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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.
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.
A while back Helmut was sporting a stock m10 with the turbo big enough to disintegrate that poor motor. After two years of trashing this setup my turbo manifold decided to crack every weld and reject the turbo flange.
I decided to get rid of the m10 and switch to more modern unit. I acquired the early m42 with the plan to boost it. Stock 1.8 is nice if you like it to spool at 5k rpm.
Since I got family in Poland, and Poland is Europe's junkyard, there are plenty of e36,e34 and e39 m47 diesels sold for parts. I found two diesel cranks and have them shipped to the States.
With M47 crank and enough bore I will have close to 2.1L. It should spool nicely especially with some efr (if budget allows)
To use it in m42 the crank nose has to be turned to match the m42 chain sprocket ID. Also additional keyway needs to be cut. M47s use same bearings as m42/m52s. I plan to use the 360 thrust bearing. Question: What is your opinion on the 360 degree oiling grooves for high (er) rev applications (8-8.5k rpm)?
With power goals that I got in my mind the whole stock drivetrain was not up to the task.
I had the e28 subframe modded to fit e21 from my previous project. I had to decide what to do with the front end.
There were two options: e21 front with e12 hubs to make it 5x120 or the more entertaining way using the whole e36 front end.
Front Subframe
I roughly chopped 3" of the middle of the front e36 subframe and welded it back together. I had to modify frme rails in order to bolt the new subframe in.
Stock vs e36
E36 modified subframe by w grync
cut
E36 modified subframe by w grync,
Jig
E36 modified subframe by w grync,
weld the crap out of it
E36 modified subframe by w grync,
Frame rails
I used panzer angles and tube to make it bombproof. I guess anything over 1/8" is overkill but oh well.
Control arm Mounts
I decided to use the wider e46 arms to match the increased rear track width. SLR adjustable lollipops were used to center the wheel.
E46 arms and lollipop mount by w grync,
I set the arms parallel to the subframe for the neutral anti-dive. I can always add some spacers under lollipop mounts to increase anti-dive
Control arm angles by w grync,
Trailing Arms
The rear end is as problematic as the front. to fit wider wheels i needed to move shock pickup points almost 2" in. Shock mounts are from https://www.aa-mfg.com/
Trilingarm by w grync,
Brakes:
Stock e46 330i up front and e32 rears.
Suspension:
Koni race single adjustables. Front and rear e28 swaybars. Not sure about the spring rates.
I modded the front e36 strut housings. I chopped the tops and welded volvo 740 threaded top portion of the strut tube.
Progress might be slow but I hope to build the motor over the summer and maybe even have it on the road this year.
pe that it will
I pulled one side rear fender and will start working on the other side.
I cut the inner fender and pulled until it started to dent the outer then i backed up a bit. I welded piece of sheet metal to the inner to fill the gap. I will prime with epoxy and seam sea the shit out of it.
I got my new Mig setup its the everlast i-mig200e. I have only experience with some crappy 60 amp mig and inverter tig machine. So far i am impressed with that new mig.
I migged the front lollipop mounts together. And will weld them to the frame rails later this week.
I had to notch the rear frame rail to clear the triling arm.
Trailing arms with the new shock mounts tacked in.
Damn its been almost two months since the last update.
i got distracted building my welding/shop table. 1/4" top 2x3x1/8" tube. Nice and solid. Good enough for some light duty welding
Helmut and welding table by w grync, on Flickr
Helmut and welding table by w grync, on Flickr
I pulled the second fender, finished front coilovers and welded the lolipop mounts. i put some contours in and my car looks like crap. Waaaaaay too big
Untitled by w grync, on Flickr
I am changing plans and will roll on 15x7s with some skinny 205s this season (if it ever comes out of the garage this season).
Since my car is wider front and back by roughly 30mm per side the standard e21 offsets do not work anymore. and finding high offset 8-9" wheels with 5x120 pattern is almost impossible. I could build some splits but it would probably cost more than my car is worth.
I got set of these for $40. Just need some paint. 15x7et20
Untitled by w grync, on Flickr
Oh and i just ordered a nice an light flywheel (6-7lbs) to accept my 7.25" tilton clutch. I suspect some terrible clutch engagement characteristics. It will be chirp the tires or stall and nothing in between.
Lastly i had to shorten e36 tie rods to get the toe in check.
I cut, welded and added some sleeves to prevent shopping cart mode in the future.
Helmut and welding table by w grync, on Flickr
Transmission is welded on the outside. I will finish welding the inside tomorrow
Bellhousing bolted to the block
Magic wand
All bolted together
And welded
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.
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.
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.
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.
Next:
Finish the fuel system: I got PTFE lines and fpr AND now its time for Flex fuel sensor and some AN fittings
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
It’s alive.
Priming oil pump was a pain. Had to use sprayer bottle to pump some oil thru the galleries to get the pump going.
Its loud
I need to fab up down pipe and exhaust. Zf 320 was sitting dry for couple years and now have detent issues.
I hope some atf and heat will loosen things up.
Redid the oil drain with the flex
I painted some brackets and added intake manifold brace. I also finished steering shaft for the e36 PS rack. But in the meantime i got my Z4 manual rack and will have to shorten that shaft a bit, or make a new one. The splined bits are from Woodward and are fairly cheap so might as well make a new shaft.
I reused the timing guides that came with the motor. I was putting the motor together 3-4 years ago and stupid me instead of changing the guides i said fockit. So one of the guides, the lower horseshoe one is cracked. So i replaced this guide and I am still fighting timing case covers. They just did not want to seal. Stock metal gasket and RTV didn't do much. I used copper spray this time and a set of new gaskets.
I cleaned up some interior wiring and tuned idle a bit, I mean recalibrated TPS. It was idling at modest 3700rpm before adjustment
I also reassembled rear hubs and put the calipers and new rear disks.
I tried laminating carbon for the first time. Overall it was not that bad (i guess we will se results tomorrow once it cures. Stretching carbon fabric around corners is a bit tricky and corners came out kinda meh. I will try again tomorrow to see if i can make it better.
I used Epon 828 epoxy resin and epikure 3200 hardener from Westlake. Also used 3m 77 spray adhesive to hold fabric in place. I did 2 layers of "amazon special" carbon fabric (3k twill weave) covered it with peel ply layer and breather and used storage vacuum bag.
Mold was prepped with 5 coats of release wax and 3 coats of PVA.
I mounted brake and clutch reservoirs. It is incredibly tight but it works. Engine an transmission has poly mounts and there is barely any movement so I should be fine
Temporary exhaust
I needed to resurface intake manifold flange. Flange had a high spot by cylinder #2 and was not sealing and vacuum leaked like crazy. A bit of a sand paper, new gasket and my all time favorite copper spray and its fixed.
I got my ADU display. It integrated with MaxxEcu over can bus very well.
I am waiting on some bolts for brake caliper carriers, some m10 brake line fittings and v-band flanges to fab the downpipe and the rest of the exhaust.
I had some timing cover leaks that I had to fix.
Brakes are done. I used stainless hard lines which do not seal as well at the fittings as NiCopp lines. I had couple small leaks. A bit more torque at the fittings fixed the issue.
Clutch hydraulic lines are done and it looks like clutch works ok.
I put driveshaft, diff and axles in. Tightened whole front suspension minus tie rods.
I still need to shorten stock e36 tie rods for this setup to work.
I have a z4 manual rack that I will put in I just need to figure out the splines. I hope they are the same as e36 rack so I could reuse my Woodward u-joints.
Valve cover lost its beautiful blue color for the more modest wrinkle black
The stupid intake manifold flange was warped. And my shitty welds were full of pinholes. No wonders that I could not set the idle below 1.2k rpm.
2 hours later and the flange started too look flat again
I spent whole evening chasing pinholes. I think I got them all.
I welded new downpipe and rest of the exhaust. Its a 3" going into borla XR-1 muffler to Vibrant super quiet resonator and side exits on the driver side.
I still need to weld a beauty ring for the side exit. I got a 4" stainless pipe for this.
Hello my name is Wojtek ( voytec do not mistake with vtec)
I registered a while ago but never introduced myself.
I live in NW burbs of Chicago.
I cought bmw bug when i got my e36m four years ago.
It was an awesome car. But i found it too new. I wanted something simpler and e21 fit that perfectly.
So i found rust free 1983 in detroit with all records all the way back to 1983 including receipt for 600 mile inspection.
In the meantime i aquired 2 other e21s and started swapping m5x to one of em.
Sometime at the beginning of the year it figured that it is going to take me 3 years to get the blue e21 the way i want so i put that project on hold and decided to turbo the safari beige.
Last weekend i resprayed the engine bay and i can start assembling it back.
Safari will be sporting stock m10 with arp head studs, BW s252sxe, ms2x, tilton twin disk clutch and small case lsd for now. Planning for 10-12 psi for now until something explodes. The plan is to have it running by the end of the month.
Long term goal is to build the bottom end and beef up the valvetrain and shoot for 400 on e85.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I started putting together manifold. Just some mockups for now to figure out injector positions and angles.
I also got a set of wilwood floormounts that i am trying to fit. Looks like pedal position will be close to stock
And intake is almost done. All tack welded and ready to be finished. I got some 1/4" plate to do the end cap and to add some reinforcemnt for vacuum fittings.
I will use bosh motorsports dbw throttle body. I am shooting for anything between 350-500whp. I think that 68mm throttle should do. The next size up is 82mm but I worry it will be too twitchy and drivability will suck.
Holesaw setup to cut 3" holes for trumpets
A little mockup with two runners to check the position of the plenum
All 4 runners in.
Fuel Rail
It felt wierd for a moment to chop perfectly good zf320 but oh well got to do what you got to do.
This is how much it will rotate.
A little angle grinder holder. It is also nice to have a flat table.
chop chop
And rotated.
Now i need to pull my m42 block from e21 bolt the transmission and weld the bellhousing.
I finally found a driveshaft and test fitted transmission and motor. It came out that i made my oil pan 0.5" too long and will have to redo it.
A bit of CSB mount relocation will be required
I started some engine mounts. I also ripped the whole wiring harness and will redo it along with the new fusebox.
I cleaned up and painted rear inner fenders and applied some brush on seam sealer for some extra protection.
E36 steering column is a pretty good fit. I will gain a cruise control stalk which I will need for some dash display controls.
Initially I got garagistic e30/m20 mounts but they are bolt thru which I am not a big fan of. I ordered the revshift mounts.FCP shipped my radiator mounts and engine mounts and I should get em by Monday. I will finish the mounts next week and will modify the oil pan. Radiator and intercooler will be next.
3 months later............
I had to redo the whole subframe. There was not enough room for decent size sump. Engine is mounted to the frame rails anyway so the middle section of the subframe was cut and pushed towards the front of the car. Don't mind crappy welds, once I hit it with some pretty epoxy paint it wont look that bad anymore. It seems that I can tig aluminum better than I mig steel.
Here is the oil pan that I hat to cut a little bit to sit flush with the subframe.
I also put together lower radiator mounts. It uses stock e36 plastic mounts that sit on steel brackets welded to the frame rails. There is enough room in front of the radiator to fit 3" intercooler.
I also got a new daily driver. I got rid of my xc70 and got F32. That b58 and zf 8spd combo is amazing.
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.
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.
