BMW 2002Tii (ish)
Discussion
I Am Milk said:
Hats off to you for one of the most enjoyable build threads I've had the pleasure of reading.
I hope you have many happy miles of tooling around in this fantastic machine!
thanks for the kind words and im glad you've enjoyed the read!e46m3Mark said:
Cobra just look so much better than old E21 Recaro. They really give it a period race car look like old Porsche etc. The simplicity of it all just looks great.
They are my thoughts too, i sold the e21's for more than the Cobras cost too! Win Win!My friend builds and/ or works on a lot of old track/ race Porsches and quite a few of them had at the same style seats. As soon as i saw them i knew they were the ones!
5harp3y said:
dream car stuff !
Thanks, it certainly is for me, i feel very lucky.DeanR32 said:
One of my favourite 02's!
Did you have the dash re trimmed, or is it a cover?
Thanks Dean and the dash came with the car, it looks like its been trimmed in leather along with the centre console etc too. Sorry i cant help more than that.Did you have the dash re trimmed, or is it a cover?
Bit of an update, I've got around 235 miles stuck on over the weekend. First port of call was a surprise visit to my parents house, they were at the window before I got onto the drive and they said they'd heard me a mile off and could only assume it was me :lol: this journey gets in some very good back roads that I commuted on for 3-4 years, brilliant getting to drive them in the 2002. Short video below and picture on the drive:
https://youtu.be/LPP57KiYksg
Limiting revs to 4000 and 50% throttle in the video and I was quite surprised how well it seemed to go just at that, can feel it really pick up after 3000 for certain! Got caught out in the rain on the way back and surprisingly the tyres were even pretty good in the wet.
Next day I was up and out with my destination being Hartside Cafe. This is at the highest point in the pennines and has always been a rest stop for car and bike enthusiasts. Sadly it burned down last year but the roads up to it and beyond are awesome and plenty of people still stop up there, just have to take your own coffee now!
Was starting to pick the revs up to 4500 with the odd 5000 thrown in towards the end but still 50% throttle. It's very hilly out that way and great for bedding the engine in! On the way back I did a nice 50 mile detour to visit my grandparents who loved it and found it very amusing :lol:
I thought the car would be pretty good based on how well owners say they drove (I've never driven or been in one before!) but I honestly thought it would be a bit crap just because of its age and I'd just call it character. It's so far passed what I thought it would be though, im over the moon with it!
The go kart metaphor is over used but that's the only thing I can relate it to handling-wise, it's pretty raw and just goes where you point it. I had a run down Hartside pass from the cafe to Melmerby and caught up to a new golf GTi, he was cutting corners etc and the little 02 was more or less coasting down doing the same speed and was nowhere near needing to cross the white lines to make the corners. I think that's the first moment I realised it wasnt just a pretty competent package in isolation, it was pretty good on a whole! It also seems pretty flattering as it is as I'd not consider myself a fast driver compared to my mates, I'm like the James May of the group!
Another thing I wasn't quite expecting was the amount of attention it gets, generally good, I got mobbed by bikers wanting a look round it at a petrol station and had a good chat with them and had a few curious bikers at the café too, all great. I did get the w*#ker gesture off someone in a village i went through though :lol: no idea why!!
I'm going to drop the oil out this week and stick some fresh bedding in oil in and do the same sort of driving up to 500 miles or so. Thereafter I'll stick the proper oil in and get it booked into the rolling road for it's proper map!
Thanks for reading as always,
Scott
https://youtu.be/LPP57KiYksg
Limiting revs to 4000 and 50% throttle in the video and I was quite surprised how well it seemed to go just at that, can feel it really pick up after 3000 for certain! Got caught out in the rain on the way back and surprisingly the tyres were even pretty good in the wet.
Next day I was up and out with my destination being Hartside Cafe. This is at the highest point in the pennines and has always been a rest stop for car and bike enthusiasts. Sadly it burned down last year but the roads up to it and beyond are awesome and plenty of people still stop up there, just have to take your own coffee now!
Was starting to pick the revs up to 4500 with the odd 5000 thrown in towards the end but still 50% throttle. It's very hilly out that way and great for bedding the engine in! On the way back I did a nice 50 mile detour to visit my grandparents who loved it and found it very amusing :lol:
I thought the car would be pretty good based on how well owners say they drove (I've never driven or been in one before!) but I honestly thought it would be a bit crap just because of its age and I'd just call it character. It's so far passed what I thought it would be though, im over the moon with it!
The go kart metaphor is over used but that's the only thing I can relate it to handling-wise, it's pretty raw and just goes where you point it. I had a run down Hartside pass from the cafe to Melmerby and caught up to a new golf GTi, he was cutting corners etc and the little 02 was more or less coasting down doing the same speed and was nowhere near needing to cross the white lines to make the corners. I think that's the first moment I realised it wasnt just a pretty competent package in isolation, it was pretty good on a whole! It also seems pretty flattering as it is as I'd not consider myself a fast driver compared to my mates, I'm like the James May of the group!
Another thing I wasn't quite expecting was the amount of attention it gets, generally good, I got mobbed by bikers wanting a look round it at a petrol station and had a good chat with them and had a few curious bikers at the café too, all great. I did get the w*#ker gesture off someone in a village i went through though :lol: no idea why!!
I'm going to drop the oil out this week and stick some fresh bedding in oil in and do the same sort of driving up to 500 miles or so. Thereafter I'll stick the proper oil in and get it booked into the rolling road for it's proper map!
Thanks for reading as always,
Scott
Awesome car Scott. I would leave that oil in there until 500 miles. Too much new oil will stop the rings bedding in. Can't believe you are surprised with peoples reactions to the car. Its a fab machine and nice to see it being used now and keep the thread alive with saying how it goes please.
Justin S said:
Awesome car Scott. I would leave that oil in there until 500 miles. Too much new oil will stop the rings bedding in. Can't believe you are surprised with peoples reactions to the car. Its a fab machine and nice to see it being used now and keep the thread alive with saying how it goes please.
Cheers Justin. Ill be putting running in oil again until 500, its discolored a bit now and i just don't want the fine metal shavings circulating round the engine more than they have to. After that ill stick the proper stuff in and go from there.I think i've just got used to having it sat in the garage and its become the norm and you sort of forget how old and uncommon it is. It is quite nice how obnoxious it is but people dont seem to care because its old
Legacywr said:
When I fitted my Harris engine, I did quite a bit of research, and a lot of the top engine builders advise, just go out and drive the engine as it’s meant to be... that’s what I did, well, after about 100 miles 
It really is a subjective topic and no right way of doing it, you probably found that from your research. I know some people do a cam burn at 3000 revs for 30 minutes then change the oil out for proper stuff and go wild thereafter. I can understand that on a race engine where they dont have the time to do it gradually but they also dont have to worry about longevity, well not compared with a road engine hahaI help out at a competition engine builders and hes just advised constantly varying revs, plenty of load (up hills etc.) and then plenty of engine braking on the way back down to bed the rings in. It definitely did feel like it had freed up more at around 100-150 miles, i've got everything crossed that it continues that way!
Mr Tidy said:
That looks great - it's no wonder you get so many positive reactions!
Thank you, i think its somthing i might have to get used to if the first drives are anything to go by My journey with the car has been a little up and down since the last post, i'd been out enjoying it and started to rev it a little harder, higher up the revs i found things inside the cabin vibrating/ resonating at different revs and it started to become quite tiresome so i set about looking into engine mounts more although taking the missus out in the car at last was absolutely fantastic!
Many flies were also killed:
Back onto engine mounts, I had emailed vibratechnics a year or so ago asking them if they could send me dims of a couple specific mounts i could measure against but had no luck, they didnt want to give out the info but would look if i sent them dims of the standard mounts. I did this but i had no luck from that. At the time i settled on another set of mounts which are far too hard and one had actually split in half after 300 miles!
I replaced the one i split in half with a standard one and it was all much better, the other one still being solid stopped any side to side movement, although i didnt get the chance to rev it much after the mount change (more on that below!).
I decided to try Vibratechnics again as although this new solution was much improved i didnt really want the left hand side solid mounted, i cant imagine its really doing the car any good. I got similar response to last time, i offered to send some standard mounts down to them even but nevermind, not interested which was disappointing.
In the end i did some research to what other bmw mounts fit the m10/ bmw 2002. I thought with the e30 m3 basically sharing the same block that that might fit so i ordered one, no luck. I then saw some information that the m20 (6 cylinder in the e30) would fit so i ordered up one of those. This fitted bang on! It keeps the engine more or less solid but removes some vibrations! So my recommendations are m20 vibratechnics left hand mount and oem right hand mount although i've not had chance to road test yet, initial feelings seem very positive.
I'd also changed the oil and filter on the car as the bedding in oil was starting to brown off. It takes around 15-20 minutes to do an oil and filter change on one of these! The magnetic sump plug had some super fine metal sludge on it which tends to be from the rings bedding in, good to see!
I mentioned above i didnt get chance to rev the car much once i'd changed the broken mount, i had a bit of a mare the Sunday before last. On the morning i was doing my umpteenth spanner check on the car and this is where i'd noticed the 300 mile old Ireland Engineering engine mount was in half. I did a few other little bits and bobs and we had planned to take the car out on the afternoon to visit the other halves parents.
We were just about to get out onto the quick country roads and had 1 more roundabout to navigate, going straight on i lost all steering about halfway round. It was awful and felt like hitting ice at speed, it just under steered straight on. I had little option but to stand on the brakes and scrub off as much speed as possible before the inevitable off roading excursion! Luckily the kurb was an angled one with dirt buildup so the hit wasnt bad and i'd scrubbed off enough speed to avoid going down a bank and into a field!
On getting out the right hand wheel was straight and left hand wheel pointing hard left, not good. I opened the bonnet and the steering idler wasnt attached to the subframe, it had cracked around all the mounting points. I managed to jack that side up and turn the wheel by hand and ratchet strap/ rope the idler to the subframe so we at least had some steering again for when the recovery truck turned up. We managed to turn the car round and drive it onto the truck and also managed a tight 3 point turn back into my garage at the other end.
I also checked the situation on axle stands once back at home, i turned the steering to the right as if i was doing the roundabout, i took the ratchet strap off the idler and pulled it back towards the passenger footwell, this pulled the left wheel in at the back so the front wheels were like \ /, for me confirming what had caused the loss of control. The idler had been refreshed and was as smooth as could be, i checked this again and again last night. The only other casualty seems to be the left tie rod (300 miles old too!), it's got a tiny bend at the threaded section on the left tie rod end.
Some pics below:
Can see the wheels \ / in this orientation here with the idler pulled back:
More detailed fracture shots:
Now i'm happy to share the good and the bad on this journey and hope in doing so that others may avoid the bad! We were very lucky in this instance, further on down the road we'd have been going a fair lick and the road is steep with little run off and massive potential for things going very bad! I was down about this happening but also very thankful at the same time for us both getting out unhurt and the minor damage to the car.
I'd cracked the front airdam (removed whilst waiting for the recovery truck to aid getting on it) and bent a tie arm a tiny bit, thats it (other than the broken idler). Now there are some great people in the '02 community and before i knew it i had 2 replacement steering idlers FOC, one i will fit and one i intend to use to develop a girdle plate which should brace the idler and worst case if the mounts snap again, the plate will hold the idler against the subframe so steering is still retained.
I also got the front airdam back on and fixed with rivuts instead, rather than the factory replicated posidrive bolt and plastic nut, note the cracks at the bottom. I'd treated the holes with rust converter and painted over for protection before fitting the rivuts, much better than what it was! (Still many flies stuck to the front!)
Im not fussed on having this repaired properly as i think long term i'll not run the turbo kit and go for something else instead but thats a long way off! The eagle eye'd of you may notice the lack of seats and addition of a roll cage in the above picture too!
After 6 months it finally showed up at the engine builders i help out at (without warning), i drove straight down to collect it, ever being the optimist i thought it would fit in my golf until i was greeted with this:
And we got as far as this:
With the aid of elastic straps and a lot of padding i drove the 38 mile journey home. Having a car in the highest emissions bracket and an open boot isnt a great experience, every time i accelerated it got all warm in side and things started to get a little fuzzy!
Home and unwrapped:
I'd asked for the rear section only with deletion of the tabs for a front cage, a X brace and a harness bar too. I got it in the car for a test fit and noticed where the intersection of the harness bar is with the diagonal is where the inner harness strap would want to wrap around. I'm currently in talks with safety devices about this and apparently a regulation change has meant they have had to lower a lot of their harness bars. A friend has the same rear cage in his and the bar is 150mm or so higher and it works perfectly. I tried another friends harness on as a test and its not as bad as i thought and crossing them over seems to get rid of the 'problem' all together although i dont like the look of them crossing but if its safer then i will of course.
I've sent them the pics above for them to tell me it's safe or whether they've welded the bar in too low, time will tell! Ill be ordering the harnesses ASAP and installing the cage if i get the go ahead, otherwise plans moving forward are to make the girdle plate for the steering idler and just drive it so i can put the proper oil in and get it mapped to its full potential!
Thanks for reading,
Scott
Many flies were also killed:
Back onto engine mounts, I had emailed vibratechnics a year or so ago asking them if they could send me dims of a couple specific mounts i could measure against but had no luck, they didnt want to give out the info but would look if i sent them dims of the standard mounts. I did this but i had no luck from that. At the time i settled on another set of mounts which are far too hard and one had actually split in half after 300 miles!
I replaced the one i split in half with a standard one and it was all much better, the other one still being solid stopped any side to side movement, although i didnt get the chance to rev it much after the mount change (more on that below!).
I decided to try Vibratechnics again as although this new solution was much improved i didnt really want the left hand side solid mounted, i cant imagine its really doing the car any good. I got similar response to last time, i offered to send some standard mounts down to them even but nevermind, not interested which was disappointing.
In the end i did some research to what other bmw mounts fit the m10/ bmw 2002. I thought with the e30 m3 basically sharing the same block that that might fit so i ordered one, no luck. I then saw some information that the m20 (6 cylinder in the e30) would fit so i ordered up one of those. This fitted bang on! It keeps the engine more or less solid but removes some vibrations! So my recommendations are m20 vibratechnics left hand mount and oem right hand mount although i've not had chance to road test yet, initial feelings seem very positive.
I'd also changed the oil and filter on the car as the bedding in oil was starting to brown off. It takes around 15-20 minutes to do an oil and filter change on one of these! The magnetic sump plug had some super fine metal sludge on it which tends to be from the rings bedding in, good to see!
I mentioned above i didnt get chance to rev the car much once i'd changed the broken mount, i had a bit of a mare the Sunday before last. On the morning i was doing my umpteenth spanner check on the car and this is where i'd noticed the 300 mile old Ireland Engineering engine mount was in half. I did a few other little bits and bobs and we had planned to take the car out on the afternoon to visit the other halves parents.
We were just about to get out onto the quick country roads and had 1 more roundabout to navigate, going straight on i lost all steering about halfway round. It was awful and felt like hitting ice at speed, it just under steered straight on. I had little option but to stand on the brakes and scrub off as much speed as possible before the inevitable off roading excursion! Luckily the kurb was an angled one with dirt buildup so the hit wasnt bad and i'd scrubbed off enough speed to avoid going down a bank and into a field!
On getting out the right hand wheel was straight and left hand wheel pointing hard left, not good. I opened the bonnet and the steering idler wasnt attached to the subframe, it had cracked around all the mounting points. I managed to jack that side up and turn the wheel by hand and ratchet strap/ rope the idler to the subframe so we at least had some steering again for when the recovery truck turned up. We managed to turn the car round and drive it onto the truck and also managed a tight 3 point turn back into my garage at the other end.
I also checked the situation on axle stands once back at home, i turned the steering to the right as if i was doing the roundabout, i took the ratchet strap off the idler and pulled it back towards the passenger footwell, this pulled the left wheel in at the back so the front wheels were like \ /, for me confirming what had caused the loss of control. The idler had been refreshed and was as smooth as could be, i checked this again and again last night. The only other casualty seems to be the left tie rod (300 miles old too!), it's got a tiny bend at the threaded section on the left tie rod end.
Some pics below:
Can see the wheels \ / in this orientation here with the idler pulled back:
More detailed fracture shots:
Now i'm happy to share the good and the bad on this journey and hope in doing so that others may avoid the bad! We were very lucky in this instance, further on down the road we'd have been going a fair lick and the road is steep with little run off and massive potential for things going very bad! I was down about this happening but also very thankful at the same time for us both getting out unhurt and the minor damage to the car.
I'd cracked the front airdam (removed whilst waiting for the recovery truck to aid getting on it) and bent a tie arm a tiny bit, thats it (other than the broken idler). Now there are some great people in the '02 community and before i knew it i had 2 replacement steering idlers FOC, one i will fit and one i intend to use to develop a girdle plate which should brace the idler and worst case if the mounts snap again, the plate will hold the idler against the subframe so steering is still retained.
I also got the front airdam back on and fixed with rivuts instead, rather than the factory replicated posidrive bolt and plastic nut, note the cracks at the bottom. I'd treated the holes with rust converter and painted over for protection before fitting the rivuts, much better than what it was! (Still many flies stuck to the front!)
Im not fussed on having this repaired properly as i think long term i'll not run the turbo kit and go for something else instead but thats a long way off! The eagle eye'd of you may notice the lack of seats and addition of a roll cage in the above picture too!
After 6 months it finally showed up at the engine builders i help out at (without warning), i drove straight down to collect it, ever being the optimist i thought it would fit in my golf until i was greeted with this:
And we got as far as this:
With the aid of elastic straps and a lot of padding i drove the 38 mile journey home. Having a car in the highest emissions bracket and an open boot isnt a great experience, every time i accelerated it got all warm in side and things started to get a little fuzzy!
Home and unwrapped:
I'd asked for the rear section only with deletion of the tabs for a front cage, a X brace and a harness bar too. I got it in the car for a test fit and noticed where the intersection of the harness bar is with the diagonal is where the inner harness strap would want to wrap around. I'm currently in talks with safety devices about this and apparently a regulation change has meant they have had to lower a lot of their harness bars. A friend has the same rear cage in his and the bar is 150mm or so higher and it works perfectly. I tried another friends harness on as a test and its not as bad as i thought and crossing them over seems to get rid of the 'problem' all together although i dont like the look of them crossing but if its safer then i will of course.
I've sent them the pics above for them to tell me it's safe or whether they've welded the bar in too low, time will tell! Ill be ordering the harnesses ASAP and installing the cage if i get the go ahead, otherwise plans moving forward are to make the girdle plate for the steering idler and just drive it so i can put the proper oil in and get it mapped to its full potential!
Thanks for reading,
Scott
Edited by scottos on Thursday 30th May 14:38
Edited by scottos on Thursday 30th May 14:42
Crikey that's a lucky escape! Any idea what caused such a brutal failure? Good idea on a girdle plate to hold it together if it was to go again.
On the harness front, page 22 here gives the best geometry for mounting. https://www.tillett.co.uk/shop/documents/downloads...
On the harness front, page 22 here gives the best geometry for mounting. https://www.tillett.co.uk/shop/documents/downloads...
Krikkit said:
Crikey that's a lucky escape! Any idea what caused such a brutal failure? Good idea on a girdle plate to hold it together if it was to go again.
On the harness front, page 22 here gives the best geometry for mounting. https://www.tillett.co.uk/shop/documents/downloads...
Yes very lucky indeed! I guess just age, fatigue and corrosion i guess. Only noticed the corrosion in hindsight. Not something that'll be overlooked on the replacements (both completely solid)On the harness front, page 22 here gives the best geometry for mounting. https://www.tillett.co.uk/shop/documents/downloads...
crossie said:
If you do decide to send it back - stick the tape measure around it and get a card board template of the main hoop.
One can then be easily made to your requirements.
They've been knocking them out for over 40 years and the fit really is perfect other than me questioning the harness bar. I kind of feel like who am i to question what they do but i suppose that's what their technical guys are for One can then be easily made to your requirements.
apparently its a change in regs and they've had to lower the harness bars on a lot of cages.1602Mark said:
I think I'd be tempted to stick with crossed harnesses and leave as is mate.
They were my thoughts too once i'd talked it through with a couple of more experienced friends. It lines up better on the drivers side and after one of those friends popping round i dont even think ill cross them, the cross brace keeps them in line and im not keen on the look when crossing them either. As long as SD are happy with it uncrossed that's what ill go with.scottos said:
They've been knocking them out for over 40 years and the fit really is perfect other than me questioning the harness bar. I kind of feel like who am i to question what they do but i suppose that's what their technical guys are for apparently its a change in regs and they've had to lower the harness bars on a lot of cages.
A number of years ago SD went bust - in the UK apparently its a change in regs and they've had to lower the harness bars on a lot of cages.They then decided to take there operation to Poland or another country (cheaper manufacturing)
I would always question something if your not happy with it - as your not racing the car the cage doesn't need to be to regs so you could have had the harness bar in a better place to suit your seats.
crossie said:
A number of years ago SD went bust - in the UK
They then decided to take there operation to Poland or another country (cheaper manufacturing)
I would always question something if your not happy with it - as your not racing the car the cage doesn't need to be to regs so you could have had the harness bar in a better place to suit your seats.
They've basically replied this morning along the same lines that i did right by questioning rather than just accepting but all good, just as well as i fitted it over the weekend hahaThey then decided to take there operation to Poland or another country (cheaper manufacturing)
I would always question something if your not happy with it - as your not racing the car the cage doesn't need to be to regs so you could have had the harness bar in a better place to suit your seats.
Ill do an update to the thread later.
Edited by scottos on Monday 3rd June 11:59
The Crack Fox said:
Great thread, fascinating to see how this car evolves and how you deal with the challenges you've had - PH is a good place to learn stuff like this at times. Keep up the good work!
Thank You, appreciate your kind words! I've learnt so much building this car and owe it a lot, i think if i was to do another it would be done a lot quicker and also probably cheaper as i've a better idea what works now! I had intended to do an update but Photobucket isnt playing ball (i really should start using another hosting website!)
Scott, sorry to see those awful photos of the incident. So glad you are both Ok and the car was relatively unhurt too. Must have been a heart in the mouth moment. Still its great to see the '02 guys all helping out to get you back on the road soon.
As for roll cages, from having put my Westfield through IVA, the need of the belts to not sit on the seat, so the belts must go from the bar and onto your shoulders . If the bar is too low, it could compress your spine in an accident . Just a bit of food for thought.
Look forward to seeing it back in action soon.
As for my garage in previous posts being empty, its not now as bought an E86 to fill the gap
As for roll cages, from having put my Westfield through IVA, the need of the belts to not sit on the seat, so the belts must go from the bar and onto your shoulders . If the bar is too low, it could compress your spine in an accident . Just a bit of food for thought.
Look forward to seeing it back in action soon.
As for my garage in previous posts being empty, its not now as bought an E86 to fill the gap
Edited by Justin S on Tuesday 4th June 13:24
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