Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

My Forever Car: '89 325i Touring

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #31
    this is moving along quickly. Where the hell are you sourcing all this shit so quickly? Or is there just a time-warp here cause this is the second time i've read through this...?

    Either way, great work. What happened to that ix parts car?

    Comment


      #32
      Very entertaining to read. i like how that shifter turned out.

      I would have thought that driving RHD car in america would be super annoying. Im imagining trying to overtake someone and not being able to see around them cause you are on the wrong side of the car!

      Comment


        #33
        Originally posted by jeenyus View Post
        this is moving along quickly. Where the hell are you sourcing all this shit so quickly? Or is there just a time-warp here cause this is the second time i've read through this...?

        Either way, great work. What happened to that ix parts car?
        Haha, I've updated sparsely so that's probably the source of the time warp. I've been researching and hoarding for a few years and now it's finally time to execute.

        Sadly, the IX could not be saved. It was a Michigan car (read: unsalted water, salted roads) and the rust was too great. We took what we could and scrapped the chassis.

        Originally posted by e30davie
        I would have thought that driving RHD car in america would be super annoying. Im imagining trying to overtake someone and not being able to see around them cause you are on the wrong side of the car!
        Surprisingly to me left turns aren't bad at all. E30s have pretty open greenhouses which helps visibility all around. However, passing on two-lane roads does suck. I won't attempt it unless whatever is in front of me is doing 10 under.
        -----I drink and I know car things-----
        1989 325i Touring - Daily W.I.P.
        ->https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=398457

        Comment


          #34
          Originally posted by -J- View Post
          Things are happening.

          Well this just got a whole hell of a lot more interesting.
          2009 BMW 328i xDrive (Daily/winter drift king)
          1987 BMW 325i (Currently torn apart)
          Instgram: @Ebola.30

          Comment


            #35
            Originally posted by -J- View Post
            That was with a stock, unmolested single mass flywheel.

            Nice work finishing your swap; I've said it before but the autos really do ruin these cars. My homebrew linkage has been great so far, with the only slop coming from the trans internals themselves. Unfortunately the synchros are pretty tired, and that combined with the AKG leverage make for some uncomfortably stiff shifts. Luckily the 420G is on deck...

            I'll try to compile another update this weekend, but the M3 is staying in tact for the next month or so, or at least until the Elhart 5-lug kit gets here.
            Did you try any additives for the transmission? The ZF transmission in my E36 M3 used to grind at least once or twice a day when going from 2nd to 3rd. I put some Liqui Moly (MoS2) into it, hasn't ground once in 10,000 miles of driving. Also made the transmission feel much smoother, closer to how it felt when new, definitely the best and easiest bandaid fix I've done on my cars.

            Comment


              #36
              No I haven't tried anything yet, but I'll have to give the LiquiMoly a go. Certainly couldn't hurt at this point. What trans oil are you running in your ZF?
              -----I drink and I know car things-----
              1989 325i Touring - Daily W.I.P.
              ->https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=398457

              Comment


                #37
                Originally posted by -J- View Post
                No I haven't tried anything yet, but I'll have to give the LiquiMoly a go. Certainly couldn't hurt at this point. What trans oil are you running in your ZF?

                Redline MTL 75W/80.

                I also know it was not fresh fluid alone that fixed the issue. I had just changed the fluid about 500 miles before I changed the fluid again and mixed in LiquiMoly. This was during the winter, so also during the coldest (cold for SoCal) time of year when the transmission really liked to grind.

                Grinding went away after about 50 miles. I would only recommend this additive if your transmission has issues. I've read about people doing it on new transmissions, and encountering issues, such as the car slipping out of gear.
                Last edited by earthwormjim; 04-16-2018, 07:08 PM.

                Comment


                  #38
                  I generally don't believe in the snake-oil "one bottle that solves it all!" fluids, but holy shit the LiquiMoly actually worked. Took about 500 miles to run in but the difference is night and day. Much smoother going into gear, especially when cold (we're still having 35F mornings here in Michigan, sigh). The shift effort is still a bit high and I'd still look into getting another trans if it weren't for the impending swap, but it'll reliably go into gear now. Thanks for the pro tip Jim!
                  -----I drink and I know car things-----
                  1989 325i Touring - Daily W.I.P.
                  ->https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=398457

                  Comment


                    #39
                    Awesome build thread. Definitely envious as your recipe has always been a winning combination in my head:

                    Touring for practicality reasons: Kids in the near future/pups in the back.
                    S54: Best straight 6 ever
                    6speed: because awesome! and you can run the S3.73 to realllllly make that S54 fly.
                    -Brad, AlphaTeam Motorwerks, LLC
                    91' 318iS - S54/6MT Swapped
                    08' E90 M3 6MT - Daily
                    04' Chevy Duramax CCLB - Work Truck/Hauler


                    Originally posted by IronJoe
                    Alpha Team: running through e30s, gringo icebergs, and 19 yr olds.

                    Originally posted by 2mAn
                    Brads a standup guy even though he likes buttsex

                    Comment


                      #40
                      Glad it worked for you. I was shocked when it worked for my car too, I was ready to put a new transmission in my M3.

                      Comment


                        #41
                        Damn, I guess I should put some of that in mine...

                        Whats next?
                        Simon
                        Current Cars:
                        -1999 996.1 911 4/98 3.8L 6-Speed, 21st Century Beetle

                        Make R3V Great Again -2020

                        Comment


                          #42
                          Originally posted by spiDmang View Post
                          Awesome build thread. Definitely envious as your recipe has always been a winning combination in my head:

                          Touring for practicality reasons: Kids in the near future/pups in the back.
                          S54: Best straight 6 ever
                          6speed: because awesome! and you can run the S3.73 to realllllly make that S54 fly.
                          Thanks man. That's what I'm going for: practically fast.

                          Originally posted by 2mAn
                          Whats next?
                          Short term, I need to go through the brakes. A bunch of coworkers are heading to Gingerman Raceway for an SCCA Track Night in America and I figured what the hell. I have new rotors and PFC pads that I want to throw on in the next week or so, as well as bleed the brakes. The RR caliper bleed screw is snapped, so I'm going to have to figure that out too.

                          I'm going to gather some more data with the Aim data acq system from the racecar as well. I want to compare transmissions, tires, and brakes. I'll leave it in for Gingerman for lap times too.

                          Longer term...



                          The Nasieg/Elcoy brake-upgrade-with-a-side-of-5-lug kit came in this week, and the rest of the parts should be here next. I'll test fit it to get wheel/tire measurements, then order them up. I'll install the H&R and Bilstien Sports shortly after.
                          -----I drink and I know car things-----
                          1989 325i Touring - Daily W.I.P.
                          ->https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=398457

                          Comment


                            #43
                            Turns out weddings and wedding planning takes up a ton of time. Who knew? Regardless, I have been able to make some progress on the Touring.

                            These first two I actually did in the winter/spring transition, but forgot to post up. First was ditching the disco stereo with an inop CD player for something that looks like it belongs (and had Bluetooth). Enter the Continental/VDO TR7412UB-OR. I'm not the first person to install this into an E30, but I will say that this thing suits E30s really well. The orange backlight is a damn good match for the E30 interior lights, and I've been beyond happy to finally have my own music coming through the speakers.

                            Old and busted:


                            New hotness:


                            Next to go in were a pair of good condition black sport seats. I disassembled the sliders, cleaned and greased, and installed. They'll need a re-cover and new gas springs in the future, but for now I'm glad to be able to take a corner and not brace myself on the trans tunnel. I didn't grab any pictures, but I think we all know what the OK-ist of sport seats look like in an E30.

                            Also since the last update: track day, bro! I got the car out to two tracks so far, one being Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, MI, and the other Grattan Raceway in Belding, MI. I have Spec Miata experience at both tracks so I wasn't worried about potentially wrecking the car.

                            The Gingerman event was through the SCCA Track Night in America program, which I had yet to do (they specifically ban racecars, so SM testing was never an option). I have to say, I'm impressed with how well it was run and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking about getting on track. Three sessions for a hundred bucks? Yeah, I'm in.

                            The only prep I did was to change the rotors out, swap to PFC 08 pads, and bleed the system.


                            The work went smoothly minus the right rear bleeder screw, which was snapped off, but I knew this going in so I was prepared. I tried left hand drill bits to minor success but settled on re-tapping the caliper. A new bleed screw later and I was in business. I bled the system but found clean fluid so I bled just the calipers, assuming the previous owner had bled the brakes. This was a mistake.

                            Session one was going well; I was enjoying the hilariously squishy, roll-prone, but amazingly neutral stock suspension and learning the limits of the Dunlop DZ102's when I started to notice the brake pedal sinking in the threshold braking zones. I made a mental note and backed up my brake zones. Two more laps of this and I was using 75% of the travel to build decel. Not OK. I pulled in just before the checker and parked it. After cooling for a half hour I drove around the paddock and found that the brakes had returned: classic symptoms of fluid boil. I brought a spare can of TYP200 and went to work bleeding the system (again).

                            I don't know what fluid was in there before, but it was absolutely NOT track rated. After coming out clean the night before, it was now a muddy dark brown. The heat had absolutely wrecked that fluid. I lost a session bleeding but was now confident I had brakes, so I went out for the third. The car ran flawlessly, and I was able to put down a time roughly ten seconds slower than my Spec Miata. That'll change soon.

                            For the Grattan event I decided that running on stock suspension, although hilarious, had lost its charm after the two sessions at Gingerman. I had acquired a set of used H&R Sports and Bilstein Sports from Classic Daily and figured it'd be a good intermediate step before going hardcore on the suspension.

                            It's hilarious to me how tall the stock springs are. I maxed out my spring compressor to get these out.

                            I thrashed the night before, didn't sleep, and got them in for Grattan. On my 3am test drive the car felt awesome, but the roads I drove were freshly paved...

                            When I headed out for the track in the morning I noticed some odd behavior from the rear of the car going over the plentiful bumps and cracks in the highway. Some of them were bad enough to require corrective steering. In a word: unsettling. My sleep deprived brain told me that it was a future-me problem and I soldiered on. I was first up on track and immediately noticed a problem: anytime I'd go to full throttle at or near max-lat the inside rear would hop like a motherfucker. I figured that it might just be mismatched damping due to the rear of the car being heavier than a normal E30, but the more I did it the more I was convinced something was wrong. That's when I hit the cone.


                            Do a track day, they said. It'd be fun, they said.

                            The genius' running the track day though it'd be a good idea to place brake marker cones and apex cones on the track surface instead of next to it. There's a section of Grattan called "The Jump" where the cars go light (and some go briefly airborne) and it's completely blind. Someone had clipped a cone, knocking it into the driving line after the blind crest, and I was the lucky one to find it first.


                            It ripped all of the brittle old clips apart immediately, and I ran over the lip-splitter combo.


                            Amazingly though, this was the only damage to the combo.

                            I ran the next session sans-lip and noted the hopping again. I started to back off because it was so bad, which was no fun. I heard a clunk from the rear end when I went to get fuel, so I decided to investigate. I suspected that the right rear damper mount was loose from the extreme hop so I pulled the rear interior apart and re-torqued the bolts (FYI, accessing the damper mounts on a Touring is a bitch-and-a-half compared to a normal E30 due to the interior back there). When I climbed out of the back of the hatch I and some coworkers noted that the rear seemed bouncy. One downward shove of the rear all but confirmed that the rear dampers were blown. Balls. My day was done but I still had fun hanging with coworkers and grabbing photos of their cars.

                            When I got home I epoxied the lip back together, threw some paint on it, installed new clips on snapped it back into place. Good as new. I also swapped the stock Sachs rear dampers back in. Holy hell does it ride better now. The rear is still under-damped but it's at least drivable now. Bonus: the stance is so much better.


                            4X4 status.


                            Proper height.

                            Also, the PFC's dust a lot. A lot a lot.


                            Up next is major chassis upgrades: swapping to a proper suspension (KW V3's should be on the way), swapping bushings for 80a polyurethane, installing E46 brakes via the Naseig/Elcoy 5-lug kit, and installing a larger wheel/tire combo in 5x120. For what I have in mind I'm thinking a set of Kamotors flares might be in order...
                            -----I drink and I know car things-----
                            1989 325i Touring - Daily W.I.P.
                            ->https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=398457

                            Comment


                              #44
                              Nice Touring! Been a long time since I heard the name Grattan. As a kid, used to go with dad to Porsche club events there, and caught a number of bass in the pond next to the main straight. It's a small track, but a lot of elevation changes make it trickier than one might expect. Good Memories!

                              Comment


                                #45
                                Very nice. In the early '90s I had a RHD '76 2002. It was really weird shifting with my left hand but getting in & out on the curb side was nice.

                                [IMG]https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/my350z.com-vbulletin/550x225/80-parkerbsig_5096690e71d912ec1addc4a84e99c374685fc03 8.jpg[/IMG

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X