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

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Looks functional

thank you for your blessing

[jeenyus]

This car has transformed in such a cool and what i think is a unique way. Thanks for sharing with us. Keep that thing going.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

This car has transformed in such a cool and what i think is a unique way. Thanks for sharing with us. Keep that thing going.

I really appreciate that observation and I'll keep sharing as long as r3v is still here.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Got this driver kick panel piece done which has been bugging the shit out of me for ages. Before and after Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[amcp]

That looks almost factory. You should sell them!

[Sh3rpak!ng]

That looks almost factory. You should sell them!

Thanks! I am pleased with it. It would be a great candidate for vacuum forming. Not this time consuming hand formed thing I did.

Next up I am making floor plates from diamond embossed aluminum (powdercoated black)... but before I hand make them I will check the price to buy them already made vs the cost to buy the raw material. If it's not too far apart I'll just buy them already done. Peeled up some of the driver side sound deadening tar off the floor and found some minor rust. I knew it was there. That'll be addressed (probably the passenger side too) and hopefully I'll have enough motivation to at least brush on a layer of grey rustoleum to even out the color and make the interior look halfway presentable again.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Started doing some long overdue detailing.... of whats left of the paint :p The roof and trunk are in bad shape. Clearcoat failing everywhere. Actually turned out pretty good considering the starting condition was totally cloudy. Looks decent for now. I'll do my best to keep the car clean and covered. Maybe considering a resort in the near future. Went for another canyon drive this time joined by another friend and his new-to-him E30M3. Caught the wife slipping, playing with the blast cabinet! And this detailing progress brought to you by Allagash white. Forgot how good that one is. Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Alright. I'm getting lazy with my updates again. Took apart my pedal box to replace bushings. That turned into a fiasco. More updates on that later. But I did replace all of the bushings, replaced the accelerator pedal, added OMP pedal covers, reinforced the pedal box, upgraded the clutch return spring and sandblasted/painted it all. Bought some aluminum tread plate to make false floors. Found evidence that a rat ate some other animal under the hood of the car.

Edit: tapatalk only posted 3 of 9 photos... sigh... I'll try again soon




Rat thanksgiving under the hood.... set some traps and caught the bastard a day later.




Diamond plate aluminum for false floors




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[Sh3rpak!ng]

Photo upload attempt #2


My pedal box was a bit mangled from when someone modified it in order to fit the S52..... that someone was me, and I had clearly not yet developed the skills of accuracy in measurements that I possess now (nor did I even own the tools to be fair)




I could only bolt 3 of 4 studs while the pedal box was in the car due to one of the redrilled holes lining up against the frame of the bracket (see picture below). Because of this, and the many stiffer components now in use, I am putting much harder forces through the pedal box. I figure between the missing nut and the larger forces, this allowed the pedal box to flex and warp. The baseplate is twisted - you can see the gap below. Before I went through any modding, I bent things back into shape.



Some small detail items... wiper arms were totally chewed up and pitted. Sandblasted and painted them.



I also replaced the covers over the bolt




And replaced the cowl vents






Here I am almost done stripping the old tar sound deadening. Got lucky with it basically peeling off.




While my 5 year old DIY accelerator pedal was out, I took the opportunity to spend unnecessary time making it look fancy. Which snowballed into me getting irritated that my drill press had some wobble in it and proceeding to disassemble the entire thing and do maintenance on it.




Drill press maintenance... cleaned and lubed everything and replaced the chuck and the clock spring. It's running super smooth and much more true to center. Probably as good as it will get for being a used $80 drill press off of craigslist.







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[Sh3rpak!ng]

More photos


Time for another autocross with the porsche club again. Very fast course this time. But the car feels good with the stiffer springs. Threw down some quick times again, but started to notice some other weak points. Two major ones stood out. First, my rear brakes are not working. After a couple of "back to back" 70s runs, front brakes were actually smoking, and clearly the rear did next to nothing. Ok - I have noticed brake issues before but now is the worst. Tiem to address that... more later. The second weak point is definitely me! After regaining my confidence in the car, I was back to my old ways of over driving. Mostly braking too late and blowing the racing line for the corner. After I resolve the rear brake issue my focus will be on myself and seat time (with soem minor aesthetic projects sprinkled in!)

Edit: for timeline continuity - autox happened after the pedal box was done and reassembled, but before I started really working on the driver/passenger floor plats and harness covers










Here is the pedal box after blasting and with all of the reinforcement pieces I hand cut. Reinforcing the base plate (since it now has a bunch of extra holes and is much weaker than original), the left side where the clutch master bolts into place, and a flying buttress over the 4th bolt hole that was previously inaccessible because it was flush up against the bracket (I clearanced the bracket)




Here are all the supplies pre-modification. New pedal covers, bushings, accelerator bracket, accelerator pedal, clutch return spring etc.




Pedals blasted and sprayed with weld through primer. The reinforcing strips off to the side. I noticed that it appeared the "walls" of the stamped brake pedal were starting to bow out so this eradicates that potential. On the clutch pedal I noticed the ever so slight indication of a crack starting to emerge at the weld to the pivot, I also noticed the pedal had ever so slight a flex when pressed (super heavy clutch putting much larger forces through the pedal and linkages).




Pedals welded up.




DIY accelerator pedal looking bling!




This was how I cut the hole through the baseplate pedal box reinforcement... it was very loud. And messy.




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[Sh3rpak!ng]

More more photos


For anyone familiar with LA and the Sunday malibu "cars and coffee" scene at the malibu market.... did an early wednesday morning drive and was able to easily park in the "royal" spot in front of malibu country mart




Another photo of the bling accelerator pedal mounted




Now the automotive OCD is kicking in full force. I have been wanting to make some sort of black ABS cover for the wire harnesses running along the door sill since it is exposed and ugly without the carpet. Luckily I found that condor already makes the part, so I saved myself the trouble of templating and cutting myself. Then jumped right into bundling the wires to fit inside the small channel. I made this extra tough for myself with the addition of 6 channel RCA cables running to the amp in the trunk. I ended up more or less un wrapping all of it, stripping out a few unneeded wires (e-brake, seat belt, rear ash tray light) and rebundling it tight and shaped to fit the trapezoidal channel. It's a tight fit but it's snug. OCD is very satisfied.





Small project here I never attended to. Harness bar collars to stop the belts from spreading. These things are unreasonably expensive in aluminum. Amazon carries some inexpensive steel versions.




After scraping off the driver floor sound deadening we see some surface rust. I have known it was there for a while. There's a leak somewhere I can't pinpoint that drains water into the footwell when it rains/car gets washed (I don't ever leave it out in the rain anymore, rarely out of the garage). I wire wheeled this all to get the flaking paint/rust cleaned up.




Making some headway on the harness bundling. Slid one of the covers in place just to see what it would look like. Nice. Wire bundling is a pain in the ass.




Decided to paint the driver/passenger footwells while everything was apart and exposed. This is another item off the to-do list that's been bugging me for a while. Workbench was a disaster mess for a day. I ended up mixing some white and black rustoleum targeting a dark grey result... well, I am not really a pro paint mixer and the color came out bluish grey. I guess black tends to have more blue pigment than anything else which is revealed when mixed with white? In hindsight I could've started with grey rustoleum and tinted it with black. Oh well. I used what I had on hand.




I brushed and rolled it on wayyyyyy too thick. Took several days to dry with a space heater on it.



While paint was drying I worked on some other items. Started preparing the passenger side for paint and templating the false floors. CAD FTW!



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[Sh3rpak!ng]

More more more photos.... and now caught up


Templated the passenger side floor plate CAD!




First plate cut. Yes I still need to cut out the accelerator pedal slot. I think I will eventually have these powdercoated semigloss black.




On to another minor project. ABS removal and deletion. In hindsight I think I've actually never had fully operational ABS in this car. I've felt it kick in only a small handful of times, and not actually in a hard braking situation, but going over a bump with brake depressed? Anyway, I have a strong suspicion i've been driving with a compromised or totally non functional ABS unit. After much more researching I learned that a common failure mode is for the ABS unit to impede general flow and/or cut flow to the rear brakes. So I have made the executive decision to remove it completely. Especially after learning the cos tto have it refurbished, and replace the wheel speed sensors at ~1500 all in... I'd rather try to implement the teves MK60 standalone 4 channel abs system from the e46 m3.

It was satisfying to just snip all of the brake lines off this thing and drop it out.




Picked up a fancy brake line flare tool. I'll need this for flaring brake lines on my truck too. Old style bubble flares also make nice hose barbs.




Got all my tools and supplies lined up. This is why I keep supplies like brake line and flare nuts on hand so I can randomly decide to launch a project like this without any forward planning.




Modified a tee to fit the tight quarters




Here we are finished and I didn't stop to snap a decent photo of all my hard work and the pretty lines I bent




And lastly, something frustrating. Vibrant bellows cracked off my exhaust header.... I don't think that should've happened. I positioned the piece so that it saw no more stress than anything normal for expansion/contraction of metal and vibration through the length of the exhaust setup while driving. There's even an additional flex joint 2 feet downstream after the Y merge to further insulate the headers from any vibration or flex and specifically avoid straining the header. At least I am not crazy thinking I was hearing an exhaust leak....









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[burkey001]

Nice update. Let me ask - how do you like the Nankangs?
How do you like them compared to R888R, or NT01, or A050 or whatever you used previously?

Grip?
Heat cycle tolerance?
Life?
Pressures they seem happy at?
Progressive?

[Iloveboost]

Been to you thread every time you update it .
awesome work ! You are so commited to your car !
its good to see someone passionate put so much time and effort into it !

keep the good work

very nice car too !

[Sh3rpak!ng]

Nice update. Let me ask - how do you like the Nankangs?
How do you like them compared to R888R, or NT01, or A050 or whatever you used previously?

Grip?
Heat cycle tolerance?
Life?
Pressures they seem happy at?
Progressive?

I like them a lot so far compared to the R888R. It's kinda hard for me to provide an apples to apples comparison because I changed so many variables at the same time I went to a new tire (wheel size, tire size, suspension geometry, alignment, differential upgrade). I bought them from a local tire dealer who specializes in distribution of autocross/track tires (200 tw and lower) who were part of the development testing of the tire for nankang. They documented objective evidence of the tire out lasting and out gripping the r888 on our local tracks via quicker lap times. So far I've been running them at 30psi rear and 32psi front, but I'd say I still haven't found the ideal configuration. Tire wear on the shoulders seems to indicate I'm not quite taking advantage of the full contact patch and probably could drop another 2psi. Or I need to adjust camber. Probably will pickup a tire pyrometer to help better assess. As far as heat cycles - too early to tell. I've only done two autocrosses so far. The R888s I had prior heat cycled out before the tread was gone. I have not driven on the NT01 or A050. I would characterize the loss of grip as progressive, but within a small window (if that makes sense).

Been to you thread every time you update it .
awesome work ! You are so commited to your car !
its good to see someone passionate put so much time and effort into it !

keep the good work

very nice car too !

Thanks! It's the way I approach everything... as long as I see an opportunity to improve that I think I am capable of executing, I can't help myself but to do it or at least to try. And I just love building and making things. I get uncomfortable when I don't have a multitude of projects queued up in my mind (for the car or anything really). I am planning to slow the E30 work over the next few months though to focus on building my truck, and leaving the E30 intact to enjoy driving it (as long as I don't break it).