Alpine e30 progress/build thread
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Do you plan on painting/ cleaning up the longblock before installing it?
Yup! That's whats taking me forever since I have no good way to clean parts. The current method is to bring them home and scrub them in the bathtub haha. Can't do that with the block obviously... so I'll have to figure out something else there. I was thinking that since everything is aluminum I was just going to clean it well/leave it bare, and just paint the various steel brackets.
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Buy a case of brake clean. If you buy from Orielly they will price match farm and fleet @ $1.98 a can.
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🥳SOLD BMW E24 633CSI - BMW M30B32 🧪SOLD HCH ES9 - 1.3 LDA
👽BMW E30 325IC - Toyota 1JZ-GTE ⏰ HONDA EF9 CIVIC SI - JDM B18C5
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🤹♀️SOLD BMW E36/7 Z3 - BMW M54B25 🧓SOLD BMW E10 2002 - BMW M10M05 -
I also found that NAPA "Aluminum Brightener" in a spray bottle does a good job of shining up aluminum parts, once the gunk is already off. It's pretty nasty stuff.
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What is the deal with that fuel rail? Air injection manifold?
That's a vacuum distribution piece, basically just a secondary manifold that connects all 6 runners of the intake to the CCV system. It's disconnected and sitting there in that picture, it would usually connect to those 6 holes that are plugged with blue paper towel.
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I'm glad to see that Garagistic has kept up with their quality standards.....
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Finally got my diff! It's a clutch-type 3.15LSD from a Z3M, I didn't get the finned cover (just a standard e30 one) but that made it much cheaper.
Unfortunately, it appears that UPS dropped it on the input flange and destroyed the bearings. There is a ton of axial play, gear oil leaking out of the input seal due to all the slop, it's notchy to turn by hand, but hopefully there is no damage to the ring/pinion. Won't know more till I start taking it apart. Looks like I'll be learning to rebuild a diff
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super sucky news!
If it were me, I would pull the front cover and and look for tooth damage, then mark the input shaft nut/flange/shaft prior to removal, replace bearing, replace the seal, install the nut and flange to the same position as original, then you should be good to go. I would be very surprised if the flange ears themselves didnt bend but somehow the input shaft did.
nothing should have deformed so the original nut position on the input shaft will be valid for setting it up again.
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Can you not file a claim? I received some shit from eBay that showed up damaged because it was packaged poorly. Filed a claim, sent it back, got money back
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That sucks=/ It seems the safe way to ship a diff is to make a crate out of 2x4's
Yeah, I think the only way I'd ship one is bolted into a wooden crate from now on. This one wasn't even packaged that badly. Pretty much what I've learned, if you aren't comfortable dropping your box from 5 feet onto concrete, it's not packaged well enough.
Can you not file a claim? I received some shit from eBay that showed up damaged because it was packaged poorly. Filed a claim, sent it back, got money back
It's past the claim period, long story, I'm just going to keep it and rebuild it. I've been wanting to learn to rebuild them anyway, just didn't think I'd be doing it right now lol
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That sucks but please be generous on the rebuild details! I have a worn LSD or 2 that need help.
Definitely!
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Had a few hours on Sunday afternoon, so I took advantage of the warmer temps and got as much done underneath the car as I could. Laying on the concrete in 35 degree weather is a lot better than when it's 5 outside haha.
The car is officially immobile until it is running on 2 more cylinders, so I took a moment and stored it properly.
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This car is very clean underneath! let me know if you need help at any point
Do you know what the main differences between the aluminum M52TU and M54 are besides displacement? From the little info I have they seem to be pretty much the same thing except for the fact that the M52TU appears to be limited in terms of power adders
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This car is very clean underneath! let me know if you need help at any point
Do you know what the main differences between the aluminum M52TU and M54 are besides displacement? From the little info I have they seem to be pretty much the same thing except for the fact that the M52TU appears to be limited in terms of power adders
I'm not super familiar with the M52tu, but as far as I know there is minimal part compatibility between the two even though they are very similar in overall design. The M54 has a lot of small changes that add up to better performance like an improved intake/DISA design, pistons with shorter skirts and low tension rings for less friction (and higher oil consumption lol), slightly bigger cams, and a forged crank in the B30 (same part as S52).
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More things done! The m42 is just almost ready to pull, just the cooling system and power steering lines left to deal with.
I also started working on retrofitting the drive-by-wire throttle pedal. I removed everything related to the old cable setup, getting the cable itself disconnected from the firewall was a massive pain... glad that's done. With the pedal mount bracket, I shaved off the lower attachment for the e46 as it doesn't line up, and test fit the bracket in the car. I'll be using epoxy to bond it to the bottom piece of the e30 gas pedal so that I can clip it on without modifying the bracket welded to the floor.
Test fit the pedal to try out the spacing with the brake, it works pretty well
Turned my attention back to the engine. I pulled the intake manifold to clean it and paint all the steel brackets. While the manifold is off I figured I would replace the two plastic coolant pipes that run underneath. Glad I'm going that, this is how they both came out:
They literally fell apart and I had to dig all the pieces out from the block. If the engine weren't on a stand it would've been a nightmare. The plastic is so soft where it meets the block you can crumble it in your hands...
I also got a set of Hella Sharptone horns that I'll be installing behind the grilles. I didn't like the idea of having the yellow covers being visible through the grille so I took them apart and plasti-dipped the covers black. I decided to dip them instead of paint because it seems to hold up better to rock chips.
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