My 91 325i track car

[VANOS714]

Nice build

[dnick]

woohoo! seems like stuff is coming along!
i was itcching to drive mine yesterday... but no exhaust and no tags :(

[kts]

Took the car to the junkyard and then into work yesterday since it was mid-60s and sunny. Between the new DME coolant sensor, the stock intake reinstall, and the 173 DME the car feels AWESOME! Everything is just so much smoother. It idles better, and just feels more solid. It doesn't have the "punch" the previous set up does but for the better driveability I'll live with it for now. We'll see what a Mark D chip down the line does.

The only downside I found out was that the Sparco quickly put my legs to sleep after about 30 minutes of drivine. That's no good. On the drive home I sat a little differently and didn't have that problem so for now I'll have to watch how it sit in the seat. I also need to continue my "become less of a fat ass" program which should help too. The seat is pinching my hips which is what puts your legs to sleep, or so it seems from doing some research.

I fixed the crappy radio reception issue as well. Stock E30 is a 2 wire plug and the Z3/318ti connector is 1 wire. I had the wire connected to the wrong one on the E30 side. Switched it around and it works much better now. Yay!

The car felt great. The exhaust isn't too loud, I really can only hear it with the windows down and then only when I get on it. It sounds nice. Just what I was looking for. I bit of a smell from it but I think that's just the smell of a new exhaust/antiseize/PB Blaster heating up and burning off. When I've done exhausts on my Subarus they smelled kind of similar for a day or so after install.

Can't wait for track season!

I also met up with TexasTerp yesterday too to pick up a spare oil pan and some basketweave center caps. I need a new roundel for one and then I should have a full set for my basketweaves. Now I just need to clean everything up and get some new tires for them. I'm thinking Star Specs.

Because I'm a picture whore:





Plan for the oil pan is to clean it up and weld in an oil baffle for it and then I can just swap this one out for the one currently on my car.

The 3 other center caps I have (not pictured) are in really good shape so I just need 1 more to compete the set. Yay basketweaves!

[kts]

The 173 DME I picked up works great. I feel like the idle is better with it than the no name chip in the 524 DME that was in the car. The car does seem to rev faster with the chip though. I'll keep it stock for now and wait for Mark D's next sale.

Stock intake is working fine too.

[kts]

Tightened up the exhaust this weekend and took it for a spin around the block. Over the rattling of random stuff sitting in the car and all the noise thanks to stiff bushings I couldn't really hear the exhaust. :( Radio antenna reception was also a little crappy. (Which is weird since it was pretty good in my garage.) We'll see how it is once I get out of my neighborhood.

Spend the rest of Saturday working on my STi doing some overdue maintenance and removing a lot of aftermarket parts I had installed and putting the stock stuff back on. Some of it was a real PITA and I also cut my finger up pretty bad. Awesome.

Tonight I removed the intake the previous owner crafted and reinstalled the stock intake with new filter and some other bits from the dealer. Ooooooh exciting!

Removed


How boring! And better for the car since it should have less hot air coming in now.


Girlfriend is sleeping so I figured I shouldn't piss her off and fire up the car to try out the 173 DME. I'll do that tomorrow morning before work. I read a rumor that there may be a Mark D chip sale soon so hopefully my DME works and I can get a chip.

Nice weather this week so I'll probably take the E30 into work once or twice this week. Woooooo.

Other than that not a lot of work will be happening until this finger heals up.

[kts]

Pulled out of a 90 525i this morning from the junkyard. Hopefully it works. I'll try it tonight and then if it does look into ordering a Mark D chip.



Didn't turn up anything else I wanted but found a few E36 red label DMEs to sell which once sold will net me this 173 DME as being free. Yay!

Haven't gotten under the car to tighten up the loose exhaust flange yet, hopefully I'll get it it tonight and then I can drive the E30 into work tomrrow and enjoy the sweet, sweet exhaust sounds.

[kts]

curious how you like the ride with the race springs/shock setup. I know your car is more of a track car, but are they too harsh for a DD?

The Bilstein sports/H&R races have been on the car since I bought it so I can't compare it to the stock suspension, but I have been pleasantly surprised with how well the Bilstein/H&R setup rides especially with all of the crappy roads I drive in the Baltimore/DC area.

I've driven on a number of different suspensions on my Subarus over the years and the Bilstein/H&R setup is one of the better ones. I'd rank it pretty close to the AST setup I had on my 08 STi.

I guess my sense of harshness may be a bit out of whack compared to others, but my this Bilstein/H&R setup passed the girlfriend test which I think is pretty huge, since my girlfriend is SO picky about riding around in cars with stiff suspensions.

[coop]

curious how you like the ride with the race springs/shock setup. I know your car is more of a track car, but are they too harsh for a DD?

[kts]

Somewhat overdue update?

Tackled the rust in the lower passenger rear of the car. I should have tackled this area when I did the other parts of the rear of the car with rust. I really don't know why I didn't, it was stupid since it was just more waiting for the paint I used over it to dry. Lost a lot of time with this. Stupid, stupid me.



I grinded down more until I got to clean metal. But still that pocket created by the rust was there. I hit it all with rust converter just in case there were some tiny bits of rust I missed



I went redneck and picked up some Bondo to fill that rust pocket and even out the paint level of the car. The bottom of mine has a thick layer of something. I've never used Bondo before. It smells bad.



I hit it with several coats of primer and then my PaintScratch.com matched paint which is a bit off the color of my car. It's been faded and repainted so I shouldn't have expected it to match. Looking at it, it's not too bad and probably closely matches what the paint on the car looked like at one time.

Bottom right corner you can see the little V still showing a bit. Whoops. Oh well, it's a track car.


So as you can see I gave up on my half assed body/paint work and put the rear bumper back on, it was time to get this car back together.

I still need to tackle the battery tray and jack tray rust holes but I'll get to those another time since I still need more time learning how to weld. (Having installed the new exhaust which will need to be removed to do the jack tray I kind of regret this since it was a huge pain in the ass. More on that below.) In the mean time my friend gave me some free scrap metal to learn how to weld with. Yay!



Alright, time to install the new exhaust so I can get back to driving the car.

Unboxed Stromung sexiness.


Dented in to clear the subframe


Nice looking welds


Install went easy, other than these stupid exhaust flanges. It's hard to get anything other than a regular wrench on the top nuts/bolts and even then there is such limited range of movement, it's an 1/8th of a turn at a time. Ugh. This wouldn't be so bad other than I banged up my shoulder pretty good a year and a half ago. It's pretty much healed but it hurts when I have to have my right arm up in the air doing something like using a wrench for an extended time. So yea these flanges sucked. F them.


End result was worth it. Mmmm sexy exhaust tips!


Fired up the car and the exhaust sounds great. One of the flanges is leaking a bit so I need to get back under there and tighten it up. My shoulder hates me right now and I didn't want to smell exhaust fumes anymore so I'll tackle it Wednesday night.

Next projects:

- Replacing the intake currently on the car (was on the car when I bought it)


with the stock intake the previous owner included in a box of random parts.



Why? The current set up allows in hot air. I could make a heat shield for it but a lot of research I'm finding shows the stock setup is just better than most short ram intakes even with a heat shield.

Time to order a new paper filter, gasket, as well as 4, 10, and 11 from looking at this: http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?...34&hg=13&fg=20 (and also to give the stock intake a good cleaning.)

- New chip. Still debating about a Turner chip for my 524 DME or getting a 173 and going the Mark D route. I'm leaning towards the 173 + Mark D chip.

- Z3 diff cover install. This will probably be tackled soon. Going to abuse a friend's shop to swap the AKG 75D bushing in my current diff cover into the Z3 cover.

- E36 steering rack, new steering guibo, and oil pan baffle.

- Paint new front bumper and valance and install. I need the weather to get a little better for this. Current valance is rusted and the bumper is cracked. The big bolts that hold the bumper to the bumper shocks is stuck in there like they were in the rear, it's going to be fun to get those off.

- Track it until the wheels fall off. First track event will probably be in April. There is an event March 10-11 I'd really like to do but it's the only weekend in March that my girlfriend or I aren't out of town while the other one is in town so I'm guessing I should spend a weekend with her.

[pharow]

Nice work Kevin.

[kts]

I'm back. Picture overload time.

Spent a week down at sunny St John, USVI which was amazing. I didn't want to come back.



While I was away some new toys showed up.

Woo hoo!


Goes well with my also recently-acquired plasma cutter.



Turned on the Miller last night but no welding yet, still waiting for my helmet and some other stuff to arrive. Then it will be time to get to all kinds of fun.

New parts showed up at the dealer for me too.

New heatshield. This thing weights at least twice of what my old rusty one does.


New exhaust flange. You can see how bad the old one was and that crack through one side of it. The bolts are rusted to the flange so picked up new bolts as well.


After finding out that the wiring harness for the fuel injectors just popped off the injectors with some tugging I got to replacing the DME coolant sensor. It didn't look nearly as nasty as the dash coolant sensor I replaced a while back but I still replaced it. The old Bosch-made sensor looked a lot nicer than the UGO one I replaced it with. Oh well.


I then went to work wire wheeling the rust behind the rear bumper. Got down to fresh metal but still hitting them with rust converter in case there are any specs I missed. It's cold outside and only a bit warmer in my garage. Wrong time to paint I know but I'll let it dry for a few days before it hit it with primer and then with real paint. This should work out nicely since by the time I'm ready my paint order from PaintScratch.com should be here.



The stuff I did last night is all hidden by the bumper so if it's not perfect no one will ever see it. I'm going to work on the visible stuff next. I also need to remove the euro plate filler and look at the rust by the license plate brackets more, I think it is worse than I thought it was.

Other stuff I'm pondering:

- Getting a rebuilt rack from RackDoctor vs using the rack I picked up. Not sure of the condition of the one I picked up (seems fine but it's dirty as hell and the car it came off of had 180k on it) so maybe it's worth the cash for a rebuilt one.

- Replacing the "eBay" chip that came with the car with one from Mark D or Turner. I'm at least going to switch back to stock to see how it feels. I'm kinda sketchy on using a random unknown chip. My car has a 524 DME so my options are get the Turner chip or find a 173 DME at the yard and put in Mark D's chip.

I need to read more into DME swapping but it sounds like it will work fine and in some cases the 153 or 173 DMEs have produced more power according to some SpecE30 folks.

- oil pan baffle vs crank scraper. Crank scraper seems to be the way to go but a bit more work and money. VAC's baffle is $texas and IE's baffle is $cheap. I'm thinking I'll go the $cheap route for now.

[dnick]

holy crap, you werent kidding about that rust!! that sucks, but seems like youll be able to get at it!

[kts]

Took advantage of the 64 degree weather today (which is totally insane for where I live in the 1st week of January) and got to work on the car.

(Had to use my older crappy camera in the garage today, thus a lot of the photos looking like crap. Oh well.)

- Removed stuck exhaust sealing ring thanks to Mr Dremel.



The exhaust flange behind the sealing ring is DONE. Rusty as all hell and totally cracked one one side! No idea how the heck this happened but it is time for a replacement.



Moved back to getting the bumper off.

Battery tray rust. P/O used rust converter on it but I think it's time to cut and repair. Crappy photo but no matter what it's some ugliness.


Removed the rear exhaust heat shield. I wire wheeled the bottom of it and painted it with rust converter the other week but after removing it to get more room to remove the bumper shock bolts I realized I should replace it.

bottom (yuck)


top (double yuck!)


I had to cut 2 of the nuts holding the bumper shocks to the car. Break out the Dremel!


Bumper removed


Fun. More rust I need to fix.






All this work to get to the driver's side elephant drain gasket which had a leak that was leaving a lot of water where the jack should go. The passenger side wasn't much better. Replaced both with new gaskets and reinstalled.


Also adjusted the passenger side bumper guide up a bit so it all lines up better, the bumper was sagging on the side a bit.

Rusty horror show of the bumper shock


It's so weird, it's like the rear part of my car sat in salty water for a while and rusted like crazy.

The only way I was going to get those shocks out was to say screw it and replace the bumper carrier. Fortunately I had a spare bumper and after ripping off the black trim and some more work I had my spare bumper carrier free.



Swapped over


Did this a while ago but just posting photos now

Bumper shocks pulled from the junkyard. One was rusty but overall better that what was on the car.



Sanded and hit with rust converter


Painted over with Rustoleum Hammered. Very cool stuff that leaves a nice hard finish.


Back on the car


I'm going to leave the rust for now. Now that I can easily remove the bumper I'll get to it soon, once I have the right gear (POR15 and a welder) and know how to use them. Bumper is off, think I need a 2nd set of hands to help line it all up since it was being a pain solo. Hopefully I can get my girlfriend to help me tomorrow with it.

Exhaust parts being ordered Monday and then Wednesday I'm off on vacation for a few days so I'll handle the exhaust when I get back to town. I need to figure out how to remove the exhaust hangers so I can put new ones on there.

[kts]

Wanted to finish the 318ti antenna install last night. Just putting the grommet in and screwing the antenna to the antenna base it holds in there pretty well but I wanted to make a bracket for it so it was REALLY in there and wouldn't move.

I needed something to make a bracket. I was going to bug a friend who has random scrap metals in his garage but didn't want to make the drive and I didn't want to pay $$$ for something at the hardware store so I went digging through my house to look to see what I could turn up.

Ah ha! This freebie little notebook I got at a conference almost 8 years ago. I haven't used it since then so it was time to tear it apart.


Some drill and Dremel work to get the rivets out and BOOM - free aluminum stock!


Roughly measured, drilled, etc. (did a bit of trimming to make it fit with the bracket already on the antenna and it came out pefect.)


Before I began I needed to remove the "plug" that the previous owner made with a plastic screw, some balsa wood, and a lot of contact cement.


Aftermath (DIE!)


Antenna installed and wired up.


BOOM


Had to tweak the grommet a bit after. What a pain that thing is. I'm reusing the one I pulled off the 318ti. If it doesn't hold up I'll get a new one from the dealer.


Reception with it in my garage is excellent. A few stations that the radio in my garage has a hard time getting this antenna gets crystal clear. Rock on.

[kts]

that's what I figured. Some guy in Cali wanted it, but no way I'm dealing with shipping a freaking back seat, lol.

I'm not looking for anything in particular.....just anything interesting that could be of use on a rallycross beater. At this point my "to get" list mostly consists of some star specs for the euroweaves, some kind of skidplate, some covers for the Porsche seats, and eventually a roll bar. What random stuff do you have lying around?

I have a pretty random assortment of stuff, nothing in your wish list unfortunately. :( I posted some stuff in the Mid-A section that I'm trying to get rid of.

Only thing that may be of interest to you is the brake pads I have on the car currently which I might be removing soon. I can't remember if the 318i has the same brake setup as the 325i or if you swapped over to 325i but if they will work on your car you can have them. There is a decent amount of pad left last I checked. They are "PBR Ultimate" pads which the previous owner installed. They are a street pad but they did surprisingly well on the track. I picked up a set of Hawk HP+ a while back which may end up being overkill but I plan to run them anyway. :)

I don't blame you for not wanting to ship the seat, that would be a pain to find a box big enough and to ship. Would be a lot cheaper/easier for that guy to find one local or at the junkyard.