Update: May 12th, 2015
So here goes:
Brakes:
I started with the brake lines, which I had sheared in the process of removing the factory brakes. At first I tried flaring the factory lines in an attempt to avoid having to re-bend an entire line (the brake line to the passenger side is about 6 ft in length, or so it felt). This didn't go too well and was sapping a lot of my already slow progress, so I resorted to bending both lines from the ABS controller backward to the wheels. This was my method:
It worked well enough, and aside from having bright silver lines in contrast to the dark green OEM lines, it doesn't look too bad.
Body:
The rotten battery tray was never going to last long.
Mocking up the sheet metal to patch up the hole. This involved a lot of gaffing about with angle grinders, hammers, and magnets. From above:
From below:
After the hole was welded shut and cleaned with a wire wheel, silicone sealant was fingered around the fresh welds, which is what the factory does in other places in the bay.
I then took the chance to grind down the sticky, oily, flaky undercoating inside the arches. I never want to do this again:
Re-coating the arches with undercoat:
I then painted over the new undercoat with POR-15. Time will tell how this all holds up, but for now I'm satisfied.
The engine bay was done shortly after with a paint code-matched spray can. The colour is close enough for an engine bay, but I'm not sure I'd do, say, an iS lip with it:
Suspension:
All of this took a few weekends to get done, but when it was, it was hardware time. Starting with the rear:
Then the shiny new front:
The new brakes lines are visible in this one, they're pretty hard to miss.
Brakes:
With the extra power I'll be putting down, I thought it would be wise to invest in a BBK in the form of a Wilwood kit. First I cleaned up the brake dust shields. Many people ditch these shields when they fit BBKs, but I wanted to retain them because dust sucks. I opted to cut them:
These adaptors are why the shields must be modified:
I then painted and POR-15d them:
Then I combined it all with these:
To make this:
At this point, I really needed to give the car and engine bay a wash in preparation for the engine.
In this light, the pain match looks pretty decent:
I test fit the RMs from the Golf onto the car and, much to my surprise, my 15" BBK didn't fit the 15" wheels! I guess being a 2 piece wheel, I should have assumed that. 16" wheels are in my future, but I can't shall the whole project while I search for the ideal set of wheels, so I dismounted the BBK and figured I'd see how long the OEM brakes can handle the heat. At least I was able to see how the RMs looked on the car though:
After seeing the fitment, I went and picked up a set of new tires in 205/50/15:
Brake Booster:
This was always going to be a compromise. I've heard of people going with Geo metro boosters to decent effect, but modification to the plenum would still be necessary. I went with a 944 booster instead, since the factory master cylinder could be retained and the brake assistance would be very livable. The size difference was substantial:
Cleaned up, and covered in a layer of my favourite rust preventative measure:
First Fitment:
This was less painful than I'd thought, but then again, no exhaust and no transmission were attached tot he block at this point:
Clearance between the new E36 rack and the oil pan was... tight:
Same with the plenum, which most certainly has to be modified:
... And the headers:
The headers foul both the subframe and sway bars, and with me being lazy, I figured I could simply bang in the headers to get them to fit. The problem spots marked in black:
Still no good:
I've since dented them a little more, and will likely notch the subframe as well. If they still don't fit, I will cut and reweld the one header that's causing the headaches.
Next - and prematurely, I fear - we fitted the transmission to the engine and began the ball-aching task of shoehorning it in to the bay. It was a disaster. Suddenly, the engine that had been so accommodatingly easy to place when we were test fitting the exhaust became an uncooperative bitch. We pushed, pulled, jiggled, and jived the damn thing but couldn't get it to sit on both engine mounts. Only the header that didn't collide with the chassis was fitted, so that couldn't be the issue. At this point, we were beginning to lose our momentum and daylight, so left the engine resting on the mounts as opposed to being bolted to them.
Some pictures to illustrate the butt-clenching ordeal:
What you need when the frustration mounts, is beer. We've done that a lot over the past few months. We've saved every beer cap since the project began. I'll be making an art project out of this when the car is done:
The Little Things:
Some days, it's all you can do to squeeze in 20 minutes here, an hour there. These are the jobs that keep the project alive during the busy times:
Polishing the VANOS:
Installing the E36 fuel filter in place of the E30's beer can:
Washing the spare, because it makes me happy. It was so filthy, I couldn't be bothered to take a before picture:
So that's the story so far. The more progress we make, the further the project feels from being done. I think it's because the closer the finishing line is, the clearer you see how much further there is to go. Consequently, you begin to see all of the places where things could potentially go wrong.
Still to come are the following tasks:
- Finish the headers and possibly get them ceramic coated
- Order the rest of the exhaust components and get them fab'ed together.
- Measure how long the driveshaft needs to be and find a local shop to mate the E36 and E30 shafts together. This seems less wasteful than buying a driveshaft that supposedly works out of the box, and probably costs the same too.
- Splicing and rewiring the engine harness to match it with the E30 body harness. This is looking like an easier task than I'd originally thought, but I've learned to assume nothing.
- Piecing together the oil cooler, which I've already purchased and should be the next step.
Onwards.
So here goes:
Brakes:
I started with the brake lines, which I had sheared in the process of removing the factory brakes. At first I tried flaring the factory lines in an attempt to avoid having to re-bend an entire line (the brake line to the passenger side is about 6 ft in length, or so it felt). This didn't go too well and was sapping a lot of my already slow progress, so I resorted to bending both lines from the ABS controller backward to the wheels. This was my method:
It worked well enough, and aside from having bright silver lines in contrast to the dark green OEM lines, it doesn't look too bad.
Body:
The rotten battery tray was never going to last long.
Mocking up the sheet metal to patch up the hole. This involved a lot of gaffing about with angle grinders, hammers, and magnets. From above:
From below:
After the hole was welded shut and cleaned with a wire wheel, silicone sealant was fingered around the fresh welds, which is what the factory does in other places in the bay.
I then took the chance to grind down the sticky, oily, flaky undercoating inside the arches. I never want to do this again:
Re-coating the arches with undercoat:
I then painted over the new undercoat with POR-15. Time will tell how this all holds up, but for now I'm satisfied.
The engine bay was done shortly after with a paint code-matched spray can. The colour is close enough for an engine bay, but I'm not sure I'd do, say, an iS lip with it:
Suspension:
All of this took a few weekends to get done, but when it was, it was hardware time. Starting with the rear:
Then the shiny new front:
The new brakes lines are visible in this one, they're pretty hard to miss.
Brakes:
With the extra power I'll be putting down, I thought it would be wise to invest in a BBK in the form of a Wilwood kit. First I cleaned up the brake dust shields. Many people ditch these shields when they fit BBKs, but I wanted to retain them because dust sucks. I opted to cut them:
These adaptors are why the shields must be modified:
I then painted and POR-15d them:
Then I combined it all with these:
To make this:
At this point, I really needed to give the car and engine bay a wash in preparation for the engine.
In this light, the pain match looks pretty decent:
I test fit the RMs from the Golf onto the car and, much to my surprise, my 15" BBK didn't fit the 15" wheels! I guess being a 2 piece wheel, I should have assumed that. 16" wheels are in my future, but I can't shall the whole project while I search for the ideal set of wheels, so I dismounted the BBK and figured I'd see how long the OEM brakes can handle the heat. At least I was able to see how the RMs looked on the car though:
After seeing the fitment, I went and picked up a set of new tires in 205/50/15:
Brake Booster:
This was always going to be a compromise. I've heard of people going with Geo metro boosters to decent effect, but modification to the plenum would still be necessary. I went with a 944 booster instead, since the factory master cylinder could be retained and the brake assistance would be very livable. The size difference was substantial:
Cleaned up, and covered in a layer of my favourite rust preventative measure:
First Fitment:
This was less painful than I'd thought, but then again, no exhaust and no transmission were attached tot he block at this point:
Clearance between the new E36 rack and the oil pan was... tight:
Same with the plenum, which most certainly has to be modified:
... And the headers:
The headers foul both the subframe and sway bars, and with me being lazy, I figured I could simply bang in the headers to get them to fit. The problem spots marked in black:
Still no good:
I've since dented them a little more, and will likely notch the subframe as well. If they still don't fit, I will cut and reweld the one header that's causing the headaches.
Next - and prematurely, I fear - we fitted the transmission to the engine and began the ball-aching task of shoehorning it in to the bay. It was a disaster. Suddenly, the engine that had been so accommodatingly easy to place when we were test fitting the exhaust became an uncooperative bitch. We pushed, pulled, jiggled, and jived the damn thing but couldn't get it to sit on both engine mounts. Only the header that didn't collide with the chassis was fitted, so that couldn't be the issue. At this point, we were beginning to lose our momentum and daylight, so left the engine resting on the mounts as opposed to being bolted to them.
Some pictures to illustrate the butt-clenching ordeal:
What you need when the frustration mounts, is beer. We've done that a lot over the past few months. We've saved every beer cap since the project began. I'll be making an art project out of this when the car is done:
The Little Things:
Some days, it's all you can do to squeeze in 20 minutes here, an hour there. These are the jobs that keep the project alive during the busy times:
Polishing the VANOS:
Installing the E36 fuel filter in place of the E30's beer can:
Washing the spare, because it makes me happy. It was so filthy, I couldn't be bothered to take a before picture:
So that's the story so far. The more progress we make, the further the project feels from being done. I think it's because the closer the finishing line is, the clearer you see how much further there is to go. Consequently, you begin to see all of the places where things could potentially go wrong.
Still to come are the following tasks:
- Finish the headers and possibly get them ceramic coated
- Order the rest of the exhaust components and get them fab'ed together.
- Measure how long the driveshaft needs to be and find a local shop to mate the E36 and E30 shafts together. This seems less wasteful than buying a driveshaft that supposedly works out of the box, and probably costs the same too.
- Splicing and rewiring the engine harness to match it with the E30 body harness. This is looking like an easier task than I'd originally thought, but I've learned to assume nothing.
- Piecing together the oil cooler, which I've already purchased and should be the next step.
Onwards.
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