cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

Finally had some time to work on the rear strut tower reinforcements. My buddy RED totally helped me out with welding tips and fitting up the reinforcement plates, mig welding thick to thin (basically everything). I'm super grateful because the fitment was pretty poor and the strut tower fits flush all around making it much easier to weld.

First off I removed the giant tacks i made holding the towers in and did a lot of clean up & prep.....this friggin m18 wire wheel angle grinder thing scares me....especially while curled up with it inside the trunk




had to cut some access holes in the rear firewall and ran some beads (free handed) on the strut tower reinforcements



mine^ vs reds v (i need a lot more practice)



did a lot more prep even after the photos above were taken, and red helped mig stitch-weld them in while i was on the wheel well side on fire extinguisher duty. It really is a two-person job. this thing would have went up in flames doing it solo.







I'll be going out of country on a vacation soon, but when I get back I want to weld in some dom tubing to tie the strut towers together. It will need to be base painted after that and possibly some new undercoating in the wheel wells to prevent any rust, so this is the best time to do that. After that I'll start to drop the front subframe and tackling the harper fab oil pan upgrade. I'll be installing the front reinforced subframe and possibly those solid akg motor & trans mounts that I got a while back. I'm pretty sure I'll want to drive the car as soon as its running with the new pan but I'll also be trying to figure out where to mount all the sensors/wiring for the LINK ecu. I'd really like to get the car on the standalone and then just enjoy it fully, so the wagon might be hitting a drift event in february or march to keep me sane.

[s14brent]

Man that sucks. Could've been way worse though on the positive

100%

brutal, but that first line had me prepared for worse haha, so I'm glad it wasn't.

Sorry about that.....nothing catastrophic, just highly inconvenient

--------------



big a** die showed up. I actually ordered a few of these to see which one would show up first LOL.....



it did cut a decent amount but its only on the maybe the top 6-8 threads. I'll place an order with MRT in january for a full set of spares to keep on hand. (they didnt have any spare parts for sale for cyber monday so i figured i could wait).



I decided to leave 6-3/4 threads on the rod side exposed with the re-threaded piece all the way in. The rod is long enough that this will cover all the adjustments needed and not run into the same issue as before.



I did take the time to clean the torringtons again.....hate doing this, one year i'll end up removing them LOL



rear subframe is back up thanks to help from a friend this time around. I also got 27mm/32/36mm wrenches so i can put some torque on the locking nuts this time around (and a bottle of the orange loctite).
I probably won't have time to work on the car until maybe thursday only this week. I need to find my rearswaybar endlinks again, somehow they got lost in the abyss. I'll also try to upgrade some more hardware "while i'm there" but theres no deadline now, might put off an alignment until January - I think the next thing to tackle is the front subframe and install the harperfab oil pan. I was thinking maybe an oil evacuator might be a good purchase since the oil in the car is relatively fresh.

[2mAn]

Yea Im glad it didnt break while you were sideways somewhere... pain in the azz for sure but could've been a LOT worse

[Northern]

brutal, but that first line had me prepared for worse haha, so I'm glad it wasn't.

[econti]

Man that sucks. Could've been way worse though on the positive

[s14brent]

Not the update I'd love to share, but i'll start from the end of the last post. TLDR: Don't 0 out DTM style heims (irp or mrt)




secondary calipers need to be bled again.....shouldnt take too long.



motul 2l bottles are the devil. I may switch to torco RGO 85w140 + their type F modifier moving forward per Ray @ kaazusa



i had to run out to HF and get a set of their metric line service wrenches. I should have stopped here and realized there wasnt much thread left on the adjusters. I will say adjusting toe/camber is so much nicer this way.




made it to the alignment shop......but barely.....heard a giant clunk passing over the rail road tracks nearby.....turns out i ripped out the adjuster :(



^ from here.....to there v



I will be taking it all apart again (dropping out the rear subframe) and starting over. This is just.....fantastic. I was really hoping to make it to the IFO drift event on Sunday. I'm hoping to get it all back together before end of month/year, and have another alignment setup in January. Just thankful nothing was seriously damaged. I'm annoyed, MRT has apparently revised this part and made the adjuster longer to match the outer heim.......but its the same cost for shipping as it is the part.....I'm going to see if my parts are reusable first and then decide if i should order an entire spare assembly to keep as a spare/backup or just the two revised pieces while the subframe is down/out again.

[s14brent]

well i finally started on the rear subframe swap. what a huge pain in the butt....



pulled the old setup out



fresh bearings....again....



parking brake hardware installed. i actually used one of the e46 springs (upper) because the one that came with 318ti hardware kit was small and fully coiled across making contact with the adjuster wheel.....weird.....but i dont like to play with springs with that much tension tbh...."you'll poke your eye out son!"



10x MH extended studs cleaned and reinstalled with the hub, loctite applied and double nutted to spec



assembled and looking pretty.



I got caught up in a little side questing.....replaced garagistic secondary diff mount bracket hardware. They included 5/16" bolts/nuts. I swapped them out for grade 8 m8's/flanged nuts and locking washers. Putting the fresh subframe assembly in was more of a PAIN than I remember.....I'm not sure why it was fighting me so hard this time around. fresh zimmerman rotors and brembo oe pads for the primary rear calipers. Reusing the BOSCH pads on the secondary calipers for now. I'm hoping to button this all up by Sunday.



reinstalled and looking good. Meanwhile, I need to bleed the brakes and fill the diff, bolt on the rear section of the exhaust and hope everything will be all good to go by tuesday (alignment appointment).

[Northern]

I like the left side because you don't need to do a bunch of ratchet action to get the clamp off, Although if the angle of that tab is wrong I could see it pop off like you're saying.
Also means you can replace just the t-bolt if you ever destroy the threads (guilty of this... I covered one of my vibrant ones in welding spatter and wiped the threads off it when I ran the nut off the first time)

[s14brent]

Can we get a chip check

i'm only used to that term being used on poker/blackjack tables......pretty sure that's not what you meant here LOL

Brings back memories of buying cheap vbands for various exhaust/downpipe stuff. Realized 3" is more of a range than an actual measurement and nothing every plays nicely together lol.
I still have a few of the non-stepped/non quick release ones somewhere that I should purge from my inventory...

Funny enough, the actual clamps included with the cheap/flat v-bands are better than the ones that came on the stepped ones......not sure what the heck is up with that.



The cheap v-bands came with the clamp on the right which holds the bolt in place. the clamp on the left -the bolt falls out (and also takes up more physical space). Makes no sense to me as they are both made by evil energy or whatever.
---------
i thought black friday sales would be minimal this year but the list keeps growing more expensive......so far i bought a bunch of welding consumables, another link pressure sensor and the 2m can extension cable.....a can-lambda mounting bracket, and have a growing cart on DW to at least relocate/change to a 10micron fuel filter setup. I still haven't placed the DW order yet because I'm not sure where I want to mount the fuel pressure sensor yet, but i'm thinking of just mounting both inside the trunk for future surge tank install....I would need to weld-in the rear strut tower reinforcements first though if that's the plan.



i lost track of time clearly.....powdercoating doesn't fit the time line unfortunately.....vht rollbar paint applied (over the eastwood rust encapsulator) on the trailing arms. My current reinforced trailing arms on the car was rattle canned 6 years ago and they held up decently (i think). I'm hoping to start assembling them by Wednesday..I'll start taking out the current setup hopefully on Tuesday!

[Northern]

so i ordered a 2pk of v-bands and these ones came with flat sealing surfaces vs the stepped ones.....so i had to order the same one initially.....weird. yeah the pipe looks like crap inside. part of the reason why i wanted to replace that whole section tbh.

Brings back memories of buying cheap vbands for various exhaust/downpipe stuff. Realized 3" is more of a range than an actual measurement and nothing every plays nicely together lol.
I still have a few of the non-stepped/non quick release ones somewhere that I should purge from my inventory...

[econti]

Can we get a chip check

[s14brent]

so i ordered a 2pk of v-bands and these ones came with flat sealing surfaces vs the stepped ones.....so i had to order the same one initially.....weird. yeah the pipe looks like crap inside. part of the reason why i wanted to replace that whole section tbh.



cut up the 45 degree bend i ordered off amazon....new bandsaw jig works great.



I really am having a hard time working in my small space....i used my mig to tack up the new section in place. its a little bit more tucked up than the previous as well.




I realized later I should have used jackstands to help with the positioning.I really think radiused o2 sensors are the way to go. I have used the two worst style ones so far. I also used some spare fresh pipe bends I had laying around. I kind of wish the material matched, oh well....



skip to the next morning....exhaust all lines up perfectly and no leakage.v-band clamp can be rotated up further so it looks like better clearance this time around. feels good to have this step completed. Going to drop the rear section of the exhaust next and start prepping to drop out the rear subframe mid week. I've made an appointment for an alignment already so I have a deadline to reach. FUN!!

[patrick88m3]

i mean....yes for sure.. pretty sure they will have similar gains probably comparable to turners "shorty" headers which has been documented for decades now for e36 m3's.. to sum it up...not as much top end gains vs long tube headers but mid range torque is usually the power range increase with the shorty design. Sadly most long tubes don't fit ideally in an e30 due to the subframe clearance so the best would be a custom made set or a modified existing set of long tubes or even a modified euro s50 oem set... the china long tubes are made of pretty thin material enough that you can dent it in for clearance, I'm actually surprised they lasted this long under the abuse it was under. The SDW "shorties" would fall in the happy medium I'd say, and for my driving style and long term goals, the mid range torque is actually more ideal for hot lapping and the quality of the header is a big upgrade from what i was running beforehand.

But the 180 dollar price tag on them speed daddy headers is tempting lmfao.

[s14brent]

I mean, no reason why you can't reuse most of it either way (stainless or not, if it works it works.). If you're going to turbo it down the road, you should be able to reuse everything aft of the firewall. (Although maybe you move that vband forward for ground clearance if it becomes an issue)

I MIGed my 304 exhaust with 308L wire when I did my swap, then did my downpipe again when I added the turbo. I bought the rapidspool manifold, so I didn't need to backpurge that, and my WG dump was also MIGed.
I TIGed my new vband flange to that downpipe, and when I recirced the WG, but I didn't back purge any of that either.

I also find Vbands always warp, especially the nice vibrant ones because there isn't a lot of extra meat to them. I try to clamp one flange to the other and leave them assembled/in the same orientation so when they warp, they warp together... Also had decent success with TIG not warping that one flange, and the cheapo HFS clamps from amazon seem to be a good cheap-good-more meat to resist warpage combo.

Well my current setup is 2.5", and if I went turbo I'd def want to go 3". I cant really move the v-band forward enough to make it worth while because its a 2-1 merged section so it would be slightly out of round anywhere in front of that o2 sensor location. I did actually look into this before hot glue gunning it all together.

So this is kinda....lulz.....but you totally reminded me...I actually have the mig setup to do SS if i wanted, even have a 55cf bottle helium trimix and should have a small spool of er308L/309L! I actually forgot about that. However, I really am preferring tig over mig now days, but i will dig out those spools and set them closer to the mig now that you reminded me.

as for v-band warpage.....strictly modified makes a very nice back purging cap/heat sink for v-bands but they're about $100 ea size but I will just be ordering an extra set of v-bands for the time being. I don't plan on doing a lot of them after this tbh!
I don't think HFS makes 2.5" v-band clamps for some reason. I see 1.75/2/3/3.5/4 offered, just my luck!

Thanks for all the feedback, its definitely been useful.

[s14brent]

The SDW headers look nice. I wonder if they'd gain much over stock s52 manifolds.

i mean....yes for sure.. pretty sure they will have similar gains probably comparable to turners "shorty" headers which has been documented for decades now for e36 m3's.. to sum it up...not as much top end gains vs long tube headers but mid range torque is usually the power range increase with the shorty design. Sadly most long tubes don't fit ideally in an e30 due to the subframe clearance so the best would be a custom made set or a modified existing set of long tubes or even a modified euro s50 oem set... the china long tubes are made of pretty thin material enough that you can dent it in for clearance, I'm actually surprised they lasted this long under the abuse it was under. The SDW "shorties" would fall in the happy medium I'd say, and for my driving style and long term goals, the mid range torque is actually more ideal for hot lapping and the quality of the header is a big upgrade from what i was running beforehand.