Wide Body Street car/Time attack build

[meltingmanmedia]

Sweet thread, this was my first time seeing it. I had a lot of MS2/crank sensor issues a few years back so just make sure to double-check the air gap to the toothed crank wheel when you get the new one in. IIRC scooting the sensor slightly closer than the stock gap can help with Megasquirt. I would get a false rev limiter around 4000 RPM and lose sync in the logs. Moving the sensor closer helped to fix my issues.

Also, let's see this e21!

I will definitely try to do that! When I was daily driving it the car would hit a limiter somewhere between 5000-6000 rpm and fall flat on its face, then pick back up and rev all the way out to 7000+. Thought it was a fueling issue for the longest but turns out it could have been this replacement sensor losing its signal. At least that's what Im hoping...

But here is the E21 for those who'd like to see! Not too bad for a 40+ year old beater. Has some rust under the really terrible paint job, and someone decided to do a sunroof delete that doesn't look amazing. Wheels need to go, and will probably be replaced with 15" alpinas or something similar. Probably going to do a lot of body work over the winter and smooth everything out! First car show we took it to, Maddy took home her first car show trophy for best 80s/90s car, she was pretty stoked about that!

[Reichart12]

A couple of months ago I plugged the Megasquirt ECU in and got the car to fire up and run just fine and it was great. Now it seems either the Crank sensor is shot, or the ECU lost its base file. It seems like its more of a crank sensor issue since it lines up with issues I had when daily driving the car. So one should be here soon so It'll be able to pull on and off a trailer on its own and in and out of the shop at work.

There is a ton to do still and a ton of stuff I have to redo and spend more time on to do the proper way, But I need it to be 2 hours closer to me so I can work on it more frequently and get those things done and then ill be back to adding some good stuff to this thread. My Girlfriend gave in to my peer pressure and picked up a 1980 320i with all the euro exterior goodies, needs a good amount of love but it's a pretty decent car and ill add a little bit of that project here and there as well!

Sweet thread, this was my first time seeing it. I had a lot of MS2/crank sensor issues a few years back so just make sure to double check the air gap to the toothed crank wheel when you get the new one in. IIRC scooting the sensor slightly closer than the stock gap can help with Megasquirt. I would get a false rev limiter around 4000 RPM and lose sync in the logs. Moving the sensor closer helped to fix my issues.

Also, let's see this e21!

[meltingmanmedia]

Trying to reach a point where actual progress can be made, but life and more minor issues keep getting in the way!

A couple of months ago I plugged the Megasquirt ECU in and got the car to fire up and run just fine and it was great. Now it seems either the Crank sensor is shot, or the ECU lost its base file. It seems like its more of a crank sensor issue since it lines up with issues I had when daily driving the car. So one should be here soon so It'll be able to pull on and off a trailer on its own and in and out of the shop at work.

Currently, the car has all 4 RPF1 mounted, it rolls around and is basically still a big paperweight... But it looks "cool" lol. I bought myself a Sabelt GT3 for my birthday so I'm not having to sit on a 5gallon bucket to imagine it driving down the road. SLR LCAB with the lock nuts removed got the castor angle where it needs to be, But I'm stuck with maybe even a positive 1* of camber. Disgusting...

Since im getting rid of some things and adding others, I picked up a 8 switch, solid state relay panel to run lights, fuel pump, fan, starter, and other things to so the interior is as minimalistic and as clean as possible. Ill have to make a video on how im going to do all this, pretty simple setup but someone might want the info.


There is a ton to do still and a ton of stuff I have to redo and spend more time on to do the proper way, But I need it to be 2 hours closer to me so I can work on it more frequently and get those things done and then ill be back to adding some good stuff to this thread. My Girlfriend gave in to my peer pressure and picked up a 1980 320i with all the euro exterior goodies, needs a good amount of love but it's a pretty decent car and ill add a little bit of that project here and there as well!

Heres some pics of it seeing the light of day with all the fenders on and the full set of wheels, as well as some photoshop love of it all one color with the sideskirts!

[burkey001]

Those wheels look gooooood. man.

[Victell]

Here's some motivation, if needed...

[DEV0 E30]

Holy loving the wheels batman.

[moatilliatta]

Make sure that adapter doesn't make your TPS slam into the throttle shaft. The Last 2 I did does that.

[meltingmanmedia]

Progress lately has been very slow... There has been a lot of front suspension geometry problem solving due to my cheap ass 5 lug conversion. And by problem solving, i mean: Spending money on parts that haven't helped at all. SO, that's been real fun... Either going to have someone actually send me '97+ E36 M3 lower control arms instead of the wrongfully shipped '95s turner sent... I forgot they were owned by ECS and working in the Euro parts biz this isn't a surprise now... I think there's a hashtag that floats around on social media about them #fu-... I forget what it is... But anyways...

Since I'm moving soon and the car will be moving up to our warehouse I've been trying to spend some time on my least favorite part. Making it run again...

A month or so ago I pulled out the Split second AFR garbage that was wired in and plugged in the Megasquirt ECU. I haven't had the desire or mental capacity to even mess with it further until this past weekend. The engine bay is a mess still... (which will be addressed when i get it to our shop with a lift and engine hoist and some space) But I pulled the throttle body off and cleaned all the oil I could off of all the surfaces and pulled the old Bosch On/Off style TPS. I bought the E36 TPS adapter plate and TPS from Ireland engineering and it seems to do what its supposed to do just fine other than the fact that the sensor plug now faces the head. But that's just me being picky



I couldn't find the new seal I had set aside for this, so that will have to be addressed either before it goes back on. Installing the TPS into the adaptor plate was pretty straight forward other than it being pretty snug, so it has to be sucked into the slot by the bolts.





But as you can see, the sensor faces the Head now... kinda lame but that's how it has to go. I didn't get any photos of be struggling with trying to repin the tps wires so that it reads correctly, but to sum that up very quickly... Im just going to make an adapter out of some new bosch plugs and call it a day, Just in case i ever want to change stuff around or sell this harness and motor setup.

So when all of that arives ill be able to setup the ECU in tunerstudio and at least be able to move the car around on its own. That is after i get brake lines, and put the driveshaft back in lol.

Soon there ill have actual substance to this build thread since ill be able to work on it with my coworkers every day, so I'm definitely looking forward to that!

[Northern]

I've been following along on ig as well, but that looks great

[OOMPH!]

Wow it's really coming together, looks awesome!

[meltingmanmedia]

Once my rear wheel came in I decided Id risk it and go ahead and mount the 285/35 on the 18x10.5 and hope for the best.





Front and rear comparison... super meaty lol

But on to the important stuff... how well does it fit? I'll let you be the judge...



This thing is getting somewhere finally and actually starting to look good! More detailed stuff soon, just needed to do a much needed progress post!

[meltingmanmedia]

It's been way too long since I've posted here, and there is a lot to update!

Since my last post, I've gone ahead and swapped my 2.8l Z3 rear trailing arms, axles, and brakes onto my e30 to make up for some offset so I don't have to use stupid spec spacers. This was one of my biggest hold-ups for a while. Not the most cost-effective way to do a 5 lug swap but the best way to do it to fill out the widebody.



Now on to my favorite part, suspension and wheels and all that good stuff that can make or break a car.

Since I had squared away the wheel I needed for the front, I decided to throw it on the back of the car since the 5 lug stuff was on just to see if any of my math was correct and if the Z3 assemblies would get me in the ballpark for what I was looking for. The front setup I decided on was a 18x9.5 et15 RPF1 with a 1" adapter spacer to convert to 5x114.3. In the rear, my goal was to go up to a 18x10.5 et15 with the same spacer setup but i wasn't sure how that was going to turn out.

So here was the front wheel test fitted for the rear to give me some measurements and the confidence to buy the wider wheel.

I ended up having about an inch of clearance where my "ballpark" ride height would hopefully be.

So I went ahead and ordered my wider rear wheel, and while I waited I got a tire mounted for the front to see how that worked with rubber!

With camber, castor correction, and a ride height adjustment the front is going to be perfect. I threw this wheel on the back just to measure one more time before the rear wheel came in and it made me a little nervous about going up a whole inch in width and from a 255 to a 285.

[meltingmanmedia]

Neat. I like those flares way more than the horrible screw-on box flare body kits that are all the rage now. What are the engine candidates?

Engine for now will be turbo M20, just want to at least make enough power to put the big tires to use. Final setup im not entirely sure, so many options and so many different benefits to all of them

[varg]

Neat. I like those flares way more than the horrible screw-on box flare body kits that are all the rage now. What are the engine candidates?

[Elysian]

i have z3 front assemblies and 2.8 z3 rear assemblies that i havent put on yet, i definitely want to test fit my front setup before ordering more agressive rears. But did all of the stuff for the front like the LCABs fix the terrible caster issue?

I had decent caster with the old Garagistic offset LCABs and 96+ M3 arms, but I wanted more track width. The E46 arms+Garagistic bushings definitely put the wheel pretty centered in the wheel well. I emailed back and forth with them to make sure I was ordering the right parts for my 96+ M3 spindle assemblies, they've got a lot of knowledge on the various 5 lug swap setups it seems. I'm not sure if the Z3 front control arms are like E36 M's or non-M's though, so I'm not sure there. There's a lot more options for adjustable LCABs out there now though, so plenty of routes you can take. SRS Concepts has some stuff for that as well.