►►►Tales from IronFreak and his shop shenanigans◄◄◄
Well I suppose after 500+ posts of bugging the crap out of people on here and talking about this “build” I’m doing but never shedding any light on it I could introduce myself and my project. I am the IronFreak from Nebraska, and below is my test subject…..
I fell in love with E30 in November, it was after I decided to sell my Jeep to help finishing my wifes business and buy a more economical vehicle to make my 40 mile round trips every day. You know how car enthusiasts are though; we want some sort of “performance” in whatever we drive. And that is literally what I Googled, or something to that effect, and the E30 popped up in several articles. I was hooked, and set out to find one. I looked at a few, bought one, returned it and then settled on the one above.
Then………I found r3v……
I got slapped so hard in the face with because racecar, dtm, flares, swaps, suspension, wheels I still get giddy thinking about it. Long story short, motor had been rebuilt poorly, leaking, I had a bigger motor, been fabricating steel for many years and said, “I’ll make it fit”.
The name of this thread identifies 2 things. One, I have gathered the majority of the information towards this build from this very forum, for that I say thank you. Also to date, have gather the better part of 90% of my parts from forum members or sponsors so again thank you!
Lastly, please don't take this as cockiness, take it for what it is. I ALWAYS will take advise if it's effective and presented in a professional manner...If you tell me that what I’m building doesn't fit into a racing class, or it won’t perform well in one it qualifies for, I’m over doing something, that’s too heavy, that’s too much power, that it too light, those won’t fit, that’ll never work, that’s never been done before, that looks stupid, that I’m crazy or ask…..why are you doing that? I’ll simply state….
Because I can.
So you have a feel for what my end goal is I have posted a few pictures of cars that have inspired me.
There are many other, but these came to mind first!
So after I located a new DD (no performance, just a $700 Accord....the turd on wheels) I pulled it into the garage, ran down the plan with the wife and went to work. She's really cool about it, her pops raised here around Porsche's, she snagged her first joy ride in a 944 turbo when she was 12 haha.
Since I had built drag cars, street bikes and choppers I wanted a race car. This meant I needed to take it to the shell. And that's what I did!
Second weekend of January.
There are pictures between this one and below, but we've all see stripped cars, if you have a question ask, and I can answer it for you.
The Following weekend
Following weekend
Following weekend
stripping sound deadening
Filled 3 of these....
Took at knotted wheel to the seams
Then I pulled out the welder
With the help of my good buddies Chuck and Adam I got the harness pulled, what a mess, not to mention heavy!! stripping that to bare minimum will save weight haha!
All the while I have been sourcing parts for the build, I got a smoking deal on the transmission I wanted off of CL locally. Can you figure out what get's bolted to it??
From a Site sponsor!
From forum members!!
These came in Saturday as I was building my rotisserie
Wait............Did I say "rotisserie up there ^^? Yup I got busy this weekend. Thanks for the help Chuck!
I stripped a little of the under coating off tonight, man did they put that on thick!! I did a good once over to see if I could spot any rust. Besides the spot I found under the trunk seal I only found two other small areas. Looks as if someone hadn't bee careful when placing the jacks.
More work coming tomorrow.
It's been like Christmas around here recently. These items were sitting at my door when I came home!
MSI with newer PCB3.0. It came with a 12' harness as well. Brand new never used. It'll get upgraded with MSExtra firmware so I can run wasted spark as well!
To keep her cool, Mishimoto E36 racing radiator........so pretty!
And my rear spring adjusters from Ireland Engineering! Comes with upper pads as well, just not shown.
Now to go spend a few more hours stripping crap off the car!
2/21/2013
Well I got a lot more stripped then ran out of wire wheels. So I worked on some other items.
Got the old ball joints pressed out and new Meyle pressed in....
I power washed them, just need to put a coat of paint on them, and install the new eyeball CAB's!
I also stripped the M3 rack.
I pulled off the inner tie rods, one is a little loose, we'll see how it feels when its on the car, I might replace it.
Got some steering spacers from my man TexasToast, got those cleaned up and installed.
Got some new tie rods ends!
All back together, just need some bigger zip ties!
2/27/2013
I didn't really do anything to the car just test fit some items I had been searching for. While I have thrown some money at this build, I still have to be very conscious of my budget. Obviously if I was going to build a track car some sort of suspension adjustment was needed. There are some great coilover setups from site Vendors but they weren't in the budget. So I set out to build my own coilover setup. Finding springs wasn't hard and I got a good deal on rear adjusters, but I was still struggling on the front sleeves. I searched and searched, even bought some used stuff to take measurements but wasn't really happy. Then.......while looking on ebay for some bushings I can across some coil sleeves. they had all the measurments that were a perfect match for the E30 51mm strut tubes.
Here is what I came up with.
super perfect fit
Between buying and selling items off the car I have all the following:
front and rear Koni adjustables
IE rear spring adjusters
Eibach coil springs F550/R650
front coil sleeves
GC E28 race camber plates
BimmerWorld Eyeball CAB's
Meyle control are ball joints
Turner Motorsports RMS's
For a grand total of: $920 retail it would have been roughly - $1750ish.
I still need to get camber tow adjustment for the rear trailing arms and Sub and trailing arm bushings.
3/4/2013
Well after a lot of thought I decided that I wasn'y going to use MS1 anymore. It just wasn't what I wanted and seemed like way to much work to make it do the right things. So I put it on CL and sold it locally over the weekend.....
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SUCKERS!!! HAHAHA Now I'm running MS2 BOOOM!!
After talking with a few people that know way more about MS, they said based on my goals MS2 would be much better solution.
Another thing to add, I just purchased just about everything I need to go full 5 lug on this baby.
All parts are from a 98 M3:
Front
Control arms
struts (getting cut-n-gut koni inserts)
spindles
hubs
calipers with carriers
Rear
z3 hubs
z3 calipers with carriers
Need rotors and pads and I'll be golden!
So......That means the list above of 4-lug suspension parts will be up for sale soon......
3/8/2013
Nothing huge on the update front, still remodeling my basement so work on the car is at a stand still. I have been collecting parts though! My GC camber plates came in and my 5-lug parts should be in the mail today!
These things are amazing quality. Hit up Ground Control for all your suspension needs!
3/13/2013
Buddy turned me onto a local CL add for some wheels I have been wanting for a while!
3/19/2013
Few more items showed up over the weekend:
I also got sub frame and trailing arm bushings.
4/5/2013
And a few more parts!
Picked this up from my buddy Adam, can be driving on a 5-gallon bucket with all this power!........I'll need a new harness that FIA approved.
My replacement control arm for the mismatch I got the first time around!
And........Fresh Koni's.......Can you smell that, pure awesomeness!
I fell in love with E30 in November, it was after I decided to sell my Jeep to help finishing my wifes business and buy a more economical vehicle to make my 40 mile round trips every day. You know how car enthusiasts are though; we want some sort of “performance” in whatever we drive. And that is literally what I Googled, or something to that effect, and the E30 popped up in several articles. I was hooked, and set out to find one. I looked at a few, bought one, returned it and then settled on the one above.
Then………I found r3v……
I got slapped so hard in the face with because racecar, dtm, flares, swaps, suspension, wheels I still get giddy thinking about it. Long story short, motor had been rebuilt poorly, leaking, I had a bigger motor, been fabricating steel for many years and said, “I’ll make it fit”.
The name of this thread identifies 2 things. One, I have gathered the majority of the information towards this build from this very forum, for that I say thank you. Also to date, have gather the better part of 90% of my parts from forum members or sponsors so again thank you!
Lastly, please don't take this as cockiness, take it for what it is. I ALWAYS will take advise if it's effective and presented in a professional manner...If you tell me that what I’m building doesn't fit into a racing class, or it won’t perform well in one it qualifies for, I’m over doing something, that’s too heavy, that’s too much power, that it too light, those won’t fit, that’ll never work, that’s never been done before, that looks stupid, that I’m crazy or ask…..why are you doing that? I’ll simply state….
Because I can.
So you have a feel for what my end goal is I have posted a few pictures of cars that have inspired me.
There are many other, but these came to mind first!
So after I located a new DD (no performance, just a $700 Accord....the turd on wheels) I pulled it into the garage, ran down the plan with the wife and went to work. She's really cool about it, her pops raised here around Porsche's, she snagged her first joy ride in a 944 turbo when she was 12 haha.
Since I had built drag cars, street bikes and choppers I wanted a race car. This meant I needed to take it to the shell. And that's what I did!
Second weekend of January.
There are pictures between this one and below, but we've all see stripped cars, if you have a question ask, and I can answer it for you.
The Following weekend
Following weekend
Following weekend
stripping sound deadening
Filled 3 of these....
Took at knotted wheel to the seams
Then I pulled out the welder
With the help of my good buddies Chuck and Adam I got the harness pulled, what a mess, not to mention heavy!! stripping that to bare minimum will save weight haha!
All the while I have been sourcing parts for the build, I got a smoking deal on the transmission I wanted off of CL locally. Can you figure out what get's bolted to it??
From a Site sponsor!
From forum members!!
These came in Saturday as I was building my rotisserie
Wait............Did I say "rotisserie up there ^^? Yup I got busy this weekend. Thanks for the help Chuck!
I stripped a little of the under coating off tonight, man did they put that on thick!! I did a good once over to see if I could spot any rust. Besides the spot I found under the trunk seal I only found two other small areas. Looks as if someone hadn't bee careful when placing the jacks.
More work coming tomorrow.
It's been like Christmas around here recently. These items were sitting at my door when I came home!
MSI with newer PCB3.0. It came with a 12' harness as well. Brand new never used. It'll get upgraded with MSExtra firmware so I can run wasted spark as well!
To keep her cool, Mishimoto E36 racing radiator........so pretty!
And my rear spring adjusters from Ireland Engineering! Comes with upper pads as well, just not shown.
Now to go spend a few more hours stripping crap off the car!
2/21/2013
Well I got a lot more stripped then ran out of wire wheels. So I worked on some other items.
Got the old ball joints pressed out and new Meyle pressed in....
I power washed them, just need to put a coat of paint on them, and install the new eyeball CAB's!
I also stripped the M3 rack.
I pulled off the inner tie rods, one is a little loose, we'll see how it feels when its on the car, I might replace it.
Got some steering spacers from my man TexasToast, got those cleaned up and installed.
Got some new tie rods ends!
All back together, just need some bigger zip ties!
2/27/2013
I didn't really do anything to the car just test fit some items I had been searching for. While I have thrown some money at this build, I still have to be very conscious of my budget. Obviously if I was going to build a track car some sort of suspension adjustment was needed. There are some great coilover setups from site Vendors but they weren't in the budget. So I set out to build my own coilover setup. Finding springs wasn't hard and I got a good deal on rear adjusters, but I was still struggling on the front sleeves. I searched and searched, even bought some used stuff to take measurements but wasn't really happy. Then.......while looking on ebay for some bushings I can across some coil sleeves. they had all the measurments that were a perfect match for the E30 51mm strut tubes.
Here is what I came up with.
super perfect fit
Between buying and selling items off the car I have all the following:
front and rear Koni adjustables
IE rear spring adjusters
Eibach coil springs F550/R650
front coil sleeves
GC E28 race camber plates
BimmerWorld Eyeball CAB's
Meyle control are ball joints
Turner Motorsports RMS's
For a grand total of: $920 retail it would have been roughly - $1750ish.
I still need to get camber tow adjustment for the rear trailing arms and Sub and trailing arm bushings.
3/4/2013
Well after a lot of thought I decided that I wasn'y going to use MS1 anymore. It just wasn't what I wanted and seemed like way to much work to make it do the right things. So I put it on CL and sold it locally over the weekend.....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
SUCKERS!!! HAHAHA Now I'm running MS2 BOOOM!!
After talking with a few people that know way more about MS, they said based on my goals MS2 would be much better solution.
Another thing to add, I just purchased just about everything I need to go full 5 lug on this baby.
All parts are from a 98 M3:
Front
Control arms
struts (getting cut-n-gut koni inserts)
spindles
hubs
calipers with carriers
Rear
z3 hubs
z3 calipers with carriers
Need rotors and pads and I'll be golden!
So......That means the list above of 4-lug suspension parts will be up for sale soon......
3/8/2013
Nothing huge on the update front, still remodeling my basement so work on the car is at a stand still. I have been collecting parts though! My GC camber plates came in and my 5-lug parts should be in the mail today!
These things are amazing quality. Hit up Ground Control for all your suspension needs!
3/13/2013
Buddy turned me onto a local CL add for some wheels I have been wanting for a while!
3/19/2013
Few more items showed up over the weekend:
I also got sub frame and trailing arm bushings.
4/5/2013
And a few more parts!
Picked this up from my buddy Adam, can be driving on a 5-gallon bucket with all this power!........I'll need a new harness that FIA approved.
My replacement control arm for the mismatch I got the first time around!
And........Fresh Koni's.......Can you smell that, pure awesomeness!
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