Alpine e30 progress/build thread
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The cost of an S52 swap is high enough that you may as well pay a little more and do an S54 swap and an S54 swap costs so much that you may as well pay a little less and do an LS swap [emoji14]
The M54 is going to be great! I really wish thats what I was swapping into my car but I have a good thing going (i hope)
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Did some more things on the car on Friday:
Installed a super beefy Mason Engineering strut brace I got from r3vlimited. Since I have new engine mounts and spaced the engine upwards with the reinforcement plates it didn't clear the intake so I had to space it upwards about 1/8" to clear, thankfully my camber plates have really long studs so I still have full thread engagement on everything. I can get a piece of paper in between the two but not a credit card, so hopefully the mounts are stiff enough to prevent it from whacking the intake. It also interferes with the wiring cover but since I'd rather have the performance improvement and this car doesn't really see rain it should be fine for now. Once the new engine is in I can take out the spacers and modify the harness cover to fit.
Installed the euro clock I've had sitting around forever. It was simple as my car came with a 6-button OBC so I didn't need to change the mounting bracket and whipped up a simple adapter harness made from a power mirror plug to avoid cutting wires so it will be easily reversible. I also installed a voltmeter screen that I got from a seller on R3vlimited. It replaces a switch blank and looks pretty nice in there. I have it piggy backing off the switched 12v line of rear defrost switch and measuring the voltage at that point, which should directly reflect the battery voltage. (car is off in this pic, hadn't been run in two weeks so the battery is a little low). My only complaint is that the bezel material is a little thicker than the switch blank and causes it to sit proud of the surrounding surface, so I'll have to pull it back out and shave it down at some point.
I also swapped in a Z3 antenna base to replace the antenna delete plug I had in there as I wanted my radio back. Install was simple and I made a harness adapter that attaches the power wire to the switched power lead so it wouldn't drain the battery and keeps things reversible. Haven't gotten a stubby antenna yet so its just sitting like this for the time being. With the antenna swapped in I installed all the trunk liner stuff from the parts car to have a complete trunk again.
Hoping to get the old diff back in this afternoon so I can take this to BMW/MINI night at Brew City Cruise Night on Tuesday this week.
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Mason Engineering is good stuff! I have one of their rear braces. My front brace was mighty close to the M20 manifold but the engine didnt rock much at all with the mounts I had. Which member did you get a voltmeter from? I was thinking of adding one
Here is the thread I got it from: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=281134&highlight=voltmeter
So far I'm happy with it. Its brighter than the rest of the dash at night but its not blinding, I'd say its on the same level as the headunit. It did take a really long time to ship (about a month) with no word from the seller, I actually opened a paypal dispute because I thought he disappeared but that got his attention and it was sent out within two days.
Side note: the old diff is back in the car as of tonight and its back on the road!
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Here is the thread I got it from: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=281134&highlight=voltmeter
So far I'm happy with it. Its brighter than the rest of the dash at night but its not blinding, I'd say its on the same level as the headunit. It did take a really long time to ship (about a month) with no word from the seller, I actually opened a paypal dispute because I thought he disappeared but that got his attention and it was sent out within two days.
Side note: the old diff is back in the car as of tonight and its back on the road!
Really dig that voltmeter, sucks it took so long to get.
https://www.instagram.com/_jdesigner_/ http://nevertoolow.tumblr.com/
🥳SOLD BMW E24 633CSI - BMW M30B32 🧪SOLD HCH ES9 - 1.3 LDA
👽BMW E30 325IC - Toyota 1JZ-GTE ⏰ HONDA EF9 CIVIC SI - JDM B18C5
☠️BMW E36 318i - Ford 5.0 FE302 🚴♂️ GT-Labomba - 26x2.75 Freeride
🤹♀️SOLD BMW E36/7 Z3 - BMW M54B25 🧓SOLD BMW E10 2002 - BMW M10M05 -
Really dig that voltmeter, sucks it took so long to get.
Yeah its a nice place to put one, that way you don't need to waste a spot for a proper gauge. It sounded like the seller had something come up and got behind, seems like he is back on track now so it wouldn't stop me from ordering again.
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RS's are now mounted (Thanks Andy/Kummrow!) and the width and offset are spot on. I can't run the center caps because the studs I currently have are too long, but for now I don't mind the look. I'm going to clean it up today after work and will get some pictures up soon! I like the Weds better but the offset in the front was going to trash my fenders if I went any lower/cornered hard enough...
Speaking of cornering, I registered for my first first autocross (WAI event #4 at Miller Park) on Sunday!
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Cleaned up the car:
And then immediately got it dirty again:
Pretty much the most fun I've ever had in this car and I can't wait to do it again! Really need an LSD back in this as I was peg-legging it coming out of a number of the corners, so I'll be throwing in a small case 4.10 lsd for the time being. Other than that, it handled everything really well with no real mechanical issues and took everything I could throw at it!
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I did a z3 antenna swap a while back and never got a stubby antenna, then I found out BMW makes a 'sport' stubby antenna for the z3/z4/etc and my inner (and a lot of times outer) OEM BMW nerd had to have it. It looks nice, and now I can get more radio stations!
More importantly, collecting swap parts is going well. Still looking for a few large items (including a motor...) but I am setting the goal of having a running car for the 2018 picnic again this year. We'll see how that goes
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I did a z3 antenna swap a while back and never got a stubby antenna, then I found out BMW makes a 'sport' stubby antenna for the z3/z4/etc and my inner (and a lot of times outer) OEM BMW nerd had to have it. It looks nice, and now I can get more radio stations!
More importantly, collecting swap parts is going well. Still looking for a few large items (including a motor...) but I am setting the goal of having a running car for the 2018 picnic again this year. We'll see how that goes
part number/s?
Dan
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part number/s?
65202296761
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That antenna is cool!
https://www.instagram.com/_jdesigner_/ http://nevertoolow.tumblr.com/
🥳SOLD BMW E24 633CSI - BMW M30B32 🧪SOLD HCH ES9 - 1.3 LDA
👽BMW E30 325IC - Toyota 1JZ-GTE ⏰ HONDA EF9 CIVIC SI - JDM B18C5
☠️BMW E36 318i - Ford 5.0 FE302 🚴♂️ GT-Labomba - 26x2.75 Freeride
🤹♀️SOLD BMW E36/7 Z3 - BMW M54B25 🧓SOLD BMW E10 2002 - BMW M10M05 -
Had a blast at the Road America autocross today. Did some experimenting with tire pressures to get more grip and see how it affects the handling, smoothed out my driving a bit over the 8 runs too. Getting faster! The car handled it really well and ran great/cool all day, despite it being hot as hell
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Fun fact: I put 2 miles on my e30 this year
I'll get there eventually
I feel your pain on that one, before this summer I drove it zero miles for nearly two years. You'll have to come out to one next year once you're up and running!
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A co-worker of mine was up there with her son in his mk6 GTI running in SMF. She was telling me about it this morning and I mentioned you were there and showed her your car and she said "Ohhh I saw that one! It was such a cute car!" So you've got that going for you lol.
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A co-worker of mine was up there with her son in his mk6 GTI running in SMF. She was telling me about it this morning and I mentioned you were there and showed her your car and she said "Ohhh I saw that one! It was such a cute car!" So you've got that going for you lol.
My mom calls it cute too, I count it as a compliment haha
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Imagine if you had a convertible. I had a lady insult me twice in one "compliment" once.
"Thats such a cute car, I like the color! Is it a pontiac too?"
After my simple NO, she sped away in her Pontiac Sunfire. FML.
https://www.instagram.com/_jdesigner_/ http://nevertoolow.tumblr.com/
🥳SOLD BMW E24 633CSI - BMW M30B32 🧪SOLD HCH ES9 - 1.3 LDA
👽BMW E30 325IC - Toyota 1JZ-GTE ⏰ HONDA EF9 CIVIC SI - JDM B18C5
☠️BMW E36 318i - Ford 5.0 FE302 🚴♂️ GT-Labomba - 26x2.75 Freeride
🤹♀️SOLD BMW E36/7 Z3 - BMW M54B25 🧓SOLD BMW E10 2002 - BMW M10M05 -
Imagine if you had a convertible. I had a lady insult me twice in one "compliment" once.
"Thats such a cute car, I like the color! Is it a pontiac too?"
After my simple NO, she sped away in her Pontiac Sunfire. FML.
Hahaha! I'm fucking dying over here! That's wonderful.
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