Wide Body Street car/Time attack build

[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!

[OOMPH!]

Wow it's really coming together, looks awesome!

[Northern]

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

[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!

[moatilliatta]

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

[DEV0 E30]

Holy loving the wheels batman.

[Victell]

Here's some motivation, if needed...

[burkey001]

Those wheels look gooooood. man.

[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!

[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]

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!

[spike68]

It's about time I found your build thread ;)
We exchanged a few messages on reddit a while back. (I'm Schwarz_Impul)

Glad you're making progress! Cant wait to see more updates on the body. I'm particularly interested in seeing the construction of the side skirt piece. I've never understood how they are constructed. Feel free to provide some detail :)

[meltingmanmedia]

THE WEEKEND FOR PROGRESS!!

My work trip this upcoming weekend to the L'oe Show in Pottstown got canceled luckily. Two weekends in a row with no time off during the week to work on the car was going to drive me insane. Does anyone in this forum attend Euro shows on the east or west coast often? It'd be cool to meet some E30 people that aren't local. I'll be in Vegas for a whole 10 days for SEMA since our company car is in the main hall at the Milltek booth, so if anyone wants to shoot in the desert or something let me know! Not trying to hang out with my boss and his wife all week...

Anyways, the OEM crank sensor showed up today so I can go ahead and start the car and run it through its paces a little bit since it's sat so long. My Sabelt seat wouldn't mount to the seat brackets I already had and I don't feel like ruining something I could sell, so I ordered a Sparco base plate that should be here tomorrow so I can actually sit in the car this time around. I've got my fingers crossed that I can drive the car up the driveway and back into its spot in the shop at some point.

I swear this will be the last time the car gets an update here without anything cool happening. My coworker is finishing up his engine swap this weekend to make room for me, and then its straight to cutting some more, lots of welding, Redesigning side skirts, or just mounting the ones I have temporarily (id like them to actually push out the dirty air behind the front tires).

My list of what I need to accomplish is this:

1. Wire in Solid state relay panel and wire it to fuel pump, fan, lights, and maybe starter relay (using the panel as a switch to starter relay cause it definitely can't handle that many amps)
2. drop rear subframe for camber and toe adjusters to be welded in
3. side skirt mounts
4. cut and seal rear quarter panels
5. Front end alignment fix (custom control arms probably)
6. relocate filler neck to trunk OR quarter glass if I wanna be super gangster
7. clean up the bodywork and wrap the damn thing
8. Strut brace that ties into subframe so I don't rip through the rear strut towers
9. lots of wiring and clean up inside and out

These are just the things I need to do to get it kinda street-able, then I can do all the cool/ fun stuff that will interest more people I think.

Wish me luck... This is what it should look like by the end of the year... If all goes well and I win the lottery

[meltingmanmedia]

I need some help problem-solving...

This car is going to be the death of me before I even get a chance to drive it again....

A new crank sensor was put in this weekend, and still no start or spark. So, I think that the main relay for the DME is toasted or something is wrong with the fusible link (not sure I understand what that is at this point.) I've done a lot of digging and can't seem to find much other than things id need a test light or multimeter for. It would be great if I could remember to bring one with me each time... Electrical isn't my strong suit.

Im going to go ahead and buy a new relay since its $20 but after that, I don't know where to go if it doesn't fix my problem. I adjusted the gap as much as i could of the CPS and still nothing. It will crank all day long but no spark, no movement on the tach.

Is there something I'm missing? I know I can adjust the sensitivity of the crank sensor in tuner studio, just haven't had a chance to download it onto a computer with windows instead of my MacBook since i couldn't get it to connect the last time i tried.

My last resort would be to swap harnesses but that would really suck and I feel like it has to be a really stupid, easy fix at this point since nothing changed since the last time it ran.

But on a slightly more positive note, I did put it all the way on the ground again, with the seat in the car so I can at least pretend it moves...

[meltingmanmedia]

Idk what I did... but it works now...

Since last weekend was such a bummer, I decided to prepare for once and have everything I could possibly need to make some progress getting the car to move on its own power. It honestly took me about 10 minutes to get it going and I have no clue which two things fixed it. I through on the new main relay and then ran a new 8awg wire with a huge 50 amp Maxi fuse from the trunk, over the car's roof to the fusible link connection on the firewall.
I flipped the fuel pump on, and after a few sputters, it fired up. Huge relief in my book, I was dreading having to dig even deeper or mess with the tune just to get it to start.

I spent Sunday actually doing things the correct way so I could take it for a spin up the driveway and back. I wired the fan and fuel pump to the 8 gang panel and the panel to an accessory-powered fuse so it wouldn't work with the car off. After testing power to the fan and fuel pump, the car wouldn't start for reasons unknown... I'm assuming the draw was too much and it wouldn't even fire up with jumper cables on the E21 to give the assist. So I made sure I was getting power at the factory pump wiring and wired it back up and all was right as rain.

The brakes were the main downfall for the weekend.
Obviously stopping is important. Especially when you're pulling up nose to nose with your Girlfriend's beloved Euro-converted E21... As I was pulling up I realized they stopped working, I then tried to stall it and the car just went faster.... So I yanked a hard left and the tires and their terrible clearance stopped it against the inner wheel well, narrowly missing the front of her car. SO, after the wiring fixes on Sunday and cleaning all of that mess up, we bled the brakes as good as we could get them and now it will stop if you ask it nicely... they definitely still need a bit of work but they'll do for driving down the driveway.

The Broadway suspension coilovers felt great for having such an aggressive spring rate which I was very surprised about. Even driving across cattle guards they were less jarring than the Eibach springs on the E21. Very relieving to me because I thought I was going to want to switch them out really quickly and with their price tag, that would've sucked lol.
Long story short, this was a great weekend for the build and now real progress can be made to make it back up the body kit and wheel and tire setup.

Here are some clips of me with a goofy ass grin on my face cause I got to drive this thing after so so long!