Winter project for Summer.

[Guest Simon*]

I like the steering wheel upgrade

Amps and sub, meh - not so much It's bloody huge though, does it all come out easy for trackdays?

And have you still got that flash ipod eating headunit?

[Greg111 13]

My first thought about the sub amp combo was meh too, but after wiring it all up and a bit of audio tune it has fantastic noise quality, as i said before, it's not for doof. Nothing worse than a vibrating boot etc. And yes simply pull two wires and it all comes out as a whole for track days etc.

Yep, ipod eating head unit still there.

Edited January 25, 2010 by Greg.

[kingkarl 136]

I used the same wiring kit as you when I first installed my sub. I broke the original blue RCA leads and replaced them with some better quality (or more expensive at least) ones 18 months later. I might be imagining things, but I'm pretty sure that the sound quality of those blue ones is comparatively quite poor.

Judging by the pics it looked like quite a mission to get everything installed!

[E30BMA 0]

Nice to see your doing something useful with your time off greg

I had to look twice at the battery pic, almost thought you had a wire looped from the +ve straight to the -ve post.

Whats the second fuse/power cable running??

[*Glenn* 854]

Greg... dont use a crush sleeve in your diff... ring me. Never do that on a track or road car using an LSD when its rebuilt.

[Greg111 13]

Nice to see your doing something useful with your time off greg

I had to look twice at the battery pic, almost thought you had a wire looped from the +ve straight to the -ve post.

Whats the second fuse/power cable running??

One fuse for the amp powering the speakers, other for the amp powering the sub.

[Greg111 13]

I used the same wiring kit as you when I first installed my sub. I broke the original blue RCA leads and replaced them with some better quality (or more expensive at least) ones 18 months later. I might be imagining things, but I'm pretty sure that the sound quality of those blue ones is comparatively quite poor.

Judging by the pics it looked like quite a mission to get everything installed!

Time consuming but wasn't too hard.

[Greg111 13]

Greg... dont use a crush sleeve in your diff... ring me. Never do that on a track or road car using an LSD when its rebuilt.

f**k! It's already in there. What's the problem with them?

[Greg111 13]

Well biggish news, diff is in, drive shaft on, both rear arms are on, exhaust system back on, started it up last night for the first time in ten months, that sound was just sex!

Just waiting on brake discs so no driving yet but put it in gear whilst on stands and got it up to 40kph (anything faster would be stupid while in the air), and no noise from diff so all good.

So basically that finishes the main point of this project but thought i might fix up the audio system, (for the third time), a few weeks back the Sony amp started cutting in and out, so to the dump with that, anyway cleaned up all the wiring, meaning pulled out three kgs of useless stock amp loom. What a mess, spent a good three hours this arvo cleaning it all up. Even went as far as pulling up the carpet and removing the speaker wiring, my thoughts were, if it's not being used there's no point it being there. As i'm running an amp for the four components the two line out RCA's act as the speaker wiring.

End of novel, will up load piccies tomorrow of three KG lighter M3.

[DrphTa 5]

Mate love your work. Always good to see an m3 being done back up as it should be

Ethan

[Greg111 13]

Cheers mate.

Right here's the mess as it stands, should have it finished tonight/tomorrow, still got to remove the front three looms. Pictures don't do justice of how much spaghetti there is here.

If you look back a page or so you will see the huge loom that ran down the wheel arch, all useless wiring.

The three sets of RCAs that will run the front and rear speakers and woofer .

Where the stereo lives, wiring trimmed back to necessity's, only need the battery, power and earth.

Pictures of the finished product to come.

I love pictures

[Greg111 13]

Right i've done a lot since the last update, fitted new Brembo discs all round, finished wiring for stereo etc, bought new amp to run speakers, tidied up all that area, sat it on the ground on Sat arvo stoked as to go for a drive, cruising down my road with a huge smile on my face then that horrible diff noise came back just as loud a hundred metres down the road. Anyway spent all arvo with a mate at his garage trying to pin point out whether the noise is from the driveshaft or in the fully rebuilt diff itself. Had all the flash noise pin pointing equipment connected but all three of us are stumped. Will take it to work tomorrow (not doing it on the floor of my garage again) and remove the exhaust and driveshaft and go from there.

Gonna go drown my sorrows for now.

[westy 614]

Bugger

[Forrest 35]

Hard luck Greg, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I had the same problem in my E30 when I destroyed a center hanger mount, spent weeks replacing everything etc on the cold hard floor of my garage too might I add, drove it for a day or so and destroyed another one worked out the driveshaft was out of balance all along. Hopefully the diff is okay

[hybrid 1039]

ass ... keep at it man, there isnt much it will be. its not the center bearing in the drive shaft is it?

[Greg111 13]

ass ... keep at it man, there isnt much it will be. its not the center bearing in the drive shaft is it?

Will pull that out today and reinspect, i was on my back in the garage looking at it last time so will have a good look this time. There is a definite noise/knocking everynow and then in the casing itself, as there is no rubber join at the rear of the driveshaft it may be transfer but unsure yet.

[Greg111 13]

Well driveshafts fine, diffs on the bench at work, will open again today.

[Guest Simon*]

I think a mate of mine saw you out on your brief trip over the weekend. He said he saw a "rangi as" E36 with a gutted interior at the BP. It left making a hell of a noise and he said to me, "that couldn't be an M3 right?"

Hope you get it sorted soon mate

[Greg111 13]

That's correct, it has one seat in it and that's it, only half completed, just wanted to test drive to see if noise was resolved, didn't think it was rangi though? Ha however it did have an inch of dust on it, gave it a wax on mon night, sparkling clean now.

Anyways, it seems i overlooked a fractured tooth on the crown wheel, to bits it comes again.

[*Glenn* 854]

That's correct, it has one seat in it and that's it, only half completed, just wanted to test drive to see if noise was resolved, didn't think it was rangi though? Ha however it did have an inch of dust on it, gave it a wax on mon night, sparkling clean now.

Anyways, it seems i overlooked a fractured tooth on the crown wheel, to bits it comes again.

Bugger... thats not going to be cheap Greg

[Greg111 13]

When i say fractured i mean a tiny chip at the very end of one tooth, i assume from the broken head of the carrier bolt. Hopefully it can be repaired. If not there will be a cheap M3 on TM.

[*Glenn* 854]

You can't repair a crownwheel Greg

BTW: Did you set it up or have someone do it for you ??

Edited March 3, 2010 by *Glenn*

[Greg111 13]

I set it up with help from a mate who was the former service manager of the local Merc agency, he has rebuilt many a LSD diff off SRT8s.

When the car was going over the weekend it was fine other than that noise, no whines, knocks etc.

[Eddie 66]

I hope you get some better news soon