Rally / RallyX Build

[paynemw]

Please tell me you're selling all of that interior to make some money back

[atxE30]

Working on it. A fair amount already gone, which has offset a little more than half of the parts costs so far.

I really need to get the rest moved to make room in the garage. I'd make someone a killer deal at this point to take it all...

[atxE30]

Plugging away...

photos to follow, but latest:

got calipers and parking brakes stripped off. bummer there is that the pistons were pretty beat up and i did not order new ones with rebuild parts, so in the interest of expediency, and picking my battles, i ordered up re-builts.

got the tranny mount bushings installed...

next up, drop the diff and get the rear subframe off. once that's done, i'll do the fuel filter and inline pump. i'm hemming and hawing on the in-tank pump. also i'll start the install of all of the chase-bays brake line replacement plumbing. i'm doing the whole deal there: front to back...

side note, got another set of jack-tands (6-tonners), so i got the car about 25 inches off the ground. muuuuuuch better! not as good as a lift but working under it is a lot less irritating..

next question for the broader group: has anyone ever cut the wheel well out and replaced with a welded in disk? i'm guessing thats worth like 40-50lbs..and **un-obstructed** access to diff, etc..

[paynemw]

next question for the broader group: has anyone ever cut the wheel well out and replaced with a welded in disk? i'm guessing thats worth like 40-50lbs..and **un-obstructed** access to diff, etc..

There are a decent amount of people who do that, I don't think SPECE30 guys can do it. Garagistic sells a pre-cut sheet. If you do that, you could probably also install the 2nd Diff mount with ease.

There are a few re-enforcement tabs that can be welded to the rear-subframe. I also used the powerflex bushings in the rear and front subframes.

If you replaced your trans mounts and not your engine mounts you'll hear a crazy rattle when you start your engine... it's just the stiff trans mounts.

[atxE30]

yeah, i'm doing all of the bushings with the condor speed shop stuff.

thanks for pointer to garagistic folks for the disk. that's a no-brainer for me now since i'm not doing spec e30, but rather chump/champ car stuff. think i'll do that tomorrow.

[atxE30]

Latest Progress.....(And a distraction....)

Between crappy weather, work and some drive shaft to diff bolts that required a lot of PB Blaster to get loose, it's been a little slow.

First things first. the driveshaft to diff flange bolts are a total pita. they are supposed to be 17mm.....but i'm guessing there was a different definition of 17mm when this car was made? I came close to rounding one, which would have been a disaster. Tried a few diff brands of wrench, all loose on the nut. Then, had an ah-ha moment when i realized i still had the toolkit! BINGO the 17mm wrench in the trunck toolkit a perfect fit. So between that, a week and a half of PB Blaster soak and the linked box wrench technique for leverage, came right off.

So diff is out:



Drive Shaft off (Guibo was toast, might do that aluminum/delrin race mod for this):



Oh, and ordering new rear drive shafts as this was discovered when I pulled them:



I had hoped to have the rear sub-frame off last Sunday but ran into the issue where it's stuck. Could not find a 5/8 tap in ATX on a Sunday to do the common extraction approach, so had to order. It gets here today and so I'll have the rear subframe off this week.

And finally, that distraction I mentioned In the title..........



had my first couple of races last weekend. went mostly ok. I did spin the car once in each race, but got back into things. Pretty humbling having to start over in a new (for me) sport. But we have harrishillroad.com near me and it's just too easy/fun to get on the track in a large group and race wheel to wheel.

I'm on track with 325 to make the Champcar race in October and the WRL race at COTA in Dec.