Project Armo "330i" M-tech 1

[bradnic]

that reply was as awesome as the previous post!! thank you Skarpa

[Skarpa]

I've had E36 Scorpion catback as the rear section of the exhaust all these years. It's pretty loud. When the car runs in the yard the windows rattle in the house. You can hear the car from a couple of blocks away. Sounds great at full throttle but I grew really tired of the drone especially when driving longer distances so I decided to replace the Scorpion with Eisenmann Sport. There's quite a bit of size difference in the mufflers.



I bought the E30 model. Not a catback but just the muffler because E30 catback would probably not fit with my modified E36 front section. I planned to reuse the pipes from Scorpion but as you can see there's quite big angle and position difference in the inlets so I had to cut up the pipes a bit more.




In essence I cut off the sideways shift that was right before the muffler in Scorpion and placed it just after the center connection. That moved the pipes into better position under the rear subframe and gave me more ground clearance. The exhaust already had some scraping from driving on small forest roads.







I placed the muffler where I wanted it using quick straps and blocks of wood and then started to build hangers for it and tack together the pipes. This was the first time of using the welder I got from a bankruptcy auction and it works great. It's pretty hefty unit. My house main fuses wouldn't handle it at full tilt but luckily I don't need that for the stuff I do. I used 0,9 mm stainless flux core wire that my ex boss gave me. It's not great for welding thin material but works all right. The seams are not the prettiest but they are smooth inside which is what matters. This would have been more of a tig job but then I'd need to get someone else to do it. By the way, wrestling a mirror polished muffler into position under the car gives you a wonderful close look at your own struggle faces :D Fascinating if somewhat awkward.



That's how it turned out. One fitting wasn't quite enough. I had to readjust the angle of one of the pipes befor final installation. Eisenmann Sport is pretty quiet. Abit louder than the stock exhaust on my E91 325i. The idle is low rumble similar to Scoroion but at much lower volume. At higher revs it has sharper and more metallic tone but again quieter. Even though I had to trade off some of the joy of the car roaring at full throttle, the lack of drone and booming more than compensates it. I'm really happy with the change.

[Skarpa]

Half shaft rubber boots look like this after a couple years of driving



They are aftermarket rubbers but the quality is still atrocious. The joints were not perfect to begin with so now I'm considering on getting whole new shafts, having the 5x120 RS's painted and going for five lug setup. But the shafts: Does any aftermarket manufacturer make decent half shafts or are they all loose after one summer? The price for originals is a bit steep.

[Vincenze]

Didn't GKN Löbro make the original driveshafts?

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-gkn-drivetech-parts/rear-output-shaft/33211226901~gkn/

[Skarpa]

Didn't GKN Löbro make the original driveshafts?

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-gkn-drivetech-parts/rear-output-shaft/33211226901~gkn/

Thanks! I think the originals are Löbro so these are probably what I'm going witf. As far as I've heard the SKF and Febi Bilstein ones are shit but they are also considerably cheaper than these.

EDIT: Strangely I cannot find any seller for GKN / Löbro driveshafts in Europe. Must continue investigating.

[Vincenze]

Is it a reliable website? It seems the price is 50% of the US price.

https://spareto.com/products/lobro-drive-shaft/300693

[Skarpa]

Is it a reliable website? It seems the price is 50% of the US price.
https://spareto.com/products/lobro-drive-shaft/300693

Thanks! As far as I understand Spareto is kinda on the limit when it comes to reliability. It's not a scam but the customer service is not great and if things go wrong or you need to return something it might be a bit difficult to handle. As for the price, the parts are manufactured in Spain so it makes sense the parts would be more expensive when shipped overseas with taxes and tariffs. But these seem to be pretty cheap. I might try my luck although I'm a bit sceptical on the delivery. After doing quite bit of searching I found no one stocking new GKN, Löbro or Spidan drive shafts even though I found sellers listing them. (Löbro and Spidan are GKN's sub brands) So there might be some difficulty in getting them from the manufacturer. I'm guessing the retailers in States have their own stock and that's why they are available there. Spareto also doesn't have them in stock but they are willing to sell you at 28 days delivery. I'm still waiting for an answer from a local BMW spare part dealer in Finland that sells rebuilt drive shafts. They are more expensive than the Spareto ones even though the spareto ones should be brand new. If they can guarantee that the shafts are rebuilt using GKN parts and are actually available I might rather go with them as I consider them more trustworthy than Spareto.

[Vincenze]

The axle on this page cost $316 when I posted the link two days ago: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-gkn-driv...211226901~gkn/
Now, it's $510.

[Skarpa]

The axle on this page cost $316 when I posted the link two days ago: https://www.ecstuning.com/b-gkn-driv...211226901~gkn/
Now, it's $510.

Wow, that's pretty steep price hike

I decided to try my luck with the Spareto ones.