E21 Project Thread - Part 2

[Bassboy3313]

So I have decided on doing a high gloss vinyl wrap on the car instead of paying thousands for a paint job. I've been talking with a local vehicle wrap company (Diamond Graphics, LLC in Cedarburg) and one of the guys even dropped off a few color books at my house for me to look through. I have been jumping around with colors a lot since I am kind of indecisive when it comes to things like this. First was white, then I thought about an olive green or super dark green, but now I am more dead set on orange. Seeing this obviously helped...

Looking through the color sample books, here are the oranges that I found caught my eye the most. I know colors look different depending on what type of screen you are looking at them on and so forth, but what do you guys think. Looking for your opinions. I am leaning towards Arlon 4600LX-383 Gloss Bright Orange.

[KaiserRolls]

Have to see them on the car to make up your mind dude

[Bassboy3313]

That's the thing, holding up a 3" square sample piece still doesn't give you the right visual of what the entire car will look like anyways.

[KaiserRolls]

You can order enough to do a fender for probably like $60

[The Full Banana]

Good call on orange. A shouty body kit calls for a shouty color.

[YoungCR]

Personally I'd go with one of the 3M vinyls just because it's gonna be a better quality. You should also just put all the jägermiester logos on too!

[patsbimmer1]

#2

[Dominic540]

3M G14 gets my vote also

[Bassboy3313]

Thanks for your inputs

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[Bassboy3313]

So with the 2 aerocatch hood latches, the center nose of the hood still flapped up and down while driving highway speeds. Had to figure out how to secure it without using a third aerocatch latch. I found these mini hood button latches and figured to give one a shot. I wanted it discrete so I incorporated it into the roundel.

Test fit

Had to weld in a new support for it.

And bingo, it works

I also installed my euro smoked turn signal lenses and gave the grilles a coat of semi gloss paint for that black out look.

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[Bassboy3313]

I feel so accomplished for the smallest things today. Finally figured out why my tach wasn't working. All the threads I read on m20 swaps into e21 say to wire the ecu tach output to the e21 fuse box tach pin and it should work. Well not for me. I then learned that the e21 tach runs off a 12v pulse signal and the e30 ecu (or in my case megasquirt) sends a 5v sine wave signal to the e30 tach. Brian and a few others mentioned to run it straight off the ignition coil to test it. I did it while the ecu signal was still attached and all that did was prevent the car from starting. Removed the ecu signal and the tach works! Straight off the coil. So that's how I will be running it.

Also, my temp gauge wasn't working either. Retraced the harness I made to connect the e30 c101 connector to the e21 fuse box plug and sure enough, the temp gauge wire solder points came undone. Resoldered them back together, better this time, and that works great now too!

Now to just get the speedo to work with the vss when the new diff goes in. Paging Mike (hipmf)

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[Bassboy3313]

The recent project ...

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[Bassboy3313]

I've gotten into a soldering kick lately and decided to revamp my dim tail lights. The old incandescent bulbs just don't cut it, especially since the e21 doesn't have a third brake light either. So, I started making my own led panels out of led strip lights. I will be doing the turn signals, brake lights and tail lights. The reverse lights don't work anyways right now (probably should look into that with the e30 trans swap connectors and such) so I'll deal with those another time.

Soldering started

Led panel installed without lens

Led panel installed WITH lens.

Should be nice and bring now! I finished up all the soldering for both turn signals, 2 out of 4 brake lights (2 per side) and the tail lights. I will be trying out a 100 ohm resistor to see if that lowers the light output for the tail lights so they aren't as bring as the brake lights. I ordered more red strip lights to finish up the remaining 2 brake lights as well as an led flasher that will plug into the stock location. Eliminating the fast blinking normally caused by leds. Hoping to have these done for the Oct 15th cruise.

[YoungCR]

Preventing mayhem like this!

[Jdesign]

Im am totally digging the quik-latch in the roundel. Brilliant.

[Bassboy3313]

Tail lights are done except one brake light on each side. Waiting on more strips lights to come in mail. The individual leds in the brake light show up more in the camera then they do in person, just an fyi.

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[Daggerty]

Bassboy3313 said:

Tail lights are done except one brake light on each side. Waiting on more strips lights to come in mail. The individual leds in the brake light show up more in the camera then they do in person, just an fyi.

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Now I should know when you are braking next time I'm behind you lmao. Didn't want to call you out on the way to veloce I figured you knew, and you did.

[Bassboy3313]

Daggerty said:

Now I should know when you are braking next time I'm behind you lmao. Didn't want to call you out on the way to veloce I figured you knew, and you did.

Its all good. Snap called me out on the previous cruise and I just forgot about it. I found that the brake light switch wire was pulled very taught, which was causing it to intermittently pull away from the switch. I fixed that wire and now did these LEDs, so I am hoping it should stay A-OK now.

[Bassboy3313]

Messed around with some cheap red digital gauges to match the volt gauge I installed in my tach. Took them apart and made my own face plate decals to hide what I didn't want shown. Going for the simple look. Put them back together and you'd never know I messed with them once lit up.

Waiting on the oil temp gauge to arrive so I can give it the same treatment. Then I'll just have to figure out something for the wideband to match these. Hhmmmm.

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[Bassboy3313]

Got the last 2 gauges in the mail and put my custom touches to them. So all 4 are done and ready to install.

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