1JZ E30 Vert Build Thread with Pastry filled wheels

[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...?

[straight6pwr]

not sure how limited you want to keep the fab work on this but here's what popped in my head:

leave a stub of the z4 shaft connected to the u-joint. cut a flat onto it and put a hole through the middle.

key the flat into the adapter plate and put a bolt through to clamp the two parts together. a recess in the adapter plate could keep the bolt away from the flex joint.

[Jdesign]

HipMF said:

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...?

Almost spot on to my plan. I looked at it all for about 3 hours last night and decided my best bet is make a disc that I can weld to the Z4 steel end. This I will then turn on the lathe to make it centric and mark the placement for the mounting bolts. Then I will run two bolts through the plate into the flex disc connecting it to the aluminum E30 U joint. 

straight6pwr said:

not sure how limited you want to keep the fab work on this but here's what popped in my head:

leave a stub of the z4 shaft connected to the u-joint. cut a flat onto it and put a hole through the middle.

key the flat into the adapter plate and put a bolt through to clamp the two parts together. a recess in the adapter plate could keep the bolt away from the flex joint.

That's a damn nice illustration. I am basically doing something similar, although the bolts have to be on the outside of the joint as the end caps of the U-joints are press fit with a special tool and hold the bearings to spec and I don't want to pull them apart. Otherwise I won't be able to get a bolt/ U joint stub through the center.   

I hope to have something mocked up this evening.

[straight6pwr]

Jdesign said:

Almost spot on to my plan. I looked at it all for about 3 hours last night and decided my best bet is make a disc that I can weld to the Z4 steel end. This I will then turn on the lathe to make it centric and mark the placement for the mounting bolts. Then I will run two bolts through the plate into the flex disc connecting it to the aluminum E30 U joint. 

That's a damn nice illustration. I am basically doing something similar, although the bolts have to be on the outside of the joint as the end caps of the U-joints are press fit with a special tool and hold the bearings to spec and I don't want to pull them apart. Otherwise I won't be able to get a bolt/ U joint stub through the center.   

I hope to have something mocked up this evening. 

the shaft is press fit into the u-joint? no weld or splines? although i know the resistance of a press fit can be astounding, that's a little disconcerting.

[Jdesign]

straight6pwr said:

the shaft is press fit into the u-joint? no weld or splines? although i know the resistance of a press fit can be astounding, that's a little disconcerting.

Correct, and it's in there CRAZY good. You would need to chuck it in a mill to remove it without destroying both parts.