95maxrider's Rally-x '88 E28 build- caged, head swap and more

[95maxrider]

The car was hurting after the third event, and needed a thorough freshening before traveling up to the STPR rally-x divisional race the following weekend. M52Josh was going to co-drive my car since his wasn't going to be ready, so he came over and helped out with some wiring problems to get the car legal and ready.

First up was the cutting off issue. Turns out the little black plastic box the wire went into was part of the factory alarm system, and the loose wire triggered the immobilizer. We had trouble replicating the problem, but eventually were pretty sure that forum lore was correct after checking the wiring diagram for the system. The solution was as simple as splicing two wires together. Thanks M52Josh!

Next up were the taillights that (partially) lit up when you didn't want and didn't when you did. Turns out it was a combination of an out of adjustment plunger on the brake pedal that triggers the brake lights, switching bulbs side to side, and removing some dielectric grease. We "solved" the plunger issue by putting a small spacer on the brake pedal. Wow, we actually have working taillights!

We turned on the car and it started right up, but we noticed it was running rough. Josh inspected some things and came across a spark plug wire that was not only filled with black sludge, but was missing the little spring that held it in place on the cap, so it never made proper connection. Thankfully, he had a spare set and would bring a replacement with him when we went up to the STPR rally.

I also picked up the new tires from Chris' house, who was nice enough to bring them back to the DC area for me, as I can't fit 8 wheel/tires in the E28! I decided to just replace the rear two tires, since the fronts had quite a bit of life left. The new tires are Kumho R700s and have a hard compound. The tread blocks are very different than the old ones. I will be putting the old tires on the back of the car and putting the new ones on the front. Here are my current rear tires and the obviously new fronts:





And here are my old rear tires compared with new:







The car was ready for STPR!

[95maxrider]

6/7/15 STPR Divisional Championship Event

Frankly, the less said about the STPR divisional event, the better. After flat towing the E28 up behind Josh's remarkably nice Lincoln MKC for some 5 hours, we ended up only getting 5 not very fun runs. The course was pretty slow and didn't seem to flow very well, and was very rough in the first section. The car seemed to feel okay, but there was a little uphill section that seemed way too taxing on the motor. I was at WOT going up a little hill in second gear and the car just wouldn't pick up speed, it just maintained. M52Josh experienced the same thing, and event felt the car kick off for a split second on one run. Even after hitting a cone on his first run, Josh ran away with it by 5 second after 5 runs, and I ended up in second. Back in the paddock I go to re-check the battery only to find the positive wire falling out of the terminal. That might explain a lack of power to the ignition....yeah. Great. This CAN NOT happen again.......

Here's a video of my second and fastest run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLaKZWUg-CM&feature=youtu.be

[phenryiv1]

Any pics of the final battery setup?

[95maxrider]

Any pics of the final battery setup?

Patience friend....I'm getting there. I just put up a vid from the third event.

[jalopi]

ghat damn those tires wore down quick, how many miles were on them? i could swear they had way more tread when you were at my house a few months ago.

also, i'd just replace the positive battery terminal considering how much hassle it's been giving you


http://www.autozone.com/batteries-st...ter/96012_0_0/

$5 and that problem is an issue of the past

[95maxrider]

ghat damn those tires wore down quick, how many miles were on them? i could swear they had way more tread when you were at my house a few months ago.

also, i'd just replace the positive battery terminal considering how much hassle it's been giving you

http://www.autozone.com/batteries-st...ter/96012_0_0/

$5 and that problem is an issue of the past

Hmm, miles? If each run is half a mile, and we get 10 runs per event, and I've run about 10 events on them, then 50 miles? They were lightly used when I bought them before the 2014 season. You might have been looking at the front tires, the rears were much worse.

As far as battery terminals go, those were actually the exact ones we had on the car. Most of the problem was related to the battery not being tied down, so when it moved forward and back it tugged on the terminals, but I also think that terminal design isn't the greatest. The new setup is much improved. I'll try to post up pics tonight. How's your swap going, got a thread?

[95maxrider]

I don't have pics of the battery uploaded yet, so for now enjoy a pic of my dead plug wire:


I also glossed over an incident the week before the third event. I was re-teaching my then fiance (now wife!) how to drive stick in the E28, as it's damn near impossible to stall. She used to drive stick, but that was more than ten years ago, and she's rusty. I would eventually like to get her to co-drive with me (that way when I spend money on parts I can say "It's for US!" :D )

After 20 minutes of practice she had only stalled out two or three times, and we were driving back to my house through the neighborhood. When we got to my corner, she said she couldn't get the car in first gear. Uh oh. I hopped in and sure enough, the pedal wasn't coming all the way back up. We pushed the car home with her Escape and I started frantically calling people trying to diagnose the problem. Josh was bored and nice enough to come over the next day. We started by bleeding the clutch slave cylinder, as we figured it was a vacuum problem. When the pedal was pressed, it would come back up about half way. If you pressed it down again, it would come up less, then suck itself back down to the floor. Unfortunately, the bleeder screw opened up too much and all the fluid drained from the line. Apparently the E28 system requires pressure to get fluid back down in the clutch line, and I didn't have a pressure bleeder. On top of that, I didn't have any flare nut wrenches to start disconnecting the hard lines.

With only days before the third event and no flare nut wrenches, I gave up, and had it towed to my old shop and had them install new German-made FTE clutch master cylinder, slave cylinder, and clutch line. You might remember that I had to replace both the line and slave last year when the line blew out at an auto-x practice event, but due to time constraints, we had to use non-German parts, and I wanted parts I could rely on.

When I went to pick up the car, the clutch pedal felt a little funny. They said they bled the hell out of it, and couldn't think of what could cause the pedal to feel funny. Well, after the STPR event I was poking around the pedals and noticed they forgot to reinstall one of the nuts that held the master and pedal bracket to the firewall. Yeah, that might do it.



A trip to the hardware store later, I had a nut and a healthy clutch pedal feel.

[irish44j]

way too many Josh's in your writeups, lol. Even I get confused ;)

I'm going to personally double-check your battery tiedowns and terminals before the next event begins, lol.......

[irish44j]

ghat damn those tires wore down quick, how many miles were on them? i could swear they had way more tread when you were at my house a few months ago.

t

The surface at frostburg can be really, really abrasive, especially on RWD cars where you're spinning the tires a lot of the time.

ex: last year when Nick co-drive my car for almost the entire 2-day divisional event, my rears went from 50%+ to literally corded. That was about 50 total runs, with little break in between. The combination of the heat and the surface just destroyed them (DMack, medium compound).

I may switch to a hard compound for next year if we continue to run at this site.

[95maxrider]

way too many Josh's in your writeups, lol. Even I get confused ;)

I'm going to personally double-check your battery tiedowns and terminals before the next event begins, lol.......

I should clarify for the rest of the non-Josh people out there. TurboJosh is now M52Josh by way of the removal of a turbo ETA and the installation of an M52 in his E30. There.

[irish44j]

Well, at least I get to be the original ;)

[jalopi]

my rears went from 50%+ to literally corded. That was about 50 total runs.

woah, didn't realize gravel/dirt could wear down tires that fast. guess it really does come down to the compound you're using though

and no swap yet nick, still waiting for my house to sell, until then i am BROKE

[95maxrider]

Time for more overdue updates!

First up is a leaky exhaust gasket. I've had the cat-back off a few times since it was installed, and the gasket hadn't been replaced and was leaky.



Enter the new gasket (with a little help from a friend)



The fitment of the flange isn't great, and I wanted to ensure a tight seal (this damn car is loud enough without exhaust leaks) so I smeared a ton of that shit all over the place.





Hooray, no more leaks!

Next up was the battery. These terminals were not up to the task.



We put on those terminals last year, but the results were not so great. Problems included the wires coming out of the terminals and the terminals coming off the battery posts (mostly due to not having a tie down). It was time for some real serious shit. Enter the marine terminals and a "proper" tie down. Yes, it's rubber. Yes, I think it will be fine.



Up to this point, the battery has been flopping around in a battery box secured by four measly self tapping screws. No, there was never a tie down. Apparently we decided to mount the battery directly over the gas tank, so we were rather limited in our screw choice and placement.





Well here's a problem. The battery is too wide to fit inside the box with the tie down bolts, so out came the box. Of course, the trunk isn't smooth and level, so I cut up some speaker spacer material and quickly made some supports.





Full disclosure: I suck at soldering. See the laughable results of me trying to get some solder into the terminal for examples of cold solder joints.





Hopefully it's better than nothing.

We cut off the ends of the wires as they had seen better days.



The terminal boot covers I bought on Amazon didn't turn out to be quite big enough to cover the entire metal assembly, so enter bungee cord number two:





I think the look suits the rest of the car. Thankfully it feels about 100 times more stable and secure than it did before. This thing ain't going nowhere.

So to recap, I now have 6 securely attached plug wires, and a strong current coming to them courtesy of a battery that will actually be connected the entire race and/or drive to the event. My alternator is already thanking me. You're in trouble now Josh!

[jalopi]

how big is your soldering iron? if you have anything like this



it'd take a good 5 minutes of constant heat to get that thick ass cable up to temp for a proper solder. once you figure out that secret to soldering you'll do that shit like a boss

[irish44j]

Protip for those big terminals:

put one in a vise with the open end facing up. Stick the end of your solder in there. Use a propane torch to heat it up until the solder turns to liquid filling up the opening. Stick the cable end into the opening. Stop heating. Hold it there for a few seconds while it cools. Then re-heat the whole thing so that the solder and wire come to the same temperature and will bond better.