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

[irish44j]

Thanks, hope it runs as good as it looks. I still have some oil leakage. Was getting a drip from my new pressure sender and that's tightened up, but I'm pretty sure the lower (and possibly upper) pan are leaking as well. I knew I should have ditched the OEM gaskets and just used Permatex Gray from the start like I did on the M10....grr...

So that will be a project for next month when I change the oil before the first event......

In other things, I put the hood logo on. Considerably easier than the sides, lol...

[irish44j]

Last season I ran the wheel stud conversion kit from Motorsport Hardware (http://www.motorsporthardware.com/cm/). They held up great to the punishment, including many many times lugnuts on and off with the impact gun, with no cross-threading or stripping, and no rust.

MH makes a wide variety of Euro-size studs in several designs and lengths, all TUV certed, as well as wheel spacers and a few other related items for BMWs, Audis, Benzes, etc.....good stuff!

This year I talked to Ryan about upgrading to some 75mm bullet-nose, to make it a bit easier to change wheels in a rush (which I always seem to be in), and leave me the option to run spacers if I want to.

The studs arrived today with new nuts. I may upgrade later to the 2-piece race nuts since they're much deeper, but for the moment went with the standard open acorns. As usual, the shipping cross-country took 2 days, packaging was great, and got some vinyl to put on the car (as if you didn't expect that!)





got the old ones off (red loctited, so used some heat), no problems with the hex bolt head stripping or anything. They came right out after some heat. Here's a comparison with the new ones. Just a bit more thread length, but the bullet-nose really helps with starting the nuts, especially with the e30 wheels having a pretty deep hole.



installed on the euroweaves





and some repping :)

[irish44j]

Today I meant to replace the WRX's brake pads, which are down to their last gasps....front and rear. My order from Amazon came in (Hawk HPS), put the car up on stands, wheels off, calipers opened.....

....and then realized that I got the right front pads (for 06-07 WRX, since I have the 4-pots on my 09), and that I also got the front pads for my 09 (instead the rears, which I meant to order).

Dammit.

Took the car for a quick spin to see how my oil leak is doing. No more leak from the pressure sender, but still have a leak from the upper pan, near the rear end. Leaking around part of the gasket (not the rear seal, which I replaced). Now the decision on whether I just deal with a slow drip, or if I pull the upper pan and do it right this time (Permatex Gray). Pulling the upper pan is a PITA since the engine has to be raised to get it out.

Also am a bit annoyed that my exhaust, which sounded great with the M10, sounds disgustingly raspy now with the M42. The Magnaflow muffler and no resonator really sounds bad. Not only is it annoyingly raspy under throttle, but it's sure to get me a noise ticket in this county. Think I'm going to get an OEM muffler from Spencer and just throw it on for the moment. This summer I'll re-do the entire catback once I get the welder up and going. Until then, I'll deal with boring quietness.

While it was out, took a few quick pics of the car with all the new graphics. Starting to actually look the part :) Though it does look a bit funny on the street wheels with all that gap, since the rally tires are much higher profile, lol.

[phenryiv1]

I thought that you had LGT fronts...

[kts]

What did you use to heat up the studs to remove them and how long did you keep heat on them?

As for the exhaust, you have a welder, just weld in a resonator. Don't think about it, just do it, you can do it! You'll learn on the fly, or weld some other stuff together first to practice and then do it!

[irish44j]

What did you use to heat up the studs to remove them and how long did you keep heat on them?

As for the exhaust, you have a welder, just weld in a resonator. Don't think about it, just do it, you can do it! You'll learn on the fly, or weld some other stuff together first to practice and then do it!

I used a propane torch, but used it sparingly, and used it on the end of the stud (to heat the stud by conduction), not on the hub itself. Wanted to heat the hub as little as possible (since I know that's why you asked, lol).

Basically just heated enough to let the loctite red break loose, and then I muscled it from there. Wanted it just easy enough so I didn't strip the hex in the stud, using an Allen wrench.

I have the welder, but it's MF'ing cold out, and I still need to go get wire, a mask, and some welding gloves and such. It's just a matter of finding the time to play with it a bit without setting anything on fire or freezing my ass off, lol.

And a matter of my budget being in serious question if sequestration goes through and I take a $20k bath (I work for the gov't). So I'm being a bit more selective on what I spend my "play money" on at this point since it's going to run out pretty quick if that happens....

[irish44j]

I thought that you had LGT fronts...

nix....decided they were too heavy and not worth it. The feel of the 4-pots is a better improvement and with good pads I've never had any problems.. I still have some LGT front rotors sitting in my cabinet though, if you want them. I think they're off Jason's old LGT wagon.

[kts]

Thanks for the info about stud removal. I might be removing the ones on my E36 soon and I'm hoping to make removal as easy as possible. I like the conduction method idea.

Wire, helmet, gloves, etc you can get cheap from HF or Amazon. And you have a garage, weld in there. :). Anyway the tools and consumables are cheap. If you go MIG the initial costs if the gas bottle can be rough but it's cheap after.

Once (if?) the budget gets fixed then get all of the above and get welding. :)

I feel you on the possible furloughs. I had a few years of those (and no pay raises obviously as well) as a state worker. It sucked. Hopefully our wonderful leaders resolve this so you can get paid and get welding.

[irish44j]

lol, true. Luckily I already have a decent Snap-On 110 welder that I got for next to nothing from Yoshi, and it works well (my welding guy also used it when his konked out the last time he was doing a little job for me). So the $$ part is out of the way.

This weekend going to swing by my uncle's farmhouse....he has about 4 decades worth of junk and scrap metal sitting around so I'll go fill the trunk up with some if he doesn't mind and start practicing. I'll probably start with flux-core and then move to a bottle in the summer, since most of the jobs I want to do right now are pretty small and don't need to look pretty.

I think a HF run will be in order this Sunday :D

As for the studs - I had always heard that it was bad to get the hubs/bearings too hot so have always made sure to be careful about that when heating things around them. Probably an old wives' tale for the most part, since a propane torch doesn't get hot enough to warp or change the properties of heavy steel pieces, but better safe than sorry. Also the heat can break down the lubrication properties in the bearing grease to some extent, or allow it to flow out....I think that's the main reason not to put too much heat directly around the wheel bearings and their casings.

The stud removal probably would have been easier if I had some good small allen tips for a wratchet wrench. Hard to get much controlled leverage on a small allen key. Plus I think I went overboard on the red loctite when I put the first set of studs in, lol...

yeah, we'll see what happens on furloughs. Considering what I do I might fall into "essential" category, but who knows. This will be the first full year without my wife working (2 kids, just made sense), so a furlough could bring a bit of tightness for a while.

ALmost all of my car stuff is paid for by my seasonal weekend job as a tuning tech at a ski shop (which is why I buy way more stuff in the winter), but the season is winding down so trying to get all the "toys" I want here soon before that little slush fund dries up until next winter, lol.

[irish44j]

oh, btw...don't heat at the TIP of the stud, heat about halfway down. You don't want to heat up the tip and risk softening it while you're trying to crank on it with the allen key.

[irish44j]

one other little funny thing I accidentally came upon today: After many years, Google Street View finally hit my street last September and it finally is online.

And immortalized a VERY dirty e30 sitting in the driveway. Sadly, my mother-in-law's RAV4 is sitting next to it (ew) where the WRX normally would have been if I was home. Also caught my wife and a friend of hers chatting on the porch, haha...

[unevolved]

That's awesome.

[irish44j]

So I've mentioned before that I can't and never have welded, so as you've seen I've done a lot of things in "other ways" where welding would probably be the best solution....e.g. using nuts, bolts, rivets, brackets, or whatever.....

A month or two ago I picked up a Snap-on MIG 120 welder from Yoshi for literally the price of a large spool of wire. My welding guy used it once too and said it welds as well as his Miller 140....

This weekend I spent my friday night with a couple beers and 2 hours of youtube welding classes, lol. Then I got a bit anxious the next day and just went to HF and picked up all the accessories, wire, gloves, and a cheap helmet (auto-dim, $39 on sale because it is so gaudy looking). I figure I'll upgrade the things that I need/want to upgrade once I learn what I'm doing. I'm going to start with flux core .035 and eventually move to gas.

Got it all set up with a new 10ga extension cord, and started practicing with random nuts and bolts and little metal pieces, on a thicker slab of steel I had sitting around.

So, keeping in mind that I have never, ever welded before (only watched people do it), here is my first weld ever. A big-ass nut to some steel:



Not the worst weld I've ever seen, but still pretty lousy, lol...

After more messing around, I decided to mess with my skidplate, which is 14ga stainless with 14ga "reinforcement straps" bolted to it. Decided to run the seam on those and make the entire piece more solid. Also a good chance, since I don't care what the skid looks like, to practice with some different wire speeds and heat settings.

Some areas came out very nicely I think, others had big issues and a few burn-throughs, lol.



The one line I appear to have gotten decent penetration on , not so much the others. The black area is just where I forgot there was a sticker on the backside, haha...



Spent a while last night chatting with Yoshi and a few other buddies who weld and got a large amount of tips, etc regarding photos of my welds that I showed them, as well as the preferred settings for this machine (from Yoshi as well).

so.....I'll practice a lot more this weekend.

A few other little things....added a small protection plate over the fuel lines behind the driver's front wheel, using some old pieces from a previous project. Nothing big, but can't hurt.



So on to the oil leaks referenced above. Decided I'm not dropping the damn upper pan right now. Too much of a hassle and I have other things to do, and want to drive the car. The upper pan has a slight leak at the rear end near the bellhousing. I can deal with that. The lower pan had a more significant leak, and that was worth dealing with.

So, lower pan off.....the leaking gasket on the backside is apparent..



cleaned it all up. screw these OEM-style gaskets. GOing to use the good stuff





so, hopefully that takes care of the most apparent leak. Now that I've run the engine and cleared out some gunk (apparent in the oil pan), I drained the oil I put in 50 miles ago, changed the filter, and put in some fresh Rotella T6 5W-40, which is the most-suggested weight for this engine on BobIsTheOilGuy forums. No disrespect to anyone in these forums, but when it comes to fluids, I trust most of the people there a good bit, since they're so geeky about fluids :)

[unevolved]

I drained the oil I put in 50 miles ago, changed the filter, and put in some fresh Rotella T6 5W-40, which is the most-suggested weight for this engine on BobIsTheOilGuy forums. No disrespect to anyone in these forums, but when it comes to fluids, I trust most of the people there a good bit, since they're so geeky about fluids :)

That's interesting you say that, I've been running that same oil (because it's so cheap for what it is), and I've seen some people say they run 20W-50. I've had that in the back of my mind that I might should switch. I'd love to see some of your findings on that to set my mind at ease.

[irish44j]

apparently there is more to the "weight" than just the number of the oil. Rotella T5 in 10W-30, for example, apparently is more like a 35 weight. and T5 5W40 is more like a 50 weight in reality. Some other oils are thinner than the number they say on the bottle. The oil weights in the BMW manual are all dino oils, too.

20W50 is apparently appropriate in midsummer if the car is basically a track rat only. That is way too heavy for winter driving or daily driving in normal climates though.

IDK, BITOG is a great forum and those guys do real analysis on their oil (not the usual "yo my buddy has used it for years and it is the shizzz" that most forum people go by)....so I'll take their word over almost anyone with regard to fluids for my cars :) It can get real technical in there though....worth checking out though.

BTW, I've been using Rotella T5/T6 in my 300+hp WRX for years as well.