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

[Sh3rpak!ng]

dis gonna b gud

Oh god.... I got the popcorn smiley... trust me I thought the same thing to myself as I was man handling the hole saw

[Digitalwave]

dis gonna b gud

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Committed.

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[Sh3rpak!ng]

Interested to see how the articulating joints play out. I know our spring location is not ideal, but won't the articulating joints mean you have to use an even shorter spring (that will have less travel and more chance of coil bind)?

FWIW I haven't had any coil bind with 5" Eibach ERS springs in the rear.

Yes and no. If I were just to slap it on flat against the existing spring landing, I could use the same spring and have more or less the same travel (actually a bit less since the articulating cone ends up a bit taller than the tallest point of the standard coilover rear adjuster at my current ride height). With my old setup, I noticed marks on the tip of the top nylon spring pad cone indicating that the bottom adjuster had bumped it. I also see marks on the spring between 2-3 coils where they've contacted. What I plan to do is to actually recess the base of the articulating assembly about 1 inch into the trailing arm and then use a 1 inch longer spring. I think that should help me end up with an additional inch or so of travel and give me a bit of leeway to adjust up/down. Probably will end up adjusting up a bit because I'm planning on running a wheel/tire combo thats a bit shorter than current. Hopefully that explanation makes sense...

[Digitalwave]

Interested to see how the articulating joints play out. I know our spring location is not ideal, but won't the articulating joints mean you have to use an even shorter spring (that will have less travel and more chance of coil bind)?

FWIW I haven't had any coil bind with 5" Eibach ERS springs in the rear.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Painted the double ear diff mount and spare tire delete. Upgraded my workbench with a 1/4" steel top (made it +3" larger in each direction to squeeze a bit more surface out of it). Realized I had 5 different cans of underbody spray, so I did a test to compare them all. Started fussing with the trailing arms again... passenger side requires a different style reinforcement to clear the fuel filler hose. I think I'm going to go back to my original idea of modding the TA to accept these slick ground control pivoting height adjusters since I haven't been able to find off the shelf components to convert my rear shocks to true coilover. And truth be told I really dont feel like pulling the rest of the trunk apart to do reinforcements etc etc. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[ForcedFirebird]

I think you may be confusing my usage for it. Were you thinking I was straight up tapping the OE front spindle sleeve? I needed to chase threads in the front spindle coilover sleeves (that were welded on) after I unscrewed the shock cartridge and had some galled threads due to a bit of rust. I am runnign megan coilovers, and the front shock cartridge is 100% an M50x1.5 thread. Otherwise this wouldn't have worked :D

Yup, exactly. Now it makes sense how you already ran the tap through. ;) When doing the GC style coils, I just run the tap in and cut the top off to avoid a butt weld on the strut tube.

[2mAn]

I also cut out the sheet disk for the spare tire delete. Prepped and welded it in along with a cross bar for support.



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so much room for activities!

[Sh3rpak!ng]

50mm tap? I want to say it's 48mm. The OD is 51mm, then adding 1.5 threads puts the wall thickness pretty thin on the thread majors. I have one at the shop, but already left for the day. :(

I think you may be confusing my usage for it. Were you thinking I was straight up tapping the OE front spindle sleeve? I needed to chase threads in the front spindle coilover sleeves (that were welded on) after I unscrewed the shock cartridge and had some galled threads due to a bit of rust. I am runnign megan coilovers, and the front shock cartridge is 100% an M50x1.5 thread. Otherwise this wouldn't have worked :D

[ForcedFirebird]

50mm tap? I want to say it's 48mm. The OD is 51mm, then adding 1.5 threads puts the wall thickness pretty thin on the thread majors. I have one at the shop, but already left for the day. :(

[Sh3rpak!ng]

More progress. Some steps forward and backward. Got the massive m50x1.5 tap from China to chase threads in the front coilover housings. Did that and everything threads nice and smoothly again.





CAD templated the brackets for the double ear diff mount and transferred from cardboard, to metal, to cut, to welded. Not by best welding work but had a hell of a time with the angle and my mig welder slipping while feeding the .024 wire.






Then I broke the fresh diff cover while pressing out the bushings... I was rushing and working in the dark (late after work, too lazy to drag the press into the garage light) the edge of the cover caught a bolt on the press... oh well. Already bought another off ebay.



Went to thread the swaybar end links and realized these lemforder brand ones have a 9mm shaft vs the 10mm shaft of the meyle HD brand... ordered a set of meyle HD and confirmed they're 10mm. That should solve that dilemma.









I also cut out the sheet disk for the spare tire delete. Prepped and welded it in along with a cross bar for support.



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[Sh3rpak!ng]

My E36 has true coilover rears, they run very small springs. 2" ID I believe. Most run a helper spring as well to keep the spring from uncoupling with the mount at full droop. Besides the obvious need to reinforce the shock tower and making sure you have a very strong bottom bolt (I'd go grade 12.9 personally) there isn't much to it other than the lost wheel/tire clearance.

You'll want to calculate the spring rate change carefully. This article has good information about the motion ratios on an E30. Read the whole thing, it's two pages, and the correct motion ratios are on page 2.

http://e30sport.net/tech_articles/su...e/eff_rate.htm

I don't know what the rear wheel rate would be after making the conversion, though.

Awesome! Thank you for that article. I was going to attempt the rough calculation myself (I still remember a decent amount of highschool physics) but I'm definitely out of practice. This makes it easier!

What brand springs do you have?

Swift

[The Dark Side of Will]

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What brand springs do you have?

[Digitalwave]

My E36 has true coilover rears, they run very small springs. 2" ID I believe. Most run a helper spring as well to keep the spring from uncoupling with the mount at full droop. Besides the obvious need to reinforce the shock tower and making sure you have a very strong bottom bolt (I'd go grade 12.9 personally) there isn't much to it other than the lost wheel/tire clearance.

You'll want to calculate the spring rate change carefully. This article has good information about the motion ratios on an E30. Read the whole thing, it's two pages, and the correct motion ratios are on page 2.

http://e30sport.net/tech_articles/su...e/eff_rate.htm

I don't know what the rear wheel rate would be after making the conversion, though.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Seems light-years easier. Does that restrict tires size/offset?

I think the true coils in the rear checks out, just not sure how the tire clearance works as iansane pointed out.

Thanks for the sanity check. Yes it'll rob some wheel/tire clearance. I'll need to carefully measure for sure. But with the flares (and larger flares coming) I've got quite a lot of space in the rear. If I remember correctly there was over an inch with the bronze rotas. I need to check witht he new joengbloeds but I also recall having ample space with them too.

Good to see people also getting on the E36 diff hat swap band wagon. About to finish welding mine up this weekend hopefully

I'll post up my finished product soon. It's rock solid. And honestly not that tough to do if you're handy with a welder and angle grinder.