318ic restore

[decay]

bought one of SFGadgetGuy's dual-cupholder deals ($65 shipped iirc). a perfect repurpose for me, because i quit smoking when i came back from overseas. so an ashtray is useless to me but i could use something to hold the constantly-required coffee/rockstar/cherry coke that serves as a girlfriend-approved substitute chemical dependency.



bone simple 2-minute install; unscrew ashtray, connect 12v leads, seat cupholder, function-check with 12v device, done. good product.

it doesn't look like any of my car's POs were smokers, so if anyone needs a non-nasty ashtray, PM me and you can have mine for the cost of a USPS flat-rate box.

[decay]

i know, that last update was boring. but it can't all be engine and suspension porn. :P

took the car out and flogged it on topanga canyon road. the 225 KDWs and the front strut bar made a huge difference... it is very "point where you want to go" now; enough grip that i will probably not find the limit of adhesion on the street.

the ITBs have "shaped" the powerband much like a hotter cam does. great above 4500rpm, a little softer under. i could do a light flywheel and reground cams next, after which the power curve is going to make me want shorter gearing... but the idea of just putting an S50US head on a Z3 2.8 block keeps nagging from the back of my head.

[decay]

i got tired of looking at that eta wheel and bought a momo prototipo, which works nicely with all of AKG's interior bits.



as a bonus, pelican parts' warehouse is in el segundo, a few minutes away from me, so after they filled the order it was only one day of ship time.

i couldn't tell from the pic it had on their site, but the white stitching is going to need something else to flow with as well. as soon as i get sick of looking at that, i'll probably order some of the artisan's stuff that way.

[fiftytakedowns]

pretty hot interior. cant wait for my suspension

[decay]

car is back @ robert's getting a finer point put on the ITB tune and some suspension noises addressed; the only things we didn't replace on this thing (and some of the stuff we DID replace) are naturally starting to go out, and i've reached the limit of what i can do with hand tools, without electricity, in my condo's parking garage.

first thing we did is put in the rear springs so they match all the way around the car now (H&R sport for a Z3 1.9). when we first put them in the fender lip was exactly even with the top of the tire, and it settled quite a bit overnight:



so yeah, you can use the Z3 1.9 trailing arms, and you can use low-offset wheels with them, if you are willing to pull the ever-living shit out of the fenders. it doesn't rub, but there is less than a finger's width between the sidewall and the inside of the arch. no joke, it is very very close. but i have always disliked how the stock trailing arms placed the rear wheels "further inside" the well than the fronts, and as you can see that issue has been addressed without using a staggered wheel setup.

[ThisIsTheRanger]

Best thread ever. Amazing 318

[decay]

finally another update on this thing! i'd been waiting all week for some new parts to be ready, and they were done on friday.

never covered what we did last week- i got tired of the rubbing in the rear, so i picked up 10mm rear spring pads from Pelican, which was only a 2.5mm change from what was in there, but combine that with removing the convertible trunk anvil (which shouldn't have been there in the first place, as it made the car ass-heavy from the factory- 48f/52r). that thing was beastly heavy- probably twice the weight of the battering ram i used to have to carry as a combat engineer. rubbing eliminated, and car accelerated- about half the difference of not having a passenger vs having one. modding an m42 car is all about incremental gains, wherever you can get them.

robert and i were at his shop till 8pm last night getting this thing exactly how i wanted it, and i'm pretty happy with the result (except for the giant nail we found in one of my rear KDWs. FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.jpg).

his new employee tackled the install of the torsen 4.10 diff (the latest purchase from Jordan, who seems to be able to pull factory hot-rod parts out of his ass on cue). i've been driving semi-sedately and keeping a careful eye on the temp gauge since then, for reasons that will be clear momentarily, so i can't tell you how it works yet. gotta get out on one of these socal drives people are planning soon.



meanwhile, robert and i worked on the front of the car- first deleted the clutch-fan and shroud because i have plans for the nice big gap between the M42 and the radiator.



i acquired a volvo 960 fan after seeing a thread on m42club where a guy trimmed the shroud it came with and replaced the clutch fan with it; but as part of today's work we had the front bumper and valance off, and i noticed that it looked like it'd fit well in front of the radiator as a pusher. it did, like a glove:



so we used some pipe stock, the sawzall, and the grinding wheel to make some stand-offs and used a zip-tie-ish mounting kit to secure it to the front of the radiator. then we connected it to the stock aux fan wires and after some experimenting, figured out that swapping the old 15A fuse out for a 30A one got it working. very happy with the way that worked out. honestly, i didn't notice a huge difference in acceleration, but i did notice that it requires less load to cruise at surface-street speeds, so this thing is probably going to pay for itself in gas money before too long.

the reason we had the valance off is i was tired of looking at how it had been beaten out of shape by the POs that the reiger lip i bought wouldn't even fit it. so i got a used bronzit valance from a board member up in northern california and had the paint shop in robert's industrial complex DA off the texture, delete the bar across the center hole, and trim the flanges from the foglight/duct mounting areas. they did great work (and they better have for the price) and it came out looking just as good as i'd hoped.

as final touches, we hit the white body pieces behind the new valance with some flat-black paint, and cut the bottom edge of the shrouding that leads to the radiator and tucked it up under the bottom lip of the now-bigger center hole. so now there's a nice big cow-catcher that feeds the radiator, and it works well enough that the car never reached the halfway mark on the temp gauge last night or this morning, and the new fan has yet to kick on without being prompted by pushing the AC button. a note for anyone else thinking of this fan- it moves a lot of air, and it is noticeably loud.

just after finishing:



and this morning in some natural sunlight:





still have more stuff to install on this thing... and it is now desperately in need of some euro grilles. but life has gotten "interesting" lately. hopefully another update sometime next month.

[M42Technik]

Oh. My. Fuck. I need a sound clip of that engine dammit!!! I love the OEM+ look on the valence, I didn't notice until I re-read your post! Great build!!

[decay]

thanks a lot man- i've been thinking about an iphone 3GS, will do if at&t is gonna let me upgrade without buttrape involved.

[Simon S]

Hot damn !

Love how this car is set up..

[decay]

thanks, Simon.

have you seen rob_e30's COP upgrade kit? under $200 and an easy half-hour upgrade. there should be shitty pics of it somewhere ITT... at&t won't give me a good upgrade price on a 3GS until late next month so i get to be patient.

[Motorsports]

I like this Pic. It just shows how far you have come with this car. Looks great. I like it.

[Simon S]

have you seen rob_e30's COP upgrade kit? under $200 and an easy half-hour upgrade. there should be shitty pics of it somewhere ITT...

Yeah - I've seen Rob's deal. Wish I would've went with his package - I purchased a COP aluminum conversion plate from someone else ("haledj"/Doug) - but need to get my hands on the coil packs themselves yet.

Doing the COP conversion on an m42 is a no-brainer. I'll be buying coil packs before ever buying plug wires..

Those style 5s w/ the different trailing arms are friggin' sweet btw !

[tg318is]

nice thread! cars looking awesome

[decay]

Those style 5s w/ the different trailing arms are friggin' sweet btw !

i totally lucked into that. i thought 318ti and Z3 1.9 rear arms would be the same from realOEM research, but it turns out the z3 bits are about 10mm wider on each side. but at the end of the day, it fixed what always bugged me visually about e30s, that the rear wheels look recessed compared to the fronts, without using a staggered wheel setup.

even with 205/50s on the style 5's, i rubbed quite a lot until i had the fenders pulled. now that that's been done and the ass end has been lightened and lifted a touch, they are nice and flush and there is just BARELY enough room for 225/45.

edit: oh, and you're probably going to want some info on the washers you'll need to stack to make the COP setup work, if the plate is all you have. if you'd like i can find a scanner and send you the instructions that came with the setup i got; i think it has dimensions on it-