Northern's Sterlingsilber M52 Turbo 325is

[Northern]

That wheel and tire combo looks great, not sure how fitment could get better on a stock body. Despite the languishing, I'll be damned if it doesn't look ready for a road trip with the pod.

Maybe 2025 will be the year your E30 makes boost noises again :)

Thank you!

Long road ahead for it before it sees the road unfortunately. I'd love to say this year, but it needs a lot and it has a lot of competition for my time.
Fender bottoms, trunk pocket, sunroof are all rotten.
Diff needs new pinion bearings, big PS or trans leak, and I need to re-plumb/wire all my boost control stuff.
Probably could get by with just that, but there's a bunch of QOL stuff I want to do (shifter, E82 seats, clutch slave, general cosmetic stuff)...

The roof box was an awesome find a few years back, $20 with the key snapped off in the lock. I managed to extract the key and order some new ones. Surprising just how much it can hold. Used it on our old Outback, and now the XC90 when we do a yearly friends camping trip. Just sucks to store it when not in use haha.

[zwill23]

That wheel and tire combo looks great, not sure how fitment could get better on a stock body. Despite the languishing, I'll be damned if it doesn't look ready for a road trip with the pod.

Maybe 2025 will be the year your E30 makes boost noises again :)

[Northern]

Almost 2 years since last update. Zero progress on the e30, but the garage is at that point where there it's 99% finished and all the remaining things just get deferred indefinitely.

Garage build thread basically inserts here, and some work on my R56.

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forum/general-forums/members-rides/the-project-forum/10129159-northern-s-not-a-car-thread?p=10136716#post10136716

Only real update for my e30 is that I finally sold my wheels and tires. I bought these ESM-007 new in (probably 2013-2014?) because they looked decent, were new/straight, cheap, and my euroweave/RZ bastard set was warped/bent/curbed and I botched the paint job on them.

In 2025, finding any e30 sized tire wider than 225 is brutal, but 225/45R16 is basically impossible unless you're running an rcomp.
6 options on tirerack, the only >200TW tire is some 'Classic' Pirelli tire that's $320/ea.
I'd run something slightly undersize because they feel good on the car, but nothing smaller is a real size, same with anything 235, and the only 245 that is even close to fitting is 245/45 (5% O/S) and makes the car feel boaty and didn't fit with the stance-y offset of the rears.

I'm done with that shit.



The R888Rs on the black Konig Dekagrams from last page fit really well.
I need a spacer to clear the strut, and I'll play with the thickness with some of those cheap thin non-hubcentric spacers and then maybe buy some thin hubcentric conversion spacers (since the wheels are 73.1mm CB, it should be possible to find something thin)

Not a fan of black wheels, but the wheel/tire combo was less than the price of the wheels so the price was right.

For the 245/40 Nankang CR-1, They will absolutely fit fine in the rear, but the front may rub depending on how much spacer they need.

[Northern]

I anxiously await hearing about your experience with that slave cylinder because I just hooked the electrical system back up in my E34 and moved the seat forward to try my twin disc clutch out and it is insane. It's a good thing I don't skip leg day, it's probably close to 2x as heavy as my spec stage 3+ in the E30.

It's going to be a while, unfortunately. Summer is already too busy and I'm seeing my E30 timeline slide away rapidly.

Garage build has been delayed by >1mo so far, mostly due to fuckery by the city's permit office, showing me things are approved in my online portal, but telling my contractor that they aren't. He's had to resubmit for permits 3 times now. Best guess now is start early June.

The driveway is the only access to the yard, so I don't want to work on anything that has any chance of disabling any car until it's done.
He's doing a weathertight shell and basic electrical, then I'm hoping to epoxy coat the floor/add electrical (pending electrician signoff)/finish interior before October.

[varg]

I anxiously await hearing about your experience with that slave cylinder because I just hooked the electrical system back up in my E34 and moved the seat forward to try my twin disc clutch out and it is insane. It's a good thing I don't skip leg day, it's probably close to 2x as heavy as my spec stage 3+ in the E30.

[Northern]

Yeah I'm going to give it a shot and will report back. The guy said he used it while trying to make a UUC clutch setup work and apparently it fits and worked.
Hopefully that holds true with my setup as well.

Everything is waiting on the garage build. I refuse to take anything apart in case it doesn't go back together, and I'm not buying anything until I have a final build cost.
It should've started last month but was delayed by the property line setback variance getting approved by the city, and now the contractor is waiting on permits.
Bracing for this to be a long evolution...

[Panici]

Alright, the MS4x Tuning discord pulled through on this one.
Apparently Part No 21522282056 off some specific variant of E39 M5 is 24mm with identical exterior features to the others in this thread.

So you're going to try this one out? Please let us know how it works for you.

[Northern]

Alright, the MS4x Tuning discord pulled through on this one.

Apparently Part No 21522282056 off some specific variant of E39 M5 is 24mm with identical exterior features to the others in this thread.

[Northern]

I have the 22.2mm slave cylinder in my E34, the clutch pedal is still really heavy with my twin disc clutch. The E34 540i slave cylinder has a 27mm bore. I don't see how it would disengages fully with the 19mm master but the 540i and 525i share that master and a release fork so the pressure plate must have a different motion ratio.

I didn't know about that 27mm slave. I stewed over this a bit yesterday and I like the idea.
1.8x the area of the 20mm. I think there's enough travel for that?

https://www.e46fanatics.com/threads/e39-vs-e46-slave-cylinder.797890/page-2

^ This makes it sound like a no-go, but E46 SAC != E36M3 clutch and a 6-puck. High risk, low reward to be a guinea pig.
Also found a guy who took a Porsche 944 24mm slave and milled out a 22mm unit to accept the 944 guts, but that's a little extreme.

[Panici]

I wasn't clear, sorry. Updated the above to clarify that it's diameter. So the M3 slave piston diameter is 2mm larger so the area is 380mm^2 vs 314mm^2 for the 328i.

Ah gotcha.

Seems like I need to add this to my list of wants.
Spec Stage 3+ and 7.5lb flywheel make for a very tricky clutch pedal, and the engagement window is absolutely tiny with the 328i slave.

[varg]

I have the 22.2mm slave cylinder in my E34, the clutch pedal is still really heavy with my twin disc clutch. The E34 540i slave cylinder has a 27mm bore. I don't see how it would disengages fully with the 19mm master but the 540i and 525i share that master and a release fork so the pressure plate must have a different motion ratio.

[Northern]

If the M3 slave is longer [...]

I wasn't clear, sorry. Updated the above to clarify that it's diameter. So the M3 slave piston diameter is 2mm larger so the area is 380mm^2 vs 314mm^2 for the 328i.

I was not aware until I drove the car that day after driving the mini for 2 years, and it clicked that a stock pressure plate shouldn't feel that stiff.
I read before that the two Slaves were different, I just didn't know how until this prompted me to do some sleuthing.

[Panici]

Clutch - For background, I'm running a ZF320 with an FX Stage 3 clutch/flywheel. That clutch is just a Sachs E36M3 one, so no excuse for that to be extra heavy.
I think the issue is that I have an e36 328i slave (20mm) instead of an M3 slave (22mm) so that's like a 21% difference in force (and I suppose pedal travel).
I'll be ordering an M3 slave unless someone knows of a >22mm version.

I wasn't aware there was a difference between the 328i & M3 slaves on the ZF320.

If the M3 slave is longer (for the same pedal travel, and same required travel of the clutch fork) wouldn't it increase the pedal effort if you swap it in?

You'd be moving the clutch fork faster for the same speed of your foot as the M3 slave has longer to travel?
So your foot would have to move slower to achieve the same slave speed and this would make the engagement window even smaller?

Or am I looking at this incorrectly.

[Northern]

2 weekends back, I drove the car for the first time in two years. It started up fine but needs a lot of love.

Battery was toast from the Tender's GFCI outlet tripping at some point around the time I grenaded my knee.
It was so flat that the tender didn't even recognize there was a battery attached once I reset it.
I bought the finest (read:cheapest) Canadian Tire Group 26 battery since they're short enough to fit under the battery cover/tray thing.

A few notes:

• The chrome/blue ebay shifter is awful, like an inch of travel, super notchy. It's not fun, not fuhraze, just feels like crap. I need to make an effort to replace this with any longer throw OEM setup.
• The clutch is far too heavy and travel is too short. More on this below...
• Updated tune is exceptionally lean off-idle. I think this was my fault.
• WG vacuum still not plumbed up after last year's WG change.
• Diff still needs pinion bearings.

Clutch - For background, I'm running a ZF320 with an FX Stage 3 clutch/flywheel. That clutch is just a Sachs E36M3 one, so no excuse for that to be extra heavy.
I think the issue is that I have an e36 328i slave (20mm diameter) instead of an M3 slave (22mm diameter) so that's like a 21% difference in force (and I suppose pedal travel).
I'll be ordering an M3 slave unless someone knows of a >22mm version.

Fuel map stuff - Latest MS41.3 update I received a year back removed the need to load halve all the tables, I guess it alters the values behind the scene somehow.
That means I needed to port all my maps in Excel, and took the opportunity to add a column to to bring my idle area back closer to stock, but probably messed up a bit.
The ECU also has an AFR table and will take a wideband input for STFTs now, but I didn't set that up.


On a sad note, the guy behind the MS41.3 project (Shake, aka mrf582) recently passed away suddenly after he released a public version for purchase.
One of the guys who helped is working on a free release of this firmware now, I'll probably make a post about it when that is sorted out.

[Panici]

I've been doing physio twice a week since the new year and it's come a long way.
Probably 60-70% recovered now. Not quite the extension of the other, and only 130deg max bend, but that's still a massive improvement.

Glad you're taking the physio seriously. Makes a big difference in long-term mobility if you keep up with the exercises.
Ultimately it will allow you to keep enjoying your hobbies which is pretty good motivation.