Project Armo "330i" M-tech 1

[Skarpa]

Lately I've been working on various aspects of the car. I made space to fit the left foglight. I didn't want to remove the bumper so I made the cutting through the foglight opening.



That was very unpleasant in many various ways. I had to work awkwardly work through a small opening while cutting off my own work that I was pretty satisfied with. All this while getting metal dust all over my pristine engine bay and running through expensive Dremel cutting discs like bread and worrying about leaving marks on the fresh paint of the bumper. (which I still managed to do but luckily not in very visible areas) However the end result was worth it:





Having a correct fog light on the car was the only right thing to do. I cleaned up the cut areas and painted them but next time I take off the front bumper for some reason I will make it better and probably weld some reinforcement for the ABS bracket. Another job I can cross off the to-do list is the door cards. The door cards themselves were in good condition apart from having the vinyl peel on some small areas at the back. The sound deadening however was in a bad shape.



After cleanup and inspection I came to conclusion that they just wouldn't work. The material has shrunken and wouldn't fit right anymore. I couldn't find exactly the same kind of material so I made the sound deadening from thin faux leather with a layer of wadding laminated into it.




I won't have the wind down windows anymore. For some reason the ETK offers a massive plug to cover the hole. I think there may be some year model differences. I didn't want to cut the holes bigger just to cover them up so I got some general plastic plugs in the correct diameter.







I used self-adhesive plastic film to seal the doors. I didn't happen to have clear plastic so I used a more decorative one :D




The film shapes and sticks very well when you heat it up a little with a heat gun.






A word of warning about the currently sold tweeter pods: The metal clips are of extremely poor quality and will snap off at first installation. I'll see if the pods stay on without or if I need to make some DIY ones.

[Albie325]

Just now seeing all the progress, car is looking good man! What a feeling to see it all back together for the first time, congrats

[Skarpa]

Just now seeing all the progress, car is looking good man! What a feeling to see it all back together for the first time, congrats

Thanks! It was awesome seeing the car in one piece and being able to drive it. Lately the progress hasn't been lightning fast. There's still some work to do before getting the car inspected and being able to drive it daily. I've just been super busy at work for the last month to get stuff finished in time and before my summer vacation but I've done some work on the car as well. I got a little closer look at the shifter and it's no wonder there was some noise.



In case it's not that clear in the picture: That's the bottom end of the shifter pretty much resting against the drive shaft bolt head on sixth gear. It would be fine if the shifter was a bit higher up and there actually was room for it. I tried to bend the shifter carrier using a jack but you can't bend cast aluminum parts.



Luckily I broke the part in just the right spot so I took it to a welder who welded it back together with a slight angle to raise the shifter ball joint higher. Just to be sure there was enough clearance between the shifter carrier and the top of the drive shaft tunnel I pressed the tunnel up a bit around the shifter hole using a jack. After these modifications it was much better.



On sixth gear and with the shifter propped as far in the right bottom corner as it will go and there's still about 10 mm of space between the sifter bottom end and the drive shaft bolts. I declare this success. In addition to shifter issues I've tried to find a working central locking module.



The leftmost is my original module. It mostly works but the relay tips will randomly get welded together tripping the overload "switch" (just a resistor with a spring loaded contact soldered to one end with low melting point solder). The module in the middle works one way but not the other so there's probably a busted diode or something like that. The third one has been swimming so there's quite a lot of corrosion on the PCB but the relays actually look good and work fine. My plan was to take the relays from the third one and solder them to the first one but I ended up buying a fourth module instead. This time fully functioning. Now the doors lock and unlock as they should: with a touch of button on the remote (VDO Comfort Lock - Almost period correct). I just need to switch the trunk lock to a central locking model. The manual lock has the lever for the locking motor but the mechanics are a bit different so the locking motor doesn't have enough grunt to turn it.

Now there's not much to do before the inspection. I need to check the instrument cluster warning lights. They tend to come on all at once when for example pulling the E-brake. Might be some grounding issue. After that's sorted out, I can finish assembling the interior. I think I'll also switch the hydroboost pressure regulator to correct orientation. It doesn't seem like the air bubble that sticks the control valve is going to go away on its own. I mocked up the spare regulator next to the power steering pump but there's just not enough room for the hoses.




But if I measured correctly, there should be enough room to flip the regulator on the current spot. I just need to drain the system once more and have some hydraulic hoses made in different lengths after.

[Skarpa]

Fresh video on a little less fresh subject (first drive). Making the video has taken some time because of infernal workload at work.

https://youtu.be/CU-aJmpCaW4

[Vincenze]

PS. Keeping the possible future upholstery in mind I bought a pair of Recaro CSEs


After all you can't ever let anything be finished or you run out of things to do.

Did you try to fit the Recaros into your E30?

Aren't they slightly big? They should be from an 80-s Mercedes.

[Skarpa]

Did you try to fit the Recaros into your E30?

Aren't they slightly big? They should be from an 80-s Mercedes.

I haven't tried them yet but I've seen E30s with CSEs. Sure they are a bit bulkier than the stock sport seats but in my opinion not overly so. Of course I need to test them in the car first before going through the effort of restoring them. CSE was top of the line seat from Recaro. I believe they were mostly sold as an aftermarket product but I think they may have been an option from the factory in some higher end cars. Of my seats actually only the driver's seat is CSE. The passenger's seat has less adjustments. These seats have E30 bases in them but I don't know if they were sold for an E30 or if the bases have been replaced. Recaro also had a pretty sweet rear seat for E30. A two-seater similar to the M3 rear seat. A local E30 has a full Recaro interior with CSEs.

[Skarpa]

For the past month I've been working on the car pretty much every night. There was this big annual E30 meet coming up in Finland and I really wanted my car to be there.

I decided to try flipping the hydroboost pressure regulator upside down to have it oriented the same way as BMW does but I wasn't too hopeful that it would solve the issue because all the manufacturer's markings are upside down when you mount it the BMW way. My brother made another very good point and asked me if I have exactly the same pressure output of the powersteering pump as in E23 where the brake booster comes from. I checked and there's actually a difference. E23 has a steering box and the pressure output of the pump is 130 bar whereas E36 has a rack and pinion steering and a pressure output of 110 bars. Before installing the system I had checked that the pressures are in the same ball park but 20 bar difference may be enough that some pressure limit switch never reaches the intended pressure leading to the problem I'm having. So I ordered an E34 M50 pump. E34 has a steering box so the output of the pump is 130 bars and it should bolt on M52. For flipping the pressure regulator I needed to make a new bracket. I did it by cutting from rectangular hollow section. It already has 90 degree bends and is sturdy enough not to need any gussets as I didn't have a welder at hand.



I also needed to have some new hoses made and get a few elbow connectors to make a sharp 180 degree turn.



The pump came. Only pump that was immediately available was a factory rebuilt unit that came without the brackets. I didn't think much of that as I have a few faulty pumps to take brackets from. But it turned out they didn't fit. Lucas and ZF pumps have a different bolt spacing even though the brackets look identical. So I quickly got hold of used pump to get on with the job. When I had everything assembled came the moment of truth and Hallelujah! Everything worked just as it should and after some bleeding the pump was actually silent. Before it would make an occasional noise and groan. On a minus side the test drives proved that I had a fault in the ABS system. At this point the E30 meet was a week and a half away and I needed to have the car fully working and inspected to be able to drive there. Here's a couple of guidelines for diagnozing E30 ABS

- If the fault light newer turns of when you start the car the fault is most likely in the ABS unit itself.
- If the light turns off when you start the engine but comes back on afterwards or especially when you start to drive the fault is most likely in the sensors or their wiring.
- Dead sensors can be pinpointed by disconnecting all but one sensor and then taking the car for a test drive. E30 ABS only gets the speed signal from the wheel sensors and considers an unplugged sensor as giving zero speed signal. If the fault light comes on it means the one connected sensor is sending signal. If the light stays off it means the sensor (or the wiring) is broken. Test all four sensors and you know where to look for the fault.

In my case the culprit turned out to be the front wheel sensors which were both dead. I was on a tight schedule so I ordered new sensors before investigating the issue further but when I started replacing them I found out that the error was actually very simple. The left and right sensors are different having a differently oriented retention plate. I had the left sensor on the right side and vice versa. I replaced the sensors anyway and kept the old ones a spares.



In a way the the shape of the sensors is unintuitive because when the sensor is correct, you cant just push it straight in. You need to first insert the sensor all the way and then rotate it to correct orientation because the cable passes very close to the strut. I guess that's the reason I had the backwards because they are easier to install that way.




On Monday a week before the meet I took the car to wheel alignment. Everything was otherwise fine except the left trailing arm had more that 0.5 degrees too much toe-in. That's the trailing arm that the previous owner had bent when pressing out the bushings. I needed to press the trailing arm sides towards each others to install it in the rear subframe. I guess after all this there's some deformation in the trailing arm. Luckily the inspection engineer had told me no, when I asked him if he needs to see the wheel alignment report. The car goes a bit side-first but you can't really feel it when driving. Some time I need to drop the trailing arma and correct the issue with eccentric bushings.




After the wheel alainment the front wheels fit much more nicely in the wheel arches.


Then came the dyno day. The local dyno guy is somewhere on a working trip so I drove about 100 km to a different dyno. I figured it would be good to get some kilometers under the belt before the dyno and before driving off to the meet. The car felt really good and everything was working. It was a blast driving winding countryside roads. At that point I had fully assembled the interior and it felt somehow surreal that car was all in one piece and working. But in the dyno everything didn't look as it should.



Basically the car seemed to be missing around 100 Nm of torque and the rev limiter. We didn't discuss with the dyno guy at what revs the limiter was supposed to be set. He figured it'll come up but stopped when the revs started to look too high. I didn't realize during the pull but was pretty terrified afterwards by the revs. But nevertheless the dyno sheet would be okay for the inspector. Next day I went to have the car inspected. Everything else was fine except for the emissions. The car was putting out way too much unburnt hydrocarbons probably because of misfires. You may remember I had some trouble getting the car to idle under the limit of 1000 rpm an when I did the Idle was not very smooth.

When investigating on INPA at home I realized that I still had four cylinder code plug in the instrument cluster even though I had replaced it. I had somehow misread the number on the plug. On closer inspection all my code plugs seemed to be from four cylinder models. This gave explanation to both the dyno issues as well as for the idle. The dyno didn't have a separate rpm measurement it was just calibrated by the car's own tacho. When looking at the dyno sheet the measured power seems to be correct but the torque is one third too low and in reality the dyno pull stopped at 5100 rpm. You can guestimate how the power and torque would have developed in a full pull and it looks pretty much what I was expecting but I of course need to revisit a dyno. For the idle: I had mechanically restricted the engine to idle below 1000 rpm according to the tacho so in reality it was idling somewhere around or below 600 and wasn't too happy about that. I removed the restriction and the engine was idling smoothly at 850 rpm according to INPA. I should have realized this sooner and checked with INPA but I've had various laptop breakages etc. But all that matters is that when I took the car back to inspection it was accepted as a road legal vehicle one day before the E30 Meet!

Here's some pictures of the interior etc:













The sticker on the license plate is a temporary moving permit that I needed to drive an uninspected car to the dyno.

The car all washed and ready for the Meet:

[Skarpa]

As said we have this big (in Finland's scale) annual E30 meet. And for me that's the most important car event. I've been going there every year for ten years and the people are awesome. Of course the cars as well. It's funny how you can see the evolution in the cars. In the first years there were some genuinely nice cars but also real shitboxes in various states of deterioration. Lately all the cars have been pretty well taken care of. I guess the shitboxes have either rusted away or become projects. It's also kinda sad because every now and then you can hear someone pondering if the dare to attend the event if their car isn't polished to the max.

Usually I've been at the event for the whole weekend. The main place is a ski and holiday resort on top of steep hill. You can rent cottages there pretty cheaply. Usually the weekend includes barbeque, beer, sauna and testing anti-lag in the middle of the night. I feel kinda sorry for the other people there during the E30 meet but the place is kinda party-oriented anyway. This year I decided to reluctantly skip the cottages because of the corona situation. We already postponed the meeting because of that. Usually it's at the end of may. So I attended anly the actual drive meet on saturday. Saturday early morning I started towards Muurame. It's about 250 km drive from where I live. The car still felt good and I had no technical issues. The fuel consumption is 10 l of E85 / 100 km on highway so it's not bad but I kinda regret not going for 62 l tank when I was doing bodywork.














(Not only E30s)





Pictures courtesy to Christian Alajukuri

Every year there's a T-shirt for the event that you can buy. For the past eight years I've designed the shirt. This is what I came up with this year:


All together I drove around 700 km that day and the biggest problem was that one of the screws fell out of the trunk lid tool box. The car runs well and pulls nicely all through the rev range. It doesn't scrape or have problems with speed bumps with four adults and trunk full of stuff so I'm happy. I've made this car first and foremost for driving.

[econti]

Beautiful car, so happy for you that you have sorted the issues and it's driving well. Such a good looking E30

[Skarpa]

Beautiful car, so happy for you that you have sorted the issues and it's driving well. Such a good looking E30

Thanks! It's been awesome to have an actually working and road legal car.

[Vincenze]

I got a little closer look at the shifter and it's no wonder there was some noise.



In case it's not that clear in the picture: That's the bottom end of the shifter pretty much resting against the drive shaft bolt head on sixth gear. It would be fine if the shifter was a bit higher up and there actually was room for it. I tried to bend the shifter carrier using a jack but you can't bend cast aluminum parts.

Do you have a short shifter?

They are longer after the ball.
What about the Z3-1.9 shifter, which many E30 owners install?

[Skarpa]

Do you have a short shifter?

They are longer after the ball.
What about the Z3-1.9 shifter, which many E30 owners install?

ZF gearboxes have a longer selector rod throw than Getrag gearboxes. Therefore cars with ZF Gearbox usually have lower lever ratio of shifter. In my opinion the Z3 1.9 is a nice short shifter for stock E30 transmissions but doesn't work with ZF transmissions. It actually produces longer shifter throw than stock shifters for ZF transmissions. I have an E90 330i shifter which by eyeballing is similar to Z3 2.8/3.0 or Z3M in shape and lever ratio. I havem't really measured. It's not a short shifter as such because it's the stock shifter for this transmission but i really like the shifter feel. I could probable have avoided the issue and kept the shifter feel if I'd put a bend in the shifter and made the connecting link longer. That would have brought the bottom eye a little back and probably cleared the prop shaft bolts. But I'm happy with the solution of raising the pivot point higher. It actually brings the connecting link to a more horizontal position and in theory improves the shifter feel.

[Skarpa]

Fresh video:

https://youtu.be/sTHk_JoQu4U

[mjweimer]

Congratulations on getting your car officially road legal! Always such an enjoyable moment when you get to experience the culmination of so much hard work.

Enjoyed the video and must say the car sounds great on the dyno. Glad you were able to sort out the little mistake with the coding plug - we've all had these things happen...


100% in agreement with you on the ZF trans and shift lever selection. I tried several different combinations on my M52 and also found the E90 330i lever to offer the best feel overall.


Hopefully you get to spend some more time getting it out on the road.


MJ

[Skarpa]

Congratulations on getting your car officially road legal! Always such an enjoyable moment when you get to experience the culmination of so much hard work.

Enjoyed the video and must say the car sounds great on the dyno. Glad you were able to sort out the little mistake with the coding plug - we've all had these things happen...


100% in agreement with you on the ZF trans and shift lever selection. I tried several different combinations on my M52 and also found the E90 330i lever to offer the best feel overall.


Hopefully you get to spend some more time getting it out on the road.


MJ

Thanks! It's been awesome to see things take shape that previously existed only in my head and various cardboard boxes. It's also baffling how well the car works once I got past these minor setbacks. Although I was almost ready to throw in a towel (for now) when the car got rejected for emissions three days before the meet.