Pitchblack Motorsports Rally e30 318i (now with M50) - and some Porsche 924S stuff.

[kts]

Nice meeting you today and thanks for the spacers. Good to know some E30s are finally showing up in the yards again. I'll try to stop by Jessup this week and see if I can grab any of that stuff from the 318i for you.

[irish44j]

You too, and if you get to Jessup let me know, I'll figure out a time to come meet you to get the stuff.

don't worry about the pump though - a local guy has one for $20 for me, so I don't need that now.

[kts]

Can you take a photo of your HVAC fan for me so I pull the right one? There were 2 different styles and I don't really seem to see a rhyme or reason to which model/year/etc got which fan type.

[irish44j]

yeah, I'll do that tonight. THoguth I would imagine that the '85 318i in the yard would have the same one mine has, since it's the same year/model :)

here's an old one, I'll take a better one if you need

[irish44j]

got the car in the air this afternoon to do several rear-end items this week:

1. wheel bearing

2. swap in the rear iS springs to see if they make any difference

3. put the other muffler on.

Starting with #3 today.

Got the sawzall out and cut off the muffler. I'm not putting a new pipe on right now, will just get a reducer for the new muffler (which has a larger input pipe)



The muffler I got from Stuart had bungs for some other e30 model, and mine doesn't have hangers in the right position. So I ground them off. Also, the entry is on the inside (toward the center of the car) of the muffler, and my pipe goes to the outside. So I'll just flip it and have the tailpipe a bit more toward the center of the car.

The old muffler (an OEM-style Bosal one) literally rattles all around when you shake it. I think the insides have pretty much kicked it.....and sound nasty when the car is running.

old vs. "new" (used Magnaflow)



Test-fitted it with a ghetto hanger made from one of my old hangers. Looks like it will fit fine, once I get a reducer and fab up some better hangers.





oh, and earlier in the day took my daughter to the circus. Good times :)

[craiggroves91]

If you haven't figured it out yet, you can deliver the 2.8 m20 turbo to my house, and I'll install it in the rallye30 :)

GOOD ONE! haha

wheres the best place to get the permatex?

[kts]

yeah, I'll do that tonight. THoguth I would imagine that the '85 318i in the yard would have the same one mine has, since it's the same year/model :)

here's an old one, I'll take a better one if you need

Cool that's easy enough, same design that's in my 91 too, which I've pulled a few times so I can easily get it out at the yard.

I just didn't want to pull a fan and have it be the wrong one. I'll see what I can find hopefully Monday.

[irish44j]

GOOD ONE! haha

wheres the best place to get the permatex?

I got it at Fairfax Auto Parts, which is a NAPA store.

[irish44j]

ah ok a bit more, since my O's took care of the Twins in quick order tonight so had some time to work.

Finished up a temporary hanger bracket for the muffler. Used the original round-profile straps and with some bending and improvising I have a hanger. The threaded rod across the top of the muffler is to keep them from bending out and dropping the muffler 3-4"...

You can see the two studs from the OEM hangers at the top of the pic. This is where the two end tabs bolt up



here's how it sits



lined up well with the OEM pipe. Just need a reducer now



Then down to business on the rear bearing. Got the axle out easy (should have, since I just put it in a couple months ago!)



and yeah, the bearing is definitely shot. It felt fine when I installed the 325 rear suspension initially, but it's clear that the movement is rough and the outer race appears to be spinning in the spindle. I hope it hasn't worn the face of the spindle down, grr. Can't get the hub out yet, but that's only because I don't want to break out the BFH and start banging away at 11pm with the family asleep...

also checked out the rear springs. Instead of putting in the iS springs (which seem to be the same length), I'll take out the upper and lower rubber spacers. I thought I had left them out when I re-installed the suspension but I guess not. That's a good 1/2" or more right there...

[FunfGan]

Strange... Those were the shortest springs we had, the other ones were longer...

[irish44j]

Strange... Those were the shortest springs we had, the other ones were longer...

I'll double-check once I have mine off the car, but they *seem* to be the same length at a glance.

[FunfGan]

Yeah, let me know. Because we had a few of that length, and one set that ~1/2" longer.

[irish44j]

A productive day today, even though it was short (having to go to Easter Mass in the morning, and dinner with the in-laws at night). I resolved about 90% of my outstanding issues with the car in one fell swoop:

First, got the new muffler setup finished up. Got a reducer and lined it up with the cut-off OEM exahust b-pipe, and all fitted together snugly. Right now it's using clamps, but I'll weld it when I get a chance. Or I may leave the clamps in case I want to run an open dump at some point, lol.

For hangers I used two of the stock hanger locations (one of which wasn't used for my OEM muffler), and as show previously fabbed up a new hanger assembly/strap bracket using the old one, some threaded rod, and some careful bending. That worked well and the muffler is mounted solidly.

Nonetheless, decided to put an "auxiliary" hanger there anyhow, in case one of the rubber ones on the other hangers breaks somehow. For this I used a standard strap and wrap hanger around the tailpipe. It's not cosmetically the prettiest thing ever in terms of a clean look, but hey....nothing on this car is.

Hit it all with some high-heat exhaust paint while I was at it, just to forestall as much rust as possible considering what this car does.

hanger setup


pipe reducer with clamps


rear hanger


mounted through trunk floor


I could go for it being an inch or two higher, but still sits higher than the old one. And has sexy big tip :)



I fired the car up and it's much better now. Instead of rattly/raspy sound now it's deep at idle (but not too loud, still quieter than my WRX with SPT exhaust), and sounds pretty mean when revved (yeah, even with an M10 attached to it :) )

---

On to the next project: I pulled the OEM 318i rear springs to compare with some later 318is springs I got from Spencer/Stuart. Initially I thougth they were the same length but once off the car the IS springs are clearly about 1/2" shorter unsprung length. THey appear to have the same coil thinkness so I'm assuming the rate is similar, but who knows. I also removed the upper and lower spring pads that totalled 3/8" in total height. So with any luck this will drop the rear end of the car down 1/2 to 1" to get me some reverse rake. We'll see once it's back on the ground later in the week.

stock 318i (left) vs. 318iS (right)


On to the right rear wheel bearing. Not looking forward to it, but a local guy (Viet) who I've know from way back in the Maxima days (10 years ago!) was nice enough to loan me his bearing removal set (the Harbor Frieght one). I will be getting one of these sometime this summer too, since I haven't gotten around to it yet :)

The axle came out easy, as expected. The hub too a shitload of pounding with a large socket and my mini-sledge. On my back under the car, with a torn rotator cuff that makes my right shoulder not terrilbly strong. Got it done anyhow and better yet the bearing outer race didn't stick to the hub as they usually do, so that will make things easier. Hub looks to be in good shape.



On to the bearing itself, and used the removal tool. Initially I tried to pull it through using the big bolt and my Snapon impact gun, but even with as much power as that thing had it was really slow going. Eventually switched to a large breaker bar and just used good ol fashioned leverage on it. Took about 20 minutes of cranking to get it out. Seemed like FOREVER......





But it's out.



It's obvious that the outer race was spinning in the spindle as well, so yeah the bearing was totally shot. Even some metal dust in there, yay.



Cleaned up the inner spindle with a scotchbrite pad and it looks pretty good I think. Also cleaned the splines of the hub and axle with a brass brush.....getting that mofo axle in the last time was a major PITA. Hopefully it will go in better this time, since I don't have the tool to "pull" it through.



Anyhow, now I just need to hit Olympus this week and get a new bearing, press it in, and put everything back together. Car should be driving again next weekend!

[Smrtpunk]

I'm interested in your suspension setup, your car appears to sit fairly high for stock springs.

In one of your posts you mentioned that you were thinking of switching to the IS springs, what is the reason for this? Is it as you're aiming to drop the car?

I have a 325e and will be setting the car up to do the same sort of thing that you're doing and am concerned as I feel the car sits a little too close to the ground and would like to have it higher, maybe even somewhere around where your car is now.

All in all I've really enjoyed following your build, keep up the good work

Ian

[irish44j]

I'm interested in your suspension setup, your car appears to sit fairly high for stock springs.

In one of your posts you mentioned that you were thinking of switching to the IS springs, what is the reason for this? Is it as you're aiming to drop the car?

I have a 325e and will be setting the car up to do the same sort of thing that you're doing and am concerned as I feel the car sits a little too close to the ground and would like to have it higher, maybe even somewhere around where your car is now.

All in all I've really enjoyed following your build, keep up the good work

Ian

Ian, the suspension as it sits now (well, as of 2 days ago) is:
- stock 318i springs with a about 1/2" of rubber spring pads front and rear
- bilstein HDs
- negative camber BMW front top hats
- ireland engineering rear shock mounts
- 325i rear swaybar (318i didn't come with one)

The car was already high when I got it (as you can see in the early photos), and removing a couple hundred lbs of weight probably brought it up some more. The early 318i's have no soundproofing anywhere pretty much, so between that, no rear seats, no carpet, and some other lightening things, (oh and a very light M10 engine) it does sit high. Plus the early cars have taller rear wheel arches, so they look liek they're sitting even taller than later cars. But the 318i definitely sits taller than any other e30, stock for stock, simply because of its light weight.

As to the sport springs, I'm just doing them in the back, to get some reverse rake. This car is so light in the rear (even with the battery relocated there), I'm trying to do anything I can to help with weight transfer to the rear (for traction purposes). I figure the sport springs will drop it about 1/2" or so, and clearnance is DEFINITELY not a problem with this car. I'm quite sure I had more ground clearance than any other car in the field at the last rallycross, and perhaps it was overkill to be honest.

The eta is a much heavier car, so I'm not sure if the springs I have would help with ride height for you (they are SOFT). The Eta guys that run locally don't sit especially high but have run 4 drivers for the last 3 seasons without any issues of clearance that I know of.

If anything, you could just add some of the thicker spring pads and probably get an extra inch of ride height, if not more.