6/83 grey market 323i.. mtech I S50 5-lug

[Wh33lhop]

it's alive... it's alliiiiiiiiveeeee

[kronus]

are you going to upgrade to the late model shift carrier?

Probably going to find a sheet metal carrier and mount it DTM-style, because delrin mounts.

[brian52555]

excellent work! i have an 87is with euro bumpers and zender rear spoiler... and am in SF too.

E30 twins?

[kronus]

excellent work! i have an 87is with euro bumpers and zender rear spoiler... and am in SF too.

E30 twins?

nice! when I get it out and about we should meet up.

[kronus]

been busy the last few weeks. The following is now attached to the car in some form:
- new rotors, HP+ pads, ss lines
- ground controls, bilsteins
- eibach sways
- new lemfoerder CA's, M3 bushings
- water pump, timing belt, t-stat
- houndstooth door cars, vinyl sport seats

I still haven't addressed the charging problem, but hopefully it's just a blown cluster light. Also having some trouble getting it timed right, but I suspect having the alternator function would help it stay running long enough for me to do that.

The major things left for now are the steering rack (wh33lhop's old e36 rack) and dogleg swap, for which I still need to find a driveshaft. There are hints and rumors about the dogleg 245 and regular m20 260 actually being of similar enough length that you can use the stock e30 manual driveshaft... can anyone confirm this?


also acquired another piece of the puzzle:


:mrgreen:

[e30m3s54turbo]

Are those Hartge header?

[kronus]

they're Hardy&Beck headers.. so I don't know. they do look a lot like Hartge headers, sans name plate and longer downstems.

Here's some Hartge ones:

[e30m3s54turbo]

Wow! I did not know Hardy&Beck made their own headers.

[kronus]

they probably didn't! I'm guessing they're rebadged whoever-made-the-hartge-headers headers.

[kronus]

got the interior together, fixed the charging problem, got the car on the ground.



convincing myself to pull the dash, or do the steering rack... wrenching with a hangover sucks.

[kronus]

spent the last hour rearranging cars in the shop so that i could pull it out..



The wheels are whatever was lying around.. still waiting on the guy to bring me Alpinas.

also, threw it up on the lift, and hit a showstopper for the e36 rack swap. My steering linkage is non-collapsible:



Do I definitely need to shorten the linkage to install an e36 rack. Wh33lhop (its previous owner) swears that he didn't shorten his linkage...

[e30m3s54turbo]

What air dam do you have on your car? It looks good on your car.

[kronus]

it's zender as well, thanks!

[kronus]

e36 rack is in, the job turned out to actually go pretty fast, got it done in 2 hours or so.

The steering link turned out to not be a problem - I was able to bolt the rack in without modification. The bottom part bolted in as usual, with 13mm worth of washers above the rack, and the top part went further up the splined steering shaft with just some clearancing of the firewall insulation.

Took it around the block to test the steering, found a few other problems:
- very bad at cold starts. feels like it loses fuel pressure after sitting..
- asshole german seller sent me ellipsoids with 2 broken adjusters and a blown low beam bulb, now doesn't respond to ebay messages
- speedo doesn't work
- only one reverse light works
- accelerator cable seems very seized up, not sure if it's an effect of there being extra springs due to auto, or just wear
- my check panel is in german so I have no idea what it thinks is wrong

the suspension, however, feels great. Steering is a bit tight, but will presumably free up once I put the belt back on the PS pump, because, you know, that's how power steering works.

also I scored an almost perfect dash for 50 bucks, which will be going on in a few days, because the one in it now is the worst e30 dash I have ever seen, in person or on the internet.

[wazzu70]

Pics of horrible dash?

Car is coming along!