WIBIMMERS

Rekpoint said:

As long as he doesn't deliver it to Bulgaria I am fine with it.... Reduce-Reuse-Recycle

B C said:

Come pick it up in your C5

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.

Gettin' those groceries.

Now that I've got real tires on I'm no longer breaking traction every time I hit boost, which makes for a slightly less nerve-wracking commute. I'm also learning when and how much to lift when I hear the turbo spooling so that I'm not rocketing off like a boy-racer every time I leave an intersection. I was initially concerned this thing would be undrivable at autocross, but I think it will be fine once I get used to the power delivery from the turbo and adjust my throttle control accordingly. Fun times.

Goals: Be there in a BMW that isn't Earls old e34.

Finally picked up a 35mm f1.8 lens. Huge difference. Gave a reason to walk around aimlessly on a Wednesday night, so that was fun. Also trying to learn a little about composition and all that other fancy-pants stuff.

4 running e30s? Looks like they'll be some new builds starting soon...

More progress!

Finished the upper coilover mounts for the rear.

New coilovers offer a substantial reduction of droopyness, more low, and increase of tuning options. Muy bueno. These use 1 7/8" ID springs as opposed to the defacto standard 2.5". Still plenty of spring options out there though. Going to 1/2" heim joints top and bottom means I can change the whole unit out for pretty-much-whatever-the-hell-I-want-to later if these don't work out. Probably going to be loud as hell back there now that everything is solidly mounted, but it ain't easy being cheesy.

After that, I moved back to the front of the car to try and fit the MKI Golf struts inserts. After hours of test fitting, measuring, hemming and hawing, I finally gave up and just cut 1.25" out of the strut tubes. Most people who do this mod are after crazy low and cut out more, but the next issue that you run into is that the control arms hit the subframe. My intention is that the internal bumpstop in the strut insert will prevent that from happening too violently, but I'm not really sure if I got it right. Regardless, the front of the car should go 1.25" lower than before, which is plenty, and if I need to, I can disassemble the strut insert and put a spacer under the bumpstop to make it work right.

Oddly, I actually took pictures of the whole process, so here we go:

First, get the original spring perch out of the way.

Then do a lot of measuring, calculating, and head-scratching. Realize that life is meaningless and we're all doomed. Then remove 1.25" from the ugly part of the strut tube.

Recall painful memory of Ben scrapping out all of your little leftover bits of stock while you were away on vacation. Then, go to the store and acquire a super-precision butt-welding-two-tubes-straight jig. VERY IMPORTANT!!! Do not forget to install the sleeve that  the coilover adjuster slides on to, because it won't fit on the tube after the it's welded. Somehow I managed to not screw this up twice in a row (pats self on back). Tack weld strut tube.

Remove super-precision butt-welding-two-tubes-straight jig and weld for real this time.

Realize that the weld penetrated through to the inside of the tube (good) and that the strut insert no longer fits in the tube (bad). Try a stupid method with a power tool that's totally wrong for the job, then use half-round file to remove the excess weld inside the tube.

Confirm that strut tube is indeed shorter than one that hasn't been modified. Also confirm that you are tired and whiny. Go back to step 1.

Floor to ceiling kidneys

Snap said:

It's that time again!

Go fuck yourself, that time is more than a month away and it's 60+ degrees outside.

Car was overdue for a wash, so I spent a couple hours getting it clean up today.

It's official now, she's one of the fold.

Procured a POS people-mover:

Couldn't decide what to do with the compact or what to replace it with, so I decided to buy another car to "fill the gap" between it and my next car so I don't have to drive the e21 everywhere... I can totally see myself dailying this POS for a couple years because I love it. I had a ton of anxiety about buying it because I was worried about all of the things that could go wrong, but as soon as i drove it, it made me laugh and it puts a smile on my face every time I get in it. I had forgotten how good it feels to drive one of these cars.

It's rusty, has a bad exhaust leak, the shifter has 3-4 inches of slop, drivers-side rear wheel bearing is bad, clutch engagement is weird (master cylinder?), brakes have some feels (not the good kind), along with innumerable cosmetic issues, but there's something about a dilapidated old e34 that just puts me in a good mood. Maybe it's nostalgia, but it's also impressive how something that's so old an improperly maintained can still run and drive as amazingly as an old e34. Maybe one of the last truly over-engineered BMWs?

I was secretly hoping to cause some domestic conflict w/ whether this wood or wood not be allowed to to be hung up, but you having a shop took a little of the fun out of it.

Regardless, it's always fun to use the cnc at work for projects where tolerances don't matter.

The key part is soft maple and the handle is "Peruvian Walnut", where "Peruvian" means imported and "Walnut" means brown; aka imported brown wood.

Merge collector saga continues...

I came up with a jig to use the sawzall contraction to cut the tubes (piece of angle iron, some door shims, and electrical tape). Tried it out and was not satisfied with the results. After that, I came up with a different plan to make a jig with the CNC router and the mill at work. However, in the interest of actually getting something done, I changed my mind and just did it the way I usually do things. The hard way.

Everything needed to build a merge collector:

Many hours spent on this. Will just buy a collector next time.

I forgot the camera at home, and didn't take any in-process pictures. The results turned out okay though. Some small gaps, but shouldn't cause a problem.

Next step is to make a turbo flange. After that I'll finally be able to do the fun part.

Back to work after taking a little break.

After much digging, this was the best I could come up with for an intercooler that fits nicely where I want it to go. Would be nice if it was a little bit wider, but it will be good enough for now. While I was trying to figure out how to mount it and how to get air ducted to it nicely, I realized that now would be the best time to build a skidplate-like device to protect the oil pan. Not much actual progress since it's been more staring at it and head-scratching, but at least I have a plan now. I should probably be putting the engine back together, but fabrication projects are more fun...

 Looks really tight in this picture, but there's 1/2" - 3/4" of space in front of, and behind the intercooler.

The car made it's first boosty noises this weekend. The s.w.a.g. method that I used to build the timing and fuel tables worked well and the car seems to be running great. However, I'm getting some stray voltage on the chassis start/run bus which is causing the engine to continue running after the key is turned off. Also have a small oil leak that I haven't located yet, but appears to be coming from the lower engine area.

I haven't driven it much yet other than some test runs up and down the dead-end road in front of the shop, but it's been quite amusing so far.

#sunprairiestrong

That's me. I thought the socks were pretty dope.

Snap said:

One of our assemblers at work pulled in with this. Just bought it yesterday. Definitely not something I was expecting to see today.