LS1 swap 318IS

[tyeler18]

Haha nice about the springs! Where did you order swift springs from? (asking for a friend )

Sorry about the pup struggles. I'm thankful that mine hasn't gone through that, but she's had her fair share of expensive vet visits over the years.

Are you planning to run PFC08's on the street? I wanted to a few years back and was talked out of it, so I'd be interested in how it works out for you

I have 6 siberian huskies so it was just a matter of time before one of them ended up with something bad. Sucks that it's total blindness, but we're just dealing with it as it comes.

The springs I ordered off ebay, they were the only place listing them in-stock, however, I emailed swift prior to ordering these about their 550lb springs as thats what I wanted and they emailed me back after ordering the 500lb with a link to order the 550's. If you cross what spring you want from their website MAPerformance, Vivid racing and a few other vendors all have them available to order from. Theyre drop shipped from swift regradless.

As far as pads I'm not sure. I run project Nu track pads on my evo and the brakes are absolutely horrible on the street, but so long as you know they suck it's not bad to daily on. It's virtually impossible to get enough heat in them street driving to actually bite properly, the e30 is about 400lbs lighter so it may be bearable. The current pads are so glazed from the last event that even a cold track pad will probably stop better than them Worst case I'll grab some stoptech street compounds and use a spare set of rotors, it's easy enough to swap I'm not too concerned and I usually inspect everything after each event so it'll be apart anyways.

[Northern]

Haha nice about the springs! Where did you order swift springs from? (asking for a friend )

Sorry about the pup struggles. I'm thankful that mine hasn't gone through that, but she's had her fair share of expensive vet visits over the years.

Are you planning to run PFC08's on the street? I wanted to a few years back and was talked out of it, so I'd be interested in how it works out for you

[tyeler18]

Race prep for the Dec. 11th event starts now. First on the list is suspension. Thanks to Northern posting about the civic coil sleeves on amazon. I was going to order AFCO collars/perches but for $50 these are surprisingly good quality, the springs will get trashed obviously.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Next on the list was a quality spring. Nothing against GC but all my cars run swift springs, I like how they handle coil bind compared to almost any other spring on the market and their spring rate consistency is top notch. I ordered a set of 500lb fronts, rears i'm planning a 7XXlb rate once I get the front setup how I want. Peep that coil stack compared to the china specials. Way more spring stroke before coil bind.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Vorshlag is supplying the camber plates with their new aluminum E30 plates, hoping theyll be here this week so I can swap next week while off work. Koni DA shocks all around to dampen everything. I planned to order them but after getting home from my trip one of my dogs went totally blind in both eyes about 2 hours after we made it home. We've been treating what our vet diagnosed (incorrectly) as allergies for the past 2 months which ended up being IHK disease. It's turned into quite the expensive process to treat since it was improperly treated for so long. We're optimistic he'll get at least partial vision back, but it's in the air right now. Bad for him and bad for my car fund, but he's priority right now. Hopefully the next update we'll be handling well and stopping well with some PFC08 pads and centric blanks.

[tyeler18]

Small, but also large upgrade this weekend. The factory LS1 intake is one of/if not the worst flowing intakes of the gen 3/4 engines. The truck intakes are a better option for power in comparison. Our local LS page had a listing for a broken LS6 manifold friday. Turns out the company shipping him his engine busted the vacuum port off the back of the intake. Lucky for me he didn't care what intake he had, he just wanted an intake he could use. Off came my stock LS1, traded the guy saturday morning and sunday morning I broke out the plastic welder. Since I have hydro brakes I didn't need the vacuum ports to run the booster, so I plastic welded a plate after hacking off the broken port.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I spent 4+ hours stripping this nasty red paint off. I commend whoever painted it, they did a really good prep job which made my life hell. Got it stripped and shot some satin black back over it.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Good for a solid 15-20whp and a nice virtually free upgrade!

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

My LS fleet is growing. I have a RWD converted 4g63T for my white mighty max in the pic, but I may just stick a 5.3 in it too.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

[tyeler18]

Is the upper factory mount doing much holding? Isn't it meant to squeeze over the top of two round pieces of aluminum snuggly? The Becool radiator doesn't have those two pieces? Maybe you're just using that factory upper mount to hold/press the radiator up against the sheet metal of the car?

Yes, the rubber mounts just press down/hold the radiator snugly against the core support. I have the core support foam/rubber lined so it sucks it tight into the foam.

[milosav2]

I just bent 2 aluminum L brackets and rivnut them to the bottom of the core support. With the radiator flush with the core support bar the upper factory radiator mount fits and holds it perfectly. Very simple setup

Is the upper factory mount doing much holding? Isn't it meant to squeeze over the top of two round pieces of aluminum snuggly? The Becool radiator doesn't have those two pieces? Maybe you're just using that factory upper mount to hold/press the radiator up against the sheet metal of the car?

[tyeler18]

I am doing the same swap on my 325e. Did you have to make some special mounts/brackets to get the Becool 35202 radiator to fit?

I just bent 2 aluminum L brackets and rivnut them to the bottom of the core support. With the radiator flush with the core support bar the upper factory radiator mount fits and holds it perfectly. Very simple setup

[milosav2]

I am doing the same swap on my 325e. Did you have to make some special mounts/brackets to get the Becool 35202 radiator to fit?

[tyeler18]

Bluetooth mod looks solid!!

Thank you again! I'm quite impressed how clear the sound is for being a 30 year old stereo

This thread delivers- that thing looks like a handful on the track!

It is quite the handful. I'll upload some of my track addict videos to show just how light I had to be on the throttle to keep from losing the back end. 3rd gear from 2500+ for most of my sessions and 30-40% throttle was the max I was seeing aside from the 2 main straights. Running 2nd gear I saw blips of 30% and had to back straight back off for traction. It's super fun to drive though. Some custom swift spring coilovers are coming up soon!

[bbowman]

Bluetooth mod looks solid!!

[AWDBOB]

This thread delivers- that thing looks like a handful on the track!

[tyeler18]

Quick update- I have a CM5908 stereo in the car and really didn't want to add anything aftermarket for a head unit. I did however want bluetooth. Searching around I found a few modules for the CM5908 but at $200+ I couldn't justify the cost. I found BBowman's post in the DIY subforum the other day on adding a cheap bluetooth module on the cassette drive audio out and figured why not give it a shot. After a few PM's with him, I ended up with this $12 DROK brand bluetooth module from amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P94Z9XR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

I wasn't sure if it was going to come with connectors, so I ordered a pack of 3P audio connectors, but it came with it's own nice connectors. This module is a little different than his. This one has a voltage converter built in, so you can feed 12v directly in to the board and it'll knock it down to 5v for you. I didn't want to add a latching relay so I wired it to a small toggle switch installed in one of the dummy button holes above the stereo. Flip the switch, module powers up, auto connects to bluetooth and you've got crystal clear bluetooth sound streaming from your device. Flip it off and the radio defaults back to FM radio. For $12 and about 40 minutes of my time I must say this was well worth the money. I just epoxied the module to the top of the radio case and routed the 2 toggle trigger wires up out one of the holes in the top. Couple of poor pictures of the install, purist look away. I gutted the cassette drive out of the head unit for this, so if anyone needs a cassette drive for a CM5908 I have one I'll never use again lol. Sadly my HVAC panel is crumbling to pieces on removal, it's on the end of the list of things that need replaced. One of these days.

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr

Untitled by Tyeler Andersen, on Flickr


We have a track day coming up in 2 weeks, unfortunately I'll be in South Dakota for the weekend fixing a newer 5 series, so no track time for november unless I hit up one of our autox events. Our group has booked a private event at the track for december. The plan was to do a rental car challenge as we do a track event once a year as the "fastest in town" style event. The plan this year was to rent a new mitsubishi mirage, each driver gets 5 laps around the track, fastest lap wins the trophy. The track owner heard about what our plan was and offered us his spec miata for the event instead, so we'll have the whole track to our group for the day while we race our personal cars and the miata. They're expanding the track now into a 2.XX mile track now as well, so it should be a fun road course beginning of the year. As it sits now it's basically a high speed autox circuit.

[mike.bmw]

Very cool drone footage.

[kid8]

Looks like a blast!

[tyeler18]

Some of the drone footage from the night.

https://youtu.be/oq0mkVckjDo

https://youtu.be/r7G7ny61LuU

https://youtu.be/MPbL6yVi69k