E30 #2: 1990 Delphin: RHD ITB M20

[Kedge]

Not been on here for a few months, and this is the first thread I had to come and check for updates. Great progress, and really pleased to see that benefits have been seen with the airbox.

Is the header tank getting in the way at all for making an filter box? Maybe worth looking at converting to an E36 rad with an inbuilt header tank to do away with the E30 remote one. I've only got a couple of pics of mine, from the wrong side to, but hopefully gives you an idea.

[318aye]

Thanks Digger, I'll keep those in mind :).

Not been on here for a few months, and this is the first thread I had to come and check for updates. Great progress, and really pleased to see that benefits have been seen with the airbox.

Is the header tank getting in the way at all for making an filter box? Maybe worth looking at converting to an E36 rad with an inbuilt header tank to do away with the E30 remote one. I've only got a couple of pics of mine, from the wrong side to, but hopefully gives you an idea.

Thanks for the kind words!

It is in the way somewhat, although a larger contributor to the lack of space is the OEM airbox bracket which I refuse to alter. I take it you used a 6cyl E36 radiator? I have been looking at aluminum aftermarket units, I wonder if the OE E36 part allows enough room for an e-fan?

[318aye]

Speedometer Overlay has started to bubble :(. Seeing if Bavrest will help me out with a replacement. Didn't even make it 1000 miles.

[bradnic]

now you're gonna have to stay at 110mph to hide it.. lol
i have no doubt they'll do right.

[318aye]

now you're gonna have to stay at 110mph to hide it.. lol
i have no doubt they'll do right.

Hadn't considered that bandaid :P. Replacement is on its way, thanks Bavrest! No questions asked.

[N2MYE30]

Speedometer Overlay has started to bubble :(. Seeing if Bavrest will help me out with a replacement. Didn't even make it 1000 miles.

Ill hafta keep an aye on mine!

[318aye]

Ill hafta keep an aye on mine!

The replacement that showed up seems a bit thicker, maybe with a different backing material. Will update on how it does. They were nice enough to send a free hood ground for my trouble! A+

[N2MYE30]

The replacement that showed up seems a bit thicker, maybe with a different backing material. Will update on how it does. They were nice enough to send a free hood ground for my trouble! A+

Good show by Greg. :up:

[2mAn]

Gregs///M (i don't think his name is actually Greg lol) also took care of me when I had to have him warranty my cluster. I wanted him to polish the lense, which was something I regretted opting out of the the first time. I was fully ready to pay him to do it but he took care of it for me, free of charge. That's going above and beyond

[318aye]

Gregs///M (i don't think his name is actually Greg lol) also took care of me when I had to have him warranty my cluster. I wanted him to polish the lense, which was something I regretted opting out of the the first time. I was fully ready to pay him to do it but he took care of it for me, free of charge. That's going above and beyond

Nice! I was going to be really bummed if I had to go back to stock, the new faces have really cleaned up the cluster.

[318aye]

Haven't really done much other than drive the car periodically recently. Got another ticket, so I finally pulled the trigger on a Valentine V1. I was really silly and ended up goofing the wiring a few times. Fortunately it seems the V1 has inverse polarity protection :P.

My goal was to pull 12V off the check panel pins (soldering to where the meet the board trace) rather than tapping the actual harness itself. However, I convinced myself that that method hadn't worked when in reality, I just cut off the wrong end of a pre-terminated RJ11 cable. They're straight through cables, so if you bring one end around to meet the other, the pin order is reversed. I was staring at a full cable (testing using the cigarette lighter) and seeing functionality, while the cable I built for the check panel actually had an opposite pin order.

While on this learning adventure, I ripped the pads off my current check panel. I repaired this by scraping the trace, and soldering in a jumper to restore connection to the pin. Rather than really booger all that up again, I tapped the lines going into the check panel pre-connector for now (the standard method, really), and I'm waiting on a new Hella check panel (the Bosch units don't open up easily). Once I restore those two wires to stock, I'll put the connector shroud back on, get a smaller gauge inline fuse, and redo the wiring so that everything other than the check panel is stock.

The final result (once I fix everything...again):


Pin 9 GND, Pin 23 SW 12V


Current end result:




I also had a bum window switch crop up recently. These are super easy to rebuild. I ended up swapping in a bulb from another switch, but after re-bending and cleaning the contacts it works like new.





My airbox has begun to rub a bit. I'm going to tighten the driver's side motor mount a bit more and see if I can get clearance back.



The car will be getting a new set of sway bars soon, I'm thinking IE. I think I'll forego the weld in front subframe and trailing arm reinforcements for now, but those are on the horizon as well. I have a set of stainless lines that have been sitting on the shelf for too long too.

[2mAn]

The V1 is a wonderful investment. I bought one back in the early 2000s kept my ass out of so many tickets that it paid for itself 10x over. Sold it maybe 2 years ago for 75% of what I paid 10+ years ago. Of course, I did get my first ticket in years a few months ago, but a V1 wouldnt have saved me anyways. Im a little more mature now and only act like an idiot very rarely haha

[318aye]

Fixed a few issues today. The box had been rubbing a tad on the hood liner, and the headers were contacting the chassis slightly which was wearing away the seamsealer.

I tossed 1/8" worth of washer between the hood and the rear hood attachment point. This added another 2-3mm of clearance per the playdoh test...we'll see how it holds up. Additional panel gap isn't really noticeable. I'll stick with this if it ends up keeping the box off the hood.

The chassis had a spot of surface rust. Wire wheeled that off, and sealed it with high temp black engine enamel. I then cut a panel of DEI heat tape to cover the area. Overall, I'm happy with the repair and the heat panel should keep the rest of the area intact. I ended up massaging the header to prevent further issues. This should allow me to keep my 80A poly mounts which I vastly prefer over 95A and above. Was able to hold off on getting them coated too, as they cleaned up pretty well with some mag polish.

Before:





After:

[Northern]

I really like that washer idea... I may be stealing that for ventilation purposes.

[318aye]

So no matter what I try, the airbox still manages to rub on the hood :(. I've pulled it until I can figure out a better solution. In the mean time, the trumpets sound great :). I'm going to powdercoat them, probably to match the valve cover. The car felt unfinished lately, so I'm working on cleaning up a few items. The cluster, shifter and interior will be going back to stock, I have a line on a set of sport seats that I'll try and restore along with an MT1 steering wheel. I have yet to have a cluster overlay last more than 4 months, and I'd rather not keep something poorly executed. I'm also looking at having the rear section of the exhaust toned down a bit, and switched over to a dual outlet to fill the valence properly.

Got the IE front bar in this evening, the oversteer is pretty controllable with the endlink on the middle setting. I'll probably leave it like this for a while and get used to the car again.