the one and only e30 s52 engine swap
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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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Alright, for now I'll stick with the e30 calipers, invest in better pads and rotors, and upgrade later if needed. I am considering of still switching over to a master cylinder from a e32 750i as it is said to have a stiffer feel from the pedal.
So, originally I had planned to rebuild my own calipers but now that I look at what it costs to buy a reman'd one, I might as well go that route. Is there any reason I should switch over to the ate calipers vs. sticking with the girling? I understand that with the brass bushings they are suppose to have a better feel... any experiences with those as well?
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The master cylinders and calipers are paired together. You can mix and match, but your mechanical advantage may not be what its supposed to be. There is no reason to switch to the ATE and brass slide bushings in my opinion. this is a good resource if you havent already come across it
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If you go with brass, keep up with cleaning them so they don’t bind.
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Can’t comment on the ATE calipers, but I bought rebuilt rear girling calipers from centric last year after snapping a bleed screw and I have nothing bad to say about them, they seem to be pretty good value for the money. If you care about how they look, make sure to get paint on them ASAP, they start to get surface rust pretty quickly.
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The master cylinders and calipers are paired together. You can mix and match, but your mechanical advantage may not be what its supposed to be. There is no reason to switch to the ATE and brass slide bushings in my opinion. this is a good resource if you havent already come across it
There was a buzz for a while in the E30 racing community about switching from the Girling fronts to the ATE fronts with the brass bushings but this is low on the mod scale say compared to brake ducting kits. The advantage was supposedly better braking due to even pad wear throughout the life of the pad rather than the tapering which can happen with the Girling's rubber bushings in heavy track use. Not really worth the cost or the additional maintenance like KaiserRolls noted. Like Snap said put your money elsewhere. Good indication of current interest is that there's a guy on R3V that's been trying to sell the ATE caliper/bushing combo for over a year with multiple price drops and no takers.
Rebuild kits for calipers are cheap and the rebuild process is not hard if all the metal bits are in good shape, no stuck broken bleeders etc. Like P_Roloff I've also had good luck with remanufactured Centric rear calipers. I got my rebuilt rear ATEs from ECS Tuning.
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Chassis pieces finished... finally
The fact I had to paint one side at a time on each piece was probably the biggest time killer, as well as the fact that I put three coats on each side. I'm really happy how it turned out though, originally the plan was to get them powder coated but the cost wasn't worth it IMO and after looking at how well por-15 turned out on other people's vehicles and the fact that it prevents the pieces from anymore rust, I had to give it a try.
Painted the rear dust shields and push rods in por-15 while I was at it...
Got around to putting in the new bearings tonight as well as the dust shields.
Probably put the hubs in on Wednesday, forgot got to blast the small brackets for the e brake cables at the same time as the calipers and its much easier installing them before the hubs are on. Gonna try to get around to doing that tomorrow and then throw a bit of por-15 on em to keep them in good shape. Spent a little time tonight cleaning up the hubs...
Finished up repairing the last few rust holes on the passenger side floor panel/drive line tunnel. The two circle holes were locations where there were stud screws originally, It had gotten to the point where there were all these small little holes around them from the rust eating through so the only real fix was to cut it out and weld in new. Still gotta spend some time smoothing everything out better before paint.
While letting the subframes dry I killed some time by pulling apart the flex disc from the swivel joint. Rivets were kind of a pain in the ass as they took a little force to punch out after cutting the top off. Once removed spent a little time cleaning up the corrosion and making it shiny with a Roloc disc and some brake clean. Thinking I might go with the poly flex disc from IE. The price is cheaper then the oem rubber one and it comes with all the hardware needed for installation.
Rear calipers are dissembled and blasted. Will be putting the new seals in tomorrow.
So went back to messing with the car and noticed that I will be unable to reuse the floor pan plug. After doing a little research it doesn't seem those are replaceable so It looks like the only fix is to weld the hole shut.
Will have to wire wheel the por-15 I just put on it back off now...
Besides that everything seems to be coming along alright. Haven't started on the gas tank at all yet. Got all excited cause I saw a new e30 gas tank for sale near me on Facebook. The dude originally payed over 300 for it and only wanted 90 bucks, immediately sent him a message for availability and sure enough, he sold it. On another note, look at the beautiful flocked dash!
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