the one and only e30 s52 engine swap
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I had my tank vent through a small filter and had a small line going towards the ground right by the fuel tank. I had removed all of the stock hardline and canister stuff.
Never smelled gas, never had the car start on fire. -
I've never smelled gas from my canister removal. Only when the fuel rail line leaked.
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I'll start off right away by saying that dash repair, is not as easy as it seems. I spent right around 8 hours total body filling and sanding the shit out of this thing. Many times I came upon more small cracks I hadn't noticed before and had to go back and open them up and fix em. All in all it ended up turning out really great and I couldn't be more pleased.
The dash flocking was pretty straight forward as there is a pretty well written instructions that comes with the kit. I would say the one and only struggle about the hole process was the amount of time I had to get it done. You get 15 minutes total to get the black undercoat and the fibers on. Luckily I had a friend help me with the painting and so it took us about 10 minutes to get the painting done and the last few minutes to frantically get the fibers blown on before the undercoat dried. I went overboard with the fibers as the kit advises u to in order to cover all the areas. The cure takes about 15 - 17 hours before u can shake the excess fibers off and another 72 hours to a week before u can install it back in the car.
We'll see how she looks tomorrow once I shake it off.
On another note, got the driver side rust hole fixed up, 16 gauge worked so much better and welded up with little issue.
Subframes and trailing arms back from blasting!
Reinforcement time...
Front subframe all welded up before calling it quits tonight. All credit goes to my buddy Forrest and his master skills with a tig welder...
Gonna help finish up the reinforcement welding tomorrow as well as two other small rust holes on the passenger side that need to be cut out and welded up. Also praying that my parts show up from fcp so that I can get the timing cover back on the motor. Was suppose to get a few parts I was having powder coated back about week ago but it seems that their oven broke down and was unable to get it back up and running tell about a day ago, so once again, I wait.
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Dang, you're making the rest of us look bad with all this progress!
All that healthy asparagus eatin'
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Looks awesome, much congrats on tons of progress. Please take some nice close ups of that dash when its ready to go back into the car!
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Sorry for the late update. Spent the whole last week in Arizona enjoying the beautiful warm weather. Before I left I was able to finish up a couple things.
After getting my timing cover gaskets in the mail as well as many other parts needed for the motor I got the timing cover back on and gave the upper timing chain tensioner bolt another shot at redemption... Success acheived
Not to long after, my buddy showed up and went at it finishing welding the reinforcement on the rest of the subframe pieces...
That was about it until I got back this last weekend. The following morning woke up, ate some asparagus, and began tearing apart the steering rack for rebuild...
Once it was dissembled, threw it in the wash tank for a good 2 hours for a thorough cleaning.
Would have the rack already back together by now but I have been struggling and struggling to get the last main seal in the middle of the rack housing out but nothing seems to be working.
So far I have tried removing the seal with a bushing remover kit which ended real quick as it seemed I was stuck in between two different sizes that was either to small or to big to grab the seal. Tried using a wooden dowel as well as a long thin punch and screwdriver which only got me breaking off the plastic molding pieces behind the bushing that are suppose to come out with it and be replaced.
That was pretty much all I had for an edge to tap on. Now it seems anything I try to tap on the back of the bushing slips off. At this point I am pretty much stumped and took a break from the whole thing for a bit so I don't lose my mind.
On the up side... bushings showed up!
As for other things accomplished... designed up a new gas pedal bracket today to replace the unsalvageable rusty old one. Checked it on the pedal itself to verify proper fit and then welded her into place at the same location as the original.
Between school and work lately it has been hard to get over to the shop and get anything done. Hoping to get a break this weekend and crank out a few things.
Things up next on the agenda include...
- Get the holes for the alignment cams on the rear sub frame opened up to the same shape as the brackets installed.
- There are three more small holes ate through by rust that need to be cut out and welded.
- Once the above two are completed, POR-15 everything.
- Work on getting the seal out of the rack
- Start working on getting the carpet cleaned up.
- Make up new brake and fuel hard lines to be installed as well as ordering the brackets which I seemed to have forgotten about getting on the last order.
- Continue to work on getting the seal out of the rack
- Begin working on cleaning up the gas tank.
- Throw steering rack away and buy a re manufactured one like I should have in the first place instead of fucking around with this one.
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I wasnt aware some of those reinforcements existed, I only have a few of those. What is your spring and damper situation?
Some of it may a bit overkill, whatever. I'm running BC racing coilovers, spring rates are 6k in the front and 10k in the back (Stiffness is pretty close to the same of what H&R race springs would be).
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Did you form or purchase the plate that is welded in the open area of the rear trailing arm?
I've been wanting to do something similar as a "skid plate" for the lifted car lol. -
Did you form or purchase the plate that is welded in the open area of the rear trailing arm?
I've been wanting to do something similar as a "skid plate" for the lifted car lol.Garagistic makes them
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I'm sure a lot of you guys have heard of or are familiar with the whole rx7 caliper bbk for the e30, whats ur opinions on it? Any experiences with the setup?
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I'm sure a lot of you guys have heard of or are familiar with the whole rx7 caliper bbk for the e30, whats ur opinions on it? Any experiences with the setup?
I run brembo blanks, stock calipers, good pads and fluid, stainless lines, etc - I have yet to find myself needing more brake for regular driving and for autocross.
What are your plans for the car?
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What are your plans for the car?
Well hopefully find my way into doing some auto-x/track events as well as enjoying it occasionally on the weekends driving around to meets and what not. On what I've read up and researched, people that have done the conversion say that when tracking the car the brakes are quite a bit better over the stock calipers with the same pads and the longevity of the pad life increases substantially. Also, the conversion itself is so so simple and inexpensive that I almost feel its worth giving it a try.
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The biggest downside to the rx7 brakes is that you are then stuck with using specially machined rotors, which isn't a big deal if you have spares on hand, but you can't overnight something off the shelf if you ever need one in a pinch and they're going to be generally more expensive. If you're tracking the car the bigger brakes will deal with heat better, but as long as you can lock up your tires (which you can on stock brakes), bigger brakes won't necessarily stop you any sooner than stock rotors and good pads.
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^ Yeah, with the center-bore opened up 1mm.
I had built a set of them, but they didn't fit under my wheels so I sold em.A friend had them on his car and seemed to have serious lock up "issues", like his modulation was negatively affected.
A good high carbon rotor and good pads had always treated me very well. (Centric rotors(stoptech) and Hawk/EBC pads)
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Well hopefully find my way into doing some auto-x/track events as well as enjoying it occasionally on the weekends driving around to meets and what not. On what I've read up and researched, people that have done the conversion say that when tracking the car the brakes are quite a bit better over the stock calipers with the same pads and the longevity of the pad life increases substantially. Also, the conversion itself is so so simple and inexpensive that I almost feel its worth giving it a try.
Maybe try the autox/track events first with the car to see if you need the upgrade? You won't for street driving and unlikely for parking lot autox. Once you get more comfortable with the car and learn how to be faster with it on the track you might. For an e30 the combination of brake lines and hoses in good shape, stock blanks, high temp fluid (ATE, Motul) and brakes properly bled, race pads (PFC 08/11, Hawks HT-10 or DTC 60/70), sticky tires, and proper braking technique go a long way. With the above the only stopping issues on track I've had are when I've overcooked a corner by going in way too deep with too much speed before braking, or when a car in front of me dumped fluids/oil.
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