My '75 2002 Sleeper

[knaber]

This, Is a masterpiece. You are making 2002 history, fabbing parts like nothing..jeez

[knuklehead92]

what mc are you going to use? i cant decide with my setup. i have the same setup as you but i have 4 piston wilwoods same diameter rotor

[tinkwithanr]

hope one shows up on cl near me for cheap =\

Good luck, mine came from MI ironically. Just be sure to avoid rust like the plague.

Located in Chillicothe, I went to school in Springfield (Wittenberg), so got lots of friends up in the area.

Nice, when did you graduate. I have a lot of friends that graduated from Witt a couple years ago.

And tink delivers.

:up:

This, Is a masterpiece. You are making 2002 history, fabbing parts like nothing..jeez

Thanks man, glad your enjoying it.

what mc are you going to use? i cant decide with my setup. i have the same setup as you but i have 4 piston wilwoods same diameter rotor

Starting with the smallest wilwoods I could get, 0.625 I think. I'm expecting to have to buy a couple different sizes, but I'm not going to swap them out until I can test it as is first.

[knuklehead92]

i gota ask, what grade bolts are you going to use to mount the struts to the adapter piece and to the pitman arm? I heard the oem bolts are special and thus should use those spcial bolts which are a lot strong than your off the shelf bolts you find at home depot and advance auto parts. something i heard not sure if true

and did you ever get your rear subframe bolted in yet?

[tinkwithanr]

I'm going to use the stock bolts to mount the pitman arm to my adapter, since they have the safety wire holes already in them. Then I'm using 316 stainless allen heads to mount the adapters to the struts. The stainless bolts have a yield strength of 110ksi, which is similar to a grade 5 bolt. Normally this wouldn't do, but since the e12 struts take a size larger than 02 struts did, the lower grade is fine. I also wanted to use stainless to help slow the corrosion that will take place between the steel bolts and aluminum spacers since they are completely captive within them.

For most of the critical fasteners in this build I'm going to use OEM when possible. When I can't do that I'll use grade 8 or above. Check out www.mcmastercarr.com and look around the bolt selection. They have just about anything you could possibly need at reasonable prices. That's where I get all my specialty fasteners I can't find elsewhere.


Subframe has been in for a while, starts on post 172. I went the route of making new mounts in the body for the stock e30 subframe as opposed to modifying and e30 frame to fit the '02 mounting points. This is mostly because my original mounts were so rusty I would have to replace them anyway, and this way I was able to use e30 poly bushings.

[Javier h]

2002

people take many directions on these 2002s

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BMW-2002-BASE-MELBOURNE-RED-02-OEM-TURBO-LOOK-WIDEBODY-BLACK-AND-SUEDE-INTERIOR-/140939572455?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item20d0a734e7

but I think all e30 owners always have a soft spot. The above seller had a blue one earlier this week that appears to have sold as its no longer listed.

no affiliations

[ClayW]

So, where do you live? Because I'm going to buy the place next door.

[tinkwithanr]

Haha I'll do you one better. You can just set up a tent inside the shop and give me a hand!

[LJ851]

Then I'm using 316 stainless allen heads to mount the adapters to the struts. The stainless bolts have a yield strength of 110ksi, which is similar to a grade 5 bolt. Normally this wouldn't do, but since the e12 struts take a size larger than 02 struts did, the lower grade is fine.

Please rethink this, especially in light of your high hp/grip goals. The stock bmw fasteners are extremely tough, 12.9 metric grade i think. There have been failures on 2002s with less than bmw quality fasteners and its not pretty!

[Denny]

people take many directions on these 2002s

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BMW-2002-BASE-MELBOURNE-RED-02-OEM-TURBO-LOOK-WIDEBODY-BLACK-AND-SUEDE-INTERIOR-/140939572455?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item20d0a734e7

but I think all e30 owners always have a soft spot. The above seller had a blue one earlier this week that appears to have sold as its no longer listed.

no affiliations

not another onne....lol...damn it now I need to build a 2002...

[tinkwithanr]

Please rethink this, especially in light of your high hp/grip goals. The stock bmw fasteners are extremely tough, 12.9 metric grade i think. There have been failures on 2002s with less than bmw quality fasteners and its not pretty!

Thanks for your concern. You are correct, the stock BMW bolts are metric grade 12.9 (which for the record is the equivalent of 'American' grade 8 so that's a bit misleading). I have gone through the calculations comparing the two different grades and it will be fine, keeping in mind the stock '02 strut housing uses M8 bolts and the e12 strut uses M10 (probably because of the much larger curb weight). Taking those into account:

M8 Minor Diameter (the 'area' that a stress will be applied) = 6.596mm
M8 Stress Area = 34.15mm^2

M10 Minor Diameter = 8.315mm
M10 Stress Area = 54.274mm^2

So the M10 fastener has 59% more cross sectional area for a stress to act over. This means that even though the grade 12.9 bolts has 54% more tensile strength than the stainless bolt, because the stainless fastener is larger in diameter it is still stronger overall than the stock fastener. I do admit that the above maths are only valid for tension or shear failure, I didn't bother to test for thread failure. This is because the threads would pull out of the steel housing or the aluminum spacer (for the bolts holding the pitman arm to the spacer) before the threads on either fastener failed.

All that being said, thanks for bringing it up. It never hurts to check and double check things, especially when it comes to critical components. Hope that puts your mind to ease!:up:

[kronus]

for googlin' purposes, it's ISO Class 12.9, and SAE Grade 8 ;)

[tinkwithanr]

Thanks, I couldn't remember the 'technical' acronyms off the top of my had and I was to lazy to look them up.

[kronus]

anyway, nice brakes!

[303e30]

The amount of work you are putting into this car is insane! This is a very inspiring thread. Sub'd.