3SGE BEAMS converted 89 E30///Stock as a rock 88 E30 325i Touring///

[bmwandhonda]

love it man, also love that exhaust hanger setup!!

[kameleon]

Yes the fabricator is just as OCD with his work as me, it is over engineered just the way i like it.

More work to go but will have to wait till the funds return.....

Diff is the number 1 priority, i feel i am killing it over and over again. It took a while to find a set of 3.9 gears so i don't want to wreck them.

Was offered a spot in a team for the Phillip island 6hr relay race, but i don't think the drivetrain will be sorted by then unfortunately.


DER E30:- Yeah the E46 is nice low kay example. We have been talking of a engine conversion for this car for sometime now. It will be the icing on the cake.

[kameleon]

Picked up a 99' E36 M3 EVO steering rack for a very cheap price (24% faster/3.2 turns to lock Vs E30 4.0) just need to find a E36 coupler to match.

Looking forward to this as the factory setup in E30's is terrible.

[lukeADE335i]

Nice work.

Quick question on your exhaust - how does the Hooker Aerochamber make the exhaust sound? Is it loud?

I've been contemplating one to try and tame the drone in my exhaust.

[e30guydownunder]

Travis, you can use the E30 coupler to join up to the E36 Rack. I replaced the guibo with a piece of 12mm plate and it all worked out nicely.

[kameleon]

Luke:-

Big fan of the Hooker Aerochamber. The noise is deep for a 4 cylinder but does not drone at all. At high rpm it develops a nice overall note (gets louder in comparison to a idle that you know is a modified exhaust but it does not sound loud or obnoxious)

Chris:-

Any pictures of the piece you made?

[kameleon]

Just a small thing i need to mention.

Although i am happy to help people and answer questions relating to the Beams conversion and other facets of the build, i am not going to answer every in depth question via PM from people who only join this forum (and other forums this is posted on) to grab all the R&D i have gone through to get the conversion nutted out.

If you require information it is here in this thread for your perusal and if you require for instance how the wiring is done download a copy of both the E30 wiring diagram of the specific E30 you own and the Altezza engine wiring harness diagrams and you will easily get it to interface.

The E30 is dumb and the Altezza is smart. It is a match made in heaven.

Last count there are 12 of these conversions being done worldwide now purely based on the PM's and emails i have received ;)

Just felt i needed to reiterate this due to the correspondence from a few people of late.




Update on the actual car:-

Moving house soon so not much on the cards of late. There is a local manufacturer of bell mouths for the 4AGE Blacktop throttles who has recently released billet versions.

I am looking to get the 100mm length versions of these and the recently released Wolf plug in board for the Altezza (mounts inside stock case) which is made specifically for ITB setups.

Cams could be on the cards too (mild, still using VVTI) after seeing a street car with them and behaving well.

[F34R]

The things you guys have to go through to get parts there astounds me, great build!

[kameleon]

Yeah it isn't "too" bad, but it is certainly not as easy as it is in America.

[kameleon]

Not much happening besides daily driving the car and having fun.

Boys went over the car again before a car show i attended on the weekend.


Currently testing a "tuned rom" Blitz access computer for the car and WOW big difference.

Dyno day coming up in a few weeks so we will finally see what DIRK makes power wise.

Also purchased these track decals of the tracks this car has raced at so far. i Hope to fill this window in the future :)

Sandown/Phillip island/Calder park to name a few.

[kameleon]

Dyno result was a little disappointing for me. Power plateud earlier than on a stock BEAMS, and you could see the ECU started to fuel dump shortly after.

The car has started to feel quite dull up top as well (engine health completely fine, still revs out cleanly as well)

So rethinking where i may have gone wrong i did change the throttle (half electric throttle) and AFM the day prior. The way Toyota have made the inlet side of these engines is very fine tuned. If you fit a pod filter to a BEAMS on an stock computer you will have hesitation issues and the like which is one reason i retain the stock air box albeit cut away underneath.

So i will be reverting back to the original AFM and throttle body i had which i hope will remedy this.

So here is the graph. You can see the power plateu. As i said the BEAMS in stock ECU form makes power higher than this. I was hoping to see over 120RWKW as my friend has a stock standard BEAMS that has made this in the past. Another similar Altezza made a few RWKW less than me on the day in comparison.

One of the guys from work gave me this relic of a owners manual too. We received so few options in the E30 line up here in Australia it is really interesting to see that the 325i made more torque than the 324TD!

[alexlandro]

Just went through the hole thread, awesome !! Nicely done car and driven how it should be ;) Would be curious te see the front/rear weight balance with the beams.

[Nick_S]

Very nicely done!

[kameleon]

Yeah not sure what the bias would be, but the weight of the whole car is just over 1100kg wet in street trim. The Beams does sit further back than the original M40, but the engine is now upright and not on a slant like the BMW engine.

I would say closest weight split figure would be a twin cam 318IS M42 powered car.

[kameleon]

Well a few updates. Some good, some AWESOME! and some pretty crap....

Firstly went to a hill climb event at Haunted hills (have taken this car there twice now)

Was supposed to just come up with friends and man the BBQ and esky but the racer in me decided to take the car out instead......

All this would be fine if the car was running well, but the diff was already fubared and the transmission was not shifting into gears at times and is crunching.

ANYWAY

Long story short after doing limiter burnouts (now 8,600rpm) i heard a bang....

Parked the car and went out with some friends in their MR2's for the rest of the day and drove home in convoy with the worlds worst knocking and clunking noise i have ever heard (assumption at this time was it was just the diff)

Went to the wreckers and bought a small case 4.10 non LSD with more oil on the outside then in. Cleaned it inside and out and resealed it. Put this in the car and WOW why the hell did i ever go 3.9! This is so much better than 3.9 in terms of keeping the BEAMS in it's right rev range.

I used to hate the 4.1, but i think this was when i was running around on stock wheels and tyres. That change in tyre height obviously makes a difference.

So pulling the 3.9 LSD apart it is not as bad as i thought (gears fine) but the LSD is rooted!
Atleast i can order the parts from America whilst still driving the car.

Which brings me to the next "issue".... that bang i heard? it was the BEAMS dual mass flywheel deciding to break. The Toyota dual mass flywheels are nothing like a BMW type and fail with high RPM (stock redline is 7,800) and abuse. Still daily driving the car like this though it will not explode.

Luckily i have a ORC clutch/flywheel combination to go in with the rebuilt gearbox i have on it's way from Japan. TRD gearbox mount also coming.