Shop Life 2.0

[B C]

The ride height and “stance” look great!! It takes a lot of lowering to make an e21 look like that. So to recap your suspension changes, you relocated the subframe mounting points, changed springs and dampers, and what else?

[HipMF]

The front is shortened strut tubes with Bilstein mk-I Golf inserts. This is a pretty well documented "mod" on the internets.

The rear is...... "custom". The subframe mounting points have been moved up about 2 inches so that the car can be lowered about the same amount without effing up the geometry. The rear on e21s is already a coil-over, but the stock dampers are too long, so for the time being I've replaced them with some cheap Bilstein coil-overs that are intended for circle-track midgets.

From what I've read, I think what I need is a "digressive" damper (ie a lot of low-speed damping, with less high-speed damping). This helps control body roll, but still allows the suspension to absorb bumps. I've converted the rear to 1/2" heim mounting top and bottom, so I can swap that out for any 'ol coilover damper that I feel like. The fronts I believe can be modified to be take-apart shocks. Bilstein shocks, internally, are all very similar. So, once you can take them apart, and have a way to recharge them with nitrogen after you put them back together, you can have them re-valved to whatever damping you want, provided you can find a competent shop to do the work. I feel like my spring rates are in the right ballpark, so I'm thinking it's the dampers that are failing to keep the roll in-check.

[B C]

Do you have a rear sway bar?

[HipMF]

snap said:

Do you have a rear sway bar?

Yes, it's a stock one I found at Gibsons.

[HipMF]

Question of the day: Is my car over-heating, or is my temp guage being an a-hole?

The temp guage in the car occasionally bounces around for no reason, but seeing it way above middle is still disconcerting.

Top radiator hose is plenty hot. Have spent much time bleeding with no change in results...

[HipMF]

Nevermind. Finally got the courage to just let 'er bake. Head temp went from ~200 to ~210. Temp near thermostat shot up to ~190 and the entire radiator got hot, as opposed to just the area around the top hose.

So, apparently the T-stat opened. Guage still displayed ~3/4, so apparently that's my new normal.

My brake lights were also on constantly, and I had to adjust the switch to get them to turn off, so, apparently somewhere between 33 and 35 years old is when e21 electrical systems start to shit the bed...?

[Jdesign]

LOL.

Oh man that gauge would worry the shit out of me. Maybe the sensor for it is bad, or the SI batteries? Does it even have those?

[GunMetalGrey]

[HipMF]

sooo... updates...

Battery is in the box and tied down, but I still need to get the cover that I made for it installed.

Was having some tire rub in the rear, so I rolled the fenders a bit. Also man-handled the front fenders around enough that it mostly doesn't rub.

Spent 12 or 15 hours clay-barring the paint. Aside from a ridiculous amount of overspray that I didn't even realize was on the car, there was 2 1/2 years worth of shop dust that had done bad, bad things to the paint. I'm actually pretty surprised that it cleaned up as well as it did. My method was more like you'd use a pencil eraser than the "glide the clay across the surface" technique that's normally recommended. I think a light buff would make it look pretty nice, but that's pretty low on my priority list right now.

Made it to the picnic!

The car is stiff and loud. That combined with the constant fear of smashing an oil pan of something falling apart made for a pretty exhausting drive.

Speaking of things falling apart...

When I put the subframe back in I had to loosen the bolts that hold the subframe bushings to the subframe to get everything to line up. Apparently I forgot to tighten them... None of them fell out, but none of them were tight either...

Also the LSD that I put in blew the input seal. It lost a good pint-and-a-half of fluid on the ~240 mile round-trip. Most of it appears to be all over the bottom of the car. It's back on jackstands again. Equilibrium has been restored.

[B C]

Your cross country road trip in that car still inspires me. Youve done cool things on that car. We were talking about how decent the exhaust sounded as you pulled into the picnic as well.

[YoungCR]

Forgot to ask for a proper demo of the exhaust but it did sound good coming in! Was glad to see you driving this car.

[suspenceful]

Happy to see this. White paint cleans up really well with a clay bar. You should really polish/wax/seal it in some way now though.

[Jdesign]

I also can confirm of the glorious sounds.

[HipMF]

Part number has changed a couple times since 1982. Was searching 3 different vendors to find someone who had all of the parts I needed in stock and could get them shipped in time for a reasonable price. Somehow ended up with an output seal instead of an input seal...

Another week on jackstands...

[HipMF]

Got the diff seal replaced over the weekend, so I've enlisted the car for daily-driver duties this week. So far it seems to be holding all it's fluids. I hosed engine-bright all over the bottom of the car and blasted it at the pay-n-spray, but the interior of the car still smells like gear lube now that I'm keeping the windows up. So far it's been a hoot though. It's hard not to drive like a juvenile delinquent in this thing, so that's fun.

[HipMF]

Didn't mention it earlier because I didn't really believe it, but I put the car on a second truck scale and it seems to agree with the first. First scale said 2320 with me in the car and half a tank of fuel. 2nd scale said 2380 with me, almost a full tank, a bag of tools and a couple other miscellaneous items. So roughly 2150 without me and half a tank. Still need to add some metal to the trunk, but that's a couple hundred pounds lighter than I was expecting...

[jc43089]

HipMF said:

Didn't mention it earlier because I didn't really believe it, but I put the car on a second truck scale and it seems to agree with the first. First scale said 2320 with me in the car and half a tank of fuel. 2nd scale said 2380 with me, almost a full tank, a bag of tools and a couple other miscellaneous items. So roughly 2150 without me and half a tank. Still need to add some metal to the trunk, but that's a couple hundred pounds lighter than I was expecting...

Fantastic!  Wow that is light.

[B C]

This is also a couple hundred less than I would have guessed!

What was the first aluminum block 4 cylinder from BMW? N20? Hah

as sac religious as it always is, a honda F20 would be a magical swap in that chassis

[HipMF]

snap said:

This is also a couple hundred less than I would have guessed!

What was the first aluminum block 4 cylinder from BMW? N20? Hah

as sac religious as it always is, a honda F20 would be a magical swap in that chassis 

S14 would be the ideal swap. F20 is the affordable equivalent and has definitely been on my radar from the start.

[Jdesign]

F20 is a pain, get a K20 with an adapter plate, have endless loads of joy.