Kobra

@adz pm'd

Test fit my second set of wheels today. More style 5s, but slightly smaller in 15x7. I would like to use as track wheels.

The Bridgestone RE003 205/55 certainly runs much wider than the 205/45R16 PS3s, and overall size is slightly taller too. Both sets are ET20 offset, but the 5-lug conversion added abount 11mm of track in the front, and 8mm or so in the rear. This means fitting wheels with chonky tyres could be tricky.

I was able to drive around town without any trouble, but I may need to add some more clearance before I can use these on the track.

I'm open to any recommendations for paint/body shops around Christchurch that could help with pulling the arches.

I only had one custom hose when I got certified. The high pressure line from the e46 rack to the pump. It was never even mentioned on the cert notes.

If no leaks, and properly secured, I think it won't be an issue. Do it. 

@Vass Yes, I assembled all of the hoses. If you're handy, AN Hoses really aren't too hard to assemble. I would say thing trickiest part is just cutting the braided hose cleanly. Youtube has many excellent tutorials. 

When I did it, I just planned out what parts I needed, and measured how long the runs were. Then ordered the hoses,  hose end fittings, and various adapters, from Aeroflow's website.

I also got a few AN parts from Silvester v8/Japanese Race Supplies (on Moorhouse Ave). I would recommend checking them out. The low pressure supply hose from the reservoir to the pump and the fitting on the end are from there SRP brand which seems like pretty decent quality, and quite affordable vs. shipping from Aus.

I'm sure you could make up 2 lines for less than $400 in parts. You may need to do some custom bracketry to make sure the hoses are routed, so they aren't rubbing on anything.

I crank the engine, and she fires right up. Awesome, no power steering whing.
Now I press the clutch in...grind noises... oh no... clutch in again... still grinding noises start around 70% throw, and I can feel them through the pedal...not good. Some research later, and I work out that the flywheel demands I use a taller throw-out bearing from an E21 323i. Well sh*t...gearbox out again.

Jumping ahead, wear marks are visible on the end of the clutch fork, and where it made contact with the clutch pressure plate body.

Sourced the correct throw-out bearing, here is the E21 323i one (right) compared to the standard E30 M20 one (left). It's quite a bit taller, which should space the fork further away.

Jumping ahead again, car is back together. Starting it, pressing in the clutch, no more grinding sounds. 

Fantastic, time to drive.

Clutch was fairly grabby at first, and took some getting used to. After several weeks, it has bedded in nicely. The flywheel feels not too light, but allows the engine rev eagerly. With the new shifter, this thing is such a blast to drive!

So the power steering pump I had seems toasted, so will need yet another one. I managed to get my hands on working replacement unit.
Hopefully I can keep this one alive. I decided to add a power steering cooler, a new, larger reservoir, and would need a few more AN hoses to plumb it together. Aeroflow had everything I needed. 

New P/S reservoir with a custom bracket I made to mount on the M52.

Now both lines to the steering rack are -6 AN braided hoses.

P/S cooler mounted where a factory oil cooler would be on a 325i.

With new 325i grille insert to allow airflow to cooler. You can just make out the blue inline filter section.

While I was in there, I wanted to change the catch can. This one is mounted to the body, under the brake booster. This helps tidy up the PCV hoses somewhat, and will make checking and draining the catch can easier.

With the power steering upgrades squared away, now I can start and test everything.

I have been in pursuit of a nice tight and notchy shifter. I want as little slop as possible. A bolt action type experience. After replacing all of the bushings, I'm still not satisfied. Lucky for me, a local BMW enthusiast makes and sells beautiful floor mounted adjustable shifters. Very reasonably priced too, I had to pick one up, along with a fancy red shift rod bushing.

Mocked up.

The gearbox was also showing signs of worn detents, and I know they're a common maintenance item on the ZF 5 speed boxes. So I decided to take care of that while the gearbox is out. 

Refreshed detents, and shifter connected with Gargastic DSSR. Almost, ready to go back in.

I was in a hurry at the time, so didn't get any pictures of the engine and gearbox going back in, but...installation was reverse of removal.

Here you can see how the shifter mounts to the tunnel.

Very happy with this setup. I was able to adjust the height to get exactly the throw I wanted. The extra height brings the shift knob up closer to the steering wheel. It feels as good as it looks. Thanks Arron!

Bonus clip, some hot notchy shifter action:

But the power steering needs to be sorted before I can drive.

It's been a while, but progress has been made, so it's time for another update.

I've had an RHD Engineering lightweight flywheel sitting aside for years, but I finally just got around to sorting out an M20 clutch to go with it.
Along with the clutch, I want to replace the selector detents in the transmission, and upgrade the shifter situation. So the engine needs to come out once again.

The power steering is still an issue, so I disconnected and drain the system. Some nasty metallic bits came out from right next to the pump. This basically confirms the pump is dying. 

Pressing on, engine out.

Clutch, and flywheel removed.

Lightweight flywheel installed.

Clutch bolted up.

More to come.

On 12/4/2021 at 11:17 AM, Sammo said:

@Kobra Checking how those LSeat covers are going 6 months later?

Picked up an M325i with ripped up anthracite cloth sport seats and considering going black leather DIY vs paying moon beams for OEM cloth reupholstery...

Oops, haven't updated in a while, and missed this. 

Except for the piping on the drivers seat coming apart, the seats are great. I will have to get a photo of it later, but the top layer of the piping has torn right at edge of the side bolsters. The leather underneath and stitching is all fine, so I'm considering trying to carefully cut away and remove all of the visible piping. I don't really want to restitch anything.

1 hour ago, Gaz said:

I've got a brand new pump sitting in the shed if you interested. Also in chch

PM'd

Did some maintenance, and went for another drive where the misfire developed again, but this time it stayed. Drove 20km home on 5 cylinders. Investigating the misfire, I read the errors from the ECU, and found that cylinder 6 was reporting a short to ground. Pulled the coils and found white corrosion in some of the spark plug wells, but cyl 6 was worst by far. Water must have collected in there. I cleaned them out as best I could, and got back to all 6 cylinders firing again.

I played around with my tune a little more to make the decel timing less aggressive. Flashed the tune, and went for a test drive. Much improved for street driving, with a smoother transition on and off throttle. Happy with the results, but will probably play with it some more.

Some photos from my test drive.

And my favourite photo, a winter sunset in banks peninsula

Looking forward to summer to go for some more decent drives.

@Cammsport 
The exhaust sounds amazing in the mid to high rpm. I'll have to try record a video clip.
To be honest, it's fairly obnoxiously loud when you want to "move with haste", and let the engine breath...but I love it. Every hard pull puts a smile on my face. It does make a bit of drone at low loads, but cruises quietly at 50khp and 100kph, so is quite civil for most driving.

The power steering is all E36, except for the E46 Purple tag rack. I replaced the p/s pump a couple of years ago with a working used pump. It got things working, but maybe was worn, or aeration from high rpm did some damage. Either way, it's currently very whiny. Will have to order a new pump. Still thinking about whether or not it would be worth plumbing in a proper cooler.

Have been driving the car around a bit more lately, and generally it's been working well.

The power steering is still pretty noisy, so I think it'll need a new pump. I may also add a baffled P/S reservoir to combat the leakage...and better cooler may be on the table too.

The throttle cable is a bit stiff, and can make the throttle a little difficult to modulate at low loads. Will have to try make some tweaks to the cable routing to loosen it up. The ECU tune may also be working against me here too. I may need to make some adjustments to the decel ignition timing maps.

The car also experienced a phantom misfire event a few days ago, when I was driving in the wet. It felt like the engine was only running on 3 cylinders, but just for a few moments. And we noticed the reverse lights (LEDs) were slightly illuminated when in neutral at idle, and seemed to brighten when the engine occasionally stumbled. I guess an electrical gremlin is hiding somewhere, maybe ground related.

But since, I've had no issues at all...go figure.

I did a little extra work to flatten the pipe section slightly, gained another few mm.
This is the complete new mid section. I think I'll have to cut and reweld to tuck it up even higher. A job for another weekend.

The resonator is now almost the lowest part, and I can't do much to move that upward anymore due to the driveshaft.

In other news, the valve cover seems to be leaking oil onto the intake, and the power steering pump is making some noises... So will have to deal with that.
I think the P/S fluid is puking out the breather, as it's completely coated the reservoir. May need to get something with more baffling to reduce the aeration.

Always more to do.

Another update on the exhaust.

I also added an exhaust tip into the mix...excuse the dent.

It has gained 30mm or so of clearance,. but I think I can get a bit more with a few extra tweaks.

I dropped it back down, and drove it around for a bit to check for leaks. Found no issues.
But I'm going to make a few final changes to maximize clearance, hopefully this weekend.
Up on the ramps it goes. The stainless is starting to colour in nicely.

That's all, folks.

The seats did take a few days of effort, but part of that was me learning, and just going slowly to get everything to fit how I wanted. Well worth it in the end. 

Another quick update.

After driving the car around a bit more, it's clear that exhaust is a problem. It's taken half a dozen hits now, the clamp is not looking great, and the flexy is not going to last long. The exhaust has also been pushed up into the floor of the body to leave some small dents.

This photo is an attempt to show how low this front section sits.

The clamp:

So, I've come up with plan to modify the front section of the system to tuck it further up into the car:
I'll cut off the main V band clamp and flexy. 
Add a second small flexy to the "Y" merge section.
Add regular 2 bolt flange further back, just before the resonator.
Then connect the ends back together with a slightly ovalized length of pipe,

I already made a start on merge section.

Hoping to make some more progress this weekend.

Another option for the P/S hoses - make a custom high pressure hose with AN fittings and appropriate hose.
For the low pressure side, a standard E36 hose worked nicely with a little tweaking, and a small support bracket to secure it.

I did this to fit an E46 purple tag rack to my E30, and it worked quite nicely.

I also did a different E30 by just carefully bending the original E30 high side hose. It didn't look great, but it worked perfectly.

Nice work. I'm guessing those 17x9 style 32's were going to be too tight for the rear guards?

While all that was going on, I was slowly getting the car ready for getting a LVVTA certification. Eventually, it was ready, so I booked the date.

The battery was fairly old and decided to give up a few days before my cert appointment, so I had to get a replacement. I went with a slightly smaller DIN44 battery to save some weight. 

The certification check went well, but not perfect. The only thing I had to do was get some lock nuts for the engine mounts - a rule I had no idea about. A few days later,  the recheck was done, and the modifications were certified. The car ended up receiving one of the new donut style LVVTA electronic data plates, riveted to the passenger B-pillar.

The only thing left to do was get a fresh WoF and some registration, then it was finally road legal for the first time in 4 years.

Last weekend, I finally got the chance to take it for decent drive. I am absolutely stoked with how nicely she handles.
The poly bushes, coilovers, and purple tag rack produce a very direct and responsive steering feel. The ride is not too firm, but still stays flat in the corners.
The brakes are quite effective, certainly lighter to engage than a stock E30, but the larger Audi master cylinder firms up with good feel. Though, I'm yet to push them too hard as the pads are still breaking (braking?) in. 
The LSD amazing - This is the first RWD car equipped with an LSD that I've owned, and...I don't think I could go back.

Although, not everything is working how I want. The exhaust is the lowest point by far, and I have already managed to scrap it a few times on speed bumps. The main V-band clamp has taken a few hits, and is already damaged. 
So... I'm already planning to make some more changes to the exhaust to gain some much needed ground clearance.

I've also got a new clutch and flywheel, as well as some shifter and gearbox bits ready to be installed at some point. 
And the body is going to need a bit of rust repair, and a respray before too long.

The project continues...

The exterior got some love, with the front end getting a much needed refresh with a combination of new and used parts.

The foglight blanking covers (one new, one old) got a fresh coat of Alpinweiss II paint.

The vent/trim pieces by the base of the windshield were heavily oxidised. I wanted to restore them, so I experimented with a mix of boiled linseed oil and white spirits. It worked fairly well. Here you see the effect, top one is untouched, bottom one has 2 coats of this mix "painted" on. It dries to semi-glossy finish.

New front grill pieces.

All installed on the car along with a new lip.

Much tidier, I'm stoked!

During my test drive, I noticed some coolant had found it's way into the passenger footwell. I culprit was leaky heater control valve, apparently an extremely common issue. Here you can see the dried coolant, and green staining to the carpet.

I had to bite the bullet, and order a replacement in from Germany. Not a cheap part... but the new design is a great improvement.

A got a few other replacement parts as well, including a new coolant reservoir.

With it all back together, and confirmed the leak was resolved.
And the engine bay looks much cleaner without that dirty old coolant tank.

I converted the gauge cluster to use LEDs.

The alternator wouldn't immediately start charging on engine start, it would seem it needs a bit more current draw from the alternator charging light to self-excite at idle. I bridged in an extra resistor on the alternator light "bulb" which sorted the issue.

For now, what I can say is that I'm very impressed with how well the LED conversion worked out. Even the dimmer control works, which I didn't expect. It can be pretty tricky to get a good photo of the LEDs in action, but I'll try update this post with one when I get a chance.

Originally, I wasn't sure how I wanted to finish the backs of the front seats. I was thinking about covering them in a black material, but ended up just using the leather pieces that came with the seat kit that I got earlier.

Not perfect, but I'm happy enough with the result.
The interior work is almost complete.

I finally got the headlining recovered (after sitting under my bed for 3 years), so now the interior could be reassembled.

All back together again.

I also had to find a set of black sunvisors to match the black headlining.

Very happy with the result.