larger. I'm going to have a cap machined that only covers the center hole.

I don't plan on going to shorter studs just to run caps, I'll just leave it the way as is. This car is far from a good looking car right now. I'd love to see the machined caps for it though, so keep me updated!