cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

ran into some unexpected issues with the slrspeed high trail knuckle. been in talks with them, they'll be fixing the issue, sucks about timing though, they are in the middle of moving shop right now....meanwhile I'll have my friend try to hit it on his lathe.



noticed this gap when i would shine a light on it. which meant I had to uninstall these and reinstall the old set of blocks. The gap measured about .43mm with a feeler gauge.



That same feeler gauge does not match the height sticking out in the picture, I'm going to have the stud machined .5 mm and call it a day. I know he can get it done much faster than I would get the new studs from SLR anyways.



After torquing the front suspension to spec, I decided I wanted to eye-ball the rear camber and torque that down. Good thing I decided to throw on the TE's, I realized I need splined lug nuts for extra clearance.



I helped my friend press in some s13 subframe bushings and pressed out the studs from the slr knuckle blocks. I'm going to try and throw some locking casters on the press. It shouldn't be a safe idea, but I've seen so many YT'ers do bigger jobs with no issues. i really want to get my alignment taken care of!



I then reinstalled my old DME and had to clean up the old intake/MAF setup. I remember I tossed one of the t-bolt clamps due to wear. I went ahead and ordered another one. I was too worried about getting it to the tuner and having any potential leaks/problems and I also wanted to bleed the PS pump/rack. Something crazy is going on with that.....the AAE rack + SLR angle kit, i'm getting 1 (maybe 1.2) turns lock to lock?! I also took the time to label the relays in the trunk when I pulled the fuse for the LINK G4X, sad thing was I already forgot which was which!. I'll be keeping a baggie of spare fuses/relays in the car now JIC



Maybe I should still try to just slap a supercharger on this motor next year or something..... to justify paying these high tuning costs, I've been getting quotes and they're not bad.....but for a stock tune it kinda is a waste i feel. I have to look into it I guess, and see if the supercharger bracket works with the s54 oil filter housing/alternator mount. I really do like the simplicity of the oil cooler setup now, so that would be unfortunate if I had to revert back to a cap setup.





------- Later that day.....--------

I ended up getting home after work right as the sun was about to set so I decided to finally wash the e30. It had almost a years worth of caked up dust on it, and I wanted to take some photos of it clean.

[s14brent]

work has been kicking my ass, along with the 100°+ weather. I ended up getting hooked up with a primeweld 225x from a buddy who upgraded to a miller syncrowave 212. Both the primeweld and ahp are decently respected china-made machines (probably best bang for the buck) but the main difference is my machine was a 200a vs 225a and is just overall a little more refined in all areas it seems. I def noticed my AHP aluminum settings were HOT on the primeweld. My AHP was purchased in 2018 and the 225x i bought was only a year old, so I ended up selling my AHP with the pedal and torch from the primeweld because I wanted to keep my SSC pedal and CK torch setup since I have mine sleeved and cable tied with the finger pedal currently. I actually broke even on this trade so it just cost me my time. Primeweld just released a new version of the 225 this month after all these years actually!



I picked up the porsche/brembo caliper from my friend who milled the mounting boss down 12mm to run with e46 m3 (compact) rotors (this needs to be done to still clear 17" wheels - if you run 18's you can use this adapter kit with m3 comp/csl 345mm rotors)



brembo ceramic pads....quite different from the porsche pads that were in there...(i had to knock out that pin on all 4 pads) pad size is identical, as is the hardware.



e36 m3 rotor (315x28mm) vs e46 m3 (325x28mm)



I had to hit the top/side of the spindle ears with a grinder & flap disc to clear the adapter. did a quick overnight spray of vht epoxy/suspension black.



bolted the adapter on, 59ft lb for those two bolts



the calipers use a 12pt 1/2" nut that gets torqued at 35 ft lb's. I had to order some e46 rotor retaining screws. the e36 m3 ones are too large. brake lines are all hooked up, I'll need to pressure bleed this another day. I'm unfortunately out of garage time until maybe end of next week.

[s14brent]

I only say as a friend's E39 was hit in that manner with the battery still there and it was a debacle

yeah, that's a good call. that's the main reason i moved the battery tbh, I've seen one get smashed and battery acid got on EVERYTHING (including his nuke surge tank). The harness bundle is probably smaller than 2ga power wire, I'll tuck the harness up a little higher if i can, but I also may look into a quick release battery terminal in case of emergency.

[econti]

i feel like it would get more rubbing running the wires on the trunk floor edges through the back seat (like oem battery cable). Hopefully I'm not wrong, but i'll route it so it its only dangerous if it gets hit on the top of the rear quarter now that you mention it. thanks.

I only say as a friend's E39 was hit in that manner with the battery still there and it was a debacle

[s14brent]

Are you worried about the fuse setup being pinched if you get a rear quarter tap from a wall, or is that not really a worry?

i feel like it would get more rubbing running the wires on the trunk floor edges through the back seat (like oem battery cable). Hopefully I'm not wrong, but i'll route it so it its only dangerous if it gets hit on the top of the rear quarter now that you mention it. thanks.

[econti]

Are you worried about the fuse setup being pinched if you get a rear quarter tap from a wall, or is that not really a worry?

[s14brent]

I ended up finishing up all the wiring on the e30 this week. Most of the wait for was for TXL wire from prowire in 10/12/14/16/18 gauge. As of right now, only the top row of relays are in use right now. the power and ground are connected for the lower 3 but I removed the relays and the fuses for them. Those will be utilized in the near future, I also replaced the top 3 relays with bosch relays that took forever to arrive. First relay was wired to the fuel pump, second is IGN switched for my radiator sprayer and link gauges, 3rd is switched IGN for DME.



I didn't take many photos during this process but here's one with the covers on and as it sits currently.



I also replaced the grommets on the super old moroso battery box that i've had in my s14 and my s13 coupe. I also added a few more holes for the battery tender line and the distribution box power line. New positive terminal as well. Its easy to service the setup with this configuration.



I had to modify the dme mounting bracket to clear all the wiring coming out of the dme housing. Not sure if I'll try to do any additional cable management here. It's getting really HOT again in Vegas.



I had to dig out the old windows laptop to install the PCLINK software and update the firmware. Since its a newer version the install guide/menu items are slightly different than the manual step-by-step directions. I managed to unlock the ECU and did the MAP/TPS calibrations only.



I turned the car onto IGN and fuelpump fired right up, and gauges work! Everything seems good so far, I just need to identify the pressure sensors.



I also installed the SLRspeed High trail spindle blocks. I had to modify the ackerman spacers a bit since the locating pin length is different between the two. I actually ordered 2 more of them just to have as spares and I ordered the low clearance tie-rod bolt kit (i didn't know this existed). So I'll focus on the brakes and then torque everything when its all said and done.




I got word my Porsche/brembo brakes will be squeezed into this work week. I can confirm the e36 rally road brake lines for this kit is longer than the condor extended front brake lines so I will be upgrading the lines again as I'd prefer to have the 90 degree fitting at the caliper for tidy-er lines.
Meanwhile I'll be reading up and watching videos on Link ECU more closely and hopefully make some progress before I make some calls & an appointment with tuner. I want to make sure there are no issues before wasting more time x money!

[s14brent]

edit: 05/31 i cant seem to replace an img url if i accidentally post an image twice......whatever i made some progress so i'll just repost.

moving at a snails pace.....used some m6 rivnuts and 1/2" aluminum spacers to mount the relay box into the battery tray. I hope theres enough room to mount the power distribution block I'm waiting for.



I spent a little too long realizing a distribution block would be the way to go.



Second can-gauge and jumper harness got delivered, so I had to mock that up and tesa tape the jumper harness for a cleaner look.



Side quest Saturdays. I picked up a pair of 996 porsche oe brembo calipers locally. I already dropped it off at a friends' place to get the mounting boss shaved 12mm (to fit under 17s). I have some brembo pads and e46 m3 stoptech rotors on the way from rock auto, and also ordered the rallyroad mounting brackets and lines. I know its not a huge performance brake upgrade, but the weight drop per corner and ease of swapping pads at the track is a huge benefit imho!

I already ran the new txl wires I ordered from prowire + tesa taped from through the trunk in oe wiring location up to almost the a-pillar. routing the wires through the dash is going to be a bit more time consuming I'm sure. I'm probably going to replace the 12ga lines for the fuel pump for 10ga (while i'm in there). So I'm waiting on another order of wire for now.

I think I've decided to remove the factory parking brake and remove the lower dash/center console. (basically everything under the climate control). Less weight + clutter. It wasn't super secure in there anyways without the carpet to be honest, I just have to figure out what to do right now with the window switches. I was thinking about making an aluminum lower dash panel with the radiator sprayer, window switches, and 12v plug. Removing all that also gives me the option to change to a pull-up style hydraulic hand brake in the future, which would be a cleaner setup for sure.



I've been practicing my aluminum welds with the new finger pedal, I'm making slow progress on that as well but it's coming out a lot better than where i was a few weeks ago, so maybe i can just hot glue gun a few pieces of alum since this will probably be a temp setup. I swear I keep adding things to do and the project keeps getting pushed back, but I'm very pleased at this latest round of upgrades.



I got the distribution block from the same company as the relay block, so matchy-matchy! I spent way too long doing service loops on this one....I think it came out great - so it was worth it!



I had some 4awg stereo wire in storage and I ordered some 4ga copper terminals and crimped/punched it and then bent the connector in my vise. 1/2" aluminum spacers were used again for mounting, but I used some kawasaki aluminum JIS case bolts to mount this one. socket cap or 10mm was a PAIN to try to install since the mounts are kinda tucked in on very corner. I figure aluminum was a safer bet anyways. I'll probably re-run 10ga to the fuel pump and get rid of all the old wiring I did in the past, and actually start to wire up the different relays next week. I got my SLRSPEED tracking info so I'll be able to wrap this all up soon hopefully

[s14brent]

I got the right delphi pins finally so I was eager to finish up the wiring job......as soon as I was plugged it in the locking clip snapped...I hate how this goes sometimes.....



While waiting for the parts I cut up a 3.5" 45° intake tube and replaced the mishimoto intake tube since the other was getting a little "soft".



I also got finished up the other end of the can-extension with the deutsch DTM 4 way. I really like all these crimpers & strippers that I picked up lately.



Here we have the CAN-LAMBDA up top and CAN-Gauge on the bottom. I actually purchased another can-gauge and daisy chain cable to cut down on all the info on a single display. I'll need Water temp, oil temp/psi, fuel psi, and air fuel ratio split up between the two. I can also eventually throw boost psi onto one so its a future-proof purchase. I'm not going digital dash when i have under 240hp, that's just uncalled for LOL!



So when I was removing all the VDO 52mm gauges & wiring for them the thought came up to add a relay block under the dash. However, with how much the wires protrude past the blocks mount, I'm thinking of making an angled sheetmetal box and mounting it in the battery tray in the trunk. It will be 1000x more easily accessible. I need to go crawl back under the dash and figure out if i want to proceed with this. It's another sidequest I'm not sure I want to take on just yet.



and I finally got a "finger pedal" for my tig torch. I've been wanting one from 6061 (technically the "tig button", but this got announced right before i placed an order so I've been waiting for it to become available. I've only used it on some aluminum coupons so far, but it doesn't take long to get used too! And I gotta chill out on the tool purchases after this though!

[s14brent]

well i keep having to wait for parts....i ordered the wrong delphi connectors so I only got the bosch 5 pin wired up for now while I wait.



I got the c101 pins from falk mfg. I'd probably recommend 3 packs of 14-20ga pins and 1 pack of 12-14. The IGN coil (green pair) is a tight fit, but I didn't order a 10-12ga pack. Kind of hard to justify the 12-14 for just the starter pin and 10-12 for the ign coil pin (that makes it $10 per pin!)



I tried to tidy up the e36 engine harness bulk, its a lot cleaner without the bulk on the driver side now. Nothing was wrong with my soldered connections, but its nice to not have that! People complain a lot on the solder vs crimp arguement but i've been fine on a car with heavy NVH so whatever. I was struggling to get perfect crimps on the different types of pins....its a real challenge, some came out decent, some came out like a blind person did them......they all passed the tug test and locked in place - that's all that matters!



Since I got stuck I started to run the wideband/can-lambda. Its a tight fit (limited places to mount the control unit due to provided wire length). It is out of the way of the drive shaft and the steering column, so that's fine. I used 3m double sided tape behind it with some basic self tappers. I don't think it'll be a problem. I've seen a lot of cars just ziptie it to a random loom and be good lol.




In my head, the link can-ext cable (to connect the can lambda to the standalone) would work, but the connectors they use are HUGE and won't be able to go through the firewall without a giant hole+grommet. So instead, I ordered some 4 way deutsch connectors and another friggin crimper for 20ga closed barrel terminals. I'll just make my own, it will be much easier to run.

I am almost getting closer, no word from SLR on my order yet unfortunately! Progress is progress or whatever!

[s14brent]

Good morning, Love the fab work you have done to the E30. I did not read to far back so forgive me if I missed something. I am a GC in California. Let's talk mini split. With your fab skills you can easily do your own install. Some units come pre charged. What I have done in the past is use a Panasonic unit with everything needed to get heat and air so (head units, lines and condenser / heat pump). those supplied lines are not very long get an extra length if needed. If you're in need of a 20A 240V breaker and have space in the main panel that is also easy just use a conduit to protect the wire. Garages are not insulated well and if you're ceiling isn't insulated any unit you install is going to run continuously. Insulation can be a bigger job because you have to remove the garage contents. You as a homeowner can pull your own permit and they are going to just ask for a drawing mapping your work. If your unit needs to be charged you best to call an AC guy to do that and test the lines. Unfortunately, that not cheap job. The AC trade along with plumbing, electrical and roofing on home repair are expensive because most homeowners can't even change their own oil and the contractors know it. If you get a labor only quote, ask for the per hour rate and estimated time to do the job. $ 60.00 an hour is fair for these trades and 5k for an 8-hour shift is taking advantage. Vegas heat sucks.

thanks man, i've really been enjoying the whole learning process and i'm seeing better results here slowly. A lot of the things I've done on the e30 could be revisited and improved upon. I don't work in the trade so it's a lot slower learning process. Its also very costly "hobby" if you add things up at the end of the day. I'm actually almost relieved i'm pretty much out of garage floor space tbh.....I have been looking for tools i really have no space for.... ideally a tire machine would save time & money for sure, I'd love a quality stand up drill press that doesnt have chuck wobble and possibly a jd2 tube bender to build myself some bash bars for the first project.. I'm pretty sure I follow you on IG, you've been doing a ton of corvette cages right? killer work btw! (sorry if i have you mistaken). The pioneer unit is one of those precharged units but cheaper than say a mrcool unit. The cheapest kit comes with like 10ft install kit, and I was probably looking at getting the 16ft kit. My garage walls are definitely not insulated, and I'd really only plan to have it on when I'm working in the garage. I can't use swamp coolers, they attract the mosquitoes.. The main panel is right behind the work bench with the grinders so technically the lines won't have to be ran very far. I'm at the point where I'd want to attempt to DIY the minisplit, but yesterday was already 104°!! I have a feeling it might be an extra long summer here....I'd have to crawl through the attic space more than likely so its off the table for now, maybe 2027 if this next quote is high as well.
Also, I had the chance to test out the lincoln 3350 helmet. It is absolutely night and day - i'm super impressed by the viewability and not having that OG gambeboy green tinge anymore!

[OSAH racing]

Good morning, Love the fab work you have done to the E30. I did not read to far back so forgive me if I missed something. I am a GC in California. Let's talk mini split. With your fab skills you can easily do your own install. Some units come pre charged. What I have done in the past is use a Panasonic unit with everything needed to get heat and air so (head units, lines and condenser / heat pump). those supplied lines are not very long get an extra length if needed. If you're in need of a 20A 240V breaker and have space in the main panel that is also easy just use a conduit to protect the wire. Garages are not insulated well and if you're ceiling isn't insulated any unit you install is going to run continuously. Insulation can be a bigger job because you have to remove the garage contents. You as a homeowner can pull your own permit and they are going to just ask for a drawing mapping your work. If your unit needs to be charged you best to call an AC guy to do that and test the lines. Unfortunately, that not cheap job. The AC trade along with plumbing, electrical and roofing on home repair are expensive because most homeowners can't even change their own oil and the contractors know it. If you get a labor only quote, ask for the per hour rate and estimated time to do the job. $ 60.00 an hour is fair for these trades and 5k for an 8-hour shift is taking advantage. Vegas heat sucks.

[s14brent]

I guess I'm back to waiting for parts unfortunately..I started trying to do things in my free time as usual..I decided to "mock" the link ecu in place.....and start to run the wires through the firewall to determine length/routing.

My order from ballenger showed up, just 3 different sized parallel connectors to split the +5v & ground wires.



tesa taped from the LINK to the Y split to the oil psi/temp and fuel psi sensors.



Ran them to the driver side of the firewall and started to get ready to wire up the sensor connectors. Oil temp/psi is bosch/trapez 5pin and fuel psi is an aptiv/delphi metri-pack 150. This is important because I had to order new pins for them because they apparently got smashed in the box they were stored in for almost 2 years now SMH! I placed another order from ballenger for the pins. Hopefully they show up sometime before next weekend.



You can see the exposed c101 in the photo above.......The wires to the c101 was wayyy too long and bulky and its kind of bothered me for YEARS.....I decided I'd order the depin tool and 20 new pins from Falk MFG. The plan is to service loop them JIC since I'll be only leaving enough length where the wires are relaxed. I decided to take the boot off the engine side connector and remove the unused wires that were stuffed inside. I removed 9 unused wires, and have only 13 wires in my c101 and thats wired for AC. This also means I'll have plenty of connectors left over, or spares.



The only other thing left I could do for the stand alone was unplug the vacuum line from the FPR and order a 3/16-3/16-1/8 tee (dorman 493-016) and 5' of gates 27041 which is 7/64 and actually fits the 1/8 side of the tee tighter. I ran the vacuum line through the firewall and split it off. I guess there's no turning back now!!



I did order a new wire stripper and open-barrel crimper. I'm hoping they make my life a little easier. I also got a new welding helmet! I was having issues fitting my respirator under my old miller digital elite, and I knew my miller respirator would fit under a lincoln 3350, so I ordered that since there's a $100 rebate going on. I also bought a gen2 miller digital elite shell (tbh i didn't know they sold replacement shells, I would have done that a long time ago if I knew, I think my miller is 10 years old at this point - of course the gen 1's are discontinued, but for right under $50 for the gen 2 shell, I figured I'd give it a try!) Thankfully the display unit didn't change sizes, I know the gen2 unit has less of the green tint and is a bit more refined all around, but now it that helmet looks good enough to either resell or keep as a killer spare. I just know I wanted to be able to use a respirator under the mask more often.





I also have a 6061 tig finger-pedal on order...I will probably spend a lot of time practicing with that whenever it arrives. That should help with anything not on the table, hopefully i'll get confident enough for a roll cage in the future.

**Mini-Split update: might not do it.....I found a unit I liked pioneer 18kbtu, However the 2 guys I had come out for estimates were $1900 and $21xx. I'd probably be in it for a little over 4200 all said and done. I am not doing that...I think its mainly because I'd need another 220-240 plug and I think that unit requires a 20-25a breaker.

Hopefully parts start rolling in soon. I think my SLR order said UP to 3 weeks wait time, I really was hoping they just had one on the shelf I guess, but now i'll be needing a base map before I can schedule my alignment. I couldn't stand the thought of the standalone sitting in a box for another year.

[s14brent]

The oilpan has been holding the 9.5 qts for some time now with no leaking, so I decided to slap the subframe back in, along with the steering components and finally remove the engine support bar. I also threw on the front bumper again so it looks like a full car again which is nice.



I had to re-open the dme housing for the LINK ecu and added a second CAN JST connection cable. There are two can bus inputs on the e36 G4x and I had originally set it up with just CAN1 and a CAN TEE. Since the wideband/can lambda is quite the path between the two resistor ends considering the cable extensions, I figured it'd be a safer setup if I just had it on its own channel so it won't have an excuse to be a bit wonky.



I was going to remove the glove box and figure out wire routing so I could make the sensor/expansion harness. I ended up scrolling on marketplace during a water break and found a listing for recaro seat sliders for cheap. ::enters sidequest::



I didn't take pictures over the install, but 4 new 8mm holes had to be made on each slider to directly bolt this onto the garagistic floor mounts and side mount bracket. I'll probably be revisiting it again so I'll take pictures next time I'm in there. I had very limited space where I could mount the sliders because of the late models longer front seat studs and the height of the inner rear mounting bolts - since i'm still running factory seat belts.



I'd say this is about 90% complete at the moment, I might need to do some more fine tuning for my OCD (currently too invested in this project right now to go back to solid mounts at this point. Its also REALLY helpful to get in/out of the car now.)




I made an oil dipstick bracket out of aluminum originally, but with the 3 oil pan attempts it already started to deform so I made it out of steel. I also made another bracket to secure the intake piping. Brackets were painted along with the fuel vent line cover and rear firewall access covers.

Speaking of side quests though, I was looking on slrspeeds site wanting to get torque specs for the knuckle block and remembered they came out with a "high-trail" version which changes the pick up point a bit for I believe more caster (improved self-center/self steer during drift). I am out of adjustment currently and I'd love to be able to have wiggle room or even slightly more.

Meanwhile I will be figuring out wire lengths from the firewall to sensors and considering a bulkhead on the firewall for a quick-disconnect solution, I actually doubt I'll need that for a couple of sensors though, and may just do deutsch for each sensor (engine bay side).

[s14brent]

For minisplit, I kinda ballparked the size - my garage is 560sqft but has 10' ceilings and kind of shit insulation so I wasn't super sure a 12k BTU unit would cut it to heat, but was quoted for 500-750sqft so I figured I had headroom, and from what I read, they are most efficient when they are just big enough, and I think this one is basically that.


Only thing I'd do different, is to NOT wall mount the outdoor unit directly where my desk is just on the inside of that wall. It goes into a defrost cycle during the winter and gets quite loud inside. I'd mount it to the ground or just on the wall literally anywhere else...

Thanks, I'm currently looking at a pioneer 18k BTU 23 seer2 unit. You might be the 3rd person to tell me to not to wall-mount the outdoor unit.

------------------
I've had crazy long work weeks so I'm finally back being able to get some wrench time in. I ended up helping out a local buddy swap his torsen unit into my 3.46 LSD housing. He's collecting parts for his soon to be s50 swapped late model. This also means my 40% LSD unit is just sitting in a box - not sure what I'll be doing with that, but I do know I either wanted a 3.64 or 3.25 instead, so I'll be keeping an eye out for those. (maybe open diff versions to save money).



I only had one other free day since the diff rebuild, and I basically bolted on the ps pump, subframe/steering rack, and LCA's up front. I have to torque them all to spec still, but I moved onto the rear. I was tired of looking at my fortune auto shocks laying on the ground, so I finally put those back in with new oem paper gaskets on the mount.



I found out my fuel tank breather cover had some rust forming. Its not bad enough to replace, so I just wire-wheeled it down to clean metal. ABS version would be nice, but it's not necessary. I'll probably remake the dipstick tube bracket out of steel, and paint the bracket, breather cover and the firewall patch panels together when its' not windy. Yay for actual progress though. I might be able to actually drive the car soon!