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

[rzerob]

Your car motivates me to work on the 100+ parts I have waiting for my car.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Your car motivates me to work on the 100+ parts I have waiting for my car.

Hahaha and as much as I work on mine, I STILL have like 20-30 parts waiting to be installed.


Painted the core support and hood mechanism and finished the front harness up to the connectors. I'd like to replace all of the plugs and leads since they're all falling apart before I finish that for good. Also I don't like the look of the current catch can plumbing so I'll probably install the custom piece I had made a while ago and run AN fittings/hose for a clean look.





Changed the MC yet again to a 20/20 MC which believe it or not was listed on realoem right under the PN for the original 17/22 MC. Funny story about buying it: BMA quoted me $170 for a new ate unit which at this point I didn't want to spend. I found a PN for a cardone reman at NAPA for $70. Went to order it and the guy mentioned that the NAPA brand has a brand new one for $65 with a lifetime warranty. So I figured I'd give it a try. I go pick it up, open the box and what do I find? A brand new ate MC!! Apparently in some cases, NAPA buys straight from the manufacturer :D so I got is for $58 after my aaa 10% parts discount. SCORE







Impressions are very good. I think this is the MC I'll stick with. Gave me a bit more pedal travel and a little less effort over the 22/22 which is what I was looking for. At this point I'll probably play with different pads and adjust the pedal ratio to finish the fine tuning. Also I'm sure it needs to be bled again.

Also finally got the front wheel speed sensors hooked up for the ABS and IT WORKS!!! and it feels great!! I am very very pleased with this. On both sides, nothing had to be extended which was nice. Driver side I routed up the top of the wheel well (it'll be covered by the splash guard), put 2 holes in that flange and zip tied it in place. Passenger side just routed straight ahead with plenty of slack.




Here's the connector. I replaced the oem connecter with a weatherpack when it disintegrated about a year ago. Exposed wires are for the exterior temp sensor. Haven't gotten around to that yet. Not really a priority. It got ripped off at an autox some time ago when the brake duct popped out mid run





I have problems :(





This past weekend was quite a weekend. If anyone saw in the news there was a fairly large fire up in Topanga Canyon where I live. Came within a mile of my residence. I was out at the beach and tried to get back to throw stuff in my car, but by then it had spread and my place was under mandatory evacuation and the whole canyon was roadblocked. That was pretty terrifying. One change to the wind could've meant the canyon would burn to the beach. I stayed at a friends for the night and we hit supercar sunday plus the huntington beach concours in the meantime. Two P1s showed up at supercar sunday for the McLaren marque day. I will be disappointed every time until I see an F1. Mr. Leno are you listening??





Ahead of the autox I'll attend Saturday, I decided it was time for a rubber upgrade. My rears were nearly bald and the bfg sport comp 2s can't hold my power for shit. 1st gear has been spin city from the start, as well as half of second. Since this car is strictly a weekend/event car now, I don't feel bad about doing stickier tires :devil: Decided to give the dunlop direzza zII star specs a try. Chose the 225/45r16 size because I like meat!!





I was a little worried I would have to get aggressive with the fender roller (nbd really) but after mounting the wheels for a test fit I see it may not be so bad. Front's need the inner lip rolled (since these are "new" fenders) and maybe a slight pull just to be safe. Rears were tight with the 5mm spacer, but after I pulled one off, looks like it'll just need some very minor rolling to be safe. If I can get away with putting the 5mm spacer back I will because it matches the front a little better.

Front



Rear with 5mm spacer

[2mAn]

So jealous I cant join you this weekend

[Sh3rpak!ng]

So jealous I cant join you this weekend

Next time buddy, next time for sure

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[EazyWorks]

Those corbeau seats are exactly what I'm wanting for my build. Build looks great.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Those corbeau seats are exactly what I'm wanting for my build. Build looks great.

Thanks! They are really nice seats. But for the price, if I did it over again I think I'd find a set of beat sport seats and have them reupholstered. I think it'd probably wind up the same, or close.

[whitebulat22]

Thanks! They are really nice seats. But for the price, if I did it over again I think I'd find a set of beat sport seats and have them reupholstered. I think it'd probably wind up the same, or close.

I think you made a good call. Huge positive difference support wise for me switching from old sport seats to old Recaros.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I think you made a good call. Huge positive difference support wise for me switching from old sport seats to old Recaros.

I meant to say I'd find a set of beat recaros and have them reupholstered, not spot seats [emoji14]

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[rzerob]

I have a set of E21 Recaro's and they are night and day difference than the sports seats. I definitely recommend them. Don't get leather though. I tend to slide in mine just a little.

And thanks to you and your car motivating me I got done a lot of work to mine. It is at least drivable now. But I just got a tracking number for my coil overs so it will be going back up on jack stands soon.

[2mAn]

ummm where are the autox updates???

[Sh3rpak!ng]

ummm where are the autox updates???

Coming :)

Short version: very very good

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[Trev]

Absolutely awesome stuff man. Thoroughly enjoyed reading through this. Keep up the good work. My desire for an e30 grows stronger..

[2mAn]

Coming :)

Short version: very very good

:coolphoto::rippedoff:

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Absolutely awesome stuff man. Thoroughly enjoyed reading through this. Keep up the good work. My desire for an e30 grows stronger..

Thank you! Don't worry, it never ends :D Just buy one. Even bone stock it's a hell of a lot of fun.

:coolphoto::rippedoff:

And as quickly as I gained simon's support, I lost it. How dare you whip out the bronzit emoji on me like that if you were at that autox you would've seen it all first hand



Anyway, I took a very much needed vacation away from everything.Work, cars, the traffic, the blazing heat... I needed it more than I realized.

So, now for the overdue autox report. First half of the day was not very nice. It kinda drizzled so the course was wet which didn't lead to very good times or much fun especially since I was learning my new setup. It was cool to experience aggressive driving on a wet surface though. That opportunity doesn't come often. I didn't spin anywhere :P but my engine bay got very dirty - oh well. This car is meant to be driven first, clean is a couple points down the list. I do intend to fashion some sort of undertray (alumalite?) for the front end though since a lot of dirt/dust/debris gets kicked up into the bay in general.

Luckily it dried out for my afternoon runs so I got a chance to really push it and MANNNNNN did it feel so damn good!!! Brakes still need a little tweaking, much more aggressive rear pads would help quite a bit I'm sure, maybe more aggressive front pads as well. Probably need to bleed everything again since I did a very rushed bleed after swapping the master. Also I want to play with the brake pedal ratio a bit - thinking of going for a slightly stiffer ratio. I originally set it up with the softest ratio fearing it would be too stiff.

One small issue I encountered was some bad lifter tick after the last few hard runs. It progressively got worse after each run, sounds like 2 lifters sticking. I have a baffle in the pan, the oil was topped off, and it was new (I use rotella t6) so it's not starvation or low oil (also have a VERY blinding red warning light - in addition to the oem - light which didn't flash). It's also not oil overheating as the oil temp held at a tick above 200. So I think it's just the infamous s52 lifter tick due to old lifters. I plan to have my cams reground for a more aggressive profile and intend to replace the offending lifters and clean/bleed/flush the rest which should take care of it. After letting the car idle and driving it home, the lifter tick was gone. It only manifests after very hard driving.

Now to the car's/my performance. The fastest times of the day were around 57s and I managed to pull two consecutive 60s runs for the 4th and 5th runs out of 7. The last 2 runs were a bit slower as I felt the tires slipping a bit more than they did for the earlier runs, I'm thinking at that point maybe they were getting overworked? Perhaps one of those water sprayers would've helped keep tire temp down. The last run was a total bomb, I pushed a little too hard and was all over the place. Probably was fun for the course workers to watch :D For those last runs I dropped a second on each pass as I was getting more familiar with the brakes/tires. First was a 63, 2nd was 62, 3rd was 61, and 4th/5th were 60s. I think with more runs to familiarize the course, more seat time, and improving the brakes, I'll easily come down a bit more. At this point, the biggest limiting factor is probably the driver since the car clearly has a lot of potential. Believe it or not, I can still count the times I've autoxed on my two hands. And I think I've only gone 4 times with this car now (not including a big willow track day mostly stock and I didn't know what to do). Once when it was pretty much stock, twice right after I finished the swap, and this past event.

To put it in perspective, the porsche next to me was doing 61s (dunno how good the driver was), an e90 m3 was also doing 61s (again, don't know driver skill), and a stripped e30 with an s54 and some very wide slicks was putting down 57s. I still have a full interior plus a sub box in the trunk



Snapped only a few photos because I was so concentrated on the event. There were some pretty cool cars though, lotus's, 2 classic camaros, a classic stingray to name a few.









All in all it was a fun event. Another local e30 - Glen, sky blue with an m30 and fresh interior - joined my buddy, with his s4 avant, and I. Alex (iwantspeed) met us and rolled up in his uber clean alpine e30 which I never get tired of looking at.



So, moving on. I will tweak the brakes as mentioned and see how it feels at the next event. I'm definitely in for another scca practice day at el toro on july 30th, and tentative for an earlier practice day on july 10th. Once I'm satisfied with the setup I plan to hit a track.



Non racing related updates: I placed a large order to tischer bmw for a boatload of random parts to finish up the wiring in the front. All new connectors and wires (this stuff is really painfully expensive) and some odds and ends. I also have a very very exciting box with the first exhaust v2 parts arriving today an item that I have been searching literally for years to acquire :p

[328ijunkie]

Still needs a tune ;)
And the lifter tick is normal. You need to overfill oil slightly for autox