1JZ E30 Vert Build Thread with Pastry filled wheels

[Bruce]

You're just lazy

[Jdesign]

Dang Brucie! Tell me how you really feel. 

I moved this car 5 feet forward this weekend,

.

.

.

then back again. I needed access to the tire machine. 

Don't worry, its time is coming. I didn't intend on having it on the road this year, but I will admit I am behind schedule on what I wanted to complete. I have 2 bins and trunk full of new parts, I am just approaching things in a systematic order vs. my normal "everything a little here and there."

[Jdesign]

So I did a thing over the weekend. I  was on the hunt for a door for the girlfriends car and found one in Illinois. I ended up driving to chicago to with intentions of buying the door but it was damaged and I couldn't come back empty handed.. in turn, stumbled across something Ive been pondering for some time and it was in great shape and the perfect price.

A hardtop.

The headliner is sagging (as are most) and the canvas does have some small flaws, but overall it's exactly what I needed. I intend on building a Panoroof and using this top to make molds, and a jig, but for now Im going to clean this one up and use it as is until im ready to take on that challenge. Ive been slowly trying to reduce the amount of irons I have in the fire so I can focus on this car.

[YoungCR]

Sweet! I'm excited for the panoroof project.

[Jdesign]

YoungCR said:

Sweet! I'm excited for the panoroof project.

Me too. I keep thinking the process through my head. I found material already, but like I said, I need to get some other projects done before I begin.

[REKIII]

You seem to have access to all kinds of cool toys, will you be utilizing a 3D scanner for this project?

[Jdesign]

REKIII said:

You seem to have access to all kinds of cool toys, will you be utilizing a 3D scanner for this project?

Good question, but I will not. It seems like this one will be mostly "old school" with lots of material use and hard labor.

[REKIII]

Jdesign said:

Good question, but I will not. It seems like this one will be mostly "old school" with lots of material use and hard labor. 

Nothing wrong with that.  Will be a cool project any which way.

[straight6pwr]

panoroof is happening! *subscribed*

[Jdesign]

Here is a better picture of the top on the car. You can see some of the rough edge on the bottom from poor storage. I also wiped it down and remove the stickers that were on it.

[Jdesign]

Had the ultimate motivation to work on this car.  Over the weekend I had two friends (David  and Cher)  swing by on my birthday and practice light painting using my car. I was only given 1 photo so far, but it's convinced me to put the car on the lift and finally start turning wrenches. 

 

I will post the images as they are processed and shared with me!

[YoungCR]

Love it!

[Jdesign]

Image #2 from David. Cher took more images and I even got him to take a "practice" shot of the E24. Im excited to see his, although I know they will take longer to process.

[Jdesign]

As I wait for Cher to work his magic on the pictures, I have begun work again, and I got quite a bit done in one quick swoop.

Step 1: was attacking the steering. Moving this thing around with the front wheels going wherever they wanted was extremely annoying. Previously I removed all the Z3 steering parts and left it at that. This past weekend I got the Z4 steering rack is installed, figured out inner and outer tie rods, and was able to delete the PS reservoir, pump, and lines. This meant I needed to install a new serp belt and new tensioner pulley as well to allow the belt to go on the opposite side of the tensioner. I even got a green belt for those added style points.

After all of that, there was one last thing I had not been able to solve; the steering coupler issue.  If you have an early model E30, the Z4 coupler fits the steering shaft and you just need to shorten the union shaft and call it good. Unfortunately, I have an airbag car and the splines are different. By different I mean that the common size is a  3/4" - 48.  3/4" Dia, 48 Splines. The E30 airbag shaft is 11/16" -36. 11/16" diameter, 36 splines. From what I have read, it seems like keeping some type of vibration damper is ideal as the feeling is very direct and may cause some column vibration. Seeing that I have fairly stiff suspension and rubber bands for tires, I wont overlook this.

Basically this is what I need to make, and I need to make it visually appealing. 

This is what I have;

The new Z4 shaft is on the left, the E30 Airbag shaft is on the right

Here is a close up of the two couplers. As you will notice that the one is aluminum and one is steel. Because of this I can not simply just weld the correct ends together. 

And here is the rack in the car. As you can see you need the same spacers as you would for a Z3 or M3 rack.

Flaming river makes a dampening universal joint but they are not cheap. I have to make sure they have it available in the correct splines/dia for my application and I won't need to make any custom parts. They look like this:

[YoungCR]

Forgot to ask you about the firewall, did you already enlarge it for the Z3 rack?

[Jdesign]

YoungCR said:

Forgot to ask you about the firewall, did you already enlarge it for the Z3 rack?

Never needed to. I think that's an issue with early models running newer racks. It was certainly offset more than the factory rack but not enough that I needed to modify anything. I wish they would hurry up and make steer-by-wire more common. 

[REKIII]

Jdesign said:

I wish they would hurry up and make steer-by-wire more common. 

I know it's probably not the point of this build, but it seems from a lot of reviews that the electric power steering, whether full drive by wire or electric motor assist is really disliked for the disconnected feel.

[Jdesign]

REKIII said:

I know it's probably not the point of this build, but it seems from a lot of reviews that the electric power steering, whether full drive by wire or electric motor assist is really disliked for the disconnected feel.

Yeah I would never use steer-by-wire. It was more of a joke. I will say that electric power assist is great though. I have driven a few cars with it and it's not any different than traditional PS. My civic hybrid actually has it and its great.

[REKIII]

Jdesign said:

Yeah I would never use steer-by-wire. It was more of a joke. I will say that electric power assist is great though. I have driven a few cars with it and it's not any different than traditional PS. My civic hybrid actually has it and its great.

That's good to hear.  I haven't owned anything new enough to try out electric power assist yet.

Someday before I die it would be great to figure out a rack set up for the M5.  Stupid steering box with 37 linkages is stupid.

[HipMF]

First idea:

Use the Z4 u-joint bit and fabricate an adapter so that it could be bolted to the rubber damper on the E30 bits. Welding on the cast piece probably isn't a good idea, but the stock shaft is attached to it somehow...?