Jdesign

I'm stoked to see this car getting the love it deserves! 
 
I like this. 

126,006
Summer mode engaged!



 
Installed the only aesthetic mod I had planned, LED angel eyes. I didn’t like how the original halogen ones didn’t match the xenon low beams or the license plate/under door courtesy lights, I’m liking the LED much better. Not perfect in terms of color but pretty close and for the price I’m happy. 

Installed a new cupholder trim piece, only like $20 from FCP. Worth it. 

Headlight 2K clear is on the way, that’s next on the list. I also have the M3 arms sitting in a box along with 3 cans of Pentosin, as well as the stuff for the diff service. Going to check the front left wheel bearing while I’m in there for the arms, that’s the only corner that is warmer than the others but it doesn’t behave quite like a dragging caliper.  Oil arrived as well. Just need to get the e34 VANOS buttoned up so I have something to drive if stuff goes sideways, then the e91 will get its attention. 
 
Been loving this so far though! Utility is unbeatable, the n52 w/ M performance exhaust is a peach and sounds perfect, and the look speaks for itself. However, if anyone ever sees a n52 manual parts car, please let me know…

Yeahhhhh. I have a major shift in family priorities right now. And I've seen too many pictures of e30s in accidents lately and it was getting hard to be comfortable with putting my three girls in there. It's not fun for me if they can't be a part of it. 
It was fun though. It was a cool car to build. Met lots of cool people. Excited to see what's next. 

Hope you negotiated a loaner lol

Another fantastic update. The dealership that has my car just reached out yesterday saying BMW had sent them a replacement EWS module. 1 week later the new module showed up and after they installed it the car is still completely dead stick. Keys and EWS have no communication whatsoever. They now have to reorder the original kit including ews/locks/keys/ignition that took them almost 2 months to receive in the first place. Lets just hope I will get to drive it a couple times before it ends up stored again next winter lmao

The rear looks a little crunched down like the X4/X6. Rear quarters slope upward a bit too high for my liking and rear window looks tiny.

Despite those (unavoidable) criticisms I still think it looks great. GT look. Doubt it would sell well here in the US unfortunately and I'm sure that will be one of the biggest reasons it never sees production, would love to see it go on sale regardless though.

The lip spoiler fit like a glove, it’s pretty aggressive, I would love to do the M Performance CF trunk and Wing, but that’s a good bit of money (one day). I have the Adro front lip and side skirts on hold until my hip gets better (shit fuckin hurts), hoping by July or August (MRI was done today)

Well, got the break in oil dropped in and did a thorough look over of everything. I ended up using the old tune from the last setup for start up. Other then lower compression and different turbo this new setup wasn't much different from the old setup tuning wise. I figured it would probably run a little rich but still ok for idling and light throttle. Pulled the coils and plugs for ease of priming the motor and got a solid 15 psi of pressure shown on the gauge before re hooking up the fuel pump relay. Did another check over everything and then hopped in and started cranking... 
Video was cut short as we noticed a coolant leak and shut it back off to correct that before letting it get up to temp. Once it was up to temp, I got the front valance re-installed and the car lowered on the ground. Being that the engine was running well and the afr's were looking good I wanted to get it out on the road and get some more load on the rings to break em in better. The tune obviously wasn't dialed in enough for this setup to see any kind of boost but some light to medium acceleration would be fine. Went down a few country roads near the shop and besides some trouble to stay idling at a few stops, the car ran really well!
Drove it around about 15 miles before returning to the shop and draining the oil right away and changing the filter.

Also went ahead and popped the valve cover back off to re-torque the head studs. I did notice that the gasket had some coolant seeping out which was not ideal to see. I originally torqued the studs in three steps to 75 ft lbs as per arp's recommendations. I did some searching around and found that others had similar issues and followed ces motorsports recommendations of upping the final torque to 85 ft lbs to correct the issue. Re-torqued the head to 85 ft lbs and also checked the torque on all the cam caps before re-installing the valve cover.

So not to much left besides wrapping the wires up and getting things buttoned up. Got my tuning date scheduled but unfortunately that's not gonna be tell June 30th. Wish it could have been sooner but by the sounds of it everyone is booked out atleast a month for dyno tuning. Gives me plenty of extra time to really go through things so it can be fully ready to go.

Used the install of the new fan wiring as an excuse to Clean up a bunch of wiring for the MS3, gauge wiring, and other stuff I had been putting off as I hate removing all the interior stuff. Got it all buttoned back up last night. Tonight going to rebleed the coolant after putting in the new radiator. 


eventually I should probably have it aligned, but next up is making a mount for the MS3 as it’s just hanging out in the glovebox & making some type of heat shield to go in between the filter/engine Bay Area along the frame rail 

New CSF rad is in, re-did the foam in between the rad and the core support to seal up air gaps, replaced the tstat, replaced the ecu temp sender in the head, re routed the catch can line, got a new fan harness/relay that is wired as a ground switched setup - future MS3 triggering perhaps

earlier I mentioned I thought the fan was bad, but I think the mounts shifted and caused some binding between the shroud/fan. I tested the fan out of the car and all seems well (it’s a 2 year old SPAL pusher) just remounted a few brackets and gave it a touch more stand off from the radiator (1/4-3/8” standoff in case stuff moves around). 

currently have the glovebox and center console stuff out of the car to get some of the wiring cleaned up. Once it’s back together it will be more dialing in The tune/car

Nicer pic of the setup once the suspension settled a bit

I can't believe how well it fits!

I also got some new tools courtesy of Sonic Tools...

Got this bottle earlier this week, tried it on all my CF parts and it all ended up foggy.  I polished it all off and tried again with success. I believe I left the ceramic on too long the first time. 
I now have the confidence to do it on my car later this summer

Been a while since I have made a post about whats going on with this thing, so I figured I would write an update. Got the vehicle inspected at my work for the insurance claim and to be expected the brakes were trashed. Rotors were rusty and very warped but surprisingly the pads were actually still in decent shape yet. The inspection also found some minor leaks coming from the driveshaft CV and power steering lines, as well as bad front lower control arm bushings. Luckily everything else seemed to be in order aside from my Fortune Autos and magnaflow catback having a nice new coating of rust

Insurance adjuster showed up and checked over the vehicle as well and didn't end up totalling it but made a good offer on the repairs which was very great news. Once I got the payment for that I went ahead and ordered brand new calipers, hoses, hardware, and Bosch Quietcast rotors and pads all the way around. Once everything showed up I got to work on giving this thing all brand new brakes!

Old vs. New calipers. Not too bad but still wanted to go ahead and replace them.
 

New brakes installed. Very happy with the result and I am glad that I have officially converted it to daily driver duty with a more comfort focused set of brakes.


Hard to hate the look of shiny new parts!!

Moving forward the car is currently at BMW getting a new EWS, keys, ignition and lock cylinders installed. One of the keys was still missing after I got the car back and I did not feel comfortable leaving the car as is while knowing someone else could steal it again at any time. Luckily after speaking with insurance its completely covered but I do have to pay for everything up front and they'll reimburse me, fun way to spend $1800.
Unsurprisingly the drama never quits with this thing. After having dropped the car off there 3 weeks ago I received a call last Friday from the service writer involved with the vehicle and they let me know after installing all of the parts one of the keys is faulty and is refusing to communicate with the EWS whatsoever. They're currently waiting for a response back from BMW HQ on how to solve the problem and at this point, only god knows when I will have the car back. I understand that shit happens, I am just getting tired of shit happening to this car lol. Hopefully I will have it back before the end of summer!

Forgot to add the e36 part
IMG_7112.MOV
 

First autox event of the year (ignoring ice racing) & the car did great. 
probably needs an alignment after having everything out of the car for the swap but it was close enough 

Took fastest raw time of the day. 
Unfortunately was only able to run the 4 morning runs as the fan??(tbd) died. 
GF was supposed to co drive it but I couldn’t get the fan going which is necessary for the conga-line style this club had for grid. Tried everything short of directly powering the fan but gave up attempting to fix it. Quick ran the car home (local event) and grabbed the e36 so the GF could at least get her full 8 runs in. She did great and took second overall raw time
 
ive been messing with some cheap wireless mics for the GoPro, had this one too close to the exhaust though I think
IMG_7082.MOV

Probably have around 5hrs of drive time on this thing -have been letting VE analyze do it’s thing after adjusting the afr targets/idleVE/rescaling the tables. 
 
I had the valve cover off just to double check the cam stuff, good to go there, but I have developed the smallest oil leak from the valve cover on the passenger side rear of the cover, true to bmw form

These have been sitting in my garage for years, tried selling them awhile back with no luck.
Free to any WIBIMMER members who want to pick them up in Appleton.
Turner Motorsports Coolant Pipe Adapter.

Condor Speed Shop S5X motor mounts. These were installed in the calypso car, but were never driven on.

Saw that pop up as well, thought the same thing lol

SPORT MINDED!!
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/624376986169600/?mibextid=6ojiHh

Changed the oil/filter on this as I was just using some cheapo 10w-30 as a way to get the storage crud knocked out of this thing. Filter looked as expected as this engine has been sitting for almost 3 years under a trash bag & I’ve messed around with the cams in and out a ton, new lifters, etc etc. no big magnetic chunks- just dirt/old crud. 
 
pulling the valve cover off to double check the torque on the cam caps and other miscellaneous hardware in the head after a few heat cycles - once that is good to go just going to button everything back up and get it bolt checked for a local autox in early May. 
 

 

 
 
 

CF trumpets are on and motor is bolted back up to the car.  Partee Racing made the trumpets. 

Got underneath and found the transmission output seal(s) were toast (or so I thought). Fresh fluid was covering everything pretty heavily and had leaked enough that it made its way to the front of the trans tunnel from the spray and seepage. Trans was only down a quarter quart or so, so not thinking it did any damage but definitely had lost measureabke fluid amounts. 
 
New output seal went on pretty easy, and found when pulling it that the output nut was finger tight. No bueno. Output flange came off with only a mild yank. I’m guessing most of the leakage was from that, but decided to do the seals anyways while I was there. I drove a new shift shaft seal over the old one (nearly impossible to pull the old one out without the transmission out of the car) and was not able to get it fully seated but it only protrudes slightly and would be pretty easy to pull to replace if needed now. It’s now double sealed so should be OK. 
 
Fixed the windshield wiper rattle too! Turns out the bushings were fine; the rubber grommet between the linkage and body had deteriorated and was letting it knock around. Tightened the nut after removing the old grommet and the issue is gone. 
 
Finally getting to the VCG and VANOS job as well. Wasn’t able to get the flywheel lock pin through the block hole after an hour of trying, so I used the wheel hanger pin from the factory toolkit to make sure the hole is right where it needs to be and double checked off the crank hub timing marks. The cam lock blocks will also be used so I think I’ll be fine. I’m certainly not the only one to do it like this, anyon with a LTW flywheel doesn’t even have the alignment hole so they have to do it this way. 


Got the VC off without issue, and in the process realized the oil leakage was far worse than I thought. I knew about the oil in the spark plug holes, but the rest of it was a bit excessive. I’ll clean up the VC when it’s off and the block a little more once all the new stuff is back on so I don’t get crud in the engine. 










Looks pretty clean in there overall! Not bad for 130k and nearly 30 years. A bit odd that the rear cylinder cam lobes look darker, but nothing is grooved or scored at all so I’m not worried about it. The original M20 cam was far worse when I replaced that and it still was fine.

 
Going to pull the VANOS unit next week, rebuild with seals and an anti rattle kit as a preventative measure, and toss it all back in. This car is finally coming back together and getting some much needed love!

They are 15x7 in front and 15x7.5 in the rear. The 16" RS definitely come with a premium. But I've always like 15s on the car better. 
 
Had the car out for its first test drive and it was pissing transmission fluid. Engine and transmission had to come back out. It ended up being my fault - I put the input shaft seal cover on about 90* off which just so happened to line up the fluid return hole on the transmission to be lined up with an open hole on the cover. So it literally was pouring out. Fixed that. Drove it around this weekend some. Realized I forgot to tighten up the nut on the driveshaft where it splits. Sooooooo one more fucking time on the lift to do that, but then it should be all set!


Other notes: 
This winter I also made rear speaker boxes and front door tweeter pods and fitted in Focal component speakers in the front and rear. I installed an Infiniti Basslink Mini under the front seat. The sound system is now fantastic and sounds like what I've always been chasing. 






Interior is exceeding my expectations. I love them. The seats are so comfortable. Also finished the e-brake handle boot. 


Also able to test my H1 LED high beam kits. Since the caps on the euro smilies can't really accommodate the larger LED bulbs or the wiring, I wanted to make these since I don't have my US Ellipsoids anymore. I am not disappointed with the performances of the MLED projector and LED high beams. 



 
Made a stop at Fermentorium in Cedarburg with our youngest while the older two and my wife were at a birthday part. After Fermentorium, I used the e30 to pick them up and continue on to Sahale in Grafton. What a family car.