91 318is Brilliantrot - A lot to refresh - Restomod - M52 swap

[AllydNYC]

Awesome to see everything come together. Great work on everything Ally

Thanks Dave. You've been a great help with all the parts I ordered through you. The fast shipping made it come together faster as well.

great progress! congrats on it driving. that arm rest looks pretty neat, and simple. I'd like to make one...

[AllydNYC]

My exhaust parts came in today. I'm going to bring it by the exhaust shop next weekend as long as my new diff works out. The car is so damn loud right now.

[Codym42]

Nice build, any updates? I'd like to know how well the brakes work with the e32 master and the Porsche booster.

I'm getting ready to swap an m52 into my 318is as well!

[paynemw]

are you going to keep the A/C?

[AllydNYC]

Nice build, any updates? I'd like to know how well the brakes work with the e32 master and the Porsche booster.

I'm getting ready to swap an m52 into my 318is as well!

I'll get some updates posted today since a lot as been done and I'm going to attempt driving it to Cali for Bimmerfest tomorrow (Friday). The Porsche brake booster does require a lot of force to lock up the brakes/engage ABS. If you were to track a car with this booster, your leg would get tired. There isn't nearly as much assist as compared to the stock E30 booster and boosters on 95% of cars out there.

Would I put this booster in another swapped car?
Probably. Because you can easily purchase a brand new one for $220 or something like that, and just slightly modify instead or getting some old ratty used one off an xi and then have to paint it and hope it's not worn out. Those were harder to source as well during my swap.

are you going to keep the A/C?

I got the car back last week from getting A/C added to it. I'll try to include that with my update.

[MR E30 325is]

Very cool to see another AZ E30 enthusiast.

Good stuff.

[shootnjunky]

I started the engine a few times and got most of the engine stuff sorted, so I decided to do something more relaxing. I have a video somewhere that I might post if I get around to it.

My girlfriend purchased me a new spoiler for Christmas last year and I haven't felt the need to put it on since the car was being worked on.

What spoiler is this? the factory IS?

[MR E30 325is]

What spoiler is this? the factory IS?

Yes

[AllydNYC]

Getting up to date again:

Months ago I traded my diff. A 4.10 diff with a ZF320 made the car almost undriveable. I got lucky and found someone that wanted to trade my 4.10 for a 2.93 (ideal for me). Both are open diffs. I picked up a 2.79 LSD for $150 that I plan on rebuilding.

Drained the fluid on the 2.93 and put new fluid in. New crush washers and a new oring for the speed sensor as well.







Replaced my cheese wheels:





Then I drove it up to a volcano (Sunset Crater) to do a shakedown test. 7,000 feet up later and 40 degrees less:







I took it to an event, my first even, autocross. I didn't like autocrossing much, a lot of work for <10 minutes of seat time and a lot of stress to not mess up people's time on your job assignment. Plus I'm spending 8+ hours there. I was on all-seasons which came with the wheels. I desperately needed new tires to compliment my modifications:



I picked up some some Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Specs. There are not many tires in my wheel size, 16x7.5. 225x45x16.



Did a NASA HDPE 1 track event with the new tires: The car did excellent. I drove it hard with not 1 hiccup. It felt great, the instructor loved the car too.







After a day at the track. I also got my windows tinted 35% the day before:


Of course my strut bar arrives after my track day:



Before and after the track day. Front left tire. A lot of high speed right hand turns on this track:





I purchased a second motorcycle, a Honda Grom:



A couple months went by after that without doing much more to the car. I did some traveling around. A notable stop was Japan (mostly Tokyo):

Daikoku Futo car meet (Phone shot, I still haven't taken the pictures off my DSLR):




Rode some motorcycles around with my girlfriend. I was sick for most of this:

[AllydNYC]

Came back from the a couple trip and now it's 100+ out every day. I also sold my house at the beginning of this year, it's a lot healthier of a life now but I do miss the garage a lot. I went from a well light, spacious, 3 car garage to a 1 car garage I can barely fit the car it. It makes it a lot harder to work in.

I started some Bimmerfest prep two weeks ago. New boot and bonnet gaskets, ground for my bonnet, fuel neck filler, rear bumper trim, new VDO fuel pump (not pictured) alternator cooling duct and a bunch for other items that aren't critical but help refresh some areas that needed TLC. I didn't end up installing my Castro Motorsports air box








A small piece of the old vs new bonnet gasket:


I purchased a really nice and refreshed set of Bosch smilies. I also put new glass lenses on my fog lights. Shitty job, it became too annoying to take pictures. I rather buy plastic ones next time of just splurge on new glass ones:


New front turn signal lenses. I don't these were on in the previous picture:






For A/C - I order an evap core, condenser, A/C drier and expansion valve, all R134a compatible. My M52 came with the AC compressor and E36 AC lines. The compressor, like the engine, had 74,000 miles on it. No pictures. I brought my car to a shop to get it done. Now I have a very lumpy idle when the A/C is on, sometimes it stalls out. I guess I'll only use it only on the highway... I'll have to circle back on that. On top of that, the shop I went to put my AUX fan in front of the condenser and left the fan situation at that. Now I have one fan that is for the A/C AND radiator . I was really hoping they would have put a thin fan behind the radiator and then have one exclusively for the AC system. I did mention that to them.

Well, I don't have time to worry about that now...

I planned my Memorial day weekend to wrap up items on the car for Bimmerfest like installing a skid plate and x-brace and detail the car. Oh was I wrong.... Sigh. The first thing was a car wash which also became the last thing that weekend:


Super defeated. I spent years building the car, doing preventative maintenance and buying good parts and making it as bulletproof as a newbie can, just to have something go wrong a week out from Bimmerfest. 500 miles on the I-10, across a desert, during the summer heat has never seemed more daunting than now. :(

My car would just crank and crank. It turned over strong. I have a voltmeter in my dash that's connected to my fused battery line. My fused line from the battery, when the car wouldn't start, would read 1.8-2v when the key was turned to 'ON', during cranking and after cranking. In 'accessory mode' it would read 12,8v. The fuel pump wouldn't prime, my AUX override switch didn't work. The power for the harness always read a good voltage. I check engine grounds and power around the engine. All looked fine to me. Super odd. I spent the whole weekend learning how to troubleshoot electrical stuff like relays and whatever, by myself.

All the relays looked good. I unplugged everything A/C related since that was the last thing done to the car. I'm really thinking it's A/C related. I also switched out my new VDO fuel pump to my old one, that didn't help. Upon taking the old one back out to put the VDO one in, the fuel strainer dropped into the tank. I spent the next e30 minutes trying to fish it out. I guess I did something Memorial Day related, I went fishing, in my gas tank. With my eyes watery from the fumes and getting a headache and dizzy, I decided to give up. I put the new one in there with the strainer still floating around. I'll try and catch it another day.

Come Tuesday, I brought it back to the shop. The car randomly decided to start the night before so I brought it by. Upon driving it, I noticed my volt gauge jumping all around from 13.1 to 13.5. It should stay steady between 13.6-13.9 depending on what is turned on. Later that day, Tuesday, I got a call back and was told they found the problem. I got an answer didn't want but it was fixed. It seemed simple. I guess the fuel pump 2 pin connector was loose. I really thought it was going to be A/C related. Maybe it was and they covered it up. It's odd because I disconnected the fuel pump to troubleshoot and had the same exact issue, same voltage. Also after putting the old one back it, I would think reseating the connector would have fixed it. They ended up rigging it by putting a zip tie through the rubber boot on the connector and then putting the zip tie around the two metal pipes coming out of the pump.

Another thing rigged, just like the fan for my A/C and radiator...

This past weekend was a really rough. I got nothing done I wanted. It was super stressful and I'm worried this problem will come back while traveling to or in California.

I've now spend the last few nights getting very little sleep to catch up on everything I was supposed to do this weekend.

I took off the bumper to put on new rear trim on. I don't have a picture of the middle piece, I'm in such a rush to get this done:







I also wasted 2 hours last night to get my x-brace and skid plate on. Of course everything I do in this car doesn't fix correctly. If I recall correctly, I couldn't move my E36 steering rack back to the other holes because the power steering hard lines hit the subframe.



Picture with one bolt in and one bolt out


It caused the skid plate to be not long enough to reach those bolts and more problematic, not be able to install my skid plate for California.



It lines up with the center of the radiator support. I cannot get a bolt on the inside of that. There's a lip of metal about an inch further into the car, left in the picture. I'm thinking that's where the 7 bolts are supposed to go to secure the skid plate to the car. I cannot move the skid plate that far back. Probably from the position of the rack in the picture above.

-----

So that's that, I need to get back to getting this car as good as I can with limited time. Hopefully I haven't messed up too much of what I wrote. I've been rushing to write this. Tomorrow morning, at 5am, I leave for Cali/Bimmerfest. I hope I make it. This has always been a major goal and thought of mine while I was building this car. Even though I've driven the car everyday this week to see if the problem has come back and it hasn't, I'm still not very confident in it after the no start issue. Now, without a skidplate, I'm even more concerned of an issue. I really need to throw caution to the wind and just enjoy it. Maybe it will all work out. I'll see you guys there if I do. There should be E30 themed cookies at the car.

Oh yeah, there's a new project coming this fall. I'm doing some video on it. I'm going to tell the story a little different this time. 325is:


And on that weekend my girlfriend also picked up an E30:

[Codym42]

I'll get some updates posted today since a lot as been done and I'm going to attempt driving it to Cali for Bimmerfest tomorrow (Friday). The Porsche brake booster does require a lot of force to lock up the brakes/engage ABS. If you were to track a car with this booster, your leg would get tired. There isn't nearly as much assist as compared to the stock E30 booster and boosters on 95% of cars out there.

Would I put this booster in another swapped car?
Probably. Because you can easily purchase a brand new one for $220 or something like that, and just slightly modify instead or getting some old ratty used one off an xi and then have to paint it and hope it's not worn out. Those were harder to source as well during my swap.



I got the car back last week from getting A/C added to it. I'll try to include that with my update.

Thanks for the response. I was worried about that. I read somewhere that the 25mm master cylinder required more effort to brake. I think I'll just use the porsche booster with the stock master cylinder. It seems like it may be the better combination.