E30 M52-swapped Trackday Car
Discussion
Okay, so I'm back. Progress has been slow due to teething problems with heater, temp gauge and a few other things, but now these are largely resolved.
First up, temp gauge was playing up. As soon as the cluster had power (ignition position 2), the temp gauge would go to full hot. I tried tightening the ground nut, I tried unplugging the brown temp sender but all to no avail. On top of that, my heater blower was sounding weedy and only worked on levels 1 & 2 if you first turned it to level 4, then back down again.
So working around (read - ignoring) these problems initially, I test fitted my drivers seat on the Massive mounts. As I had two very similar looking, albeit mismatching seats, I planned to fit the smaller Sparco seat on the driver's side (in the knowledge that my slender waist would fit) and put the Toora on the nearside so I had the option for carrying a variety of different sized passengers. This didn't work out well though - once the seat was in position, the harness holes for the shoulder straps were too low and the seat wasn't comfortable around my upper back, my shoulders were too big to slot nicely into place. So I swapped for the Toora and this fit me like it was custom made. So slim passengers only in this E30 I'm afraid!
Steering wheel is a little too far away for comfort though so will be getting a dished one to replace the standard SE item.
So the seat came back out and I went about reconnecting all the bowden cables for the heater. This went surprisingly well, until I got to the heater control knob. I'm stumped on this one and still am! My current solution is to buy all the little clips and random bits of sh*te along with a new cable from BMW and see how the whole lot might go together as for all I know, I've misplaced some key component in the 3 years that have passed since I took it to pieces. In the long run though, I think I'm going to bin the dash completely and fit a lightweight heater box and some kind of ally panel to mount all the switched. No need to keep the thing and it does weight quite a bit.
I've measured up and fitted all the harness mounts and re-fitted the seat mounts properly, after cleaning up and re-greasing the sliders. I also threw some leftover silicone hose around the exposed brake line on the back seat to keep it from getting damaged.
I took a wire wheel to the £40 325i exhaust I sourced and it came out surprisingly well, considering it was buried in the snow for a couple of weeks earlier this year!
A lick of the exhaust paint on the backbox (3 coats to be precise!) and it looked quite tidy.
And I also got round to lowering the front coilovers to something nearing actual ride height and I packed out the gap between the hub knuckle and the strut with some stainless steel washers in order to increase static negative camber. With the car at the actual height, I've ended up with about -3.5 degrees with the top mounts in the centre position so I can take about 1.5 off or add 1.5 on. With everything torqued up as per the manual, I ran some emery cloth over the discs, cleaned them with brake cleaner and fitted new pads.
At the weekend then, I set off determined to resolve temp gauge issues. I started by unplugging the C101 in the engine bay to determine whether the issue was on the instrument cluster side or the engine loom side. Low and behold, with the C101 unplugged, the gauge stayed still with the ignition at stage 2. The problem most likely laid under the bonnet then.
I pulled the rubber boots back on each side of the C101 and consulted the wiring diagrams. Pins 4 and 5 didn't match up as they should - and my first call was, however unlikely, that DanThe had c*cked up one of his looms - sorry Dan!
But on closer inspection, it turned out it was me who was the 'tard. Actually, the most likely explanation given my history...anyway, I'd plugged the brown temp sensor plug into the oil pressure sender and vice versa. I swapped these plugs around and weyhey! Temp gauge worked as it should. I started the car, ran the engine until the temp got just out of the blue and turned it off again. Job done.
I then pulled out the heater panel from the firewall and took the motor cowling to pieces. I gave it all a good clean then sucked all the dead leaves and cr*p out the heater box. I cleaned the motor resister and put a touch of lube on the shafts and I had a fully operational heater box again. Reassembled, job done.
So pretty much finishing jobs now. I need to fit the rear pads and bleed the brakes/clutch, finish off the heater controls assembly and fit the window/heater switches etc, adjust handbrake, fit seats, fit exhaust. You get the jist. Hopefully just one or two more updates before MOT time!
First up, temp gauge was playing up. As soon as the cluster had power (ignition position 2), the temp gauge would go to full hot. I tried tightening the ground nut, I tried unplugging the brown temp sender but all to no avail. On top of that, my heater blower was sounding weedy and only worked on levels 1 & 2 if you first turned it to level 4, then back down again.
So working around (read - ignoring) these problems initially, I test fitted my drivers seat on the Massive mounts. As I had two very similar looking, albeit mismatching seats, I planned to fit the smaller Sparco seat on the driver's side (in the knowledge that my slender waist would fit) and put the Toora on the nearside so I had the option for carrying a variety of different sized passengers. This didn't work out well though - once the seat was in position, the harness holes for the shoulder straps were too low and the seat wasn't comfortable around my upper back, my shoulders were too big to slot nicely into place. So I swapped for the Toora and this fit me like it was custom made. So slim passengers only in this E30 I'm afraid!
Steering wheel is a little too far away for comfort though so will be getting a dished one to replace the standard SE item.
So the seat came back out and I went about reconnecting all the bowden cables for the heater. This went surprisingly well, until I got to the heater control knob. I'm stumped on this one and still am! My current solution is to buy all the little clips and random bits of sh*te along with a new cable from BMW and see how the whole lot might go together as for all I know, I've misplaced some key component in the 3 years that have passed since I took it to pieces. In the long run though, I think I'm going to bin the dash completely and fit a lightweight heater box and some kind of ally panel to mount all the switched. No need to keep the thing and it does weight quite a bit.
I've measured up and fitted all the harness mounts and re-fitted the seat mounts properly, after cleaning up and re-greasing the sliders. I also threw some leftover silicone hose around the exposed brake line on the back seat to keep it from getting damaged.
I took a wire wheel to the £40 325i exhaust I sourced and it came out surprisingly well, considering it was buried in the snow for a couple of weeks earlier this year!
A lick of the exhaust paint on the backbox (3 coats to be precise!) and it looked quite tidy.
And I also got round to lowering the front coilovers to something nearing actual ride height and I packed out the gap between the hub knuckle and the strut with some stainless steel washers in order to increase static negative camber. With the car at the actual height, I've ended up with about -3.5 degrees with the top mounts in the centre position so I can take about 1.5 off or add 1.5 on. With everything torqued up as per the manual, I ran some emery cloth over the discs, cleaned them with brake cleaner and fitted new pads.
At the weekend then, I set off determined to resolve temp gauge issues. I started by unplugging the C101 in the engine bay to determine whether the issue was on the instrument cluster side or the engine loom side. Low and behold, with the C101 unplugged, the gauge stayed still with the ignition at stage 2. The problem most likely laid under the bonnet then.
I pulled the rubber boots back on each side of the C101 and consulted the wiring diagrams. Pins 4 and 5 didn't match up as they should - and my first call was, however unlikely, that DanThe had c*cked up one of his looms - sorry Dan!
But on closer inspection, it turned out it was me who was the 'tard. Actually, the most likely explanation given my history...anyway, I'd plugged the brown temp sensor plug into the oil pressure sender and vice versa. I swapped these plugs around and weyhey! Temp gauge worked as it should. I started the car, ran the engine until the temp got just out of the blue and turned it off again. Job done.
I then pulled out the heater panel from the firewall and took the motor cowling to pieces. I gave it all a good clean then sucked all the dead leaves and cr*p out the heater box. I cleaned the motor resister and put a touch of lube on the shafts and I had a fully operational heater box again. Reassembled, job done.
So pretty much finishing jobs now. I need to fit the rear pads and bleed the brakes/clutch, finish off the heater controls assembly and fit the window/heater switches etc, adjust handbrake, fit seats, fit exhaust. You get the jist. Hopefully just one or two more updates before MOT time!
Sf_Manta said:
This is looking mighty close to being ready to go Motorhole
One or 1 more weekends and it'll be ready, shame I'll not be there to see it!
Hopefully, yeah! Also a shame I'm off gallivanting again for a week this month so that's going to get in the way. But not far off. I also hope that the 525e clutch holds up as I've just seen what happened to Magpie's on the zone...One or 1 more weekends and it'll be ready, shame I'll not be there to see it!
Mark Benson said:
What a great read, all credit to you for keeping at it when many of us would have thrown in the towel.
Thanks Mark. In all honesty I've started far more projects in my life than I have finished, so I was determined that this wasn't going to be one of them. I have also found that when the love does go wanting, a weekend away doing something completely non-car related can sometimes put the investment of time and money back into perspective and focus my mind on the end goal again
motorhole said:
Sf_Manta said:
This is looking mighty close to being ready to go Motorhole
One or 1 more weekends and it'll be ready, shame I'll not be there to see it!
Hopefully, yeah! Also a shame I'm off gallivanting again for a week this month so that's going to get in the way. But not far off. I also hope that the 525e clutch holds up as I've just seen what happened to Magpie's on the zone... One or 1 more weekends and it'll be ready, shame I'll not be there to see it!
renrut said:
Progress is looking good! Have you got anything to stop you dropping something across the battery terminals? Still looks a bit precarious.
Haha yeah, that roll of masking tape you can see in the pics that I've shoved there when I'm connecting/disconnecting the battery! I have a short stub of rubber hose I put over the -ve terminal when it's disconnected. Will have to come up with a more permanent solution though.motorhole said:
renrut said:
Progress is looking good! Have you got anything to stop you dropping something across the battery terminals? Still looks a bit precarious.
Haha yeah, that roll of masking tape you can see in the pics that I've shoved there when I'm connecting/disconnecting the battery! I have a short stub of rubber hose I put over the -ve terminal when it's disconnected. Will have to come up with a more permanent solution though.Nice build, very similar to a car me and a friend built (and still have), although your attention to detail is better... I was keeping a spreadsheet on our total spend but stopped looking once we went over £10k in parts.
Only managed one trackday so far, didn't go well due to cold conditions, the wrong diff (M52 with 328i gearbox to 3.64 diff = unusable in 1st/2nd), a leak around the thermostat housing (cheap pattern part) and taking it off the trailer when we got home the gear linkage managed to break... That was January and still not had the time to source/fix anything.
I'm especially liking your pedal box setup, we still have the standard layout and it's not really that central. Also liking the 5 stud conversion.
Only managed one trackday so far, didn't go well due to cold conditions, the wrong diff (M52 with 328i gearbox to 3.64 diff = unusable in 1st/2nd), a leak around the thermostat housing (cheap pattern part) and taking it off the trailer when we got home the gear linkage managed to break... That was January and still not had the time to source/fix anything.
I'm especially liking your pedal box setup, we still have the standard layout and it's not really that central. Also liking the 5 stud conversion.
Thanks again for the positive feedback all. Greggers - not sure if the 5 stud setup is worth the investment, time will tell! But the pedal box really is the only way to get the front/rear brakes setup properly when discs/pistons have such a mismatch. Sounds like it wouldn't take much to get yours back on track though
The diff is the main issue, I know it's going to end up with me buying an open diff for the crownwheel and pinion and rebuilding with the LSD.
I don't think we'll be trying a 5-Stud conversion anytime soon, we're not carrying enough weight to justify it. Just need to find a suitable supply of 15" slicks/track tyres... The things we've got at the moment are terrible, they're used in one of the championships and are too narrow (we bought them because they were cheap).
Do you still have the runners/tray for the sunroof fitted?
I don't think we'll be trying a 5-Stud conversion anytime soon, we're not carrying enough weight to justify it. Just need to find a suitable supply of 15" slicks/track tyres... The things we've got at the moment are terrible, they're used in one of the championships and are too narrow (we bought them because they were cheap).
Do you still have the runners/tray for the sunroof fitted?
greggers said:
The diff is the main issue, I know it's going to end up with me buying an open diff for the crownwheel and pinion and rebuilding with the LSD.
I don't think we'll be trying a 5-Stud conversion anytime soon, we're not carrying enough weight to justify it. Just need to find a suitable supply of 15" slicks/track tyres... The things we've got at the moment are terrible, they're used in one of the championships and are too narrow (we bought them because they were cheap).
Do you still have the runners/tray for the sunroof fitted?
Alternatively you could keep an eye out for a Z3 diff? iirc, the 2.8 ones were Torsen torque biasing diffs and although still expensive, will be cheaper than a 3.15 Z3M one! Bear in mind if you already have a 3.46 LSD, that'll fetch a handy premium used too. I don't think we'll be trying a 5-Stud conversion anytime soon, we're not carrying enough weight to justify it. Just need to find a suitable supply of 15" slicks/track tyres... The things we've got at the moment are terrible, they're used in one of the championships and are too narrow (we bought them because they were cheap).
Do you still have the runners/tray for the sunroof fitted?
Yeah, I still have the sunroof tray attached, but all the runners/mech etc have long gone. If I'd known better at the time, would've gotten them to cut out the tray too. It doesn't offer anything other than unwanted ballast increasing the height of the centre of gravity
motorhole said:
Alternatively you could keep an eye out for a Z3 diff? iirc, the 2.8 ones were Torsen torque biasing diffs and although still expensive, will be cheaper than a 3.15 Z3M one! Bear in mind if you already have a 3.46 LSD, that'll fetch a handy premium used too.
Yeah, I still have the sunroof tray attached, but all the runners/mech etc have long gone. If I'd known better at the time, would've gotten them to cut out the tray too. It doesn't offer anything other than unwanted ballast increasing the height of the centre of gravity
Yeah, not a bad idea... Would still have to change the output shafts so they'd line up, which I guess might be the lesser of two evils. Yeah, I still have the sunroof tray attached, but all the runners/mech etc have long gone. If I'd known better at the time, would've gotten them to cut out the tray too. It doesn't offer anything other than unwanted ballast increasing the height of the centre of gravity
I remember the sunroof removal job on ours... Managed to go through the roof in one spot around the lip of the sunroof with the Dremel and now have a tiny bit of distortion where we pulled the tray off. I recall it was mostly bonded on as opposed to welded, might have been one or two spot welds... You might yet be able to get it out, depending on where your cage is braced?
You may have inspired me to post some pictures up on ours for critique.
greggers said:
Yeah, not a bad idea... Would still have to change the output shafts so they'd line up, which I guess might be the lesser of two evils.
I remember the sunroof removal job on ours... Managed to go through the roof in one spot around the lip of the sunroof with the Dremel and now have a tiny bit of distortion where we pulled the tray off. I recall it was mostly bonded on as opposed to welded, might have been one or two spot welds... You might yet be able to get it out, depending on where your cage is braced?
You may have inspired me to post some pictures up on ours for critique.
That'd be great! Even better if this has given you some inspiration to crack on with resolving your own issues I remember the sunroof removal job on ours... Managed to go through the roof in one spot around the lip of the sunroof with the Dremel and now have a tiny bit of distortion where we pulled the tray off. I recall it was mostly bonded on as opposed to welded, might have been one or two spot welds... You might yet be able to get it out, depending on where your cage is braced?
You may have inspired me to post some pictures up on ours for critique.
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