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Hello. My name is Dan, and today I doomsday prepped


straight6pwr

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a half day at work killed my fall drive today, but i was able to get a few things done on the car anyhow.

the front coil springs were rubbing all over the tire (stock weaves + 185 tires) so i knew something was wrong.  turns out the spring perches were set wrong, or just spun down over time as they were just hand tight. well, there was a lot of crud there so I clean it up and spun the perches up another 1.5". i need to find out if BC offers the same spring with a shorter length, that would give even more tire clearance.

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after
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P.O. had some interesting taste....i pulled off a little on my road trip so I could actually see the trip meter, but had to finish this asap

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much better!

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The hood has been replaced/painted at some point, and I think without either version of the hood insulation it just looks unfinished. the guy parting an e30 that i bought some stuff from had a damaged hood so I was able to salvage the liner from it and amazingly not break any clips in the process. Before:

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After:

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The rear bumper had some damage, and I wasn't planning on addressing this till later on, but again the parts guy also had a alpine rear bumper so I jumped on it. The offensive bumper:

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Nice and fresh bumper:

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Lastly, I got rid of the 'is' skirts. I'm just not a fan on e30s. I like that the black rocker panels match the rear valance with the black on the bottom as well as the front 'is' lip which I will leave black. Now i just have to find a good shop to fill the holes for me.

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What I am seeing is you basically raised the front about an inch and a half to stop the perch from contacting the tires correct? Most coilovers make it almost impossibly to run stock wheels while being lowered so you need to slip a small spacer in to give the tire some breathing room. 

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the BC coilovers have separate adjustment for the spring perch and the ride height. the spring perch should be set in one place based on the length of the spring and then left alone. in my case, someone had set it too low meaning the spring was loose between the upper mount and the perch. 

if you look at the picture there is a collar on the bottom against the strut tube - you loosen this collar then you can spin the entire upper portion of the unit (spring, strut, perch) either in or out of the strut tube to lengthen or shorten the entire strut assembly, which raises or lowers the car.   you get to keep full suspension travel and not add or remove preload no matter how high or low you are.

now, the lower you go you end up moving the spring and perch closer and closer to the hub, meaning possibly contacting the wheel/tire. to combat this, getting a shorter spring will let you lower the car more but keep the same clearances. the spring rates would be the same, but i would lose a little travel. i don't know if I will need to do this until I pick a wheel/tire combo. my goal is to plan the wheel/tire combo so I don't have any problems in the first place, but who knows.

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I know how it works as my airlift struts are the same conceptB) 

It just seems like someone had the car lowered by lowering the spring on the body instead of shortening the length of the assembly. Did you snug up the spring to the upper mount and then shorten the body to match the height it was at before? 

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the BC coilovers have separate adjustment for the spring perch and the ride height. the spring perch should be set in one place based on the length of the spring and then left alone. in my case, someone had set it too low meaning the spring was loose between the upper mount and the perch. 

if you look at the picture there is a collar on the bottom against the strut tube - you loosen this collar then you can spin the entire upper portion of the unit (spring, strut, perch) either in or out of the strut tube to lengthen or shorten the entire strut assembly, which raises or lowers the car.   you get to keep full suspension travel and not add or remove preload no matter how high or low you are.

now, the lower you go you end up moving the spring and perch closer and closer to the hub, meaning possibly contacting the wheel/tire. to combat this, getting a shorter spring will let you lower the car more but keep the same clearances. the spring rates would be the same, but i would lose a little travel. i don't know if I will need to do this until I pick a wheel/tire combo. my goal is to plan the wheel/tire combo so I don't have any problems in the first place, but who knows.

Right. This is exactly how my fortune autos operate, with the bottom collar for adjusting ride height. The top two collars adjust pre load on the springs I believe, i understand those are not for ride height.

I think BCs awful translated crap wants like a 4-5mm preload on them so the spring doesn't flop around .

As far as different length springs, a higher spring rate will raise the maximum low ride height. I had this issue when trying to source a 12k option for the rear. I forget what your rates are but I'd keep it in mind so the car doesn't end up riding like crap if you change the rates and stuff

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I know how it works as my airlift struts are the same conceptB) 

It just seems like someone had the car lowered by lowering the spring on the body instead of shortening the length of the assembly. Did you snug up the spring to the upper mount and then shorten the body to match the height it was at before? 

This what you're referring to?

5514bfb517593795e2a2da008abd697b.png

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good information there, thanks. i was getting a binding 'pop' sometimes so the loose spring was probably it!

so yes, I snugged to the springs to the upper mount, and gave it maybe 1/16" of preload (however tight I could do with my hand, as the PO did not have the coilover wrench with the car when I bought it).  before i did this there was a gap of 1.5" between the spring and the perch. the picture doesn't show it because the spring falls down to the perch with the car lifted.

i didn't notice the car sitting higher due to giant snow tire sidewalls, but i guess this would have raised it.

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got more done with another great weather weekend.

got some great deals on some parts from wibimmer's members

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switched out euro check panel. 1) can't read german. 2)hate broken stuff

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that's better.

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when the swap was done, the glovebox trim panel was never put back.  1)unsightly 2)lets more noise into the cabin

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the placement of the new ecu makes fitting the original panel impossible, so a quick trimming and all is well. (i forgot the after photo)

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this montage is for Snap.  these cheap-ass autozone tuner lugs are the worst thing ever freaking made by man.

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Installed a trunk spoiler. Here's a quick write-up.

 the BMW measurement doc is 100% awesome, use it.

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goodbye perfect decklid

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blue painters tape for drawing your measurements on

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measurements in place. note: the two center-most holes are NOT equidistant from the centerline.

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dun dun dun dun dun

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the instructions call for 7.5mm holes but who the hell has metric drill bits?? 5/16" is the closest size in SAE

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test fit before removing tape in case a correction is needed

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boom, nailed it!

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ready for the spoiler!

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i will now have less drag on the freeway, and also the ladies can't resist a good decklid spoiler.

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i also installed a euro analog clock, the front fender liners, and did a power steering fluid flush

i also DROVE THE CAR a bit, and many big, stupid grins were had. 
 


 


 

 

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Car has a skid plate as of yesterday so free rides between now and snow!

---------------

I've also started a small project to remove the HAI (hot air filter) already installed on the car.  I have another, more fun, idea in the works, but just wanted to get something on the car in the mean time. Ben had an extra m20 air box lying around, and I have seen a picture of this on an s50 swap car before so it shouldnt be too hard.

Currently, the car has no heatshield and a disintegrating Autozone cone filter

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the box doesn't quite fit, but there is room for it. It hits the alternator and the power steering fluid res on the bottom, the throttle cable on the inside, and is pushing against the coolant hose.

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Before anything, gotta make a circle peg fit a square hole. Got a basic placement from the mock up on the car and marked it with tape.

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The box has a reinforcing metal plate molded into the face fore the original afm to bolt to. I figured to just cut through it, but it is pretty thick, relatively hard steel so after looking how it was assembled I decided I should be able to separate it first.  Apply a heat gun to the backside and you can slowly pry the metal plate from the plastic

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With the plate removed, dremeling out the opening is cake.

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The MAF itself needs one mounting tab cut off to fit on top of the box.

AmHpX2n.jpg

Boom! Tough actin' Tenactin

Also shown in this picture are the other mods to the box for fitment. The lower mount needs to be cut (left), the rubber/mounting stud near the MAF needs to be cut shorter (middle), and the vertical plastic mount for the original AFM was removed (right)

aChkLKk.jpg

Got a good basic fit of the upper part of the box
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Also got a start on the lower box. Here you can see some holes cut for clearance of the alternator and power steering res. The holes are from some PO who did the 'want more sound from my airbox mod'

UljaaSM.jpg

All that's left is to seal up the lower box openings, seal the upper box holes near the MAF opening, and get a small duct to run behind the headlight to draw cold air.

The big question is whether the m20 filter is big enough to support the induction needs of the 3.0. Anyone have a clue on that? I'd guess from photos that the m20 filter is probably 75% the size of an s50 filter.

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I don't think you really have a problem with the size of the filter. Even if it does restrict some how much power do you think you would loose? Mb 1-10 hp. Now if you use a "high flow" filter that flows "25%" better you are back to stock.

Honestly I wouldn't worry about it, think about it like driving at a higher altitude do you really feel a power loss? Unless you are in a high power, or fi car most likely not.

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6 hours ago, Daggerty said:

I don't think you really have a problem with the size of the filter. Even if it does restrict some how much power do you think you would loose? Mb 1-10 hp. Now if you use a "high flow" filter that flows "25%" better you are back to stock.

Honestly I wouldn't worry about it, think about it like driving at a higher altitude do you really feel a power loss? Unless you are in a high power, or fi car most likely not.

Well, I'd like to lose 0 hp, just wondering how close BMW stock filter sizes are to bare minimum. I know I should gain back a tiny bit of power from not drawing hot air anymore. Anyone know if there is a calculator for filter size based on displacement or hp? Also the math would be if the m20 filter is 75% the size of the s50, and I bought a 25% better 'high flow' filter, I'd be at 93%.

2 hours ago, Bassboy3313 said:

First in line for a ride along!

spot reserved

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Note: The pleated portions of the filter count as surface area (if you cut the filter out of its frame and spread out the gauze, flattening the pleats, this is approximately the surface area, minus any screen, rubber, metal, or other retaining materials

You take your sum of your cylinder volumes (3.0 Liters, convert to cubic feet) and rpm to calculate the CFM of air though the engine, use the throttle body cross-sectional area to calculate linear velocity from CFM then equate that to surface area.

This is the bare minimum filter size that will produce zero pressure drop in perfectly clean air. Add a safety factor on top of that filter size to account for the pressure drop due to the filtration media and contaminants and you will have a feel for the required size. To measure filter/airbox restriction, connect a pressure gauge downstream of the filter and compare the ambient pressure to the intake tube pressure at WOT

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car is not chipped, supposedly. is the Dinan for a 413 dme? how come you changed to the sssquid?

thanks, tom, that link is just what I needed! I'm getting 58.8 sq in of filter needed. Will have to measure the m20 filter later today.

The dinan was in the 413 silver label (came with engine) (red and silver 413s should be identical hardware wise)

I changed flywheels and added some silicone intake boot and silicone icv hoses. Sometimes can cause a "shudder" at idle, he bumped up the idle and changed the tune to accommodate the LWFW and removal of accessories.

I went with sssquid because he was very helpful and responsive.

At first I still was using a 413 red label. Had some intermittent issues with it so I changed to the 413 silver that came with the s50. When I made the change back to the 413 silver I made the chip change as well.

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  • straight6pwr changed the title to Hello. My name is Dan, and today I shadowlined
  • straight6pwr changed the title to Hello. My name is Dan, and today I doomsday prepped

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