Bronzit E30 - OBDII S52 shaved bay - weekend/autox toy - Journey

[2mAn]

Looks like another Mishimoto Radiator warranty claim...

[MR E30 325is]

Always excellent work, as usual!

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Damn. Didnt realize its been 2 months since I last updated. Lots to share. As usual the tapatalk photo upload is going to put them all out of order... I'll go back and edit with more comments later. See if you can guess the projects.



Bracket for mounting the dead pedal. It sandwiches the aluminum.




Driver panel getting finished. Monster countersink to mount the allen countersink bolts flush. Delrin to make stand-offs.






Went for a drive





Reminder of how nice the engine bay looks




Cockpit looking fresh




Small garage upgrade. Added a compressed air regulator and filter to the workbench with short hose for using air tools at the bench rather than tripping myself on my big hose. Put a mig torch holder too.




Small house project. Made floating shelves from some walnut wood. Put a bevel to match our "mid-century modern" style




More engine bay




More garage updates. Hung more air tools. And those are the floating shelved pre-finish




Finally time to replace my OG revshift swap mounts. I think they served me well over ~7years getting baked by the header. I know many have had their complaints/issue with revshift, but my experience was great. The mounts fit perfect.




Bigger photo of the whole workbench area. Really starting to come together.




Mishimoto radiator leaking... been slowly getting worse over the past 1-2 year. Not sure who's fault, mine or theirs. I had coolant pressure issues years ago. Good news is that it took 4 days, no questions asked and I already got a warrantied replacement.




So careful draining coolant not spilling a drop...... and then I kicked the bucket over when I shoved the jack under the car not looking...... DOH!!




Ground down the welds on my header to make it look a little more pretty




Leaking coolant extension drain. I'm just going to put a plug back in the block. This was really tight against the headers.




Little out of order, but this was pre grind



Repeat photo? Looks cool?




Final grinding on headers after the new flex joint was welded in place. Finger sander is a weapon.




Here's why I bothered grinding. Ceramic coated the headers inside and out. Also had the engine arms powdercoated silver.




Started making fender liners from spare 1/8" ABS




Inside the header ceramic copper










Pre-fender liner. ABS unit gone. Much more space.

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[Sh3rpak!ng]

Looking good.
Pro tip, the wiring harness that's between the seat and the trans tunnel for the windows can be moved outta the way for a cleaner look. It can be routed through the channel in the chassis with the rest of the wire bundle then fed behind through the knee panel.
I did it when I gutted one of my old cars.

Thanks - yea I noticed that while I was organizing it. I was getting impatient with the whole process and just opted to clean it up and leave it as is for now. I'll reroute it sometime in the future. Like if I ever get around to spray coat the floors with lizardskin heat/sound deadening....

[amcp]

Looking good.
Pro tip, the wiring harness that's between the seat and the trans tunnel for the windows can be moved outta the way for a cleaner look. It can be routed through the channel in the chassis with the rest of the wire bundle then fed behind through the knee panel.
I did it when I gutted one of my old cars.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Finished bundling and tucking wires. Finished the driver floor plate. Made a dead pedal. I am pleased with how the interior is turning out. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Sh3rpak!ng]

You can thank me for those Condor rocker wiring covers

Can't say as though I agree with removing the ABS, given your use of the car. Do you plan to run without it, or to swap in the MK60 system now?

Ha! Good man. I had a feeling you might've had something to do with it. You have my thanks.

As for ABS - here's my rationale:

- I don't have the budget right now to either refurbish the original system, or do the MK60 upgrade (nor do I have the time or interest to take on such a large scale project at the moment)
- The ABS system currently is not working at all
- My brakes are not performing as they should (and this is likely due to non functional ABS)

So given the choice between keeping non-functional ABS + underperforming brakes OR no ABS and good brakes, I'll at least take a fully operational brake system for the time being. So yea, I'll be running without it for a while. I very rarely drive it on the street these days, and when I do it's just an early morning canyon run + local cars and coffee. If I were driving it more regularly in traffic I'd be more concerned. Besides... I know a handful of porsche guys driving old 911s without it :p

[Digitalwave]

You can thank me for those Condor rocker wiring covers

Can't say as though I agree with removing the ABS, given your use of the car. Do you plan to run without it, or to swap in the MK60 system now?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Nice update. Let me ask - how do you like the Nankangs?
How do you like them compared to R888R, or NT01, or A050 or whatever you used previously?

Grip?
Heat cycle tolerance?
Life?
Pressures they seem happy at?
Progressive?

I like them a lot so far compared to the R888R. It's kinda hard for me to provide an apples to apples comparison because I changed so many variables at the same time I went to a new tire (wheel size, tire size, suspension geometry, alignment, differential upgrade). I bought them from a local tire dealer who specializes in distribution of autocross/track tires (200 tw and lower) who were part of the development testing of the tire for nankang. They documented objective evidence of the tire out lasting and out gripping the r888 on our local tracks via quicker lap times. So far I've been running them at 30psi rear and 32psi front, but I'd say I still haven't found the ideal configuration. Tire wear on the shoulders seems to indicate I'm not quite taking advantage of the full contact patch and probably could drop another 2psi. Or I need to adjust camber. Probably will pickup a tire pyrometer to help better assess. As far as heat cycles - too early to tell. I've only done two autocrosses so far. The R888s I had prior heat cycled out before the tread was gone. I have not driven on the NT01 or A050. I would characterize the loss of grip as progressive, but within a small window (if that makes sense).

Been to you thread every time you update it .
awesome work ! You are so commited to your car !
its good to see someone passionate put so much time and effort into it !

keep the good work

very nice car too !

Thanks! It's the way I approach everything... as long as I see an opportunity to improve that I think I am capable of executing, I can't help myself but to do it or at least to try. And I just love building and making things. I get uncomfortable when I don't have a multitude of projects queued up in my mind (for the car or anything really). I am planning to slow the E30 work over the next few months though to focus on building my truck, and leaving the E30 intact to enjoy driving it (as long as I don't break it).

[Iloveboost]

Been to you thread every time you update it .
awesome work ! You are so commited to your car !
its good to see someone passionate put so much time and effort into it !

keep the good work

very nice car too !

[burkey001]

Nice update. Let me ask - how do you like the Nankangs?
How do you like them compared to R888R, or NT01, or A050 or whatever you used previously?

Grip?
Heat cycle tolerance?
Life?
Pressures they seem happy at?
Progressive?

[Sh3rpak!ng]

More more more photos.... and now caught up


Templated the passenger side floor plate CAD!




First plate cut. Yes I still need to cut out the accelerator pedal slot. I think I will eventually have these powdercoated semigloss black.




On to another minor project. ABS removal and deletion. In hindsight I think I've actually never had fully operational ABS in this car. I've felt it kick in only a small handful of times, and not actually in a hard braking situation, but going over a bump with brake depressed? Anyway, I have a strong suspicion i've been driving with a compromised or totally non functional ABS unit. After much more researching I learned that a common failure mode is for the ABS unit to impede general flow and/or cut flow to the rear brakes. So I have made the executive decision to remove it completely. Especially after learning the cos tto have it refurbished, and replace the wheel speed sensors at ~1500 all in... I'd rather try to implement the teves MK60 standalone 4 channel abs system from the e46 m3.

It was satisfying to just snip all of the brake lines off this thing and drop it out.




Picked up a fancy brake line flare tool. I'll need this for flaring brake lines on my truck too. Old style bubble flares also make nice hose barbs.




Got all my tools and supplies lined up. This is why I keep supplies like brake line and flare nuts on hand so I can randomly decide to launch a project like this without any forward planning.




Modified a tee to fit the tight quarters




Here we are finished and I didn't stop to snap a decent photo of all my hard work and the pretty lines I bent




And lastly, something frustrating. Vibrant bellows cracked off my exhaust header.... I don't think that should've happened. I positioned the piece so that it saw no more stress than anything normal for expansion/contraction of metal and vibration through the length of the exhaust setup while driving. There's even an additional flex joint 2 feet downstream after the Y merge to further insulate the headers from any vibration or flex and specifically avoid straining the header. At least I am not crazy thinking I was hearing an exhaust leak....









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[Sh3rpak!ng]

More more photos


For anyone familiar with LA and the Sunday malibu "cars and coffee" scene at the malibu market.... did an early wednesday morning drive and was able to easily park in the "royal" spot in front of malibu country mart




Another photo of the bling accelerator pedal mounted




Now the automotive OCD is kicking in full force. I have been wanting to make some sort of black ABS cover for the wire harnesses running along the door sill since it is exposed and ugly without the carpet. Luckily I found that condor already makes the part, so I saved myself the trouble of templating and cutting myself. Then jumped right into bundling the wires to fit inside the small channel. I made this extra tough for myself with the addition of 6 channel RCA cables running to the amp in the trunk. I ended up more or less un wrapping all of it, stripping out a few unneeded wires (e-brake, seat belt, rear ash tray light) and rebundling it tight and shaped to fit the trapezoidal channel. It's a tight fit but it's snug. OCD is very satisfied.





Small project here I never attended to. Harness bar collars to stop the belts from spreading. These things are unreasonably expensive in aluminum. Amazon carries some inexpensive steel versions.




After scraping off the driver floor sound deadening we see some surface rust. I have known it was there for a while. There's a leak somewhere I can't pinpoint that drains water into the footwell when it rains/car gets washed (I don't ever leave it out in the rain anymore, rarely out of the garage). I wire wheeled this all to get the flaking paint/rust cleaned up.




Making some headway on the harness bundling. Slid one of the covers in place just to see what it would look like. Nice. Wire bundling is a pain in the ass.




Decided to paint the driver/passenger footwells while everything was apart and exposed. This is another item off the to-do list that's been bugging me for a while. Workbench was a disaster mess for a day. I ended up mixing some white and black rustoleum targeting a dark grey result... well, I am not really a pro paint mixer and the color came out bluish grey. I guess black tends to have more blue pigment than anything else which is revealed when mixed with white? In hindsight I could've started with grey rustoleum and tinted it with black. Oh well. I used what I had on hand.




I brushed and rolled it on wayyyyyy too thick. Took several days to dry with a space heater on it.



While paint was drying I worked on some other items. Started preparing the passenger side for paint and templating the false floors. CAD FTW!



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[Sh3rpak!ng]

More photos


Time for another autocross with the porsche club again. Very fast course this time. But the car feels good with the stiffer springs. Threw down some quick times again, but started to notice some other weak points. Two major ones stood out. First, my rear brakes are not working. After a couple of "back to back" 70s runs, front brakes were actually smoking, and clearly the rear did next to nothing. Ok - I have noticed brake issues before but now is the worst. Tiem to address that... more later. The second weak point is definitely me! After regaining my confidence in the car, I was back to my old ways of over driving. Mostly braking too late and blowing the racing line for the corner. After I resolve the rear brake issue my focus will be on myself and seat time (with soem minor aesthetic projects sprinkled in!)

Edit: for timeline continuity - autox happened after the pedal box was done and reassembled, but before I started really working on the driver/passenger floor plats and harness covers










Here is the pedal box after blasting and with all of the reinforcement pieces I hand cut. Reinforcing the base plate (since it now has a bunch of extra holes and is much weaker than original), the left side where the clutch master bolts into place, and a flying buttress over the 4th bolt hole that was previously inaccessible because it was flush up against the bracket (I clearanced the bracket)




Here are all the supplies pre-modification. New pedal covers, bushings, accelerator bracket, accelerator pedal, clutch return spring etc.




Pedals blasted and sprayed with weld through primer. The reinforcing strips off to the side. I noticed that it appeared the "walls" of the stamped brake pedal were starting to bow out so this eradicates that potential. On the clutch pedal I noticed the ever so slight indication of a crack starting to emerge at the weld to the pivot, I also noticed the pedal had ever so slight a flex when pressed (super heavy clutch putting much larger forces through the pedal and linkages).




Pedals welded up.




DIY accelerator pedal looking bling!




This was how I cut the hole through the baseplate pedal box reinforcement... it was very loud. And messy.




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[Sh3rpak!ng]

Photo upload attempt #2


My pedal box was a bit mangled from when someone modified it in order to fit the S52..... that someone was me, and I had clearly not yet developed the skills of accuracy in measurements that I possess now (nor did I even own the tools to be fair)




I could only bolt 3 of 4 studs while the pedal box was in the car due to one of the redrilled holes lining up against the frame of the bracket (see picture below). Because of this, and the many stiffer components now in use, I am putting much harder forces through the pedal box. I figure between the missing nut and the larger forces, this allowed the pedal box to flex and warp. The baseplate is twisted - you can see the gap below. Before I went through any modding, I bent things back into shape.



Some small detail items... wiper arms were totally chewed up and pitted. Sandblasted and painted them.



I also replaced the covers over the bolt




And replaced the cowl vents






Here I am almost done stripping the old tar sound deadening. Got lucky with it basically peeling off.




While my 5 year old DIY accelerator pedal was out, I took the opportunity to spend unnecessary time making it look fancy. Which snowballed into me getting irritated that my drill press had some wobble in it and proceeding to disassemble the entire thing and do maintenance on it.




Drill press maintenance... cleaned and lubed everything and replaced the chuck and the clock spring. It's running super smooth and much more true to center. Probably as good as it will get for being a used $80 drill press off of craigslist.







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