Turbo M50 Project Underway

[RAiMA]

Beast is coming along nicely

Bubs, I reinforced my diff mount last week just before the drags.

[bubela]

Originally Posted by RAiMA

I reinforced my diff mount last week just before the drags.

Good thinkin!

[hatchgrafix]

Sorry to keep the .org out of the loop, but I finally have taken to working on the ti.

All the work is really coming along very smoothly so I'm a very happy camper!

First and foremost, I gotta hand it to my close friend Andrew aka "FinnNiks" for helping so much!! I swear he's graduating from college to be an electrician, but I for some reason foresee us starting a fab shop instead... we make a good team, and everything we are doing, is turning out super professional IMHO. Also would like to show some respect to my friend Cale for letting me clutter up his personal shop for the last 6 months..

So anyways, I'll start droppin pics in here for our viewing enjoyment!

Andy "FinnNiks" is playing with the new blaster on one of my trailing arms:

Welding on reinforcements to the trailing arms, 1x2" .120 steel rectangle tube... should keep things in line!









New Z"ed"F transmission vs the Get"outtahere"rag transmission!



Slotting the stock trailing arm bolt locations, the slots for the ireland engineering camber/toe plates have to be in line with the tops of the subframe bushings, so I affixed the subframe to a vise, and levelled the subframe bushings, so that I could then level the camber/toe plates accordingly.















Set the height of the harness bar with the seat back inside, then leveled it with the car, and whipped some weld in there!!!







Special thanks goes to "Dremel" for their awesome products. (you get what you pay for for grinding disks and bits)

[hatchgrafix]

Completed subframe, waiting some "metal ready" and "POR 15" base coats, then it's going to be sprayed a fun unique color, to help showcase all the hard work that went into it. I'm thinking gold considering it was a lemon from the factory, and we paint that SH&* gold!

[bubela]

Looks pretty dude. I'll probably be doing an Mcoupe swap in the future along with the dual ear modification. At least now I know how it's done!

[budget76]

While you've got it on the bench, you may want to reinforce the sway bar mounts on the trailing arms had mine fail and nowi havea nice knocking noise in the rear. no way to fix it till I'm back inNj. picture to see what I'm talking about in this link.

http://forums.eurocca.net/showthread...bar-mount-(E30)

[hatchgrafix]

Originally Posted by budget76

While you've got it on the bench, you may want to reinforce the sway bar mounts on the trailing arms had mine fail and nowi havea nice knocking noise in the rear. no way to fix it till I'm back inNj. picture to see what I'm talking about in this link.

http://forums.eurocca.net/showthread...bar-mount-(E30)

Sounds good, however I may not be running a rear sway bar, it all depends though, I hear just a stiffer spring is all I would want... if I do decided to use the sway bar, I'll be needing to invent some new mounting locations on both the trailing arms "per your suggestion" as well as locations for them to attach to the body, seeing as I cut them all out.

Transmission is installed, picked up a 98 328i driveshaft with a 4 bolt rear, also ordered an all new ZF shift linkage from BMW.

To do the swap I'm told you need the linkage, I was going to try my luck at modifying the stock one (cutting and rewelding it) however I figured if that didn't work I would still be needing to order up one.

130 dollars straight from the dealership for the following parts:


1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10, and 11

Cannot go wrong with just ordering new parts!!!!! For the price, I was satisfied.

So I did run into an issue with my subframe bushings, the ones I had ordered years ago, are a very unique style, hopefully I can explain them...

They are basically a one piece bushing that slides into the subframe from either the top or bottom, and it looks like any ordinary subframe bushing, however, it came with a threaded pipe that gets pushed inside the bushing, and it was supplied with nuts that you tighten which would sandwich the bushing into the subframe, I however do not trust this method because there is nothing to keep the subframe held in on the bottom like a standard 2 piece *top and bottom* bushing.

So my conclusion is to spend the 100 bucks on a new set of bushings that I feel more confortable using, unless I can figure out something to modify my current ones.

I would like to finish the car by this weekend, and if I order the bushings I'm afraid they won't be able to fulfill my request. So feel free to wish me luck.

BTW, I already know that the e30 uses a different style the the 318ti bushings, the ones I received I could have sworn were ordered from "BimmerBum" a couple years ago, maybe he'll chime in!!!

[zoner]

Originally Posted by budget76

While you've got it on the bench, you may want to reinforce the sway bar mounts on the trailing arms

+1

That way, if/when you do decide to run a rear bar, you're already set.

Nice welds, BTW!

[Mr.Squeelerz]

I've got a set of Ireland poly sfb's in decent shape if you're interested.

[FinnNiks]

Looks like I have #11 and #15 sitting in my random a## parts box. Hopefully you can get your hands on some subframe bushings quick, can't wait for tomorrow!

[bubela]

Dude.. This weekend?! That's exciting for me to hear.

Do you guys in MN have the skills to fab up a dual pump in tank fuel sender/hanger for me? That'll hold two big walbros.

[FinnNiks]

Dude.. This weekend?! That's exciting for me to hear.

Do you guys in MN have the skills to fab up a dual pump in tank fuel sender/hanger for me? That'll hold two big walbros.

I'm super pumped too!

Are you planning on having them both in the same side of the tank? I'm sure we could, especially since John has a Tig, and I've been taking a Tig class. Plus we generally come up with pretty darn good ideas when we get together!

[hatchgrafix]

Originally Posted by bubela

Dude.. This weekend?! That's exciting for me to hear.

Do you guys in MN have the skills to fab up a dual pump in tank fuel sender/hanger for me? That'll hold two big walbros.

I'm sure we can fabricate something, however have you looked into simply running two pumps, one on each side? Seems like a pretty standard way to do things!

Here's an update for the night...

Transmission is installed, new clutch, flywheel and pressure plate, as well as a brand spankin new from BMW shifter linkage and bushings, lol...





It's a painted sachs plate, with a 6 puck gripforce disk, and the gripforce chromoly flywheel, I pulled my Fidanza and stock sachs M3 setup for this setup hopefully get a little more out of this, and the old setup will go into my wifes 325xi when the time comes.


POR15'd the entire subframe, and then painted the trailing arms gold flake with VHT heavy duty paint.










Pulled the driveshaft centering bushing, figured this car will be capable of 160mph runs, and I don't want anything coming out of balance!



Northern Tools slide hammer threads directly into the bushing, and then you just slide hammer the old one out, easy!

Okay, so the e30 vehicle speed sensor tone wheel is too big for the e36 dual ear differential cover, so a sawzall was ordered in to fix that problem



Then it was decided that tonight was the night to whip the diff into shape, it was first sandblasted and then wire wheeled to a clean base, then it was ready for some POR15 treatment... using cardboard to separate the cover.



Starting to POR15 the weld joints...



Ran out of money at this point, but hopefully there's enough to scrounge up to get the car going soon, I have a feeling the starter is konking out on me, it was making some very bad noises

[bubela]

I have read about and looked into dual pumps in both configurations. From what I've read/gathered dual in the same side is ideal. Send the return line to the same side so it stays full, less likelihood of the pump ever running dry. (cavitation, etc)

You're making great work here. Craftsmanship is top notch (and above mine) as always. This car is gona be tight. Literally! I guess this weekend is out of the question? Question: What has your experience with POR15 on clean metal been? I've always painted it on to rusty surfaces and been amazed. I put it on a non rusted surface one, and didn't have great results. (it saw a lot of sun light though and I didn't put paint over it)

p.s. I thought about stepping up to the new 6466, but I'm gona try to max our 6262 out with E85 first.

[hatchgrafix]

Updates from Friday and Saturday:



Sand Blasted the cover, and recovered it with aluminum wheel paint!





Mocking up the diff





With the transmission installed and mounted to its location, I noted that the transmission was perfectly level, hence a 90degree reading off the output flange.

The car however was not level so, once the differential was leveled out (input flange read 90 degrees) I was forced to make a 4 degree cut on the down tubes to mate to the cross bar.





Down tubes (1x2x .120 thick) with washers welded on to space the tubes away from the diff, and allow for the poly bushings to do there job properly.



Welded in place, made two passes with the mig to ensure a good strong connection!!











Making some progress on the painting, I'm going to go over the bottom of the chassis again with some rubberized underbody coating, that will help protect my precious chassis!!



Time for some fluids and new brake lines, since there was a little bit of surface rust starting on my old hard lines on the trailing arms, I decided to replace them, I also routed the lines on top of the trailing arms as I figured it would be not only easier to do, but also out of the way of any road debris, etc.







It's coming along very nicely, my biggest issue today was my new "used" axle had the first 2 threads deformed bad enough that I couldn't thread the nut on without it cross threading, of course I found this out AFTER I had bolted the axle to the differential...

Continued to new post "limited to 18 pics per page!".....