e30 316 build x2 (m52/m50, turbo, 3pcs bottle caps etc)

[pazi88]

After that I drew some pieces that my friend did cut out with waterjet:


2mm spacer to move the front discs away from tie rod end:


Now with second try of the adapter it fits much better. But not perfect yet :D


Then started working on the rear axle to get better 1/4 mile times. So out comes the old:


Those other pieces that were cut with waterjet, were raised suspension mounts for rear axle that work like this:




ok those were for e34 subframe. But you get the idea :D

This is the e30 one welded to second subframe I had laying around:


All welded:


Little bit trimming and those barely fit with Garagastic raised subframe bushes:








Then some paint:




And installed:


My diff also needed some work, because it started to act like open diff. So Racing Diffs 4 clutch upgrade kit it is:


All torn apart:


30 years of use is clearly visible in these :D




The thinner end cap is required to fit the 4 clutches. It's also much beefier than the stock one. Which is weak point at least in the typ168 diffs:


The 4 clutch kit installed and new bearings fitted:


Of course some shim adjustment was needed. Luckily I got quite a big lot of these from all junk diffs, I have had. So I was lucky to find right ones from those, so no need to wait for new ones.


And all assembled with proper bearing preload, tooth contact and backlash (0.07mm, when spec is form 0.06 to 0.14mm).


After that I started workin with the e36 ABS unit. I think this is good spot:


e36 bracket wasn't going to cut it, so I started making new one:


Should fit well:


Even with e90 booster:


And as expected, the e90 own reservoir hits the charge pipe.

[econti]

Big work! Can't wait to see how it goes when actually gripping

[yasnick.ramputty]

hehe means that we will be getting videos soon. Hope you filmed the diff rebuilding, will be helpful.

Thank you again for sharing!

[pazi88]

hehe means that we will be getting videos soon. Hope you filmed the diff rebuilding, will be helpful.

Thank you again for sharing!

Yes there will be. I'm currently editing the 4 clutch LSD upgrade, but later there will be full diff rebuilt too.

But at the mean time, I was wandering in the garage and I spotted pair of e36 328 rear brake carriers and tried to those on e30 swing arm:



Well dammit. It almost fits. Should be easy modification to make that work and use the e36 328 vented rear discs instead of the 325 non-vented. So I got pair of those:




Needs spacer/adapter:


But it's already on with just two new threads:


With saddle (well this is 325 but still good enough for test fit):




Perfect! So time to get new e36 328 saddles to fit with those:

[pazi88]

For the rear I needed abs driveshafts and swing arms, but I couldn't find ones in good enough condition or with reasonable price. So I first got these new SKF driveshafts with ABS rings that cost less then rusty used ones:


Well surprise the casting is different and the ABS ring hits it, so I needed to make some room:


Then drill holes for ABS sensors:


Perfect:


I did get e36 ABS sensor for rear, because those are much cheaper than e30. Welded bracket for those and test:


And it works. Only thing left is to finish up the swing arms.

[pazi88]

Then the front brakes. I bought stud kit for the car because it looks like I have to run spacers and using those with regular BMW bolts is really annoying. And I also started working on cooling ducting for the front brakes:


I did measure that the 10mm spacer is minimum that I can run, and those turned out bit hard to find as hub-centric. But I managed to get these fancy forged ones:


And I have played the game of tetris with the adapters, brakes and wheels for really long time. And had like 5 or 6 different 3D printed prototypes. Before finally everything fits:


And it rotates freely:


And as you can see, I also took apart the wheels to freshen up those:


I also need to do something for the front wheels, because the 10mm spacer and 2mm spacer behind brake disc bring the whole wheel outwards 12mm. Which is no go fi I plan to drive the car hard. I was then planning to mount the front lips on the back, giving me better clearance.


But damn, that doesn't look good. huge job to fit the brakes with those wheels and then ruin the whole thing like that.

Soo.. I had to order half inch narrower front lips for the wheels. These aren't cheap in radinox flavor, but I will never get any more aluminium outer lips in my cars, because those are horrible job to keep looking nice. For these radinox lips, I have not needed to do any maintenance, and they still look good as new.


Then the Brembo saddles. I took those fully apart and sandpalsted all the rot away. Some of the pistons were seized on the bores, and it was lot of job to get those out. And when I eventually got those out, 6 of the 8 pistons were totally busted and not fixable:


Ebay to the rescue and I got 6 brand new pistons:


And now the saddles are back together and ready to be installed to car.


For the adapters, I converted my 3D models to DXF and my friend cut those for me from 10mm steel:


Those require 4mm spacers, and those I TIG welded on. And also made m12x1.5 threads for new 10.9 grade bolts.


Test fit:




With disc:


Still need to finish the ducting, apply some paint for the discs and get new brake pads. But it's close to being ready now.

[econti]

Your work is so clean and tidy

[TeXJ]

wow, very nicely done!

[pazi88]

Thanks!

I also worked on the ms3x that is controlling the engine. It has nice feature to log to SD card about what is happening on the engine. Too bad that the ms3x is missing the RTC that ms3pro has and the logs are just named like log001, log002, log003.. and after few weeks there is no telling which log is which and when those are driven. Really annoying. You can get separate rtc module that is horrifying 68usd plus shipping and import tax etc. Combining to something like +100usd for 5usd with of parts. Which I consider as robbery.

Well after some research the RTC module is based on mcp79410 IC and the ms3x RTC module is basically directly the reference design for that. After googling I did found that some have used the evaluation board for that chip with success. Unfortunately I couldn't find that anywhere but I did find this Pmod RTCC module for sale and it's only like 10usd:

https://store.digilentinc.com/pmod-rtcc-real-time-clock-calendar/

Well I was ordering stuff from mouser, so I got that too for testing:


In that pic I messed up the SDA and SCL lines that should go to H3 and H4 but still after fixing that it didn't work:


Bummer! Well again after googling, I did find more detailed pic of the ms3x RTC module. Well that picture doesn't exist in internet anymore, but it's almost identical to the Pmod RTCC module, but there is also R1, R2 and R3.
That are missing from Pmod version. R1 and R2 don't have markings, but those are between SCL and SDA lines and +5v line, so those are pull-up resistors. I2C bus uses 1k - 10k resistors depending on the bus speed. So I had 7.5k resistors and added those. R3 is directly on the SDA line and is showing marking 102 = 1k resistor. Probaply for some protection. So I added those too. Doesn't look neat, but it's there:


And now it works::


Logs now have date and time on them:


Now I have SD card logging all the time when engine is running with date and time. So I can always check the logs, if there is something wrong with the engine for example.

I also added this HC-06 bluetooth module, that I can use tablet or my phone to check out what is going on in the ECU if I don't have laptop with me:


Seems to work like a treat. But my ms3x starts to look even more like horrible mess with wires. I will probably move to using speeduino is some point when it has the features that I need. I have already done m52 PnP versions about that, which look much nicer than the rat nest of wires in my m52 PnP ms3x:

[TeXJ]

you're a much smarter man than I am :D

[Pootis]

^I was about to say the same thing

[pazi88]

you're a much smarter man than I am :D

^I was about to say the same thing

:D:D

Continuing build. Made supports for brake cooling ducts:


Then thin coat of zinc paint for rust protection for the discs and little bit of black to match the spacers. And the front brakes went on for good:


e36 ABS unit mounted and pipes to brakes fitted:


Finished the ABS sensor mounts for rear swing arms and painted those:




New e36 328 saddles for rear brakes:


After struggling with the rear diff, I started struggling with the swing arms. I couldn't get those fit properly and I then noticed that the driveshafts are not seating properly:


WTF skf. You did put e36 CV joints to e36 driveshafts. There is no way these will fit together:




Well I happened to have e36 diff laying around, but still stupid thing to have wrong CV joints in driveshafts that are meant for e30.

[LowR3V'in]

on the fuel pump i see u slowed it down at idle to give u better fuel pressure
how did u do this? what does that table look like?

also, could you have used an after market fuel pressure regulator for better return flow is the restriction in the lines?

[pazi88]

on the fuel pump i see u slowed it down at idle to give u better fuel pressure
how did u do this? what does that table look like?

also, could you have used an after market fuel pressure regulator for better return flow is the restriction in the lines?

I didn't actually end up using the PWM control for the fuel pump for two reasons:

1. The base fuel pressure is only 0,2bar higher than it should be because of the stock FPR and doesn't change from that during usage. So it was fine to tune the engine for that small offset in fuel pressure. Aftermarket FPR should fix the issue, that wasn't really issue in my case.

2. The walbro 450lph at least makes horribly loud noise when PWM controlled directly from megasquirt. Like unbearable loud noise especially when tank is not full. There really should be actual fuel pump PWM control unit that converts the low frequency PWM (11.1-250Hz) control signal from MS to higher frequency control signal to pump (above 20kHz) so that it's beyond human hearing capabilities. Good thing that the 450lph is really quiet in the tank when used without PWM control so this PWM thing also wasn't necessary to reduce noise.

[LowR3V'in]

excellent.

just asking because i too have a 450 and am scared of it over running the fpr.
that's only 2.9psi higher, nothing... guess i was too worried in the small things.


that's funny that the pwn works like shit. nothing is perfect i guess.
you should of taken video.