Irish44's '77 e21 320i build - with M42

[irish44j]

So I hope you all had a good Christmas. Other than adding another 12 dozen (or so it seems) children's toys to the clutter in my house, ours was relatively uneventful. Did a bit of car work, some garage work, got a few tools and stuff, etc....

One of my gifts was a 50' air hose reel (the "better" one from Harbor Freight, lol). With a garage where space is at a premium, once again had to think of creative mounting solutions, so I put it up by my tire rack where I can reach it but can't hit my head on it. Came out pretty good. Now if only I had a REAL compressor and not the little guy under my toolbench...



I also got a "gift" for myself courtesy of craigslist on the day after Christmas. I've been watching out for a good deal on a drill press and finally found one from a woodworking shop that was liquidating all their machinery. It's a 1970s Craftsman 1/2 HP 15 1/2" full stand job. Great running condition and has been maintained well. A little cleanup and it looks good and is exactly what I wanted. And for $50 to boot!





And yeah, I brought it home in the WRX since my wife had the truck. That was interesting



Ok, so back to some car stuff. I'm slowly putting some engine bay stuff back together before I toss the engine back in.

Brake booster back in (as well as the clutch master), after a good bit of cleaning, sanding, and painting.



Tonight I'm cleaning up and checking the brake M/C, which had a lot of rust on it but has good seals, and good feel on the throw (though I may rebuild it anyhow). No evidence that it was leaking before, so may not mess with it for a while. In the meantime I cleaned it up and POR-15'd it.



Non-sequitur.....anyone here remember the early 1980s Japanimation series "Star Blazers?" One of my favorites as a kid, and it was a English-overdubbed version of a Japanese series called "Space Battleship Yamato." Anyhow, apparently in 2010 a big studio in Japan made a live-action version, pretty similar in CGI quality to the new Star Trek movies (but with the usual cheesy Japanese acting and penchant for long speeches in emergency situations, haha). Anyhow, my brother scored one up with English subtitles and it's pretty good - so if you watched that show, definitely try to pick up the movie.



What else what else....oh, picked up a new set of stainless brake lines (Ireland Engineering, I think) from a forum member here for $50. One less thing to get later at a higher price.



Steering rack is ready to go back in once the eurometric bushings get here. Also cleaned up the linkage, which is tight and has smooth action so that's a plus. It was so gunked up it wasn't smooth, but after a good cleaning it's going well now.



Oh, and one dumb question that I just can't remember.....is this how the clips for the brake line across the firewall go? I can't remember if the line goes above or below, or if I have the clips wrong. The just look kind of odd/not right, IDK.

[kts]

You're going to love that hose reel and hose. I got Northern Tools version a while back and it was one of the best upgrades I've done to my garage. So much easier to use than the crappy PVC hose I had been using before, always getting tangled and hard to store.

[irish44j]

Yeah, so it's a bit nippy here this week.



But I carry on in my cold garage. Rebuilt both calipers and cleaned them up/painted them (for the moment, just with some black BBQ paint)....and got one side of the front suspension back together with new stainless lines, rotors, etc etc...



Also the Eurometric steering rack bushings finally arrived, so I installed them. Pretty close to having the car back on the ground so I can move it around if needed. That will be nice.

[irish44j]

Not much news since it's cold winter weather here in the last few weeks. But might as well do a super-quick update.

e30 spent 2 weeks at the Washington Auto Show and apparently got a good amount of attention (possibly because it was sitting next to a Boss 302 Mustang, but whatever)....



Carlos at Condor Speed Shop sent me a few new things to install.....solid UHMV bushings for the pedal box on the e30, and bushings for the shift bracket for the M42 that's going into the e21.



and cleaning up the other G240....which was very nasty...

[mk3f.t.w.]

subscribed. digging the m42 swap!

[irish44j]

lol....one of these days I'll have to actually put the damn thing in the car to make some space in my garage :). Racing and rallycross is taking all my time/effort right now.

[blue plates]

Any updates?

[irish44j]

I wish I had any updates to give, lol. But I am happy to hear there is at least one person who is actually watching! Between doing the WRX timing stuff, sequoia timing belt and pump, improving the rallycross e30, fixing up the new trailer, and working on the e30 Chumpcar I haven't had a chance to do much on this. Pat Henry has a single-mass M20 flywheel and transmission crossbrace for me (in W.Va.) so I'll pick those up next month when I help him do an engine swap. Once I have those I can put the drivetrain into the car and start working on mechanicals. At the moment I have a lot of financial obligations for both racing and non-racing stuff this year, so the e21 is kind of taking a back seat at the moment for lack of time and finances. Plus I'm pretty confident the drivetrain work will go without a major hitch, since I know the M42 well at this point.

I'll note, though, that I'm very much passive-aggressive when it comes to my cars.....for months I won't be motivated to touch them, and then out of nowhere I'll just start going to work on them full-bore for months. I just turned the e21 around in the garage to get the rear end near my welder, so hopefully I'll make some time to get going on closing up the rear sidemarker holes, repairing the rusted out wheel arch, and well as continue sanding and prepping the body for paint. But that's another thing....I probably won't have the cash to get it painted until next year sometime, so I'm not in any real rush on the bodywork thing. I have been doing some interior cleanup and painting in the last month but it's not really something that is worth photographing until I'm done.

I have a 2-day rallycross the coming weekend in the e30, then Chumpcar at Summit Point the following weekend in Jim and Stephen's ETA. Then off to Hawaii for 10 days on a work trip (yeah, tough life, right? but I almost never travel anyplace interesting for work, so this is a rarity).

Once all that stuff is done, I have most of July and August with no racing, hopefully no work to do on the other cars, and I should be able to get moving on the e21.

So, since I have no good e21 pics to share at the moment, here are a few of the other projects..

the rallykar, ready to go for this weekend.


the Chump racer, prepping for Summit


a 4-cyl e30 towing a turbo 6-cyl e30 while an e28 looks on


and some WRX timing gear, lol

[blue plates]

Haha I'm still here, awesome build thread! I've got a lot more rust than you, this tread was inspirational

[irish44j]

So, bumping this thread because Ryan (dirty30) is starting his M42 e21 build and I need to remind myself to get moving on this. A few things to do this week on the e30 rallycross car (in preparation for the Great Lakes National Challenge next month), a few things to do on the trailer (which will be towing it there), and then I promise I WILL get going on this.

If I don't, please harass me over PM repeatedly!!

One note from this week: While cleaning out parts I found something I was looking for: my old M10 transmission crossbrace. Unlike the M42 piece, the M10 piece is actually slotted already so is a direct fit for the e21 and the G240. So that's good. So at this point, the only things stopping me from dropping the drivetrain in is:

1. Adam has my engine hoist at the moment.
2. I need to get a flywheel. I've decided I"m going to stick with the stock dual-mass to reduce NVH from the engine (as opposed to the M20B25 single-mass I have on the rallycar). My stock clutch is in great shape but the flywheel I have is pretty rusty for some reason. So either need to get it machined or just grab another one from someone.
3. I have to fab up new CSB mount brackets. Not something I'm looking forward to - welding on my back with my sub-par welding skills. We'll see how that goes.
4. I need to clearance the fins on the bottom of the bellhousing for the front subframe. Should take a couple minutes with a grinder.

Otherwise, the engine bay is cleaned up, I have mounts, and it should (hopefully) drop right in.

In the meantime, a couple random pics from the things that I was using as excuses in my last long post last month:

So.....that rallycross got cancelled due to flooding on the course. Didn't get the message so I towed all the way up there. Once there, I had to at least get the vehicles dirty, so I did some rallycrossing with the trailer...



So.....6 hours into the 12-hour Summit Chumpcar race, with us in 3rd place, the car ended up backwards in a concrete wall. I wasn't driving, for what it's worth. Still sucks



And.....the work trip to Hawaii was productive.

[irish44j]

Ok, so did some work today. The work that I hate doing: sanding. Nice weather so I pulled the car out. After finishing some projects on some other stuff I got to work sanding the roof down to bare metal. When I got it the whole roof had little rust spots coming up through the paint from sitting for so long. I didn't want to try to do them individually and then even it out, so did everything. Man, this old BMW paint is THICK....took forever.

Here's what the whole roof looked like:



sanding...



after it was done, I hit it with some Metal Ready prep and let it sit and kill any remaining rust



Then primed it. Will wet-sand it tomorrow maybe.



Also took the wire wheel to the gutters to get all the rust out, and then POR-15'd them.



tomorrow's other project is some poly steering rack bushings for the Sequoia, just because they were cheap and 100k-mile big trucks tend to need all the tightness they can get.



Oh, also for those not following my build thread for the e30, here's a wrapup of our trip out to Ohio last weekend with a couple e30s for the Great Lakes National RallyCross Challenge:

The event was held in Hebron, Ohio (outside Columbus) across from an NHRA dragstrip, where Ohio Valley Region (OVR) usually runs their events. While most of the competitors were from the Great Lakes Division (running from Ohio up through Michigan, I think), five of us came out from DC region – Jim and Mike Golden in their GC 2.5RS Subie, Josh Sennett in his bmw 325e turbo, and me and Nick.

Nick coming was kind of a “deal” I made with him since we’re tied locally in points and there was a WDCR event on the same day. I would have had to skip it and drop that event, and Nick could have gone and won it easily without me there and gotten the points. He didn’t want to drive his e28 all the way to Ohio so I offered the co-drive of my car since I know he’s fast in it (see: last local event where he beat me in mine after his car broke). That way we both drop that local event and remain tied.

So we loaded up the trailer and the Sequoia and did the 6-7 hour haul through the Blue Ridge mountains (which was uneventful except for 15 minutes of torrential downpour where we couldn’t see 10 feet in front of the car).



Upon arrival we had a chance to quickly walk the course in the evening to get a feel for it. Since we run in DC on gravel, this grassy course was kind of foreign to us, and it would prove to be foreign to me for sure. Ran into some other guys from GRM at the site and had a beer, then headed to the hotel to sleep.

The next morning it was cool in the 60s, and the grass was soaking wet and soft – promising to be very slick. We did the course walk a few more times (with sopping feet) and then one course drive-through at slow speeds, where it didn’t feel all that slippery. There was a random-draw for start order, which proved to be pretty crucial as the course dried out quickly once we tore up the grassy areas and cars ran through it. I’ll caveat by saying that I don’t like the way the draw was done overall, rather than within each class. That meant the classes got broken up with rwd, fwd, and awd cars running throughout the head. As luck would have it I drew #4 (out of about 30 cars) so had to go very early in the heat when it was still grass and still very wet. Most of the other MR class cars were much further back in the run group, which (looking at times) proved to be pretty advantageous as the course dried out very quickly once runs started. The course was VERY long and curvy, with a number of turnarounds. It was actually a great course, one of the most fun I’ve ever run.

As to the MR class competitors, they consisted of Evan Arthur (last year’s national runner-up) and Chris Hastings driving Evan’s turbo Miata; Pete Remner (a perennial top national and divisional driver) in his RX-7; me and Nick in my car; Josh in the turboETA; and Kevin Schmidt and Pat LaMontagne from Detroit, driving Kevin’s RX-7.

So my first run started and it was clear that the course was much slicker than expected. First runs have been my downfall for a number of events over the last couple seasons as I tend to be over-aggressive and trust my traction more than I should. I would normally have backed off, but with such a strong field in MR I couldn’t risk going slower than the rest of the class so I pushed it.

Too hard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZQJAHczTiU&feature=youtu.be

Yup, got outside the line in the deeper wet grass and couldn’t recover it. By my count I lost about 12-13 seconds getting back on course, which was pretty sucky since it essentially put me out of the running for the whole weekend, or so I thought. On that run I was 125 seconds, while the fastest cars that didn’t spin were 113-115 seconds being more careful.

As a bit more grip developed throughout the morning, I slowly clawed my way back into the competition with some good runs, and my 5th run at 101.92 seconds turned out to be the fastest in the class for that session. But I was still a good ways behind the leaders. Meanwhile, Evan had one really sloppy 4-cone run that prevented him from running away from the pack for the morning.

Pete getting it sideways



The morning course, and my fastest run:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi7MAzSJkLE&list=UUZDzORFSilgFFHMqcT8uyIA

another fast run from inside:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHBKN0tRKhA&list=UUZDzORFSilgFFHMqcT8uyIA

In the afternoon, we basically ran the same course but with one section cut out so it was somewhat shorter. As it had dried out, the Mazdas got faster and Chris and Kevin started putting down some fast times. My times were pretty good but nothing special. No major mistakes though. Nick kept running consistently and he and Kevin were neck and neck for the lead after Saturday. Evan had an electrical issue at lunch so he had to take some runs in Pete’s car (which were similar in times to Pete’s runs), and Chris took some runs in Josh’s car (also pretty fast) . Unfortunately Josh had some overheating issues, which we’ll talk about in a bit.

Evan getting down some turbo power



By the end of the day Nick was holding on to a several-second lead over Kevin and Pete, and I had managed to get back to within 5 seconds of the leader or so after driving with nothing to lose.

So as it turned out, Josh had broken both motor mounts and his engine shifted to the left, causing his fan to get caught on the shroud and mild overheating. After asking around the other competitors and making a fruitless run to Advance auto, it was clear that nobody carries 1980s bmw parts in the middle of Ohio on a weekend.

So we improv’d by taking my spare Condor Speed Shop UHMW solid M42 mount (which is about twice as tall as the M20 mount he needed) and cutting it in half with a hacksaw. Four people sawed for about 20 minutes, and we broke the blade 3 times.



But in the end, we got it ghetto-rigged and he was good to go



So on to day two. The course was reversed with some changes. I needed to make up some time and it was going to be difficult. I laid down the 2nd-fastest times for the first two runs, but Pete was almost 2 seconds faster (I do hate running clockwise, lol) and was on the verge of taking 1st from Nick and Kevin. But then he de-beaded and had to take a bogey time, essentially putting him out of the competition (or did that happen late on the first day, I forget). Meanwhile, Josh continued to have problems with his car and eventually just bailed out for a while.



As we came down to the last few runs, Kevin and Nick were fighting for the top spot and I was a few seconds back in 3rd. Nick hit a kind of plateau in his times and couldn’t seem to go any faster. Kevin kept putting down really fast runs and I kept pace and was within a second of the lead. Then I got a cone in the slalom, which is something I NEVER do (I love slaloms), which knocked me back to 3 seconds again.

On the last run I was down around 1.5 seconds to Kevin and ½ a second to Nick. With 3rd place guaranteed no matter what I did (short of de-bead), I decided to go for broke on the last run. Nick put down another decent run around 80.4 seconds. Then Kevin also put down a run around 80.5 seconds. Driving all-out, I pulled off a 79.3 on the final run (clean), which leapfrogged me in front of Nick by ½ a second. But left me ½ a second behind Kevin. So that’s how it finished, with the top three separated by 1.01 seconds after almost 1,500 total seconds of time over the weekend.

Evan ended up around 30 seconds back thanks mostly to his cones and having to drive Pete’s car for a few runs, but was running times just a shade slower than mine all day. Pete ended up about 100 seconds back primarily due to his de-bead bogey and I think a partial spin once he was out of it. The rest of the pack was a ways back due to various driving issues and mechanical issues. Chris didn’t drive Sunday, which is too bad. Would have been interesting to see if he could have taken Evan’s car to the title or not.

I’ll also mention that the Golden brothers from DC took 2nd and 3rd in stock AWD class, which was a good finish but I’m sure they’re disappointed in it. Lost to a WRX.



All in all, it was a great event and was good to finally see how we matched up against some of the best MR class drivers in the country. Also got to meet a bunch of cool people, hang out, work on cars, drink beers, and talk shop with a lot of national-level guys.



Next year the GLDivs are in Detroit area so we probably won’t haul that far, and Nationals this year are in Nebraska so that’s a no-go. Northeast National Challenge is at WDCR’s home venue in a few weeks, but I have to go to a wedding so can’t make it. I think Jim Spoth may drive my car in that one, and Nick will be back in his e28. Sucks I can’t compete for the title on my own local surface, but that’s how life works.

Oh, and Pete bought my old beat-up e21 wheels for $100. In quarters.



Of interest, Pete is one of the favorites to win Nationals, according to SCCA’s website



Overall, happy with how the car performed and held up with no mechanical issues whatsoever. In fact, Josh had to drive my car 7 hours home (which I don’t envy) since his car was still having issues – so I put it on my trailer and towed it back to my place.

So that’s it for now. Good times, and I have a few ideas for the car coming up (nothing too big, don’t’ get too excited), so stay tuned.

[irish44j]

Yeah yeah...more excitement. Just been sanding for the most part for the last week. And some Bondo. And more sanding. And filler primer. And sanding.

I'm not terribly good with Bondo, so this has been a learning experience



But in the end, I have eliminated the multiple creases and dents in the door (after popping them out as much as possible) and it's generally smooth...







The area under the mirror was mashed in nicely and since it has a backing plate it's next to impossible to pop back out. So I just built up the area and will sand it to form...

\

also did a bit of cleanup in the engine bay and put in my old M42 mounts in preparation for dropping the engine in there in the near future...



Another part of that prep was to grind down the "fins" on the back of the upper oil pan to clearance them for the rack. I basically eyeballed this so hopefully it was correct...

[blue plates]

Nice! I hope someone starts to make e21 m42 mounts that bolt on.. Hint hint wink wink.

[E30NJ]

Great work!

[irish44j]

Nice! I hope someone starts to make e21 m42 mounts that bolt on.. Hint hint wink wink.

keep an eye on Ryan (dirty30)'s e21 build thread. I think instead of modifying the subframe like I did, he's possibly going to design some new mount arms off the motor that can bolt to the original subframe. Or at least I think he was considering it.

My fabbing skills aren't quite to that level myself, lol.