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

[irish44j]

Bit of a hiccup today. Went to retitle the car and get my vintage plates at DMV.....but as it turns out the P/O's wife didn't sign the title, and they're listed as joint owners. So mailing the title back to him to have her sign.

Too bad too, since the DMV line was the shortest I've ever seen. I'm sure it will be out the door when I go back, lol.

[irish44j]

Got some things accomplished today, after spending the last week or so doing Christmas shopping and work!

First order of business, picked up the reman'd CV axle at Autozone. $65, and it is at very least a BMW OEM housing, so we'll see how it holds up.



So most of my axle-to-tranny bolts were pretty much shit...either stripped or cross-threaded, or the wrong size. I'm starting to see a trend with this car. Every place I checked wanted about $25-30+shipping for the OEM bolts and nuts. The local dealers wanted something like $5 PER BOLT! Screw that...

Trip to Fastenal, which I just discovered is a half-mile from my work. Life just got better.

I needed the 50mm bolts (M10, 1.5 pitch), but the OEM bolts have a really long shoulder (due to the Guibo), and I haven't found any 50mm bolts except OEM that have that shoulder. McMaster didn't have them. Fastenal didn't have them. BUT Fastenal had some 70mm bolts that had the same shoulder length as the OEM bolts. So got them (as well as some top-lock locknuts. All grade 8.8 stuff, like the OEM bolts.



When I got home, I got out the dremel and cutting wheel and cut them off to the 50mm length, nice and clean. So for $9 I got the bolts with the CORRECT length shoulder and good locknuts, full set.



next to an OEM bolt



ready to put the DS back on as soon as I get the shifter stuff all finished!



Wanted to get the axle on, just because the next few days I won't be able to. I hate getting CV axles on. Tried first, could hardly get it to engage at all. So got out a small file and cleaned up the splines, which were a bit musroomed and burred. Tried it again and afte about 20 minutes of cursing under the car and trying every possible way to get leverage while on my back upside-down, finally got it in. I am a bit worried since the reman outer boot is a bit bigger than OEM, so it's fairly close (5mm) to the shock. I may put new boots on it (I have an OEM set sitting around) if I get ambitious. Will do it on the car! Or I might put a small washer spacer inboard of the shock bottom mount to give it a few mm of clearance. Or I might just let it be and if it rubs, I'll replace the boot then.



ok, that's all for now. Time to wrap the last of the Christmas presents. I hope all of you have a pleasant Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate this time of year, even if it's just a celebration of having a couple days off work and enjoying being with your families!

[kts]

Trip to Fastenal, which I just discovered is a half-mile from my work. Life just got better.

I too recently discovered the joys of Fastenal. Like you it's close by my work and if they don't have it in stock they will have it there by 7:30am the next day. It's been very helpful at times.

Love that place.

[irish44j]

After a morning of presents with family, grandparents, and the kiddo, I had a couple hours befor the next family function, while the girls hung out, and decided to get in the garage.

My Christmas automotive take this year:
Z3 shifter and a DieHard charger from the wife, and some Hella 500s from the parents.





I've been waiting for the Z3 shifter to put the bottom of the car back together, and of course now that I have it, there was no waiting. Installed the shifter, and decided what the hell and put the driveshaft back on as well, with all new hardware. Also got the heat shields back on as well as most of the exhaust (need to buy a couple new bolts and run the O2 sensor. In any case, the car is almost ready to go back on the ground finally. This week I'll get the Gisvelds mounted on the bottlecaps and also order up some tires (probably Star Specs) for the euroweave 15s.









Hope you all had a great Christmas!

[FunfGan]

Great work yet again! And I whole heartily suggest Star Specs. Awesome performance in the dry, and the grip and stability they have in the wet is shocking.

[irish44j]

Great work yet again! And I whole heartily suggest Star Specs. Awesome performance in the dry, and the grip and stability they have in the wet is shocking.

Yeah, what I've heard about their wet grip was the deciding factor over AD08s, RE11s, and the others I've used before. Not that this car has enough power to break any of them free, lol.

Will also be keeping some BFG all-seasons on the two spare bottlecaps, as rallycross spares.

[A_Whelan]

Liking this build, good picture documentation too! Keep it up!

[FunfGan]

Yeah, what I've heard about their wet grip was the deciding factor over AD08s, RE11s, and the others I've used before. Not that this car has enough power to break any of them free, lol.

Will also be keeping some BFG all-seasons on the two spare bottlecaps, as rallycross spares.

Trust me I understand, I've tried to break them out in the pouring rain at empty stop lights, it won't happen

[irish44j]

Got the rallycross/winter tires mounted finally. Eventually I'll get around to cleaning up and painting the bottlecaps, but that will wait

Gislaved NordFrost 3 in 185/70/14. They're the same tires as the General Altimax Arctic, but with european badging, which gives and extra 10hp of course! Swedish branding and made in Germany, yo!

[irish44j]

as of today I'm only awaiting a few small rear brake parts and one tie rod end nut before I can put all four wheels on and get the car back on the ground. All of these parts are on the way, from RevLimited member wodcutr (Dan), who was nice enough to pull them off one of his parts car and send them to me for dirt cheap - THANKS!

In preparation for those parts getting here, the other last step was to bleed the brakes. I ended up having to get some new bleeders - primarily because the tiny nut on the OEM ones (6mm?) was smaller than any flare-nut wrench I have and I really don't like using box-end on brake fittings. So off to the local parts store to pick up some with an 8mm nut.

Once those were on, time to bleed. Since I brilliantly sold my power bleeder (I never needed it with my other cars!), had to do it the old fashioned way - ask the wife to come out in the cold garage and pump the brake pedal, lol.

Anyhow, all done and I think they're bled well. If not, once I get it moving around any last air bubbles will get to the valve and I'll let them out.

btw, used ATE Blue fluid in case anyone cares.

An inspection of the system with the new braided hoses shows no obvious leaks at any fittings, so that's a good sign.

[irish44j]

also decided to do a little bit of fun/easy project tonight. The Hellas :)

still need to wire everything up, but they're mounted!

[Jean]

Nice to see I am not the only nut who modded an early 318i lol

Since the previous owner of my e30 was nice enough to leave me a box of parts that included full refresh of the shifter linkage, decided to tackle that tonight, since I know the wife is getting me a Z3 shifter for Christmas, so might as well do it all at once. Yay for free/new parts.



So I take apart the shifter console and sheet metal shift bracket, only to find THIS: the two front mount brackets. See how many problems you can see with this pic

<img src="http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j85/irish44j/BMW%20318i%20RallyCross%20Project/DSCN2930.jpg" alt="" />

I wondered why the shifter was so extremely sloppier than anything I've ever felt in my life.

Now here is what the mount brackets are SUPPOSED to look like



Keep in mind, whoever last worked on this part of the car (I think to do the rear transmission seal) also managed to leave two of the driveshaft bolts loose (cross-threaded the nuts), so I had wicked vibrations at any speed over 30mph driving the car home.

To boot, one of the threaded holes into the transmission casing was stripped/cross-threaded as well, so to re-install everything I had to drill it out and heli-coil it. That was alot of fun in a tight spot.....

But it's all freshened up now with all new bushings, mounts, grommets, o-rings, etc and ready for the Z3 shifter now.

The driver side mount is a bit off/misaligned, probably not a big deal but don't know if you noticed.

[irish44j]

Nice to see I am not the only nut who modded an early 318i lol



The driver side mount is a bit off/misaligned, probably not a big deal but don't know if you noticed.

yep, thanks. It's because the steel shifter bracket is actually bent. So it's sitting flush in the bushing. I was going to straighten it all out, but my engeineer's intuition tells me it will be fine like this, lol. I have been known to be wrong before, though

No clearance issues with the shifter input, so I'm not terribly worried about it.

early 318i = light e30. Wanted to start light....I can always make it heavier later with a bigger lump under the hood!

[funcrew]

This build (and thread) is full of win. All 325i-grade suspension on a lightweight early shell is a cool project.

[irish44j]

This build (and thread) is full of win. All 325i-grade suspension on a lightweight early shell is a cool project.

thanks, though not quite all 325.....I am keeping the stock 318 springs, since I think the softer rate might be better for rallycross. We'll see how that works out and go from there, lol.

One thing that I would welcome suggestions on at this point is skidplate design. I was going to do a reinforced brace coming down from the chassis, but this car may sit high enough to not worry much about hard impact on the oil pan. That said, still want a plate there to protect the bay from rocks/mud/etc. I'm thinking of running one from the lower radiator support, across the front subframe, and all the way to the crossmember just behind the transmission mount - giving some protection to the tranny/driveshaft as well.

The questions I'm thinking about are
1. how wide to go - how well can I protect the steering rack, etc
2. what kind of metal to use - steel or aluminum
3. what's a good "budget" way of doing it
4. where do I want bracing

any ideas are welcome. Most of the skids I've seen on Rev are more oriented towards slammed cars busting their oilpans on speedbumps and crap like that. Mine obviously won't have that problem, I want it more as general under-car protection beyond just the oil pan...