My 4 door Lemans Blau build - pic heavy- UPDATE

[sweet6e30]

Cleaned and prepped the block for the head gasket, and made sure the head and block dowls were seated properly. Installed the gasket and on goes the head, making sure the crank was perfectly lined up at TDC, and the Head cam sproket was perfectly lined up aswell.







Prepped the NEW head bolts and washers and started them by hand, went in really easy since i had already cleaned out the threads.

torqed them down as per sequence spec, 22lbs, then 90 degree, then 90 degree again. blah bla bla, pretty straight forward,the torx head bolts do not require heat cycling.


Installed the timing belt and other shit along with it with no problems whatsoever.


Installed the intake manifold, with all new nuts and bolts, bitch tube was ready and went like butter.tiny tie wraps on the spring is the secret. kept hooking shit up and connecting tubes and a german spagetti of wires and hoses.



new accel cable, what a Pain in the ASS. as i was doing this, i found a couple of problem areas on the firewall that will need some tlc soon. I hate rust



slapped some new spark plugs and rotor in, new fuel lines, and clamps, and new t stat




so thats it for today, Im going to finish it up tomorrow, and start her up.:p
sorry for the shitty quality pics.

[sweet6e30]

the cage is going to be modified. im going to to separate the rear hoop from the the front section, and remove the lower lateral bar, the diagional will stay, and the rear wheel arch fram supports will be moddified. most likley will make it a bolt in installation with sleeves and bolts, i might just reweld some bars back in, well see.

[pegase747]

Well documented build. Very good !

Will need to do something similar to my B3 one day. I prefer preventative maintenance on a good rebuilt engine than currative maintenance on a borken one !

Pierre

[sweet6e30]

Finally got around to finishing her up, installing all the last bits. started up first shot, helps when the battery is full charge. I noticed a HUGE difference in noise. There is no loose valve train noise anymore, it purrrrrs, no whines, or wierd belt sounds at all. Looooove it, sounds awsome and new.

Oil pressure is good, coolant is good, and voltage is good





Took it out and let it run for a while, gave is a badly needed wash







And back inside the garage






Next on the list is the exhaust rework, rear cage install, seats, and carpet. Might be a month or so till i get going on that. My s13 is begging for some abuse now that summer is here!;)

[sweet6e30]

its been raining a lot lately and i got the itch to do some more. got down to some shadowlining and do away with the chrome around the windows and doors.
taped and masked everything off, i scuffed the faux chrome trim with some 400 grit sandpaper, cleaned and then gave a quick shot of spies hecker/primer adhesion promoter then a few coats of SEM trim black





i painted the top rain guide trims off the car, since i was already missing one on the passenger side i managed to source one from that 86 eta heap of rust that donated the cage. some crappy pics for now , ill take some better ones when the weather gets better.

[sweet6e30]

started on the cage today and separated the rear from the front section and cleaned up the old mount points with a grinder. i think i might have to cut one more bar off to get it in the car and then reweld it once installed inside. I took some measurements and im going to get some 1 3/4 inch inner diameter mechanical ( dod) tubing so i can make some sleeve anchors for the rear hoop, and pick up some flate plates of steel and angle iron to fab up some anchor boxes and rear wheel arch base plates.








making some supply and material runs tomorrow:D

[IxTech]

this is awesome! great work man. i still hate you for putting ix flares on there though. its because of cars like yours that people always ask me if i have a REAL ix.

love your front bumper work. that valence looks awesome the way you mounted it. this car is tits. looking forward to seeing it finished.

[cablehaze15]

shadowline looks awesome. keep it up

[sweet6e30]

Thanks guys for ur comments, funny cause i was asked if it was an IX today. The shadowline really changed the look I like it alot better. I feel like this car is never finished! Heres a major update and i got alot done over the last couple days

Stripped the interior and got the rear cage in without any damage. unfortunatly it took longer than i thought since i had to cut a couple of tubes to get the fucker in!!! I went and picked up a tube of 1 3/4 inch inner diameter mechanical tubing for a weld sleeve and weld extending the cut tubing and some flat plate and got down to the nitty gritty of test fitting.







took it out and sanded and primed and painted the bars flat black. i managed to get the main hoop about an inch and a bit from the roof and as far back as possible to allow for the seat to still have full sliding range



fabric stained the rear parcel shelf and painted the rear in flat black



I decided to do away with the rear carpet since is was nasty and cleaned up the rear floor pan with some gravel guard.




Also fixed up the exhaust tips a bit too and made them come out straight instead of dtm up style, looks a bit cleaner

[sweet6e30]

so the next thing to do is to grab a black carpet, and to hunt down some sport seats.

Took her out for a spin, i love the way this car drives now with the H&R race springs and Billy sports with all the added ridgidity. Now that the motor is broken in i gave it some beckies and a good heavy foot and holy smokes now i know what a very healthy 325i should drive like.

im so happy with this thing so far.



BEFORE


AFTER

[Simon S]

Good heavens !
What a difference.

The wheels were weird in that as you did more work to the car - they just looked better and better.

Props!

[sweet6e30]

took some pics today and thought id be a pic whore and bump my thread back to life. I still have to wet sand and polish the car. The paint was dancing in the sun today.

[isayyo2]

Need some fogs

[Luis325]

The new color you paintes it is Lemans blue?

[sweet6e30]

Need some fogs

yeah some fogs but sometimes i like having nothing there also, i could make some brake vents.


yes the paint is lemans blue, but the silver portion in the mix is switched from bmw fine silver to a mercedes Leutchsilber for larger flakes ( its the coarsest metallic silver) this really makes the paint pop in the sun and subtle light


Paint :
BMW 381 LEMANS BLAU
*Bmw fine silver replaced with MERCEDES BENZ 815 Leutchsilber
Spies Heckler water base
Spies Heckler Clear Coat


Each paint code can have a multitude of mixes, my lemans blau is this, just switch the silvers to Merc 815