Don't Call it a Comeback

[econti]

I am eternally jealous of Americans just finding E30s for free/very cheap in fields etc

[Danny]

I am eternally jealous of Americans just finding E30s for free/very cheap in fields etc

This thing is ROUGH my friend. But still, free is free lol.

We're in the middle of a serious heat wave right now so I couldn't get out to the cars to work on them until about 9 pm tonight.


I bought rear pads and rotors to replace the ones on the burgundy car. So I popped off the rear slide pins and pulled the caliper and found they have at least half life left... Apparently I underestimated how long they have to go. So I just regreased the slide pins and put it all back together. Now I have some cool Hawk HPS pads and rotors for the rear of the silver car I suppose. While I had the rear tires off though I looked at the state of wear of all four because I'm headed to Thunderhill for a track day on Saturday the 22nd. I ordered up four of these:





225/45/16 is a weird size that not much comes in. I debated with myself about buying some R888s but decided against it since the burgundy car still gets driven a lot on the street. I was very happy with the StarSpec ZIIs that are on the car and everything I have heard is that these are even a step better. I'll let you all know how they perform on the 22nd.


In other news, I went to move the M3 out of the driveway to work on the burgundy car and it's battery was dead. I drove it somewhere the other day and came out to see the hazards were flashing which is odd. It has some crappy aftermarket alarm in it and I think there is a parasitic draw from it somewhere. I just unplugged the hazard switch for now and we'll see if that fixes it. Also, I jumped it and now the blower motor works so... who knows? I love 80s and 90s German cars.

[Danny]

Thunderhill is always a great venue and Saturday was no exception. We ran with NCRC, which is our favorite group, on the east track using the bypass. The forecast was for 100 degrees and very smoky (lots of fires in CA right now). I went out on the first session and was starting to feel confident with the car, the temp was staying exactly where it is supposed to and I was happy with the performance of everything. The new Dunlop ZIIIs were nice! I think I had them a little too high on tire pressure because they were a little skatey but it could have just been the cold track and first session jitters.


Until the last lap of the first session where I came over the bypass of turn 5 and hit some uneven pavement. My car made a loud noise and started to feel very shaky up front. I actually thought I had popped the bead of the right front tire off and was riding on a flat. Half a lap later with my hazards on I had limped the car into the paddock.




Diagnosis: blown up wheel bearing. Called around to the few parts stores in the area and what a surprise, nobody carries a front hub for a 30 year old German sedan.

So my day was done at 9 am but my Dad's and brother in law's wasn't. I loaded my car up on the trailer and drove the hour and 20-ish minutes home to drop it off with plans to come back and run the green car in the last session of the day.



While I was gone my Dad and BIL kept running the green car and that was going well! Temp was staying consistent even in the heat and smoke, tires were almost gone but we knew that going into the day.



I got back with the trailer and learned the throttle cable broke, causing my Dad to have no throttle while coming around turn 11. He was able to put it in neutral and coast into the paddock with no issue. My Dad and BIL attempted a heroic fix with bailing wire and duct tape (which I was not aware of).




They kept running the car successfully (somehow) until the throttle stuck wide open on my Dad causing him to have to just drive off track and into the dirt.

So, fun day but now I have two broken cars to contend with.

[Danny]

Yesterday I went out and put on my Thunderhill east and west track stickers on the red E30.




We're going to need to buy two sets of tires for the green car. We're stuck between deciding amongst these:



We've had the RE-71s and liked them a lot but boy, they sure wear out fast. I have a total of one (1) 15 minute session on the ZIIIs and liked them a lot as well. Curious if anyone here has any experience with the RT660s. What tires do you guys think we should get? We're going for a 205/50/15.

After that I got under the M3 and started work on the front brakes. They still had maybe 5% on them but I'm pretty sure I'm going to flip this car so in the interest of doing what is right, I felt I should replace them. Went with Akebono pads and Zimmerman rotors.

Old and busted:



Quite a lip here. Thinking these have been pad slapped at least once.



New hotness:



I also changed the oil and spark plugs just to get a new baseline on the car. Inside were Bosch 4 prong spark plugs which I have never been a fan of. I pulled them out and they looked like this:



I'm no expert in spark plugs reading but it looks okay to me I suppose. Would love to hear opinions. To my surprise, the NGKs I installed were also four prong. Maybe there's something to the four prong thing after all...


I threw the vanity cover back on the engine because you know, its the little things.



Okay so now I really need a hand if you all would be so kind. The two really big issues that I'm dealing with now are 1. aftermarket alarm kills the battery overnight (I am going to work on pulling this out completely). 2. The fuel gauge and the speedometer do not work. My theory is to send the cluster off to be rebuilt but if anyone has some insight I would love to hear it. Electronics and wiring is NOT my strong suit.

[paynemw]

This is a fun thread. Love the content and the awesome stories. Keep it up.

[econti]

Plug looks nasty, lots of deposits usually mean crap fuel full of additives to try make it less crap. Impressive they worked with the gap that large.

[Danny]

Plug looks nasty, lots of deposits usually mean crap fuel full of additives to try make it less crap. Impressive they worked with the gap that large.

I think someone has been running 87 in this thing for a while before I got it which kind of sucks. I would like to say that the new NGK plugs woke it up but really... its the same lol.

This is a fun thread. Love the content and the awesome stories. Keep it up.

Thanks brother!

Accomplished some big stuff today! First up was the headliner in the M3. I recruited my parents to help because well... my parents are super cool and they wanted to be involved. The headliner in the M3 was in absolutely terrible shape and was being held up with tape and some staples in places.





Took down all the trim pieces and were able to pop the headliner out in less than an hour with my dad helping out.



I bought four yards of suede material from the local Joann's fabric store which was much more than I needed. Everything I read online said 3-3 and a half yards would get it done but I really didn't want to do this twice so I bough a little extra. I think it cost me like 35 bucks after a 20% off coupon? Not bad.



Cut out all the holes for the trim pieces and various things. This turned out okay, not great but certainly not terrible and and absolutely better than what was in there.



This is what I mean by it is just "okay". There are some bubbles and wrinkles because I did this in my front yard with wind. I would give our efforts a 6/10 with the difficulty of this particular job being a 4/10.



My mom wanted to be more involved so she used the extra material to make a new e-brake boot and shifter boot. Not bad. No pics of the shifter boot because I forgot.



Then while I was at the parts store getting some brake fluid and some wax and some bulbs and some blah blah I noticed some cool copper colored wheel paint and thought... that might look decent. I did this with almost no prep other than some scuffing with 400 grit paper and spraying it. I took a picture with just the front wheels done for perspective (I also bought silver wheel paint in case I decide to switch back to that color).



I thought it looked kind of cool so I did the rear wheels.





I'm on the fence. I am pretty sure I'm going to sell this car once I get the title after I go to the DMV (with the smog that I passed today!) and fix the cluster (fuel gauge and speedo are still dead). I'm not sure if this car will command a higher price with the JDM/DTM HotBoi community or with some more purist type of people so I may go back to the silver.

Oh and last but not least I popped some new roundels on the car. Always looks so much better.



Any tips on the cluster? Let me know!

[TeXJ]

wheels look pretty good. what's the brand of the paint?

[Danny]

wheels look pretty good. what's the brand of the paint?

Dupli Color!

This is what I used. Took about 1 and 3/4 cans for four wheels. https://www.amazon.com/Dupli-Color-W.../dp/B086MGS78Z

[TeXJ]

Dupli Color!

This is what I used. Took about 1 and 3/4 cans for four wheels. https://www.amazon.com/Dupli-Color-W.../dp/B086MGS78Z

nice! Did you happen to use a clear as well? You said you used 400 grit, would you use a higher grit or is 400 good to go?

[Danny]

I just did it very quickly to see if I liked it or not. I literally washed the wheels, sanded them a bit with 400 to rough them up, sprayed them and mounted them. Used flashcards stuck into the bead for masking. Easy peasy. So no clear but it seems to be good so far. I've always used 400 or 320 to sand wheels before painting them and never felt like I needed rougher or finer than that.

[TeXJ]

I just did it very quickly to see if I liked it or not. I literally washed the wheels, sanded them a bit with 400 to rough them up, sprayed them and mounted them. Used flashcards stuck into the bead for masking. Easy peasy. So no clear but it seems to be good so far. I've always used 400 or 320 to sand wheels before painting them and never felt like I needed rougher or finer than that.

Thank you! Sorry for all the questions. Did you yourself mount these or did you have them done? I've been thinking of doing that as well but have only seen the crap machine from Harbor Freight.

[Heezea]

Cool thread, good read.

I was thinking about the cluster. You're not getting fuel level or speed. Obviously it may need rebuilt. But, at least for the speed, it may be worth switching out the speed sensor with a known good one from one of the other cars? If that fixes it, maybe the fuel issue is also not on the board but in the sender? If you're feeling up to it, you could also switch out the clusters between two cars. This seems more involved than the first option though, but it would be more definitive about where the problem is.

[Danny]

Thank you! Sorry for all the questions. Did you yourself mount these or did you have them done? I've been thinking of doing that as well but have only seen the crap machine from Harbor Freight.

No worries friend I don't mind at all. I had these mounted. I don't have a tire machine and haven't used one since high school. Super easy to paint wheels by using flash cards for masking. Just like this:

Cool thread, good read.

I was thinking about the cluster. You're not getting fuel level or speed. Obviously it may need rebuilt. But, at least for the speed, it may be worth switching out the speed sensor with a known good one from one of the other cars? If that fixes it, maybe the fuel issue is also not on the board but in the sender? If you're feeling up to it, you could also switch out the clusters between two cars. This seems more involved than the first option though, but it would be more definitive about where the problem is.

I thought it might be the speed sensor as well so I plugged my OBD2 reader in and when driving I get a VSS signal and its reading the speed correctly (according to my butt's speedo). I called in a buddy of mine and he suggested the ignition switch may be a culprit. I ordered one up since its fairly cheap and easy to do and the current one may be sending weird voltages to weird places. I'm gonna toss it in when it gets here and see what happens. Otherwise, I think a rebuild is in the works.

[TeXJ]

No worries friend I don't mind at all. I had these mounted. I don't have a tire machine and haven't used one since high school. Super easy to paint wheels by using flash cards for masking. Just like this:

Thank you!