My 325e <3 Part 2

[itsonlygeorge]

The old 325e needs a new heart! The tired m20 is going out after 238k give or take 30k? The donor is a 1994 325i convertible the previously had a rocket bunny wide body kit. M50b25 with 113k on the clock. Pulled the motor and trans today:

To be continued...

Previous build thread from last owner:
https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/for...2-my-87-325e-3

Specs:

-1987 325e w/ Zender evo spoiler
-Removable core support! (Should make swamping the engine a breeze)
-M50b25 swap(in progress)
-G250 trans (in progress)
-Condor PS delete (old r3v kit was made of plastic and leaks)
-e36 3.6 steering rack (replaced with rack doctor, still has issues)
-UUC DSSR kit (hope it fits new trans)
-3.25 lsd differential (re-sealed a while back, getting repainted now)
-Elcoy /Nasieg 5 lug kit e46m3 front and e39 540 rear brakes
-AL Italia 16in M Contour replicas w 205/50r16 Falkens (they clear the massive e46m3 brake calipers, just barely)
-Full poly suspension oem+ 85a bushings (rear is getting upgraded)
-Bilstein HD struts on stock springs (putting in Bilstein Sports with Sport springs)
-Garagistic Adjustable subframe (getting put in as well)
-Racing Dynamics Strutbar (might replace)
-Euro Smiley headlights
-Home made Luke box w/ Alpine 10in sub

[moatilliatta]

Looks like a good chassis to start with, Any progress?

[itsonlygeorge]

Looks like a good chassis to start with, Any progress?

Progress! Motor is on a stand and getting torn down. Got the wiring harness off and labeled. Trying to determine if the head gasket should be replaced. I don't have the tools to hold the cams in place and removing the Jesus nut on a stand is not gna be fun. There's some buildup on the front of the block.

This is the only real bad spot i can find. Theres some rust on the bit of exposed gasket under the CPS wire. Should I be worried? I don't want to do the head gasket unless I have to. Odometer reads 113k but VIN registration comes up as 150K.

Ordered all new cooling system hoses and intake seals fromFCPeuro and BimmerWorld. I also ordered a silicon vacuum hose kit from HIPSI Motorsports. Those should come in a few days.

If I leave the head gasket alone I can paint the block and start replacing parts. I've got a new 140amp alternator, water pump, etc to put on. Remove PS pump and reseal oil filter housing. And I need to clean and swap the oil pan once the oil pump nut comes in. Planning on cleaning and painting the valve cover and degreasing e34 oil pan this weekend.

[itsonlygeorge]

Cleaned up the block today: Before: After: Primer: Paint: Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[itsonlygeorge]

Under the valve cover: Getting stripped: Painted: (didn’t get pics of primer or cleaned up cover) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[itsonlygeorge]

Progress! Picked up the engine from the shop today. New hea’d gasket/vanos seals etc. clean bill of health on the head, valves/cams are clean.

Old motor:

Crap old exhaust:

Removable core support



Off!


Face, Off!


Motor out!

Anyone one need a boat anchor!


Trans gone!


More tmr! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[itsonlygeorge]

Need to get this in! Just a mock up of whats to come.



Removed booster, master, clutch slave/master. What a pain. The bolts are basically inaccessible.

Steering knuckle feels good n right but the ujoints are easy to move. Previous owner got a kit for the steering rack knuckle off the forum and the spacers are too long to fit the washer above the rack. The top U-joint will not move. I spreyed it with PB Blaster and tried the usual screw driver trick, did not work. HELP!

Threading Porsche 944 booster. Don't get HF Tap and Die kit, it broke in 10 minutes.

More stuff coming out for cleaning up and paint. Front subframe, knuckles/strut cups, swaybar, and rack to be cleaned up. trans brace. All dirty and surface rusted. I try to get under the car every year and at least spray off the undercarriage to keep the surface rust at bay. I didn't get to it last year and you can tell where the moisture is. The knuckles are getting VHT Epoxy paint for the undercarriage. Subframe and brackets will be red to match rear subframe.


Time for the wire wheel!




Aircraft stripper. Honestly the Loctite Chisel I used on the valve cover worked way better. Still had to wire wheel a lot. This stuff was gooey and didn't eat through all the paint/primer layers. I did two rounds and then gave up and wire wheeled it some more. Next time I'm getting a sand blaster, even one of the kits fo a power washer has to be better than manual stripping.



Stripped all the things!

Took out the blower motor cover and striped it with the wire wheel. Man was that shit on there thick! I guess it was for insulation and noise deadening.


I didn't really have the tools to tackle the rust on the bottom of the spring cups, so I wire wheeled and scuffed up. It will have a textured feel to it but whatever. I wish I upgraded to E36 struts for this reason alone. Being able to replace the whole cup kits is awesome! E30 sucks that you have to take the whole strut assembly apart and you're stuck with an old part.

Subframe getting VHT Chassis Paint. Not sure if it's better than Rustoleum but it's an epoxy paint and should be tough. One step paint, no primer. I did basic prep/degrease but there is a distinct rough texture on the cups. I only did the top of the subframe black. I was going to do just the mating areas but the can of VHT was getting light. Sprayed the top of the frame black.


The cup are looks good, but the drains were rusty and had some smallish rocks rusting into the metal. Good thing I chiseled them out. The paint won't last here, but at least the rust is covered for now.

Backing plate got a bit of touch up too... why not? Bearings are masked off...

Ran out of the VHT paint and switched to Rustoleum cherry red enamel. Sprays on thick, the nozzle is market at "fast spray" not a joke.

Almost forgot this crossmember. Quickly wire wheeled and painted.

Primed and Red? It actually matches the rear subframe. That got powder coated properly and reinforced with camber/toe adjustors. I suppose I should have upgraded the front subframe for the heavier motor... I blew the budget on everything else!





Anyone have a good source for a good foam strip for the blower cover? The old one was dry rotted out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - Tapatalk sucks for posting! All the images do no follow line breaks and are generally a mess when editing on a computer later. Then the changes don't look right on Tapatalk and the images show up as dead links. Grrr...

[itsonlygeorge]

Diff coming down


Only about 120k on the diff? Not too sahbby! 3.25 lsd out of a e28. should be a good gearing for the g250 trans.

The valve cover was red at some point. It has been on 3 different diffs now... one of which has since disappeared via greyhound never to bee seen again.

A little primer...



Oilpan before:


After! So clean and shiny! Always worth to have things hot tanked.


What a nice patina on everything. Finely aged motor sludge... gross.


Off with the windage tray! Using the e34 oil pan with built in windage tray. Apparently there is some small benefit to running the tray as it has an extra flap somewhere.

Broke off the old pickup tube bracket with some vice grips. Removing the TTY bolts to remove the bracket was not something I want to tackle today...



Oil pump nut all wired up. Broke the stainless wire on install a few times. I had to go and find some at a NAPA. So glad they had it and its a bit beefier. Tried to get it all as tight as I could.




And she's all back together! I did the rear main seal as well with the special plastic tool and paper gasket that came with the kit. I had the seal put in a good few mm deeper than how it was originally mounted. There was a nice ~1mm groove on the crank from the old seal. No wonder it was leaking! Hopefully this one stay dry. I pulled apart the m20 and the clutch/pressure plate were covered in a light film of oil. Oil was seeping in from the back of the head and possibly the oil pan gasket.




Took apart the shifter linkage and confirmed that the selector rods are not the same length. I believe the e36 one is 189mm? Stock e36 on left is off by ~2mm. E30 DSSR 187mm on right. Putting in an Z3 1.9 shifter so I want to get it right and not have to pull it apart.

Can I still use this or do I need to order the e36 UUC variant?




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[itsonlygeorge]

Diff all painted up. I touched up the red a bit too.


I read about doing it this way and it worked really well! Put the jack on the bolt and pushed the subframe off. Old bushings are good, but the grease was dried up and caked on.


Finally out! This was a huge pain!


Everything is out! I had to cut the e-brake line to get it out. One side came out pretty easy but the other was rusted in good.


Old garagistic RTABs. Installed 3 years ago? The metal shaft was solid rust. I couldn't get one of em out with an impact or hammer. I have the fancy AKG bushing tool as well to pull them out and it didn't work!


So like any good E30 owner... I torched out the old bushings!

Clean-up and paint tmr!

[itsonlygeorge]

Stripped the rust off the arms a bit and roughed up the existing paint. Painted with VHT Epoxy paint, no primer needed. Curious to see how this stuff will last?


I got the backing plates as well. The welds on the e46/e30 hybrid plate are not great with big holes and a bit of surface rust. I wire brushed and filled the big holes in on the seam with some SteelStik. Worked well enough and takes paint.


Gna put it back together tmr? Hope that everything goes together well. I bought the new garagistic fixed adjuster plates and am curious to see hot they will work.

So shiny! Nice powder coat and it's pretty much the same as the rest of the paint I used.

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[itsonlygeorge]

Trailing arms and subframe coming together. AKG RTABs with garagistic hardware and subframe. I got the kit with fixed plates numbered from 0 - 3 with various adjustment. I figured it would be better have more limited adjustment that stays fixed. I was not too keen on the eccentrics as all I've read is how easily they go out of whack. I hope they work. I am a bit skeptical and not looking forward to explaining the alignment tech how to adjust the alignment with those plates...

I used "Super Lube" from the box store on the RTABs. Marine/Dielectric grease. Hope it works better than the white silicone that dried out instantly when I last did the RTABs.


Getting ready to go back on the car, Finally! One of the subframe sleeves was stuck on the frame and I could not get it to budge. I didn't want to use heat as it was directly next to the gas tank. Problems for the future. I used 3 jacks to finagle the subframe back up. Doing this alone seriously sucks. I used Copper antiseize on the bushings as instructed by AKG. I hope that works better than the dried/caked up white lithium the PO used.



Serpentine belt is on and routed for PS delete. I got the exhaus studs on as well, but thats not exciting.


So smooth! Lightened-ish m20 flywheel is good to go! I got the short 28mm flywheel bolts, the longer 323i TOB, new Sachs clutch, an e36 clutch slave w/ e30 master. Going on soon!


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[itsonlygeorge]

Got the font subframe, rack, control arms, FCAB, and stuts put in. New PS delete from Condor on the replacement rack doctor rack. Oh and I did all the annoying stuff on the firewall: clutch master, booster/clevis, gas pedal cable, etc. Turns out I forgot to install the seal for the e32 master when I 5lug'd the car. Probably explains why the brakes were crap.


Been fighting the diff for a few days now. It just wont fucking line up. I am concerned i got the wrong subframe but who knows.



All 4 holes are off by about this much. I'l have to try again today and see if I can get it to line up or if i have to re-drop the subframe...


Most of the engine is ready. Today's goal is to finish wiring the sensors and finish plumbing the vacuum and cooling system. I have HIPSI silicone kit to install and since there are no good pictures of the install I'll make my own. I suppose if you had all the hoses on the motor already it's easy to just cut to length.


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[moatilliatta]

Try some studs instead of the 4 bolts.

[itsonlygeorge]

Try some studs instead of the 4 bolts.

I put the sub frame on jack stands maybe it will settle. I haven’t messed with the diff yet. I still need to figure out the drive shaft bolt issue as well. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[itsonlygeorge]

Got a silicone hose kit from HPSI Motorsport. It came with a bunch of solicone hoses in various sizes and a cigar cutter. I took some pics of the install as there wasn't much to go on besides two pics I found on their site.

https://store.hpsimotorsports.com/collections/bmw

Intake vacuum hoses:


Working on ICV


Make sure you have the step down pipe of the ICV breather hose:


Top hose on new clip: this was a bitch to get on. I doubt the hose clamps are really doing anything, that suckers on there tight!

Unkder the intake and fuel rail:

Vacuum hose from manifold to FPR:


Test fit:



Bimmerworld boot:

Hose routing from valve cover:

Just about everything ready. (Catch Can pics later)


SPider hose and throttle body all ready to go. New hoses and clips. Not sure what I'm gna do with the aux thermostat for the TB heater, i'll figure out someplace to mount it.


New fuel lines and silicon hose for Catch Can:

Electrical:

I tried to take a few good pictures of all the sensors together so that I can make sense of it and save for later.


Early 325i fuel filter and bracket. This hung under the intake and was a huge pain to remove on the e36. The e30 already has a fuel filter by the high pressure fuel pump so I'm just going to change that one out. I also took out the e36 split power cable as I am using the e30 starter cable which has the power block on it and a few essential terminals. E30 fuse wire is also retained.

New Rack Doctor rack came in and it feels tight. I put the spacers on top and had to change the spacers to a thinner set.

Porsche 944 ATE Booster w/ e32 Master. There was no seal between the old booster and master, pedal should feel way better now.


New Condor PS delete. Old Silence kit leaked everywhere.

Shaved the fins down with a dremmel. Looks ok.


Ready to put the flywheel/clutch/pressure plate on and drop it in the car tmr.


Spider hoses and vacuum hoses all setup!