My Hoopte30 Project Attempt #6 - the painless way to earn cash back every day

[AWDBOB]

Trying to save the Cabriolet has proven to be interesting. Whoever did the timing belt 10 years ago never loosened the tensioner bolt post belt install to give the belt tension, so it's been loosey goosey and had approximately 3min of run time before explosion

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr


As seen here, tensioner fully compressed, hence the loose and destroyed belt

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr




Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

Eager to see how the header build unfolds! I'm a huge fan of custom exhaust fab, and header designs.

I am getting excited as it gets closer!

my old black car had the same auto trans issues. the former owner took the car to Jiffy Lube (!!!!!!!) for diagnostic, they told her the trans was bad, so she sold it to me.

i drove it with the auto for another couple years without issue. point of the story: wouldn't even worry about it, just keep driving. in town, i generally lock out overdrive anyway.

This is good intel. All of my 4hp22 experiences led quickly to auto trans deletes. The guy I got this car from loved that the vert was auto- it's definitely meant to be a cruiser.

The only space in my garage currently is in front of the Tii, so that is where I assembled the M20. Someday I'll have a normal garage space again.

After accidentally bottoming out the pilot bearing and spending a morning finding a tool locally to remove it, I made sure to use some emery cloth on the snout of the input shaft and greased everything well, and the trans slid on perfectly. I have PTSD after exploding the clutch, but it went on smooth like buttah.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



The same ugly ancillaries went back on the motor because they worked. Eventually I'll redo all of this. Going to be hilarious with the big dog header in a shite engine bay. A few more things to put together and we'll be in business!

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[e30austin]

my old black car had the same auto trans issues. the former owner took the car to Jiffy Lube (!!!!!!!) for diagnostic, they told her the trans was bad, so she sold it to me.

i drove it with the auto for another couple years without issue. point of the story: wouldn't even worry about it, just keep driving. in town, i generally lock out overdrive anyway.

[craz azn]

Eager to see how the header build unfolds! I'm a huge fan of custom exhaust fab, and header designs.

[AWDBOB]

OG R3V member Eric drove his rad 318iS slicktop over to the HQ from Ohio and we swapped his interior from Tan to Black and had a blast doing so!

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



I bought an auto Vert that was supposed to be decent mechanically and is more or less a basket case, which is par for the course. Would like to turn it into a cruiser so the lady can enjoy E30 life.

It was supposed to only be in need of a CSB. Turns out the steering rack is shot, needs Timing Belt service done, cluster inop, needs a driveshaft, needs brakes all around, and may need a transmission? After driving it some more, it hunts at 60mph from 3rd to 4th gear. Manual swap is the obvious answer but I like the idea of keeping this one auto.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



I have a fresh 9.4:1 2.7L M20 in from Kevin, this time with a 272 cam so I can more accurately track the results. Will be going with Jake's standalone.

But the real fun part of all this is that I am having a custom M20 scavenged, stepped primary, header built for the car with 1 3/4" primaries. My buddy Matt is an artist with designing/fabricating, and him and I have been wanting to build something cool for a few years. I told him about my desire to make a header that works with AC/Oil Cooler that is also designed to make power with results at a higher quality point and he loved the idea. He's been drawing up ideas for a month or so, and I'm dropping the car off this week to start. He's going to jig the engine bay and the header so we can produce these. There are the AAF and the Rhom headers that are too far on the race car side of things, you can't get RD headers, and IE is out of stock on all of their stuff, so I thought it would be fun to design one with him with the aim of being a street car that makes great power. Pretty excited, as I've wanted to do something like this for a long time!

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

That 02 might not actually be a hooptie

02 is far better than i deserve. awdbob gettin not so hoopty

Also, it pays to have friends that are 02 hoarders. Between my buddy Ben and the pink parts car, i've got everything to make the Tii "complete"!

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[2mAn]

That 02 might not actually be a hooptie

[AWDBOB]

i've seen this in an instance where the clutch disc wasn't correctly aligned with the pilot bearing and someone let the transmission hang off the clutch disc when trying to install the transmission, which surely bent or warped it, causing the harmonics to be off. i get trying to get home, just saying it so you don't continue to have issues later on!
but as to your u turn story, that was probably the strap on the pressure plate snapping. ask me how i know lol

When I did the manual swap on this car initially I had a hell of a time getting the trans on, so I likely beefed the clutch disc during that endeavor, whoops lol


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Barn find Riviera '72 Tii is home! After finally seeing this thing on concrete and getting a good look under it, I am beyond stoked. The chassis is FAR better than I was expecting, which is typically not the case with anything I buy, lol. I was going to sell the car to a buddy, and am so glad that I didn't. Likely won't own it long term, but am very excited to tinker, get it running, detail, etc.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr


In buying barnfind vibe cars, I am always worried the motors are locked up. Dr borescope revealed some promising news!

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[e30austin]

This is good intel- at Vintage some moron pulled out in front of me and I had to floor it in 1st while making a u turn on 215/45 200tw tires. I felt the car break loose, hesitate with engine still rippin', and then grab again. I depressed the clutch and it made a terrible sound. I pulled in and said "guys i just destroyed my clutch". The clutch has been fine since then, but I think when that happened i warped the clutch disc and broke or fractured a strap on the pressure plate.

I don't think the motor is long for this world, we just threw the disc back in because I was 5hrs away from home and that's all we had, but I planned on replacing the whole unit again when I build the next m20 that'll let me down.

i've seen this in an instance where the clutch disc wasn't correctly aligned with the pilot bearing and someone let the transmission hang off the clutch disc when trying to install the transmission, which surely bent or warped it, causing the harmonics to be off. i get trying to get home, just saying it so you don't continue to have issues later on!
but as to your u turn story, that was probably the strap on the pressure plate snapping. ask me how i know lol

[AWDBOB]

bummer about the 2.7 but about your clutch issue: the clutch disc is probably slightly warped. i had this happen once. 3 pressure plates in 4000 miles. i know you don't wanna do it again but throw the disc away.

This is good intel- at Vintage some moron pulled out in front of me and I had to floor it in 1st while making a u turn on 215/45 200tw tires. I felt the car break loose, hesitate with engine still rippin', and then grab again. I depressed the clutch and it made a terrible sound. I pulled in and said "guys i just destroyed my clutch". The clutch has been fine since then, but I think when that happened i warped the clutch disc and broke or fractured a strap on the pressure plate.

I don't think the motor is long for this world, we just threw the disc back in because I was 5hrs away from home and that's all we had, but I planned on replacing the whole unit again when I build the next m20 that'll let me down.

[e30austin]

bummer about the 2.7 but about your clutch issue: the clutch disc is probably slightly warped. i had this happen once. 3 pressure plates in 4000 miles. i know you don't wanna do it again but throw the disc away.

[AWDBOB]

love those wheels. looks great!

thanks, homie! Koseis are the juice

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Hoopty had an eventful weekend up at the classicdaily HQ. I went up to offer support for my buddy Andrew's insanely nice jap 320i MT2 car that he was bringing up to Jakes to convert to his Turkey&Cheese standalone and then convert to ITBs. Andrew's car is a beautiful example of a nice, low mileage car that still gets driven. His car has a 3L M20 stroker with S52 crank/rods with flat top 84mm 9.3:1 pistons, a 272 cam and a throttle body bored to accept an m30 throttle plate.

I brought hoopty up to do a pull on the dyno to see what it's making compared to Andrews 3L car, and that's when the fun started......

First pull on the dyno getting things set up, hoopty exploded the clutch. It sounded like it was 50/50 clutch failure or melted piston, and I didn't want to interrupt their itinerary, so I backed it off the dyno and did some diagnosis, upon which I found some rough results.

I borescoped the cylinders and did a compression check despite the car running fine off the dyno while making awful noises.

I then pulled the bowl reinforcement on the trans and metal chunks/shavings dumped out upon removal.

After not knowing what to do, I just focused on helping as much as I could with Andrews car and ITB install.

The following morning, Jake and I decided to do a quick/dirty clutch job so I could get the car home. 3hrs later and I was on my way!

The pressure plate (new M20 Sachs unit) straps failed. First time I have seen one fail like this. The disc itself was perfect.

We got some good data from Andrews car that I'll post in the dyno thread. Jake's standalone runs on RusEFI firmware and has been working out very well.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



Hoopty's only dyno pull. Disappointing numbers, but I think with some tweaks we could be closer to a desirable number.

Hoopty w AFR by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



And an overlay of Andrews 3L on stock ECU vs hoopty's 2.7

Andrew vs Boobie - Stock ECU by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[e30austin]

love those wheels. looks great!

[AWDBOB]

Oh baby the 15s were the right move!!! So glad I put tires on these K1s and got them on the car before I messed with spring rates. All of the wheel shake is gone, and the bump compliance is night and day.

I snagged some 205/55r15 Hankook Ventus Prime2's from Priority Tire on the cheap. They have a limited stock of this tire in the stock E30 15" tire size.

Coupon code LEGITPT723 saves 5% and is good until the end of the month. After tax it was only $86/tire.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

Another road trip down, and hoopty ate up the miles.

I am taking each trip as an opportunity to refine things a bit further.

We spent a week in Appalachia, and against everyones better judgment, I made sure the E30 was the vessel of choice.

A few days beforehand I spent some time chasing a leak on my freshie Sanden R134 AC system, in hopes to finally have cool air running through the vents. Turns out, the only part I didn't replace was leaking.... the evaporator! Thankfully I have a stack on the shelf and got a good used one swapped in in no time. She took about 3lbs of refrigerant and blows so cold I had to turn it down on the test drive to see if the lady approved of the air quality before driving 8hrs east.

I sadly had to do this trip on my 200tw Falkens, as I didn't have time to get tires for my 15" Koseis. With the rear suspension loaded with luggage I was getting some serious rubbing, which was far from ideal, but all was well.

I also spliced in a nice fan switch pigtail in hopes to regain high speed fan function in addition to low speed snowflake aux fan function. Would love it if snowflake = high speed aux fan, so am going to look into making that happen. Installed a new genuine cig lighter socket for all the charges, and she was good to go.

I swapped a premium sound amp in hopes to remedy a terrible stereo interference, but that didn't solve the problem, so I am going to remove the common ground setup, as I assume the system lost a ground somewhere.

I'm still shocked at how good this car runs.

Next round of hooptie improvements needed for it to be the ultimate road tripper:
-rear rubbing quite a bit loaded down. partially offset/tire size on my e38 wheels, but potentially need to swap in stiffer rear coilover springs
-front small bump compliance is mediocre at best. currently springs are 550f/650r. Considering going to a stock spring setup in hopes to smooth out bump compliance and raise the rear more than the GC adjusters are capable of. Sucks, because the car looks great at the current height, but road tripping at this height is far from ideal. Suggestions welcome. Already swapped to the GC street plates up front, which helped a decent bit, but it's not as good as I'd like it to be.
-15" wheels and tires with more sidewall to help the above
-radio fix/aftermarket amp install? decided against lukebox for trunk space, but still feel an aftermarket amp would help the fresh premium sound speakers I installed quite a bit over the stock amp.
-long term, the s3.46 is perfect for the highway but the car doesn't feel as quick as it should with the longer gears. I think a 3.64 would be perfect
-swap wiper motor, it finally gave out on this trip

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr