Panici's '87 325is E30 - Boosted In Bronze

[Panici]

Fall/Winter plans - November 8th, 2016

Before the snow flies, I want to finish washing up the last of my 14" bottlecap collection. I got a little past half way through the remaining wheels on the 6th, before my pressure washer ran out of gas. Embarrassingly, all of the jerry cans in the garage were empty!

-

Over the winter, I want to fix my driver's seat (mechanically and visually)
I also want to finish the modification/restoration on the spare set of taillight buckets I have.

-

I moved (and stored) the remainder of my spare houndstooth interior at my parents house. I then tried my hand at cleaning up a spare headrest, as well as my original driver's seat.

Using a small carpet cleaning type machine (marketed for cleaning up pet stains), it looks like I was able to get the water marks/stains out of my driver's seat and spare headrest.

I didn't have a chance to see what it looked like when completely dry, so I will update with further pictures in the future.

UPDATE: Water stain is gone from spare headrest, but unfortunately still present on the seat bottom. I will try a second cleaning to see if that helps.

[Panici]

Winter storage - October 23rd, 2016

I followed the same checklist I made in 2015 (see post #95 on page 7), with the addition of thoroughly cleaning all rain gutters, as the cover is not waterproof.

I definitely put the car away a few weeks early, but it was worth the piece of mind. The last thing I wanted was to have the nighttime temperature drop below freezing and the roads to be salted. Since the car isn't stored at my student house, I would have to drive it through the salty roads to store it.

Before I tucked the car away, I removed the driver's seat. The plan is to tackle it over the winter.

[Panici]

Second track evening - October 12th, 2016




For this trackday, I removed the rear seat and swapped in a lightweight battery.
The car weighed ~2649lbs on my quickest lap, including ~10L of gasoline and driver weight.

Some weights for reference:
Rear seat bottom - 12.8lbs
Rear seat back - 26.6lbs
Rear seat sound mat - 1.4lbs
Rear small carpet, below rear seat (inc. foam pieces) - 2lbs
Difference between normal lead acid and lightweight battery - 41.3lbs
The car weighed ~2472.7lbs without fuel or driver.

-

I dropped my best time by almost 4.5s compared to the previous track evening!

My best time was a 1:33.078.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlW4QCDrsvA

---------------------------------------------------


This may be surprising, but I'm not planning to take my E30 back to the track too many more times.

Let me explain:
When I drive/ride fast at the track, sometimes I get what is known as "red mist".

I am able to run significantly faster then when i'm operating normally, but I am not able to actively and consciously improve my skills. I also disregard machine condition and focus on running the fastest possible time. When I get into this mode I don't learn, and I don't enjoy myself as much.

For reference, on my trackbike, I could run a consistent slow-to-medium laptime in intermediate group while riding normally. But when I went into "red mist" mode I was running slow advanced group laptimes.

The first time I had my E30 at the track, I maybe got into this mindset for one or two laps only, before I reigned myself in.
At the second track evening, I ran in this mode for at least half of my laps. It also didn't help that I was physically and mentally tired that evening.

I had some very fast laps with the car on the limit. I know I was passing significantly newer (and probably more powerful) cars.

Trouble is, I never intended to make my E30 into a track car, rather I just want a comfortable summer DD. Running my car hard like this can only end in sadness when I bump it on a wall, or worse. I got lucky with a mis-shift last time, which could have easily cost me the motor.


My plan as of now is to get back to riding my trackbike next summer, and potentially get involved in some organized racing.
Long term, as time and budget allows, I'll be building a track car (thinking about an E36 328i), that I can thrash without worry. Then I'd be interested in the local Trillium chapter and going to some other tracks.


I'm not saying I will never track my E30 again, as I am sure I will. But right now I'm not willing to risk all the hard work i've put into the car when I could be getting my kicks on my R6 at the track.


---------------------------------------------------


Anyways, here are some more videos from the evening.
Including a miss-shift that I got very lucky with. I hit ~8000rpm. I attribute it holding together to two things:
1. Low mileage (~170k km), which was almost entirely behind an Automatic transmission.
2. I had adjusted my valve clearance to spec about a week before this track event.

It looks like I clutched in around 7000rpm when I felt something wasn't right, only to try to engage the clutch again, which spiked it up to ~8000rpm.

The overrev happened at the beginning of the track event, and the car ran normal/strong for the rest of the night. Time will tell if there is stress damage to the valvetrain.

You can see the mis-shift here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2x5dQ8O8K0

Quickest 2-person lap @2860lbs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0VXPRgFiGw

And of course some pictures:

Rust found after taking the entire rear seat out. This was likely the first time the rear seat had been removed, as the underpadding was still glued in place under the rear interior panels (rear door cards?).



Temporary lightweight battery setup I taped in place at the track. This stayed in place, as the battery is only a few pounds. I took a chance running this without proper mounting, or current/charging monitoring. I did check the mounting and temperature of the battery after each session.



















Driver's side front tire the next day. Took the majority of the punishment as the quickest corners on the track are rights.



Driver's side rear:



Passenger side front:



-

[Panici]

Not to be a jerk, but if you're going to refinish the valve cover, you really should do the intake manifold as well.

You're not being a jerk at all! The rest of my engine bay needs some serious TLC.
That said, it's SIGNIFICANTLY better then when I first got it, when it was coated in cosmoline and years of filth.
Compare the new valve cover pictures to the pictures on page 2 from when I did my timing belt and water pump.

Or this picture from page 3 when I replaced the rotor and cap:



I refinished the valve cover as an easy side project while I was adjusting the valves.
I do plan to refinish the intake manifold, but it's obviously more involved to take it all apart. (compared to pulling the VC)

I've actually done very little to the car so far in terms of visual improvements/restoration. I've been focusing on mechanical condition. But don't worry, it'll come with time :)

-

-

[Emre]

Not to be a jerk, but if you're going to refinish the valve cover, you really should do the intake manifold as well.

[Panici]

This post is intentionally left blank for future updates. ;)

[Panici]

Over the past week I've adjusted my valves and painted my valvecover.
Here's a visual step-by-step.

I apologize in advance for the cellphone pictures. The color rendering isn't great and depends on the lighting conditions. In the future I'll take new "finished" pictures with my SLR. The finished cover is red, with a hint of orange.

I call it my Testarossa M20 (italian for redhead)


Teaser shot first!


-

Valve cover removed, valves adjusted as per many DIYs found online.


-

Couple rounds of degreaser and scrubbing later

-

Two thick coats of VHT Wrinkle Red.
5 minutes flash drying time, then second coat. Repeated again for 3rd coat (not pictured)


-

I wasn't willing to bake the cover in any oven that I cook with, so I hit it with a heat gun for ~15 minutes to kickstart the wrinkle process

Left it to dry overnight then installed the partially cured cover on the car



After a couple of drives and heat-cycles later, the texture and color improved


-

Left it for 5 days of driving and then attempted to sand.
Both a wooden sanding block and electric palm sander weren't satisfactory. What ended up working was a gasket scraper to get the thick paint off, then sanding by hand with 60 grit sandpaper. Followed up with 100 grit sandpaper to get the deep scratches out.


It's not a perfect job by any means.
My prep work could have been better, baking in an oven would have given a more consistent texture, and the raised portions would benefit from further sanding with finer grit paper.

I actually really like the patina it has right now. It looks like it's been installed for a while, rather then a brand-new shiny part sticking out like a sore thumb.






-

-

-

[Panici]

Read through the thread. Love the restore and thanks for documenting the rear subframe. That's on the top of my to-do list.

Have you gotten around to replacing that leaky gas tank yet? The job really wasn't to terrible when I tackled it on my track car, but I did have a friend there to help. It's nice to know that I'm not sloshing fuel out of the top of my tank when taking a corner at 60 mph anymore :)

I also noticed you were having some trouble with your old amp. Have you read http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=191119 at all? It sounds like you may have wired it up incorrectly causing the amp to struggle.

Keep on keepin' on! Your car looks great and the work you've put in looks even better!

Thanks for the kind words! Hopefully my subframe resto can give you an idea of what is involved. Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.

I haven't had a chance to drop the gas tank yet. I suspect the lines to the rear expansion tank are all in rough shape, and that is where my leak is from. I'm going to attempt to delete the expansion tank if possible when I tear into it. For now, as long as I keep the tank at or below 40L, there is no liquid leak (No gas smell either).

As for the stereo, if you check right at the bottom of post #110, you can see that I've solved the issue. The amp was wired correctly, and just didn't have enough power (as I originally hypothesized). I replaced it with a bigger unit. I've been using the stereo almost every time I drive, and it sounds pretty great, for a headless setup I put together quickly.

LMK what you are left with when this is all over, my friend might want to purchase it :up:

Pretty sure I will be keeping all of the spare houndstooth parts, never know what I might need in the future.

Great attention to detail and excellent documentation. Subscribed.

Thanks! I try to be detail oriented, sometimes it's the little things that make the difference.

[bobaflesh]

Great attention to detail and excellent documentation. Subscribed.

[2mAn]

I started taking apart my spare houndstooth passenger seat today....

LMK what you are left with when this is all over, my friend might want to purchase it :up:

[Cephas]

Read through the thread. Love the restore and thanks for documenting the rear subframe. That's on the top of my to-do list.

Have you gotten around to replacing that leaky gas tank yet? The job really wasn't to terrible when I tackled it on my track car, but I did have a friend there to help. It's nice to know that I'm not sloshing fuel out of the top of my tank when taking a corner at 60 mph anymore :)

I also noticed you were having some trouble with your old amp. Have you read http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=191119 at all? It sounds like you may have wired it up incorrectly causing the amp to struggle.

Keep on keepin' on! Your car looks great and the work you've put in looks even better!

[Panici]

can you please post a pic of the new exhaust.

did they replace the stock exhaust manifold flange and down pipe flange area in the engine bay with v bands?

They replaced the stock rear flanges with v-bands.
I will get some pictures for you when I am under the car next.

Meanwhile, imagine v-bands welded to the ends of these stainless pipes (at the bottom of the image), and then also to the muffler section (which is not in the picture).

[iwantspeed]

can you please post a pic of the new exhaust.

did they replace the stock exhaust manifold flange and down pipe flange area in the engine bay with v bands?

[Panici]

I started taking apart my spare houndstooth passenger seat today.
I got the back section off, and the side bolster I need (foam and fabric) separated successfully.
I can't believe the excellent shape of this seat inside and out (so far). It's mechanically perfect as well, so hopefully parts will transfer to my driver's seat, if I need them.

Unfortunately I didn't get any further as I don't have a pair of circlip pliers here at school. Also, I don't own any hog ring pliers, so I need to buy some of those.

My plan is to tackle the remainder of the seat repair over the winter. When I store the car in a few weeks, I'll pull the driver's seat first.

For reference, i'm following these six guides:
Hard to go wrong with this much info!

https://web.archive.org/web/20150513103816/http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=82306

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=347892

http://bmw.e30tuner.com/articles_seatfix.php

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=152527

http://e30performance.info/viewtopic.php?t=1147

http://imgur.com/a/Zw088

-

-

Kitty enjoying the haggard spare driver's seat.
Don't worry, the only undamaged piece of fabric on this entire driver's seat is the inside bottom bolster, and even that is a little thin.







-
-

Minty top outer bolster, ready for my original driver's seat.
Level of UV damage to the fabric is almost a perfect match for the seats in my car :)


-
-

Complete spare passenger seat bottom. Going to use the bottom outside bolster from this one.

[Panici]

nice work restoring this e30!

Thanks! It's not nearly done yet!

I still have a ton of work to do, but now at least it's mostly mechanically refreshed, so I can drive it without worry!