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

[Digitalwave]

I <3 my DTM adjusters. So easy to align the rear now.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

new air dam looks great! the one i ended up making is so crude in comparison. The s54 oil filter housing looks so good! i'd like to get rid of my oil cooler/filter cap setup for something like that one day. Feels kind of weird to add a "T" for an accusump on a cap design which isn't a direct in/out setup (which is something i'd like to add eventually as well).Oh and i'm curious to see your spherical rtab impressions! I've been wondering if i should go that route or splurge on a dtm style setup.

Thanks! Yea, never been a fan of the cap design for the oil cooler. Never liked the idea of having to maneuver the cap with lines for an oil change. I'll check back in after I've driven with the new setup. I have high hopes. It's also my preference to do the DTM style adjusters, but I don't care to take on another significant project like that. Luckily I do have a spare subframe and trailing arms for when the time comes so I can do the project without putting the car on jack stands.

[s14brent]

new air dam looks great! the one i ended up making is so crude in comparison. The s54 oil filter housing looks so good! i'd like to get rid of my oil cooler/filter cap setup for something like that one day. Feels kind of weird to add a "T" for an accusump on a cap design which isn't a direct in/out setup (which is something i'd like to add eventually as well).Oh and i'm curious to see your spherical rtab impressions! I've been wondering if i should go that route or splurge on a dtm style setup.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Finished the oil cooler install

Had to clearance the rad support.













While I was in there I took the opportunity to improve the ducting that I had made years ago. I was never happy with the mounting; it was a bit flimsy. I also never painted some of it and it was rusting lol

Added extra tabs




Rivnutted these





IYKYK



Not sure why I held out picking up one of these AN fitting adjustable wrenches. It’s much better than messing with the standard wrenches that are never quite the right size. Made assembly a breeze with no scratched fittings.



It's tight but fits









This is how I drilled a hole in the frame with minimal clearance. It worked!



Magnetic drain plug after oil change. Only had like 3k miles on the oil. Sent a sample to blackstone labs for analysis.



New ducting parts and brackets, countersunk the fasteners too for an extra fancy detail if anyone else but me notices haha



installed










Another “while you’re in there” was to refurbish the foglight block offs and brake ducts. The paint was chipping and they looked shitty. I actually sandblasted them, sprayed a few layers of 3M paintable under body coating , and topped them off with SEM trim black. Much better.






OCD organizing loose hardware back into parts bins




Finished installation all tucked and fixed in place.







Managed to snake the lines between the alternator and frame. The hose clamps help keep the stiff AN hose in position. There’s also a bracket bolted to the frame that hold the hose routing off the frame and away from the alternator.




From underneath




Another side project, expanding the capacity of my fab table to fit larger compressed gas canisters. This way I can hold a tank of argon and a tank of C25 to do either mig or tig. Currently looking for a good price on a tig.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Oil cooler mounting brackets done, ready for sandblast and paint

[DEV0 E30]

The steering wheel felony is about the airbag. If your car is a 1990 or newer, then he's right and they could theoretically prosecute that as a felony, but we all know that would never happen. That is probably reserved for people removing the airbag and then selling the car to an unsuspecting buyer.

Or, you could say your car is a euro model and it didn't come with one - for me it's the truth.

My touring being a 93, I thought for sure a non-airbag wheel was swapped in later on, had to do some digging and realize it didn't come from the factory with one.


=========

Sucks you had to even deal with that situation. Clearly you weren't a menace to society. Seen plenty of cops that play those "looks like" "suspected this or that".

I can't believe they don't shut down these "takeovers" within 15 minutes of them happening. You're 100% right, they allowed them to become normalized and now won't do anything.

It's not even a complex problem like the homeless or other issues.

It's like a street racing scene, you show up, impound, and ticket all that participate, probably dispatch an ambulance too because people are idiots.

Profiling people not associated or nowhere near these events is dumb.

=========

To change subject, your oil housing looks great!

[Sh3rpak!ng]

damn dude....that really sucks. blame the takeover guys though - effin it up for everyone

I blame both the cops and the idiots. This all blew up during covid. The cops did nothing to stop it, now it's become "normalized" and of course now it's a problem. Literally down the street from us it happened a few dozen times in a big intersection, we walked over and saw cops hanging in the background and asked them why they did nothing. They commented something along the lines of "not wanting to stir the pot" (this was also close in time to some of the big police aggression news stories).

I'll take a bit of blame too. The air intake sticking out of the headlight is a bit egregious.


Oil filter housing finished with refurbishment and ready for install this weekend?

[s14brent]

damn dude....that really sucks. blame the takeover guys though - effin it up for everyone

[Sh3rpak!ng]

That sounds like a terrible experience...

What a moron.. especially about the fire extinguisher looking like a rifle.. That's actually ridiculous that a cop would even make that mistake.

The steering wheel felony is about the airbag. If your car is a 1990 or newer, then he's right and they could theoretically prosecute that as a felony, but we all know that would never happen. That is probably reserved for people removing the airbag and then selling the car to an unsuspecting buyer.

My car used to be loud and I got over the whole getting pulled over thing. I swapped to a high flow cat, vibrant resonator and vibrant muffler. Sounds way better, no drone and haven't gotten pulled over since.

The fact that LA officers are even pulling people over/targeting cars for issues like that is also a joke. LA has much more pressing issues than having officers target modified cars..

/rant

I moved back to OC and haven't looked back

Don't get me started... mine is an '89 anyway, and did not come with an airbag. Funny enough towards the end of the whole situation he thought to ask me if the car had originally came with an airbag, and when I said no he dropped the issue. Maybe that also helped my cause... My car is really not that loud. It was just another BS excuse. I was profiled, dunno why, but I sure as hell didn't want to push my luck and end up with a referee ticket and have to go get the car inspected. Would've hired a lawyer again anyway.

[MrBurgundy]

That sounds like a terrible experience...

What a moron.. especially about the fire extinguisher looking like a rifle.. That's actually ridiculous that a cop would even make that mistake.

The steering wheel felony is about the airbag. If your car is a 1990 or newer, then he's right and they could theoretically prosecute that as a felony, but we all know that would never happen. That is probably reserved for people removing the airbag and then selling the car to an unsuspecting buyer.

My car used to be loud and I got over the whole getting pulled over thing. I swapped to a high flow cat, vibrant resonator and vibrant muffler. Sounds way better, no drone and haven't gotten pulled over since.

The fact that LA officers are even pulling people over/targeting cars for issues like that is also a joke. LA has much more pressing issues than having officers target modified cars..

/rant

I moved back to OC and haven't looked back

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Taking a break from tuning work for a minute until my tuner has an open time to do a last dyno session. The tune is already quite good, we just want to do a last review and fine tune.

So while I wait for that I finally pulled the trigger on parts for a couple other lingering projects/issues.

First, I need a new battery. Not sure what happened to my odyssey battery only 4 years old, but the battery has recently been weak if not constantly on the battery tender, and over the weekend I noticed it has swollen considerably. So I need a replacement.

Another project is to address the rear trailing arm bushings. With the adjustable rear trailing arms, this is putting an angle into the natural pivot of the arm/bushing. The bushings are deforming because of this, and each time I’ve replaced the bushings, very shortly after they wear out enough to have significant play. With everything bolted tight, I can shift the wheel/trailing arm assembly forward/backward ~1/4”. So that’s not good. To solve it I picked up a set of the spherical joints from stim tech. Being a spherical joint, it can take the angled pivot. I hope that solves it. Additionally, I decided to swap out the subframe and diff bushings for something a bit softer than the AKG set (their hardest poly bushings). I decided to give the garagistic subframe riser bushings a shot since they’re the only ones who make the riser bushings in softer poly. I am also changing the diff bushings to match.

I’ll also finally assemble the rear axles I had cryo treated and replace those while I’m in there.



Second major project is adding an oil cooler. I suspect that my old VDO gauge setup never really worked properly. With the new digital gauiges, and beter sensor placement, I’m already seeing ~220-230* with just a bit of spirited canyon driving. I imagine that at the autox I’ve been cooking the oil which is why I’ve had TERRIBLE lifter ticking after a couple back to back runs. It’ll be nice to use the ECU to datalog temps and pressures next time out.

The setup I decided to install is an S54 oil filter housing and a mishimoto dual pass cooler.

Here’s the mock up location.




Of course I can’t just install parts without first refurbishing them. So the S54 housing got the usual treatment.

First I grinded, sanded, and filed any rough casting marks and degreased it inside and out



Masked all the critical surfaces and open ports






Sand blasted






Marked a few spots for touch up



And then I decided the part was cleaned up enough for paint. Opted against powder coating because they didn’t do a good job masking last time. This is also “free” when I do it. I’m also enjoying the use of steel-it. The metallic grey is a nice gunmetal color.






Motoring club members drive up through Malibu mountains now that it finally stopped raining in Socal.



And lastly, I’ll have a handful of smaller future changes coming that’ll tame down the visual of the car a bit. Had my yearly shakedown by the local law enforcement this past weekend which was rather unpleasant. The cop profiled me/the car as I was casually driving to get my haircut. Followed me, pulled me over, pulled me out of the car, sat me on the curb, noted the “modified exhaust” as reason for the traffic stop. Then noted the modified steering wheel and harnesses as illegal, and potential felonies?? For which he could take me to jail?? WTF. Told me the fire extinguisher mounted on the roll cage looked like a rifle??? Tried to ask me what I had done to the car, what’s under the hood, how much did I spend… I didn’t answer. Asked to open the hood, I refused and said it required special tools haha. In the end I just got a fix it ticket for no front plate. The officer explained that they’re targeting modified vehicles as a way to crack down on “street takeovers”, but he didn’t suspect that I was participating in that scene so he didn’t feel the need to ruin my day.

The whole situation was crazy, and unpleasant. I’m going to change the headlight intake – as cool as I think it is, it’s quite a target. I’ll get the scroth DOT approved 4 pt harnesses which have a provision to add a crotch belt for track days. I’ll move the fire extinguisher to a seat base mount. Probably put a high flow cat just to cut the smell and a bit of noise. I hope that’ll be enough to allow me to continue to fly under the radar. And maybe I don’t drive around in that part of LA.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

I love this build. I plan to redo a lot of my S50 swapped wiring before I sell it. But nothing to this degree. I admire your attention to detail.

Thanks! Yea the wiring project was fun, lots of details

[rzerob]

I love this build. I plan to redo a lot of my S50 swapped wiring before I sell it. But nothing to this degree. I admire your attention to detail.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Great to see the car back on the road. Glad there were no massive issues.

The MS41 frequency based cam sensor is such an oddball setup. No idea what the reasoning was. I think Pazi88 on here found out a few years back that you can desolder a conversion chip on the ECU and run a regular M50tu or M54 hall sensor on the stock ECU, which isn't the worst option.

With the Link, did you use the M50 sensor? I hear they're getting hard to find.

Yes, I used the M50 sensor. Didn't have an issue procuring it.

And I was also relieved that generally there was no huge mistake. Actually had a small scare on the harness when I found I was a wire short on one sensor and had power wire in the wrong spot, but I got clever and switched some pins/wire colors, and added a splice to correct it without much peeling back of the harness. That was the only actual mistake in the harness. I think I also made a small mistake on the fuel pump relay wiring too, also a quick change of pins and it was fine.

[Northern]

Great to see the car back on the road. Glad there were no massive issues.

The MS41 frequency based cam sensor is such an oddball setup. No idea what the reasoning was. I think Pazi88 on here found out a few years back that you can desolder a conversion chip on the ECU and run a regular M50tu or M54 hall sensor on the stock ECU, which isn't the worst option.

With the Link, did you use the M50 sensor? I hear they're getting hard to find.