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

[SkiFree]

It was a very serious conversation indeed. Serious conversation for serious people serious about their serious cars. Seriously. :devil:

Nerds.


Awesome pictures though.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Nerds.


Awesome pictures though.

Thanks bud! Missed you at the open house!!

[Sh3rpak!ng]

So, even though I haven't posted a legit update in nearly a month, doesn't mean I haven't been doing work!! I've just been insanely busy between friends and family visiting, road trips, work, car shows, drives etc. Mostly very good updates, and one bad. So I'll start with the bad and finish with all the good.


The bad:

[Probably] killed my oil pan this morning on the way to work. Decided to drive it to work because I couldn't help myself. The car feels the best it's ever been since I bought it and I haven't driven it to work in months so I decided why not... Well, the roads were a little wet this morning and as is typical, people already managed to crash their cars at 5:30 am in the canyon. Don't ask me how, but literally every time the road is even damp, the road is littered with accidents even at 5 am. Anyway I came upon a pickup that over steered into the inside of the turn/mountain/cliff and left debris all over the road. I ran something over and heard/felt a loud thump. 2 miles later the low oil light went on and I pulled over smelling burning oil... yup. Cracked pan. Didn't look terrible from what I could see, not shattered, but a steady stream. So I got it towed home (was only a few miles away luckily - AAA FTW) and I'll check tonight if it can be repaired or if I need a replacement.

Yea I have a skidplate. Yea it totally would've saved the pan if it was installed. Yea I'm a dummy. Yea I've been driving the car and putting it off for months. Yea literally 45mins or so to install it.

Well here we are again on a flatbed.







So now the good news and there is a lot of it!!

I painted the hood and installed it. Looks great. Started running out of both color and clear though so it's not as great as the rest, but still looks far better than it ever did originally. Mostly I was lazy on the sanding and some pinholes, sandpaper scratches and orange peel show through but again, worlds better than it ever was and kinda matches the rest of the patina :P







Finally installed the ferodo pads. They sent me 16mm thickness even though the PN on their site says 12mm. So I carefully sanded them down on the belt sander and installed. They definitely bite harder than the BP20s though they randomly squeak (maybe because of the residue left on the disc from previos pads ? ). Seems dependent on how I've been driving on them. Regardless, I think I'm going back to boosted brakes. Just not getting the performance I'm looking for.



They have a bit more pad area than the BP20s. You can also see at the top edge of the pad some grooves had to be clearanced into the backing plate to allow the clips to seat.





Socal vintage. Another great show, lots of cool cars and an incredible turnout.





Went for a drive afterwards with Glen and Kevan. Weather was absolutely perfect!









Got a good shot of the car in the driveway





So a little bit of bad news leading to good news. I "broke" the clutch again. Not nearly as badly as before, but enough to cause significant vibration. The pressure plate friction surface shifted about 2mm from center. Some straps were slightly bent again, but it looks like the issue wasn't so much the straps this time as much as the rivets. At one strap, the rivet was badly bent and was clearly contacting/crushing against the pressure plate in the reverse loaded direction. Another rivet showed signs of mild fatigue. Pictures don't really display the issue very well, but if it helps the mental image, those rivets were originally smooth and circular, now you can see they are marred from contact to the pressure plate.



Used to look like this on the top



And here's the worst one where you can see the bottom of the rivet is actually bent where it was pulling apart.



Flywheel looks good, barely even broken in the new friction surface





So I think at this point it's clear I can no longer find a solution in the oem parts bin. Placed calls to bimmerworld and UUC and both expressed no surprise that I was having this issue as both have seen the issue many times before.

Frustrated as I was and not wanting to ever take it apart again, I went nuclear.

[efficient]

dang that clutch kit looks beast

[Sh3rpak!ng]

dang that clutch kit looks beast

It absolutely is.

Clutchmasters FX725 twin disc. Two 7.25" clutch discs, one ceramic one fiber for the "street/race" kit. The smaller diameter assembly reduces rotating mass, and in total the whole assembly (clutch discs, flywheel, pressure plate) is about 10 lbs lighter than the JBR/m3 PP/m5 disc I had before. So far I am absolutely in love with it. It revs incredibly quickly and made a noticeable difference in straight acceleration where it definitely arrives at 7k rpm faster than it did before. It's also impressively smooth in both upshifts and downshifts. Rev matching downshifts has NEVER been so much fun and so satisfying. Pedal pressure was increased, but not as much as you might imagine for a clutch that is advertised at holding 1200 hp (though I know a torque rating is more truly revealing). Pedal travel was decreased considerably to about 2 inches. Took a little getting used to, but after a day none of it bothers me. It's also surprisingly smooth from a stop in 1st and is able to be slipped enough for a smooth takeoff at any speed/aggression.

I expect that this is the last clutch I'll ever buy for this car. Yes its far more clutch than was needed, but I went with it for the indestructibility.


Backside of the flywheel



Friction surface of flywheel



Fiber disc



Middle pressure plate



Ceramic disc



And here's the cover/pressure plate. Here you can see how everything gets lined up, the strapless design, and the very beefy stanchions which hold everything in place.





Before I reassembled, I inspected and cleaned everything. Looks like there's just a slight dampness around the crank - acceptable. And also some slight weeping of oil from the joints of the oil pan/block/rear main seal cover - also acceptable.









Installed! Took me about 2.5 hours to disassemble from car-on-ground to transmission-on-floor. And a little over 1.5 hours to reassemble from trans-on-floor to car drivable. Record time!





I also noticed some wear on the pivot fork where the ends were contacting the flywheel. That's because this is the wrong pivot fork to be using with a 95' pressure plate (I have the correct one, but forgot to install it previously ). I would've bought a new one but forgot. So I laid some beads over the ends where it looked thin just in case.







Also took the opportunity to tack the stud on the opposite side of the exhaust flange here since I can't get a wrench or socket on it normally. Now I can thread the nut on and tighten from the top. Easy.





Also got the Z3M s54 radiator repaired which was lucky! It was welded and coated with epoxy and pressure tested. All good!





Also noticed that my heater core is probably leaking :( stream of water was coming out of this drain hole, and then dripping. Also under the driver floor mat was damp :hitler:





Sunday ripped some canyons and met up with some locals at point mugu for a bbq. It was a great day and the car has never been driving better!!

Bronzit for life

[2mAn]

Socal vintage. Another great show, lots of cool cars and an incredible turnout.

Did you get a pic of the early model next to you with the SSRs? I always wondered how SSRs would look with the early euros

[Jaker]

Are the brake pads coming around? Mine are still silent, and I've recently noticed that braking in the cold damp weather (PNW) is light years better now. I used to have to do a sweep brake application when exiting the freeway in heavy rain to clear off water and get a bit of temp into the pads before the brakes did much of anything. Now a thing of the past. Brakes work as expected on initial application in all conditions.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Did you get a pic of the early model next to you with the SSRs? I always wondered how SSRs would look with the early euros

Nope, sorry

Are the brake pads coming around? Mine are still silent, and I've recently noticed that braking in the cold damp weather (PNW) is light years better now. I used to have to do a sweep brake application when exiting the freeway in heavy rain to clear off water and get a bit of temp into the pads before the brakes did much of anything. Now a thing of the past. Brakes work as expected on initial application in all conditions.

Yea, they're definitely an improvement from both the other pads I tried before. Luckily there's no cold damp weather here in socal, and I wouldn't take it out anyway if there was... no fun on damp roads :p I am getting intermittent noise though, its strange. I wonder if that may be caused by contamination from the pads I ran before ? fwiw the BP20s never made noise until after I had been running the polymatrix Es. Anyway, the car stops, I can lock the brakes if I want, but effort is still quite high. For comparison, I can lockup the brakes on my daily e36 with far less effort, just a jab of the foot, where I kinda have to stomp a bit with the e30. This makes it pretty much impossible to effectively heel-toe considering how sensitive my gas pedal is now! Collecting some parts to go back to boosted brakes.



In other news, put the car on stands again to checkout the oil pan, looks fixable to me, just a small crack. You can see it dead center to the left of the oil level sensor.





Not sure which I'm more upset about, cracking the pan or having the entire bottom of the car drenched in oil. I REALLY REALLY HATE having the bottom of the car drenched in fluid like that. Gonna have to scrub it... might also take the opportunity to re-mount the exhaust with more robust mounts and add v-band flanges

[Trev]

Another awesome update as usual.

[jeenyus]

Love this car. Love this thread. Love this build.

That clutch makes me so jelly. I would love that and I'm really surprised it's as smooth as it is. Must have something to do with the 2 discs under the pressure plate smoothing it all out.

Hood looks great. Better is better in my eyes, so if it's not perfect, at least it's better than it was, but still i wouldn't be able to tell.

[ElJimo]

sorry, i know this has been stated somewhere in the past, but i can't find it. What's your tire size?

car looks great btw.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Another awesome update as usual.

Thanks :D

Love this car. Love this thread. Love this build.

That clutch makes me so jelly. I would love that and I'm really surprised it's as smooth as it is. Must have something to do with the 2 discs under the pressure plate smoothing it all out.

Hood looks great. Better is better in my eyes, so if it's not perfect, at least it's better than it was, but still i wouldn't be able to tell.

Thanks man! Yea the clutch is so awesome. Price tag was painful, but after driving it... god I love it. I was pretty surprised on smoothness as well, no chatter. It's obviously far grabbier and more sensitive, but after I got used to it, not a problem. And I agree, better is better, besides from 3-4 ft away you can't tell. This is a driver's car not a show car :p

sorry, i know this has been stated somewhere in the past, but i can't find it. What's your tire size?

car looks great btw.

the bfg sport comp 2s were 205/50r16 and the dz2s I have now are 225/45r16, thanks!

[jeenyus]

Drivers car is way better than a show car. Even I get clutch chatter in my single mass.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Drivers car is way better than a show car. Even I get clutch chatter in my single mass.

agreed 100%! what clutch are you running?

[jeenyus]

agreed 100%! what clutch are you running?

Just the standard Sachs clutch for the e30. It's not the smoothest clutch I've driven. It is new about 8 months ago though so I feel like it's still breaking in...