Slow Suzie the Corner Crusher - AutoX / DD

[robaticus56]

This is my first E30 and I've named her Slow Suzie. This is my first car I've done serious work on and I plan on doing most if not all of the work on her myself. I'm teaching myself how to work on her along with a few other people who help me out when I'm absolutely dead stuck. I'm building her up for Autocross and a DD. I got her some time around the middle of March and have done quite a bit of work since I've had her and I'm just now getting around to this build thread so hopefully I don't forget to much of the earlier stuff. So here she is.














First thing to fix was the reverse switch and the seat belt receptacle on the driver's side. So I after a couple hours of screwing around on the transmission with that switch I got it off and the new one on. Yay reverse lights work now! I doused the seat belt receptacle in WD40 and it now works except I have to smack it to get it to lock, one day I'll find a junk car and pick that amongst many other things off. So I got the car inspected and she passed and after a cumulative 6 or so hours at the DMV she got plates!


Next thing on the list was the non functional tach and mpg gauge. It turns out there were 3 blown fuses. Replaced them and the tach finally lifted off but the mpg gauge just kind of flys back and forth, oh well at least the tach works.

The odometer wasn't working as well, go figure. So I ripped that bad boy out.

New gears and cluster


The part I really want


Old gears and not in good shape


Seems I've found the issue


Band new gears!


With the new gears installed I actually know how far I've gone now. Helps a bit with staying on track with maintenance. That's it for tonight there will be more to follow in the coming days.

[robaticus56]

Update #2

Now I started really digging into the car, she had a rather rough idle and a sluggish throttle so I set to work on getting that fixed up. After some research and question asking I came to the conclusion it was probably something with the intake. Also the car stalled out while sitting in a parking spot after about 2 minutes so I pulled out the fuel injectors and sent them out to get cleaned and rebuilt.

Nasty dirty injectors


Shiny clean injectors


While taking out the injectors I found this with dried electrical tape over missing areas on the valve cover hose. The hose was so brittle I could snap it with my hands.



While she sat in an parking lot completely immobile my friend just happened to move into a house with a big garage and by some miracle he agreed to let me get funky with Suzie in there for a while.

I cleaned out the trunk of a bunch of crap and accidentally threw out my intake manifold gaskets like a genius. I went dumpster diving as soon as I realized what happened about 2 days later but they were gone... I went off the order new ones.

Shortly after the injectors were back I got her into the freshly inhabited house, but not before I realized some was awry with the ignition system. It was rainy one morning and Suzie decided she didn't want to start. Having run into this exact issue before on my old '95 Jetta I was pretty sure the the issue was something was between the coil and the spark plugs but decided to get her into the shelter of a garage before taking any action. Once she was in the garage I shifted my focus to the intake system.

I redid the manifold gaskets, throttle body gasket, intake boot which had a sweet rip in it, crank case breather tube o-rings, valve cover breather hose. While removing the intake manifold I found that the T shaped coolant hose going to the heater core from the thermostat was torn and swollen at the connection to the thermostat housing. It was also right in front of one of the manifold bolts and had to go. So I had to drain the coolant and gave me a perfect excuse to do the timing belt and the other things on the front of the engine.

Throttle body is off


Intake manifold is gone


Gotta clean the mating surface


Not sure where the beer came from but I'll drink it


I replaced the timing belt, water pump, thermostat, power steering belt, alternator belt, distributor cap and rotor.

Hello timing belt


TDC before


TDC after 2 rotations of the crankshaft


Getting the timing belt on was a PITA because it kept slipping of the crank sprocket and I had to have my friend hold the whole bottom on while I slipped it over the cam sprocket, fun times.

The contact points on the distibutor cap were pretty bad, thank god I got a new one in there.

Looks alright to me


Ok nevermind that's done


Not to fear we have a new one here


Here is the coolant hose that had to go


Old H2O pump


New H2O pump

[robaticus56]

Update #3

I knew the AC was bad so when I had the radiator out I thought for all of 2 seconds about keeping it. I come the conclusion that it needed to go because isn't that why I have a windows and a sun roof? The condenser sure as hell put up a fight and didn't want to go but in the end I won. Now Suzie is about 30 pounds lighter in the front.

All the AC bits


Look at all that room


Even more room


Looks like you could fit nice air cooling device in the front of the engine bay now perhaps attached to a turbine of some sort. Well either way I don't have the funds for a project of that magnitude yet, maybe later.

When I went to fill the engine with coolant again this happened


I stripped the coolant bleeder screw and had to use vise grips to get it off. So that's another part I had to order.

Sometime later this weekend I will post the fiasco that was and is the suspension or at least as far as I am at this point in time.

[Nick_S]

Great start! Looks like a rough one but you seem to be heading in the right direction!

[robaticus56]

All I had the intention of changing with the suspension was the struts/shocks and springs. I got Koni SA and H&R Race springs for the car and was under the impression it was going to be a couple hour job. That was 2 weeks ago and she's still on jack stands.

First thing that was wrong was that my friend marred up the control arm and tie rod and ball joints which in hindsight is probably a good thing as the boots were ripped apart and I wouldn't have even known to check that. So after some time on Google and Youtube I knew that getting new control arms and tie rod ends was needed anyway.

Here are the ones he dicked up



The rest were already messed up





The next thing that was messed up was the control arm bushings. I was able to rip one apart one the right side of the car with relative ease, probably not good.

The remnants of that


Then I had to cut the rest of the bushings out with a hack saw


Next on the list of busted things were the front sway bar end links


Also not really sure what happened to the front bump stops on the struts but they weren't there at all which probably explains why they were blown out.

I was hoping the rear would be fine, I'm not really sure why I didn't expect the same as the front. The rear was not fine however.

First thing I noticed was the sway bar end links were shot


Then the shock tower mounts were done as well


Not sure if this is supposed to be out, but I'm banking on no


So over the past 2 weeks I have been slowly ordering new parts for the suspension as I realize what needs replacing.

It all started with this joyful delivery


New FCAs


New bushings for everybody!


I'm not sure but I don't think that's a strut mount


New front sway bar end link


Today I finally have a strut assembly together


In it goes


Front suspension from the bottom


The rest of the rear suspension should be in early this week and hopefully I can get her back on wheels by the weekend

During this all this business my new wheels and tires came in. I got Kosei K1s and Durezza Z II Star Specs in 205/50r15




I can't wait to get those bad boys on Suzie and take them for a spin.

[DER E30]

Nice progress!

[Northern]

You're not going to believe it's the same car when you drive it next haha

[Codym42]

Nice work, I love Kosei k1's. Can't wait to see what else you do.

[robaticus56]

The rear suspension was not as bad as the front but there were some fun parts like getting the sway bar end links on. First thing was to lower the exhaust so I could in turn lower the diff.

Ran out of jack stands so boxes worked


Here is the diff lowered


New rear shock mounts


The H&R's are kinda small


Yellow goodness


While dropping the exhaust I found one of the hangars was a little broke


So I replaced it with a coat hanger for now


I got it all put together and the whole car back on the ground.

[agent]

Good work so far!

[95BMWIC]

Subscribed!

Love the rims - Post a pic with them installed..

[F34R]

Looking good!

[robaticus56]

Sometime during the suspension process I replaced the spark plugs with Bosch W8LCR+

Not sure but my Bentley never said these were supposed to be in there


Like a good little boy I followed the manual


Also I realized that this needed to happen


I'm not sure if its just me but I had a hell of a time with the coolant bleeder screw. I stripped the original one trying to get it out then I twisted the head off the second one and I finally got the third one right.

Screw #1 after removing with pliers


Remains of #2


The rest of #2


So I realized that's not supposed to do that


I got a new thermostat housing cover and bleeder screw and learned a valuable lesson about torque, don't over do it.

After the car was on the ground again I decided to vacuum the carpet

Before



After



I also decided it was a good place to take a nap after it was clean


Apparently I forgot how to real life at some point during this process


The chrome stripping around the windows wasn't on around the bend of driver's side door so I smacked it back on and the part near the hood popped out. Since I didn't have any glue handy I just used a bit of silicone and a clamp


I decorated my trunk lid with all my Rock Auto magnets but after I drove it in a light rain they started coming off but the American flag stays on, mostly for the irony




Also I figured I'd put a list of what I plan on doing to the car. It's mostly in the order it will be completed

Sound system install - hopefully my premium speakers still work
Finish suspension (rear bushings and sway bars)
Shifter Rebuild / short shifter (probably from an e36 328i)
Steering rack from a Z3
Brakes - braided steel lines and better pads
Interior - seats, carpet and misc trim pieces
Complete exhaust - I have to put a cat on the car again when I move back home because PA has some gay laws about the enviroment or whatever
Paint - Probably repaint Lachssilber Metallic or change the color to LeMans Blue (less likely due to the amount of work involved)
200+ WHP with M20 - not sure if I want to stroker or boost it, there are pros and cons to both but I think that's a decision for later down the line when I have money for that

I don't have any pics of the car with the new wheels yet, but I should be able to get some up tomorrow

[robaticus56]

Here are some pics of the car with the new wheels



I found this and had to get it


I'm hoping Suzie will learn a thing or two from her new companion