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

[ForcedFirebird]

Love the bamboo stands.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Progress moving quickly now.


Quick comparison to validate that the struts are actually symmetrical. Never did that before...



Prepped for blasting.



My awesome wife surprise rented me a manual cayman for my birthday since she knew how bad I'd been aching to go for a mountain drive since I haven't driven the E30 in a number of weeks. It's pretty quick! I can definitely see how these cars make great track cars/sports cars with some choice mods.



Blasted more hardware.



Organic home grown bamboo spray booth



Expanded the bamboo spray booth :D



Parts laid out very close to assembling... just need to replace the ball joints and paint the control arms.



One joint definitely needed replacement. It was flopping around. Kinda weird but you can see a distinct difference between the two. One on the left looks almost like it got very hot... the joint has a blue discoloration while the other doesn't. Both have nearly the same mileage on them. Both are oem lemforder brand. The one on the right was still nice and stiff/solid.



Had to make some tools to press the joints out. Luckily I had some old axle nuts that were just the right size, tube, washers, welder... bam I've got a custom control arm ball joint press tool. Also replaced the bearings int he coilover top spring mounts. One of them was binding.

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[Blake B]

Glad to see someone reviewing these fenders. Their ads are blowing up my instagram feed and I've been looking into them for my e30 and 2002.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

You are half way to this with that diff cover..
https://racecarsdirect.com/Advert/De...minium-436-dif


Can you link where to get those bump steer parts from GC. I have never seen them before.

great build

Glad you're enjoying.

HA maybe hardware speaking I'm halfway there, but certainly not cost! That thing is listed for $5k

here's the bump steer kit: https://groundcontrolstore.com/colle...table-tie-rods

It's not specifically listed for an E30, but depending on which model/control arms you have it will work. Looks like they also redesigned it because my kit doesn't match the photos.

[Motheye99]

You are half way to this with that diff cover..
https://racecarsdirect.com/Advert/De...minium-436-dif


Can you link where to get those bump steer parts from GC. I have never seen them before.

great build

[Sh3rpak!ng]

nice! i'm thinking of going with a full angle kit from slr and ditching the e46 lca's finally, so whenever I do that I'll have to do some measurements and then pick your brain, but i'm thinking 90mm might be what i'll need up front.

yea I could see how you'd need the 90mm flare with an angle kit. Also really depends on tires. I'm running a 15x10 wheel with a 245/40 tire which is a bit smaller diameter than say 16x9 with 225/45

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Progress. Cut and drilled some aluminum spacers for swaybar mounting to improve exhaust to swaybar clearance. Got a little overzealous with how many I made... looks like I only need 2 on each side which will provide a few MMs clearance between exhaust-swaybar-control arms.




Need to trim the corners to make them look nice.



Here's the x3 stack installed... loads of exhaust clearance, but the control arm won't fit. 2 spacers seems perfect.



Tack welded the control arm ball joints



Noticed that the ground control tapered bolt looked familiar.... I actually bought an allstar brand part ages ago trying to test parts to make my own bump steer kit. Looks like GC uses the same part. I could potentially use the longer piece to give more adjustment if I needed.. there's plenty of wheel clearance.



Here it is sitting in the arm.



New set of fender flares arrived from Russia. Jumboo brand. They're nice pieces. Fit the E30 arches very well. These were one of the very few flares I could find in 70mm size and classic style that didn't look like total chinese crap. They have a protective clear film over the outer surface. The finished surface is a very nice matte raw black abs. I will paint them bronzit once I've fitted them. Picking up another set of clean fenders to work with too.







Made some mods to the blast cabinet and its working well. Tested on one of the spindles. Getting close to completion of this whole runaway project...

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[s14brent]

nice! i'm thinking of going with a full angle kit from slr and ditching the e46 lca's finally, so whenever I do that I'll have to do some measurements and then pick your brain, but i'm thinking 90mm might be what i'll need up front.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I looked up that jumdoo company, and I'm going to try to remember this for my 4door because I sold all my KAmotors flares after I ditched my iX and decided not to cut up my iS...
The longer I look at my 4dr, the more I realize I'm not motivated to fix it into a "daily".

yea they lay down nice and flat, are very flexible, and apparently can take some heat to help contour them. Free shipping is nice too (though I paid the express shipping because I couldn't wait a few weeks)

[Northern]

I looked up that jumdoo company, and I'm going to try to remember this for my 4door because I sold all my KAmotors flares after I ditched my iX and decided not to cut up my iS...
The longer I look at my 4dr, the more I realize I'm not motivated to fix it into a "daily".

[Sh3rpak!ng]

cool, just keep me posted!

Did you have to make new holes/rivnuts to mount up the clinched flares? I bought some 50mm ebay flares, and they are complete utter garbage. (def not 50mm either).

Will do. Yes, I will eventually need to mount with new holes/rivnuts. I started with a set of the clinched flares, but the 90mm I bought is too big by about an inch - though quality and fit are great! Then I got 2 sets of cheapo flares off ebay - both with different dimensions and both were not only not matching stated dimensions, they were the exact same china flares... so now I ordered a set of 70mm flares from this russian company called Jumdoo. Got them this past week, and they're perfect! Fit and finish are superb. Seeing if I can pick up another set of fenders to start fresh with.

[s14brent]

Thanks! I might be selling them later. First I want to try them out on my E36 since I'm looking to actually lower the rates on that car.

cool, just keep me posted!

Did you have to make new holes/rivnuts to mount up the clinched flares? I bought some 50mm ebay flares, and they are complete utter garbage. (def not 50mm either).

[Sh3rpak!ng]

man that's fresh. i've been meaning to upgrade my spring rates, at least the rears...if you want to get rid of the standard length 10k's shoot me a pm!!

Thanks! I might be selling them later. First I want to try them out on my E36 since I'm looking to actually lower the rates on that car.

[s14brent]

man that's fresh. i've been meaning to upgrade my spring rates, at least the rears...if you want to get rid of the standard length 10k's shoot me a pm!!

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Progress.

Replaced my cheap HF tap and die set after nearly destroying one of the swaybar links attempting to thread it with an old beat tap. Apparently they have a lifetime warranty though so I'll still exchange it and use it to chase threads rather than cut them.




Test fitting new flares... these are the clinched classic 90mm (3.5") flares. They're actually an excellent fit and very nice product, just too wide!! I wish they made a 70mm (2.75") but the next size down is 50mm which is about the same as the kamotors flares they're replacing. Good to know there's a flare option that'll accommodate another inch of wheel/tire!



Compared to the old flares



Front view. Looks pretty badass. Oh well. Ordered some cheap ebay china flares to see if they're any better.... this may be an irritating trial and error process.



Prepped the trailing arms for blasting. Did my best to seal off the bearings because I didn't want to take them apart. We'll see how well that works or if they get jacked up with sand in them. I'm sure I'll know pretty quickly.



Perches blasted and painted.



Perch bases blasted and pained.



More parts arrive! Settled on 25mm spacers all around. 23mm was the minimum needed to allow the wheel to clear the front strut. These motorsport hardware pieces are quite nice.

FRSport/swift finally drop shipped the springs - 10kg and 6" length. Same rate as before, just longer, and also 60mm ID. Added benefit that the front and rear springs are now the exact same dimensions, and also identical to my E36. Might be swapping some spare springs around shortly.

Lastly, half of the ground control roll center/bump steer kit arrived. Actually the more important half since I need to remove the control arms to replace the outer ball joint with this special spherical bearing and stud. The adjustable tie rods should arrive soon... had a small delay due to covid and their local heat treat shop.



Here is one of the arms painted and assembly mocked up! Looks fresh! (I installed the AKG TA bushings too).

Next up are the front struts to get blasted and painted (should I do boring black? Yellow? Red?), spacers/mods around the front swaybar to help clear the exhaust, diff case blasted and LSD refresh, some rock guard, final flare decision, rest of the tires mounted, install all the parts, alignment, done!




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