My 91 325i track car

[leegf]

From what I've heard from clips on YouTube/etc the RSC36 sounds great. But I love the sound of my System U and it was half the price.

I think UUC has changed their pricing recently but I still think the System U is a lot less and it does sound great!

Thanks. And it's not too loud around town or cruising on the highway?

How's the drone (that is, if there is any)?

[kts]

Thanks. And it's not too loud around town or cruising on the highway?

How's the drone (that is, if there is any)?

I didn't think it was too loud, but I'm pretty tolerant. If definitely has some throat and authority to it, unlike the Stromung on my E30 which you really have to listen for to hear.

Drone isn't bad. Noise on the highway, cruising and not on the throttle much is pretty quiet. When on the accelerator though you will hear it.

Going from stock to the System U, and TMS headers, and removing a lot of falling down sound deadening around the trans tunnel I definitely hear the exhaust a lot more than I used to. So I changed a bunch of things, most of it is probably the System U, but the headers and lack of sound deadening definitely make an impact.

Overall I don't think it passed the signficant other test since my fiance on a short trip last night was like "does the car always sound like this?" She's not very tolerant of car noise though. :(

If you want something with just a hint of louder I think you should check out the E36 Stromung. I almost went that route since a friend had it and liked it (and it's very quiet on the highway) but I wanted to be a bit more annoying. :)

[leegf]

Overall I don't think it passed the signficant other test since my fiance on a short trip last night was like "does the car always sound like this?" She's not very tolerant of car noise though. :(

Sounds like you and I are in the same boat :)

I like loud (so Stromung probably won't cut it for me), but only when I'm on it, not while cruising. I was hoping to avoid having to pay the premium for the RSC36 but I might have to! I understand the System U is louder 'all the time' (if not most of the time) whereas the RSC36 is more controllable based on throttle application.

[kts]

Sounds like you're on the money with the RSC36 vs System U. I'm sure the RSC36 is a hell of a nice exhaust but for the cost I could pay for most of the cost of the Turner headers I went with. I can live with the noise in the car since I don't think it's annoying and I like the throatiness/rasp on the highway when I punch it a bit.

I'm still very much in the honeymoon phase with the E36 since I just got it back on the road and I'm really enjoying it. I'll report back in a month or two once I have it on the road more to see how I really feel.

[kts]

A bit of an overdue update.

Between Christmas and my birthday ~2 weeks after I got a ton of new toys for my car.

AKG weld-in reinforcements, rear camber + toe kit, and poly steering guibo


I/O Port camera mount


Snap On F80. I love this ratchet.


I also picked up an oil pan baffle from Ireland Engineering. While an IJ teflon crank scraper would be the best solution I didn't have the funds for it at the time or the patience to install it properly so I'm going the easy route with a baffle that should help keep oil pressure up in hard corners.


I also upgraded to a proper hose and hose reel in my garage. I WISH I HAD DONE THIS YEARS AGO! So much better than the cheap crappy PVC hose that came with my compressor. That thing was such a pain. Rubber hose on a reel is the way to go. Seriously.


I also moved an older Mac Mini out into the garage to used as a garage PC. I should have done this ages ago, it's nice being able to look up diagrams, search for Howtos online, and play mp3s/soundcloud/etc on it while it's plugged into my stereo out there.


I'm on Spring Break from work the next few days so time to get some stuff down around the house. Monday was around the house and garage projects, today and tomorrow are work on the car time.

Engine supported from up top since the subframe is coming out.


These also showed up at my house the other week. I think I'm becoming a Snap On whore now. These feel a hell of a lot nicer than my old wrenches and the open end actually works (Flank Drive Plus).


Also this OTC Ball Joint Separator rocks. I also discovered that when a ball joint pops put of whatever hole it's in it sounds like a gun shot. Works great (with no gun shot noise) on the tie rods too.


Front subframe removed


The steering rack is still stuck on the steering column. Both bolts on the knuckle are removed and it is not budging. I went pretty RAGEtastic on it and almost got the sawzall out but decided to take a break and run a few errands. I'm going to do hit it up with some Liquid Wrench and give it some time to see if it helps.

I've also found a few bits of rust that I want to grind down and then hit those areas with rust converter and paint while I'm in there. I also need to weld in some reinforcement where my skid plate bolted up to the radiator support. I've already fab'ed up the metal, I need to practice a bit more with my welding before I do this and then really screw something up.

Master plan:

- clean up subframe + prep for welding in reinforcements
- weld in reinforcements
- swap in euro motor mount arms for stock ones
- drop oil pan
- drill and bolt in oil pan baffle
- replace leaky gaskets around oil filter housing
- swap rear lollipop bushings for upgraded ones
- E36 steering rack swap
- pray it all works when I put it back together

[kts]

Removed rust and welded on reinforcements to the front subframe

Mmmm rust!


Here goes nothing...


Tacking stuff in place


Playing with settings I finally was able to start making some beads but my welding still sucks. These pieces are in there now though.


I plasma cut the openings up a bit more so if I go to an M5x/S5x swap I can use the other holes for the motor mounts. Then I primed the subframe and painted it with Rust-Oleum's Hammered finish which is kinda cool. And I'm sure will hide lots of oil drips. ;)


Finally got the steering rack off with the use of a pickle fork


But the @#$@#$@# steering knuckle refuses to move. I've also pulled on it so much I can see cracks in the guibo now so it has to go. I Dremeled down the rivets in place but I have not be able to punch the rivets out yet. I'm going to start beating/cutting the CENSORED out of it all soon and get it off and the new poly guibo in. I dislocated my shoulder over a year ago and it's healed but after a while when laying down and my arms in the air working on the car above my shoulder hurts like hell so I had to leave this for a bit.

Swapped the motor mount arms out for their aluminum European cousins. I need to weigh the driver's side US arm but it looks like it'll be a pound of weight savings. Which is pretty silly to do this to save a pound, but the euro ones do look pretty.




Painted the steering fluid reservoir bright F'ing green because I like bright F'ing green.


Dropped the oil pan. PO used a ton of RTV/liquid gasket and it seemed to work well. I'm tempted to try the same vs the OEM gasket (non-cork) that I bought.


Baffle pre holes being drilled and it bolted in. The nuts that mount this are crush nuts that deform around the bolt so they won't be moving. I put Locktite on them away.


I'm in a bit of a race to get this thing finished since I would really like to do an event on the 21st but I fly to St Louis for work on Sunday the 14th and I get back late Thursday the 18th and have a bunch of stuff to do so yet another track day I'm missing because of my laziness/being distracted with other things getting this thing ready.

[kts]

Strike 1 getting the oil pan back on the car.

I spent a good hour cleaning off every last bit of RTV on the engine block and oil pan before putting on my fresh new layer of RTV. Turns out the "good' OEM gasket I got is cork which I've heard sucks so I'm going the all RTV route. I get under there and after some work I get the oil pan + baffle around the oil pick up and it's on. But its not. There is a small gap. Lots of hammering with a dead blow hammer and I get close but all the holes won't line up properly. A lot of tweaking and I see/feel that part of the baffle is hitting the oil pick up. Perhaps I should have test fitted everything before I got RTV everywhere.

It's too late to fire up the Dremel since it'll wake my fiance and the dog up (the Dremel is like nails on a chalkboard for them) so I'll do that tomorrow. I cleaned off all the fresh RTV and nicked my finger pretty good on the block. The rubber glove I had on didn't tear but my skin did, I finished up and noticed that finger of the rubber glove filled with blood. Awesome.

I think I just need to trim a little bit off of the baffle and everything should line up. Hopefully I can trim, test fit, RTV coat, and put the oil pan in before work so it can dry all day while I'm at work.

[kts]

Oil pan is back on. As you can see I went a little overboard with the RTV. Whoops.

Took about 6 different times trimming the crap out of the baffle so I could get the pan to line up with the bolt holes properly and not hit the oil pick up. Then I spent a loooooong time cleaning up random stray bits of metal shavings from trimming the baffle.

I took some tin snips to the steering guibo and the bottom part of it is now off the car. The stop half, is still stuck on a very rusted steering column. I tried using a puller but it quickly got to the point where I couldn't hold onto the steering column to keep it from moving and turn the ratchet I had on the puller. All it seemed to do was deform the end of the steering column. I might try it again with an impact to see if that gets me any further. I'm also going to order some Kroil and see if that can break this rust bond that Liquid Wrench failed to do.



The bottom half I took over to the workbench to cut and hammer out the rivets that have what's left of the guibo on that end but the damn rivets will not move.

I really wish I hadn't decided to do this upgrade now. Ugh. I suck at working on cars.

[SkiFree]

Enjoying the progress! The baffle will actually fit without trimming, there is a certain angle at which it just goes right on. However, it does take some finagling and is certainly easier with the engine out of the car.

EDIT: jealous of your growing tool collection.

[kts]

Enjoying the progress! The baffle will actually fit without trimming, there is a certain angle at which it just goes right on. However, it does take some finagling and is certainly easier with the engine out of the car.

I tried and tried but with it untrimmed I couldn't quite get all the holes to line up for the oil pan to block where I could thread all of the bolts in. I kept taking a little off at a time and eventually got it just right. For me it seemed to be hitting in the front so the bolts in the front wouldn't thread but nearly every other bolt was fine. I tried to minimize how much I trimmed off so I don't think I removed that much material, perhaps I just installed the baffle a little too far back for everything to line up completely for me?

With so many test fittings I mastered the art of snaking the oil pan around the oil pick up at least. ;)

EDIT: jealous of your growing tool collection.

Thanks! I've been going a little nuts with tools and tool organization as of late, my wallet has not been happy the past 2 months...

[kts]

So over a year has gone by and this thing is still sitting on jack stands. :(

Between work, work travel, getting married, honeymoon, renovations on my wife's house that we're now renting out, a cold winter that discouraged me from going into the garage, and all the prep work to built a nursery and get ready for a baby that is due any day now I haven't been very motivated to work on the E30 sadly.

With the baby almost here I'd really like to get this car back on the ground so I've been making a slow push spending a few minutes each night after work and once the wife heads off to bed.

So when I last left off I was struggling with the part of the steering knuckle that mounts to the steering column. That sucker is rusted in place like crazy. So I just moved the whole column with knuckle and removed what was left of the guibo and got the new poly one installed:



Then I was stuck with getting the damn big ass nut on the steering column loose so I could shorten the column to get ready for the E36 steering rack I was going to put in. After almost breaking my work bench trying to undo that nut (which you can't order from BMW, they only sell the whole assembly) I found a spare one on eBay for $26 shipped -- Done. As a bonus the seller already separated everything so it would fit into a smaller box.



Since part of the guibo was still rusted on to the old lower steering column I broke out the dremel to cut off the @#$#@ stuck in place nut off the old column. Eventually it broke free as did the lower column with the guibo that I needed.



With that sorted out I reinstalled the column and got the e36 rack installed roughly in place with spacers so I could sort out the column, knuckle, and how much of the firewall I needed to grind down.



In addition to the rack you can also see the Treehouse racing eyeball arms I bought and installed a while back, I with those to give me options should I want to move to an S5x or M6x later on and need the room for exhaust clearance.

I wish I had taken a before shot of this rack since it was covered in crud. The seals look to be in good shape since there was minimal fluid when I removed the tie rod boots. I would have loved a new rebuilt unit but I got this rack ages ago for a good deal so I'll run it for now. I removed the tie rods it came with since I had no idea of the mileage and the e30 tie rods only had 4k miles on them.



To make install easier I put the lower half of the steering knuckle on the rack and would then only need to line up 2 of the bolts that hold the steering guibo to the guibo itself, with some luck they lined up almost perfectly.



Looks like I need to remove 1/4" - 3/8" of the firewall where the steering column just barely touches the firewall which is a lot less than I thought I'd need to remove. I'll get to that tonight and install the tie rods.

I was hoping to use the e36 steering rack cooler but I see that it won't fit with the oil pan, not sure if I even need to run a cooler, I'll have to see what autox/track folks do which is probably nothing and I'm way overthinking it.

I also removed the front brake dust shields


A while back I found a good deal on a set of caliper mounts for the RX-7 brake upgrade and then found these locally for $40, so at some point I may look into rebuilding them and installing them:



I also fabbed up some reinforcement for where the skid plate mounts to the radiator support on my car. When I originally mounted it out there wasn't much material there and I was worried in a big hit the front bolts would rip out of the support so I added some 16 gauge steel there and welded it in.



Finished and painted



1. About 2 welds in my gas tank was empty. I guess I had a small leak somewhere since I weld about never, as you can tell from the terrible welds and the fact that it took me until I was finished to figure out why my welds looked even more awful than usual.

2. I also suck at painting. My plan of using a newspaper held close by to prevent overspray did not work at all as you can see from the paint covering part of the oil cooler. Whoops.

[kts]

Work on the car got delayed with a few home improvement projects before the baby gets here as well as trying to enjoy some of the amazing weather we had in MD over the weekend.

I did tackle a few of the remaining things last night, only things left at this point are:

- getting a hold of a thin enough wrench for the tie rods (a friend w a ton of bike tools should be helping me out on this) and then bolting up the tie rods.

- finishing up the power steering hoses.

I tried a brand new E36 high pressure hose that people say just to reverse a bit and make a few bends and it's good to go. I couldn't see a good way to go about that with the hose I got:



So I gave it a go with the ole E30 hose:



A very small bend on the curly end that now attaches to the pump and it fit. It seems like some E30s have the HP hose with this curly ends and others don't, and the curly bit makes fitment more of a pain. I'm going to try bending it a tad more since the curly but is almost touching the pump (less than 1mm of clearance) and it also comes close to the PS reservoir -> pump hose and I'd like more clearance. It also sticks out under the body a bit a little too close to the wheel well for my comfort, I'd like it to be tucked up and away from the wheel well more.

Back to the drawing board on this. I'm fighting the urge to just buy a $$$ worth of Earl's fittings and go to town with a custom designed HP hose. I also really want this sucker back on the ground so I can drive it again.

[kts]

I got this thing back on the ground after a successful start up and bleeding of the power steering 2 days before my daughter was born. Yay go me! Ended up ordering a new E30 high pressure PS line and it worked perfectly. My old one had some extra hard line that made it hard to move into place, and the E36 one also just looked out of place.



Today I figured I'd drive the car into work, but some loud popping from under the front of the car kept me from doing more than about 15 minutes of driving around my neighborhood trying to ID the sound. I think it's from the front control arms and/or the control arm bushings. Happens mostly on tight hard turns on both sides. I'll take a look at it this weekend. I probably could have still driven the car into work just fine but figured why risk it?

While it was only a short low speed drive through my neighborhood that drive did help remind me how much I love this car.

A few things to fix:

- Popping from under the front of the car
- Stereo and clock are dead. I'm hoping it's a wire or fuse I blew somewhere. Strange since I didn't touch anything near the center console.
- Steering grommet. Popped right out. Stupid thing.
- Steering wheel is now off center. I'll just pull it, align it and bolt it back down.

[kts]

Time for my yearly update on this thing.

When I last posted I had a few post "remove and reinstall all the things" issues to fix. I got those fixed, popped was some improperly torqued bolts, the stereo/clock thing were a blown fuse, I hacked up a polyurethane pot holder to be a new and improved steering grommet, and the steering wheel is fixed.

For Christmas my sister in law got me a nice set of Condor's door handles.


(Funny enough they actually weigh more than the old ones that I removed, but I like the look.)

I got a new kick ass impact to remove the rusted on bumper bolts on my car, along with a William T55 non-impact socket that was a billion times better that the Lisle impact sockets I broke (multiple times) trying to remove them before.


So long you stupid bolts!


Removing the bumper I discovered some "interesting" fixed to the bumper carrier/beam behind it with fiber glass. It already had a DOT-R sticker on it so a previous owner or 2 seemed to have a thing for hitting things with the passenger side.

Fiber glass work:


With those hits the spot where the bumper shocks mount to the frame had been a little bashed in, as you can see here. (passenger side on the top vs the un touched driver's side:



While I was in there, time to fix some rust spots with a lot of grinding, some rust converter for good measure, as well as some paint. Also hit the bumper shocks for good measure.


The passenger side mounting point was moved in slighty, so someone used some washers (which got very rusty) to space the passenger side bumper shock back out. It measured close to 3/16" and fortunately I had some scrap 3/16"s so I made a spacer because I'm weird like that.





I spent way too much time grinding this thing, but hey it looks better than a bunch of washers IMHO.

Removed the valance and compared it to the new one.



The bottom photos are from an image I took with a potato, thus the bad quality. It's a little dirty but rust free vs the one I removed (which also has a lot of rust spots on the front too.

Lower front fender liners (#4) http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?...51&fg=75&hl=26 were missing let a lot of water get on that valance over the years.

Some other rust spots to fix too:



I'm putting it all back together now with plans to remove it all a few months down the road to properly fix the rust, replace the hardware with new shiny stuff, as well as properly paint the new-to-the-car valance and bumper. Why not do it now? Well I'm in the middle of selling my house and trying to find a new place to call home so at this point I need to keep the car mobile.

Work has been slow thanks to my little baby girl (she's worth every minute, not trying to complain here, just saying that she's been taking up what used to be garage time) along with work-work, and a billion and a half house showings while trying to sell my house. Now that we're under contract I can get more into the car after my daughter goes to bed and/or on weekends and not worry about having to have the house looking 110% and ready to bail out of the house at a moment's notice for a showing.

[kts]

So I moved to a new place last year, after unpacking and some other changes I was finally able to park the E30 back in the garage.



I fixed the horn. When I bought it it set up for a Momo wheel with a one wire horn button. That was a little iffy on if it would work so I added a ground wire and wired up the two wire horn that came with the Sparco wheel. Works great now.



I had a set of Ground Control rear shock mounts leftover from my E36 that I never installed that I put on the E30. The E36 mounts come with reinforcements that are too wide for the E30 but some work with my grinder solved that problem.





While jacking the rear up to do the RSMs I noticed the diff was leaking. A lot. Time to drop it and clean it!