My 91 325i track car

[kts]

Picked up some SFI-rated padding for the roll bar. Went with the dual layer stuff which gives a bit of cushion in case you hit it w/o out a helmet. Stuff reeked at first but some cleaning and airing it out removed whatever spray the use to make it not stick to the molds or whatever.



Many zip ties and velcro straps later...





My blower motor broke loose and was rubbing up against the housing and also the bearing in it went and it was loud. Finally caved and bought an aftermarket unit from ACM.





Yay for working HVAC!

I also finally got tired of my right leg sometimes falling asleep when driving and moved up to a larger seat with an Evo 3. After installing it the door wouldn't shut. Can't raise the seat up anymore or my head will hit the ceiling and I don't want to trim the seat shoulder bolster so I pulled the door panel. Gives me just enough room.



I also discovered a ton of black mold in the door panel. Yuck!


Time to clean that up and order some door cards from Condor!

[kts]

With 2 kiddos we needed to pick up one of those car cargo carriers for kid/beach stuff for vacation this summer. Since I need to build a shed for my house the cargo carrier has been sitting on the roof rack of the E30 since we got back from that trip.

We have some nice weather I decided to drive the E30 in today and I almost went into work with the E30 looking like this:





Decided that was not a good look so took it off. Drive in was good, every time I drive the E30 I'm blown away with how much fun it is.

[kts]

With the holidays past us I lucked out and got a few things for the car, mostly an SA 2015 rated helmet since my currently helmet is SA 2005 rated and no longer valid for a few local clubs. Nothing fancy, just a G Force GF3.

Also got a intake kit to fit the M30 AFM:



Only bad thing about the kit is that it smells like burnt mothballs. Ugh. Now I just need to pick up some new injectors and a chip and can get to experimenting. Maybe when I get my tax refund.

I also picked up some street rod plates for my car. I guess this means I need to throw a V8 in it. :-D


Why switch from Historic to Street Rod? Well on Oct 1 a new law went into effect for Historic tagged cars in MD - you can no longer drive them to work/school and you can be subject to fix it tickets. I like to drive my E30 into work a few times a month and I didn't want any hassle about the roll bar so since my car is >25 years old Street Rod plates I come!

[kts]

Finally did the E36 window switch mod. I also replaced the window circuit breaker/safety switch with one from an E36 as well.

Wow I wish I had done this sooner, SO MUCH smoother than the old switches.

This might be in my top 3 favorite upgrades after the 3.73 diff and E36 steering rack.

[kts]

Gotta bring it out to the track after all these upgrades in the past ~4 years!

That's the plan. With a newborn getting out there is a little more tricky these days but there is a Friday at the Track event at Summit Point I'm going to try to get to next month.

[tschultz]

Gotta bring it out to the track after all these upgrades in the past ~4 years!

[kts]

Diffor cover looks great! Were abouts is the tap located with the ratio stamp on?

It varies from diff to diff (not sure if it was randomly done at the factory and/or over the years people have moved them) but I've seen them on one of the bolts at the top of the diff cover and on the right side as well.

And as iwantspeed posted, you can't always trust those tabs so best way to make sure of the ratio is to mark the DS/input flange and one of the axles/output flanges and count how many rotations of the DS/input flange are needed to make one full rotation of the axle/output flange and that's your ratio.

[king_ZS]

Diffor cover looks great! Were abouts is the tap located with the ratio stamp on?

[kts]

CONGRATS ON THE NEW BABY

Thanks! It's been a fun, if exhausting, time getting used to a newborn in the house. We have a 2 year old and even though it wasn't that long ago you quickly forget how much work a newborn is.

the 3.73 is a great overall diff ratio

I 100% agree. Can't believe how it makes the car feel, this is how the car was meant to be. Still have no idea why someone replaced it with the 2.93 but I am sooo glad I'm back to a 3.73 on there.

[iwantspeed]

CONGRATS ON THE NEW BABY


the 3.73 is a great overall diff ratio

[kts]

Finally got the diff back in. This was a few weeks back but just getting to it now since my son was born on 9/3/16 and everything has been a blur the last few weeks. :)



HOLY CRAP the car pulls with the 3.73. Man that's fun. I fully expect to rack up a number of speeding/speed camera tickets soon.

I had to pick up a new battery since my car was sitting for so long I managed to kill yet another battery. When I first started the back up a jump worked but after that it was dead-dead. Some research on that plus some weird electrical things before/after I jumped the car pointed to the voltage regulator being suspect. Pulling it out the old one showed one of the brushes was shorter than the other which was odd but they didn't look as bad as some others I have seen. Being a $15ish part I replaced it anyway. With the new VR and battery so far so good.

old vs new voltage regulator


Great weather in MD for a change so I'll be driving the E30 into work every day this week with a huge grin on my face. The sexiest car in my parking garage.


Also picked up an 027 M30 AFM for cheap so we'll see how that goes. I have a set of M50 injectors left over from my M50 I could throw in too but will probably splurge for some 19lb rebuilt units. I'll get some steel this week to make a bracket and debating about just a K&N cone filter + make a heat shield or buy a Kamotors intake which has everything done. If I sell some spare parts the Kamotors route is probably how I'll go to save some time. I know this mod can be pretty controversial but I'll give it a shot since why the heck not? I don't have much invested in it so far.

[kts]

I'm drooling over that diff cover
One tip is to mark the top of the diff with white out.

Date
Ring and pinon Ratio
Mileage
Lsd or open

That way if there is a next owner down the road they know what's in there

Yea I have been drooling over the diff cover for a while since it's been in the pile of parts I'll install "one day". I looked up records and I bought it in December 2011! I should have bought a few more as investments, I paid $120-150 less then vendors want for them these days.

That's a good idea on the diff. This has the tag with it and I covered over the "S" painted on so that's still there but the other info would be good for when I forget a few years from now. ;)

[iwantspeed]

I'm drooling over that diff cover
One tip is to mark the top of the diff with white out.

Date
Ring and pinon Ratio
Mileage
Lsd or open

That way if there is a next owner down the road they know what's in there

[kts]

New 3.73 diff is here.





I have no idea what I'm doing...

There was some crud of dirt/grease/oil on the outside of the rear diff around the output flanges and I already had replacement seals so let's get to replacing them.











Old output flanges had some surface rust on them so swapped the out for the ones that were on my old diff. (I'll clean up the rusty ones later on.)





Painted the diff because ooooh shiny.



Looks good to me.


And time for the Z3M cover.


Work, 2nd job, and prepping for #2's arrival has limited my time to 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there to work on the diff. I have a good part of Saturday coming up to get the rear driveshaft and diff back in the car so I can take it for a spin again.

[kts]

It's kinda weird for your 325i to have a 2.93 diff.

Since its out of the car you can rotate the driveshaft and count the rotations of the output shaft. And figure out if it really rotates almost 3 full turns. Or if it almost rotates 4 full turns.

Don't trust just that diff tag.

Yea I was really surprised to see that diff tag too. I do plan to rotate and count the rotations to verify what it is.

The previous owner did a lot of work to it, he may have swapped it in and forgot to mention it or any one of the previous 5-6 owners may have done it too for whatever reason.

An instructor a while back did mention he thought my car felt slower/was "down on power" from what he remembered his old Spec E30 car feeling like, maybe that was due to the different ratios during acceleration? Or maybe that's just because I'm a slow driver. ;)