Helmut the e21

retoropak

Pedal box is done.

I got my throttle body flange. I use 68mm Bosch motorsports TB. Its funny that you cant get that flange in the states. I had to order one from Sweden.

I ordered my eBay intercooler. 12x18x3" core. Should be plenty to support my power goals.

Next week will be finishing some bracketry and I should be ready to prep it for paint.

retoropak

I got my fleabay Intercooler it supposed to e 3" core. Well it is not. Its a 2.5" and has some shitty spoolgun welds.. I am not even mad I will just return it and get another cheapo intercooler hoping it will be a bit better. Anyone know ebay sellers/brands that might have decent 3" intercoolers? My 12x12 ebay intercooler that i got couple years back look much better with decent welds and nice looking 3" core.

I made upper radiator mount/ shroud/ intercooler mount.

Front frame rail brace might come handy. The e21 chassis flexes a lot. I will most likely use this brace as a mounting point for the skid plate

Strut tower brace will be next.

I also got my e90 gas pedal. It should work really well.

I started designing chassis electrical harness with my new fusebox. I got the inventory of all circuits including wire lenghts, colors, gauge and approximate splice locations.I will be ordering some tefzel wiring sometime next week.

I had a bit of an issue with clutch master fitting in the bay, So I had to expand the bay a little bit. Half a pound of seam sealer and some epoxy primer and it will look beautiful

retoropak

I got a monstercooler today. I think it is a bit too much @ 24x12x4" core. It fits though but I think I will swap it for something a bit smaller. It will take an hour for the turbo to fill this thing with air. I think transient response may suffer a bit. It might require some pie cutting to connect to throttle body.

retoropak

After couple of weeks of engine bay paint prep. I am ready to paint it. I build a beautiful spray booth in my garage with two box fans and shoot some epoxy primer followed by some seam sealer and more epoxy. Today i will finish it with single stage urethane in original safari beige.

I got the intercooler figured out. Wiring is next on the list.

YoungCR

Always inspiring to see these diy paint set ups. Can’t wait to see the final results!

SteelBlue

Using an easy up as a paint booth frame is a great idea.

gilber33

SteelBlue said:

Using an easy up as a paint booth frame is a great idea.

It certainly is. I'm really annoyed that I spent the time and money building one when I have one.

retoropak

I were going to build one then i figured that I can set up the canopy thing outside but I got some stupid neighbors who would certainly call code enforcement cops so decided to move it inside.

Paint came out great. Engine bays are not my favorite thig to spray. There are bunch of angles, crevices and spots that are hard to get. I got couple of spots with that dry spray texture. I did not bother using a tack cloth after I preped the bare metal so there is bunch dust spots. Its good enough tho for the engine bay.

The floor around the drivers side torque box rusted out so this will get fixed next. I need to paint the driveshaft center bearing supports and diff mounts. Also will get the rear fender lips touched up since they cracked pretty badly when I pulled the fenders.

retoropak

Pedals are done.

Dual master ready to be plumbed. I am using stok e36 325i front brakes and stock 528i e28 rears. Front master is tilton 0.7" and rear is .75". Clutch is wilwood .75" I must say that Tiltons look much beefier and beter quality than wilwoods.

I bolted front and rear suspension and set the car on jenga blocks. I need to order new brake line flaring tool since cheapo amazon one crapped out on the second try.

YoungCR

This is the same one Eastwood sells and I highly recommend it, perfect flares every time. There are few other brands listed on amazon with the same thing a well and available with prime shipping but I got the K Tool years ago.

K Tool International Brake Line Flaring Tool, 45 Degree Set. Single, Double, and Bubble Flares, Vise-Mounted, T-Handle Screw Clamp

retoropak

YoungCR said:

This is the same one Eastwood sells and I highly recommend it, perfect flares every time. There are few other brands listed on amazon with the same thing a well and available with prime shipping but I got the K Tool years ago.

K Tool International Brake Line Flaring Tool, 45 Degree Set. Single, Double, and Bubble Flares, Vise-Mounted, T-Handle Screw Clamp

Yup just ordered it from amazon it is a TGR brand but otherwise looks the same.

What is the preferred way of doing fuel lines?

I got enough -6AN PTFE hose to run both supply and return but I thought that maybe going with stainless hardline would be a better option.

retoropak

h my that is what happen when you have 4 other projects ehm ehm. kids, wife and house and poor bimmer had to wait again. Oh well I got a bit of motivation so I will try to keep the momentum going. Vintage 2023 I am coming

It is wiring time. I ordered bunch of tefzel wire a while ago but could not get myself to start the wiring process.

And of course when i started checking circuits and what wires I will need I found that I forgot to order roughly 20-30% of needed wires.
I fixed that and I am getting the remainder tomorrow.

Since I could not continue wiring for about a week focused on other things. Fuel tank was partially modified (read cut but not welded), so i tackled that. I will run just the right side tank (measures roughly 7.5 gallons). Range will be amazing escpecially on e85. Space left after the left tank will be occupied by the exhaust.

Don't mind my ugly welds it doesn't leak and its temporary until I get the fuel cell

I also got the main power feed done. It is 1/0 splitting into 3x 4 gauge. Black thingy is the main 70A relay that will power up the "run" bus of the fusebox

I painted front calipers black and inspected rear e28 calipers that I sourced from the lemons e28. Rears will need rebuild which will be done as soon as I get my rebuild kit from rockauto.

This week I will try to finish fuel lines (6AN ptfe for that corn juice power) and continue the wiring challenge.

YoungCR

Thanks for the wiring source! I had trouble finding oem style colored wiring last time I looked.

retoropak

Electrical work is progressing well. I decided to abandon the Littlefuse integrated fusebox and build my own using TE fuseboxes. It allowed me to bus the power to the components the way I wanted.

I left the original rear harness and terminated it with the 20 pin deutsch connector. It will connect to the front harness.

Body harness is 90% complete. Almost everything under the hood is done. I am still adding some wires under dashboard for gauge power, glovebox lights or radio power and finishing up some grounds. It should be ready this week.
I get the set of cheapo rock auto parts e28 axles , brake discs and some pagid brake pads. I also got the gasket set for the m42.

I got a set of cheapest VAG coils of amazon to see how they fit. I think i will whip something to retain the coils. Once that thing moves out of garage under it own power and suspension aligns I will replace all el cheapo parts with something of better quality.

I spent some bucks on the Radium FPR and it fits beautifully with the nuke fuel rail.

Finish the steering: I ordered woodward u-joints and will need to whip a steering shaft. I still have to mount the column in final position. And lastly will need to sort the tie rod situation. I am thinking shorted e90 inners and e36 outers?

Engine: I have a second m42 which was sitting (covered) outside for almost 3 years. Damn squirrel lived in that thing for two years before I chased her out of there and sprayed 2 cans of pb blaster into the motor. It made very interesting, kind of crunchy noises when turning so I am pretty sure that it will work great. I got a gasket set for it and I am ready to dingleberry the shit out of the cylinders if needed and re-ring the pistons.

Who knows maybe it will make it to the Vintage

Beginning of the new fusebox

New fusebox

And the guts : power first

And the outputs

Radlok for incoming power: This thing is well........... very rad. Possibly best power connector I've seen so far

Finished product with chassis harness attached. Still need to shrink the boots but first will need to test and verify all circuits. I already found horn connected to the radiator fan output and vice versa. Hooooooonk you overheated

FPR. works really well with Nuke rail. Looks like this part was meant for m42 with my manifold

Chinesium coils

retoropak

Chassis harness is done and 99% functioning. There are small things to correct, like fogs and low beams control wiring is wrong and I need to move some pins around in the bulkhead connectors.

Fuel lines, flex sensor etc is done i just need to mount the fuel filter.

ECU is mounted and one of the bulkheads is terminated.

Will finish second bulkhead and engine harness sometime this and next week. The goal is to start the engine this month.

I cleaned the motor, slapped new gaskets including a headgasket and it should be ready to go. This thing sat for 4 years behind my shed. Damn chipmunk lived in the motor and stored bunch of chipmunk food in the head port.

Hopefully everything cleaned fairly ok. I will pull this motor anyway and drop some forged goodies over the winter.

I welded drain plug and turbo drain and oil pan is now ready to go.

My arp flywheel bolts from bmw m10 are a bit too short. I will need to replace with 28mm bolts.

Also the tilton hydraulic throw out is 2mm too long and I will need to swap the TO piston for the shorter one.

I got the steering shaft mocked up with some woodward u-joints. Will finish it once i get the e36 column in final position.

I decided to not run the motor NA and go for boost. I got the intercooler setup and i have a log manifold from my friends Volvo. The cylinder spacing is spot on i just need to redrill the flange for m42 bolt pattern. I got some green top injectors that should support 200-250whp which should be more than enough to test the chassis.

I also pondered the idea of running e90 cluster in my car. I got the arduino setup with can shield and was able to control most of the cluster. Cluster talks at 100kbs and maxxecu supports 500kbs i will need to setup arduino with dual can to translate the messages from maxx to BMW but that should not be a big issue.

retoropak

Update once every 3 years I am committed( at least for now ) to get that thing on the road.

Turbo manifold is done. Just need to finish welding the wastegate take off. I am still waiting for 3" stainless for the downpipe and exhaust and will finish the wastegate and manifold once I get it. Surprisingly my old downpipe from m10 fits but upside down :P.
It's been a while when I left off the engine wiring harness. I restarted the process couple days ago. I took me a while to go thru my documentation to figure out what goes where. I just have to terminate the harness with two circular connectors and should be good to go.

I also started working on coolant hoses. I got the heater core connection figured out. Turbo coolant hoses are also planned. I have bunch of stainless tube to hardline the turbo coolant and oil lines.

Now the question:

Dash/gauges?

1. Do I do digital dash
2. Digital Dash with analog tach
3. All analog with small 2-3" screen to display can bus data from ECU. i.e. EGT's, Timing, boost, oil T, oil P

Did a little rendering. I looks kinda meh but gives you some idea.

pynacl

Would be awesome to keep analog gauges, but have some sort of P3 digital vent gauge that is subtle/matches the BMW amber color. Wonder if you could hack up an OEM vent to fit one of these https://p3.io/

P_Roloff

I vote either full analog with a tiny digital, or go full bore on digital and make it fit nicely and look as sleek as you can. A hybrid approach I think would kinda clash?

Whoo progress! This thing is gonna rip!

retoropak

I decided to go with ADU5 digital display in the middle and will use 80mm analog tach and speed.

I started making some molds to build CF cluster bezel. I will receive my ADU in two weeks.

I am trying to make the car drivable and somewhat reliable so I can take it to Vintage. The goal is to have it on the road first week of March and shake it down and fix whatever falls apart.

I finished engine harness and tested all circuits. Bought new wally world AGM battery and amazon special battery tray.

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I got a nice deal on ID 1050x injectors. I was a bit disappointed with fitment and the fact that I will loose beautiful stock m42 injector harness box/cover. But I could not find ev6 sized injector that would flow 1000 or more cc's.

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I finished all oil lines and coolant lines. I used stainless hardlines for turbo coolant and turbo oil feed.

Radiator hoses are generic amazon silicone 90's joint with stainless tube.

Cheapo bead roller struggled a bit with stainless tube but it got the job done.

I finished welding exhaust manifold

Added some vacuum ports to the intake.

Don't mind the welds I forgot what to do when welding a massive heatsink of aluminum could not get the welder dialed.

160 amps was to low. 200 amps was destroying the tungsten and it would weld like crap. It is sealed and will be covered and not visible

Need to redo the turbo drain. It will most likely crack when the manifold expands due to heat. I will add flex section closer to the oil pan.

To do list.

1. Start the motor and if it doesn't explode immediately bring it to temp and fix leaks if any.

2. Fab up Turbo to IC pipe.

3. Fab up downpipe and rest of the exhaust.

4. Fab up clutch hydraulic lines

5. Mount brake fluid reservoirs

6. Assembly all brakes. Buy braided steel brake lines.

Jdesign

Nice progress!

WIBIMMERS

Helmut the e21