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

[AWDBOB]

TLDR:

1) hoopty might be one color soon, m3 has shiny rollers that'll eventually end up on hoopty with 5 lug conversion

2) I need E30 M3 ackerman arms if you have a set you'd like to sell

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Hoopty v3 is loosely in motion. Linda (my old red/tan '90 iS with a 3.1L m20) was my dream car. I spent the last few years dabbling in hoopties to figure out what I really wanted out of the car hobby and feel like I've learned a lifetime of valuable lessons, which I am thankful for.

With that said, another red late coupe has always been on my radar as my end goal. My hope originally was to sell the M3 while values were high. Now that the M3 market has tanked, selling it is no longer on the table. I do not have space/capacity for 3 hobby cars, so red coupe dreams are out.

OG hoopty is a sorted car, but when I sanded down the quarter to stop the rust it went from cool patina to full on shitbox. I've put off dealing with it, hoping that said red late coupe dreams would fix that problem, but with the reality of long term M3 ownership and the opening back of some hobby free time, I've decided to make OG hoopty a little nicer.

I'm bringing the car up to Jake's paint guy on Monday to do the quarter, paint a nicer front bumper, redo the chip guard on the rockers/valence, shadowline exterior trim, and a few other small things, which I am very excited about. Will still be a shitbox, but finished in mostly the same color.

M3 work is slowly starting, so I needed rollers for it while I send its stock wheels off for refinishing.

My favorite wheels for whatever reason (thankfully I have cheap taste in this instance) are E38 style 5s. I sold a mint set to a buddy and knew he never used them, so I took advantage of that and black friday tire sale.

I have everything to do z4/e46 rear 5 lug on hoopty, so once M3 wheels are refinished I'll begin the 5 lug process on hoopty which will be the final home for the e38 wheels. I need E30M front ackerman arms to complete the front 5 lug setup.

That's all for now, folks.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[Simple_Smith]

I'm excited to see Hoopty with some fresh paint! That smashed black quarter was looking pretty rough. Sticking with a factory color respray or keeping us in the dark?

it certainly seems like your "hoopty" build is a better standard to aspire to than a lot of stuff running around nowadays

[AWDBOB]

I'm excited to see Hoopty with some fresh paint! That smashed black quarter was looking pretty rough. Sticking with a factory color respray or keeping us in the dark?

The patina look I'm all for, but once it transitioned from that to a farm and implement painted smashed quarter it started to bug me a LOT.

I wish I had the budget for a full respray- he's doing the quarter in factory lachs, redoing the black chip guard around the car, shadowline trim, and painting the front bumper, which will hopefully bring it up to a more cohesive base that I can build on later! He's done a few patina blend jobs for Jake in the past that looked good so we'll see how it turns out.

it certainly seems like your "hoopty" build is a better standard to aspire to than a lot of stuff running around nowadays

I was just thinking about this the other day as I reflected on Linda. I've spent more time now dialing in this car than I got to do with Linda re: certain bushings, USMs, motor combos, exhaust, stereo, interior, etc. Initially, I never thought that would be the case but I'm here for it.

Do you think you'll have your freshie M20 done for vintage '26?

[Simple_Smith]

That'll be interesting seeing the faux patina blend. I had a cirrus sedan with a really cool patina; some cars just wear it well.

With hoopty only needing to be at 80% you're able to really refine things you like vs. being budget constrained buying new everything or 9.5/10 condition stuff and realizing you don't like it or want to modify something expensive and prestine so you just don't and choose to live with it. Not that this allows you to be careless with things but there's less pressure to be at 110% with everything.

I'm still collecting parts and the M20 rebuild is pretty low on the list right now with a kid coming in January I doubt the wifey would be stoked to see a shiny new engine show up in the garage. The e90 needs some maintenance caught up and the M20 in the e30 is relatively healthy right now. Or at least I refuse to do a compression test because I don't need anything making me want to move it up the to-do list.

[2mAn]

Keeping the hood the way it is will keep you humble and keep it hoopty.

My name is 2mAn and I approve of this decision

[AWDBOB]

A trip to the dyno is never without incident. The car wasn't making power and the graph was indicating an ignition or timing issue despite everything being new. I swapped the injectors with new 19# genuine bosch units from a volvo which didn't change anything.

Then a bolt flew over my head when we started the car back up after the injector swap. It was a balancer bolt.... we sent a borescope down there and saw only two left. Saved by the bell.

I tore the car down to find it had snapped off the balancer dowel. Reassembled with new bolts and loctite, ran on the dyno again to make sure the balancer wasn't moving causing crank sensor/timing pickup issues. Graph still looked the same. We called it there instead of swapping the stock exhaust on it for the header a/b. When I go back up after the body work we're going to convert to standalone/LS coils, tune it with header on and then swap stock exhaust on for hopefully better results.

Header thoughts for you smart folks that know more than me:

The header is currently paired in two groups of 3. For a scavenged TriY header for a straight 6 with firing order of 1 5 3 6 2 4 you should have 1&6, 2&5 and 3&4 each paired together, then run those 3 into the main collector.

I don't know whether it's more efficient to time pulses 120* out or 240* out. 4 stroke = 720*/6 so:

1. 0*
5. 120*
3. 240*
6. 360*
2. 480*
4. 600*

He paired 1 5 3 and 6 2 4, aka, splitting the firing order in half, 120* between pulses. I'm not an expert and I'm just trying to figure out if this is an ideal combination or not for scavenging when running two banks of 3 primaries. The header is clocked clockwise at the collectors per the firing order.

I originally presented him with wanting a tri-Y and suggested that 1&6, 2&5, 3&4 be grouped together, but he wanted to do the two collectors of 3 primaries, clocked as such.

But it appears that 240* pulses are ideal, so if doing a 6 -2 header, 1-3 should be grouped and 4-6 should be grouped.

If you have engineer thoughts on the above, let me know and I'll send you my favorite gingerbread cookie recipe. I'm trying to figure out if this is the most efficient header design using 2 banks of 3 primaries.

Good news is that the body guy is a treasure and sent me a photo of the quarter dents almost completely pulled less than an hour after dropping the car off.

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr
Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr



It was by shear luck

Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr



Untitled by bimmertown, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

That'll be interesting seeing the faux patina blend. I had a cirrus sedan with a really cool patina; some cars just wear it well.

With hoopty only needing to be at 80% you're able to really refine things you like vs. being budget constrained buying new everything or 9.5/10 condition stuff and realizing you don't like it or want to modify something expensive and prestine so you just don't and choose to live with it. Not that this allows you to be careless with things but there's less pressure to be at 110% with everything.

I'm still collecting parts and the M20 rebuild is pretty low on the list right now with a kid coming in January I doubt the wifey would be stoked to see a shiny new engine show up in the garage. The e90 needs some maintenance caught up and the M20 in the e30 is relatively healthy right now. Or at least I refuse to do a compression test because I don't need anything making me want to move it up the to-do list.

It really is the way to do things- takes the pressure off to make it perfect and shiny before using it, which is where so much time is lost. This way I can get things generally how I want them and clean it up as I feel like it. Makes for a much more enjoyable ownership experience for my preferences.

Totally get it re: kiddo&motor (congrats!)- your car ripped in NC! A well sorted m20b25 is hard to beat. Stroker will be great, but not worth stressing yourself out over.

Keeping the hood the way it is will keep you humble and keep it hoopty.

My name is 2mAn and I approve of this decision

This is the way! There may or may not be flat clear involved to seal in the hood look forever.......

[2mAn]

My POS has some long-tube header setup, I will have to go look and see how they grouped it all...

I plan to do a dyno run pre and post cam/injector/chip swap too, very curious to see what this basic setup makes on mine...

[AWDBOB]

My POS has some long-tube header setup, I will have to go look and see how they grouped it all...

I plan to do a dyno run pre and post cam/injector/chip swap too, very curious to see what this basic setup makes on mine...

The generic long tubes all group 1-3 together and 4-6 together. Even fancy supersprints, old IE long tubes, Bavauto long tubes, racing dynamics, BTB, hartge, etc all group front 3 and back 3.

Will be nice to have the data on a cam swap. I swear I can't tell a noticeable difference with a cam on a stock m20. May the powers that be award you more than 4hp!