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-driv...211226901~gkn/

[Skarpa]

Didn't GKN Löbro make the original driveshafts?
https://www.ecstuning.com/b-gkn-driv...211226901~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.

[Skarpa]

Sun is starting to come out again and I guess I need to start moving to get the car running next summer. Everything is very much unfinished but here's where I'm at right now. The idea was to do 5 lug conversion this winter. The parts I acquired last summer.



The goal was to use readily available stock parts to keep future maintenance easy.

Front:

• Epytec sleeves and nuts for E36 hubs
• Epytec caliper adapters for E36 brakes
• E36 front hubs (ABS ring needs to be turned down slightly and I need to tap it to correct depth to match the sensor position)
• Mini Countryman brake disc 294*22 (34119804828)
• E36 brake calipers and carriers
• Width increase 7mm per side

Rear:

• Z4/E90 hubs 33416752381
• E36 brake discs 280x10 mm (for example 325i) 34216864051
• E36 brake calipers and carriers
• MRT caliper adapters for E36 brakes
• width increase 2,5 mm per side

The half shafts don't need to be replaced for 5-lug swap. I just need to replace them because my current ones have shred the rubber boots. I'll try new GKN/Spidan/Löbro ones.




Now that I'm taking apart the rear axle it's time to get the tow in on the left side in order. For some reason my left trailing arm is out of shape and has too much toe in. The alignment bolts are not enough the get the correct toe-in. I was planning on correcting it with eccentric bushings bet then decided that I want to have a straight trailing arm. I bought an E36 compact one. It's a little difficult to find reliable information on whether the trailing arm has the exact same dimensions as an E30 one but I'm like 98% sure. I still need do side by side comparison once I have the trailing arm out of the car. Of course I also need to have this one powder coated into Jägermeister orange. When doing the 5 lug swap I of course need to update the wheels as well. For quite a while I've had a set of RS005/006 in stock condition for this reason.





I took apart the wheels and took the centers and tha waffles to painter. I'll assemble the wheels using my current lips, barrels and hardware. One of my current hex nuts is in less than premium condition so I polished one of the spare ones.




Usually I store the wheels separately from the car during winters so I've had basic steelies for winter storage but of course they won't fit anymore. Besides it's been a little annoying that the first time driving the car after winter hasn't felt as festive as it should when the car is on lame steelies and 30 year old tires. I bought a set of E39 16" style fives for that purpose.



These need to be powder coated and they are missing the center caps. That's all right as I don't like the look of the E38/E39 center caps especially on older cars so I bought aftermarket aluminum waffles and hex nuts.





The goal is also to have the AC working next summer. Since building the car it's been in them same condition. The car has the condenser and evaporator in place. All the wiring and switches etc are there. Only the AC lines are missing. The big reason is how the AC lines and the lower radiator hose want live in the same space.



Last summer I realized that E36 (as well as the other cars with M5X engines) have a few different models of AC compressor. The one I have is Seiko but there's the Denso/Hischier one as well (64528385915) and it has the hose connections at the back so I ordered one. I also had to look for the compressor bracket as it's different as well.



AC lines will fit with no problems but the compressor still touches the lower radiator hose.


I while ago I bought a full aluminum E36 radiator for this reason. I can modify the radiator hose outlet position so it was just a matter of a little cutting and welding to move it a couple centimeters up.







The AC lines had 40 year old hoses and the connectors didn't fit the compressor so they had to be modified. I qot a bunch of crimp fittings and hydraulic pipe from a local hose shop and started routing the lines.





I tacked the pieces together and took them to a professional welder. Once I get to mock them up on the car I'll cut the right length of hoses and have them crimped. Originally I thought of having the hard lines yeallow zonc plated but I'm not quite sure what the acid batch would do to the bracing and the threads of the valves so I think I'll just paint them.

So everything is going pretty all right but there is still a bunch of stuff to do.