Shop Life 2.0
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Got the car back together enough (barely) to take a couple beat-runs down the road in front of the shop. Can confirm that the exhaust is not just loud, but also obnoxious. Still no floor in the trunk, and no back seat, so the exhaust might as well be plumbed right into the cabin. It's the kind of loud that you can feel, as opposed to just hearing it. Also still missing one of the side windows. That combined with the not-car-culture-friendly temperatures this weekend, stiffer suspension, manual steering and general fear of things falling apart or exploding made for quiet a visceral first-drive experience. I survived, nothing broke, but there are more things left to do than I have fingers to count them.
I thought I did a pretty good job bleeding the brakes, but they didn't work worth crap (try rev-matching your downshifts when the brake pedal goes straight to the floor. It doesn't work well, but it's worth a laugh...). Bled the front, which made little, if any, difference. Will have to try re-bleeding the rears next weekend. May have a leak somewhere? Who knows...
Body roll is still substantial, even though my spring rates are 2-3 times stiffer than stock.
Also can confirm that Hankook RS-4s are no match for the mighty torque of a tired M42 when the temps outside are near freezing...
All-in-all it was a good time. Much work left to do, but definitely excited to get this thing out to an autocross or ten this summer.
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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.
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Do you have a rear sway bar?
Yes, it's a stock one I found at Gibsons.
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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...
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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...?
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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?
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 -
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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.
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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.
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I also can confirm of the glorious sounds.
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 -
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...
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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.
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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...
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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.
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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.
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