Had to fiddle a bit to get the other side to fit well (the graphic was designed for the right side), but finally managed it. I didn't do a great job on this one (had a few sketchy areas), but still looks ok if you don't look real close :)
and one for Carlos's vinyl guy, since they really do a good job on these designs and sizing for specific cars.
So looks from the drips on my cardboard under that car that I still have some oil leakage. Was getting a drip from my new pressure sender and that's tightened up so that solves one of them, but I'm pretty sure the lower (and possibly upper) pan are leaking as well. I knew I should have ditched the OEM gaskets and just used Permatex Gray from the start like I did on the M10....grr...
So that will be a project for next month when I change the oil before the first event......
In other things, I put the hood logo on. Considerably easier than the sides, lol...
The bottom of my M20 is so oily I wouldn't know where to start looking for leaks. I think these cars secretly want to be British.
I finally got around to the annoying task of replacing the fan belt on my car tonight. I really wish whoever installed the r134 compressor hadn't been a moron.
The graphics look cool. I hope Condor is giving you some serious discounts. 
irish44j wrote: thanks, will check it out! Though we also have events with tarmac-like hardpack so I can't take off TOO much tread :)
Yeah I'll snap some photos of mine, but we sometimes have events like that and I either just don't care and run my knobbies or run my snows.
Ian F wrote: The bottom of my M20 is so oily I wouldn't know where to start looking for leaks. I think these cars secretly want to be British. I finally got around to the annoying task of replacing the fan belt on my car tonight. I really wish whoever installed the r134 compressor hadn't been a moron. The graphics look cool. I hope Condor is giving you some serious discounts.
The irony there is that my Triumph GT6 as exactly ZERO leaks anyplace. Though that could be bad....since that usually means on an LBC that it's out of fluids, haha...
Carlos is taking care of me for sure. In addition to great parts he's hooked me up with people he knows for things like the 6-point harness which I got for virtually nothing, in like-new shape.
Last season I ran the wheel stud conversion kit from Motorsport Hardware (http://www.motorsporthardware.com/cm/). They held up great to the punishment, including many many times lugnuts on and off with the impact gun, with no cross-threading or stripping, and no rust.
MH makes a wide variety of Euro-size studs in several designs and lengths, all TUV certed, as well as wheel spacers and a few other related items for BMWs, Audis, Benzes, etc.....good stuff!
This year I talked to Ryan about upgrading to some 75mm bullet-nose, to make it a bit easier to change wheels in a rush (which I always seem to be in), and leave me the option to run spacers if I want to.
The studs arrived today with new nuts. I may upgrade later to the 2-piece race nuts since they're much deeper, but for the moment went with the standard open acorns. As usual, the shipping cross-country took 2 days, packaging was great, and got some vinyl to put on the car (as if you didn't expect that!)
got the old ones off (red loctited, so used some heat), no problems with the hex bolt head stripping or anything. They came right out after some heat. Here's a comparison with the new ones. Just a bit more thread length, but the bullet-nose really helps with starting the nuts, especially with the e30 wheels having a pretty deep hole.
installed on the euroweaves
and some repping :)
Today I meant to replace the WRX's brake pads, which are down to their last gasps....front and rear. My order from Amazon came in (Hawk HPS), put the car up on stands, wheels off, calipers opened.....
....and then realized that I got the right front pads (for 06-07 WRX, since I have the 4-pots on my 09), and that I also got the front pads for my 09 (instead the rears, which I meant to order).
Dammit.
Took the car for a quick spin to see how my oil leak is doing. No more leak from the pressure sender, but still have a leak from the upper pan, near the rear end. Leaking around part of the gasket (not the rear seal, which I replaced). Now the decision on whether I just deal with a slow drip, or if I pull the upper pan and do it right this time (Permatex Gray). Pulling the upper pan is a PITA since the engine has to be raised to get it out.
Also am a bit annoyed that my exhaust, which sounded great with the M10, sounds disgustingly raspy now with the M42. The Magnaflow muffler and no resonator really sounds bad. Not only is it annoyingly raspy under throttle, but it's sure to get me a noise ticket in this county. Think I'm going to get an OEM muffler from Spencer and just throw it on for the moment. This summer I'll re-do the entire catback once I get the welder up and going. Until then, I'll deal with boring quietness.
While it was out, took a few quick pics of the car with all the new graphics. Starting to actually look the part :) Though it does look a bit funny on the street wheels with all that gap, since the rally tires are much higher profile, lol.
one other little funny thing I accidentally came upon today: After many years, Google Street View finally hit my street last September and it finally is online.
And immortalized a VERY dirty e30 sitting in the driveway. Sadly, my mother-in-law's RAV4 is sitting next to it (ew) where the WRX normally would have been if I was home. Also caught my wife and a friend of hers chatting on the porch, haha...
So I've mentioned before that I can't and never have welded, so as you've seen I've done a lot of things in "other ways" where welding would probably be the best solution....e.g. using nuts, bolts, rivets, brackets, or whatever.....
A month or two ago I picked up a Snap-on MIG 120 welder from Yoshi for literally the price of a large spool of wire. My welding guy used it once too and said it welds as well as his Miller 140....
This weekend I spent my friday night with a couple beers and 2 hours of youtube welding classes, lol. Then I got a bit anxious the next day and just went to HF and picked up all the accessories, wire, gloves, and a cheap helmet (auto-dim, $39 on sale because it is so gaudy looking). I figure I'll upgrade the things that I need/want to upgrade once I learn what I'm doing. I'm going to start with flux core .035 and eventually move to gas.
Got it all set up with a new 10ga extension cord, and started practicing with random nuts and bolts and little metal pieces, on a thicker slab of steel I had sitting around.
So, keeping in mind that I have never, ever welded before (only watched people do it), here is my first weld ever. A big-ass nut to some steel:
Not the worst weld I've ever seen, but still pretty lousy, lol...
After more messing around, I decided to mess with my skidplate, which is 14ga stainless with 14ga "reinforcement straps" bolted to it. Decided to run the seam on those and make the entire piece more solid. Also a good chance, since I don't care what the skid looks like, to practice with some different wire speeds and heat settings.
Some areas came out very nicely I think, others had big issues and a few burn-throughs, lol.
The one line I appear to have gotten decent penetration on , not so much the others. The black area is just where I forgot there was a sticker on the backside, haha...
Spent a while last night chatting with Yoshi and a few other buddies who weld and got a large amount of tips, etc regarding photos of my welds that I showed them, as well as the preferred settings for this machine (from Yoshi as well).
so.....I'll practice a lot more this weekend.
A few other little things....added a small protection plate over the fuel lines behind the driver's front wheel, using some old pieces from a previous project. Nothing big, but can't hurt.
So on to the oil leaks referenced above. Decided I'm not dropping the damn upper pan right now. Too much of a hassle and I have other things to do, and want to drive the car. The upper pan has a slight leak at the rear end near the bellhousing. I can deal with that. The lower pan had a more significant leak, and that was worth dealing with.
So, lower pan off.....the leaking gasket on the backside is apparent..
cleaned it all up. screw these OEM-style gaskets. GOing to use the good stuff
so, hopefully that takes care of the most apparent leak. Now that I've run the engine and cleared out some gunk (apparent in the oil pan), I drained the oil I put in 50 miles ago, changed the filter, and put in some fresh Rotella T6 5W-40, which is the most-suggested weight for this engine on BobIsTheOilGuy forums. No disrespect to anyone in these forums, but when it comes to fluids, I trust most of the people there a good bit, since they're so geeky about fluids :)
been slacking a bit on the updates....mostly because I'm pretty close to "ready" for the season at this point (and just bought my season membership today!), but also because I had a minor snafu....
yeah, that's a big-ass burn. Was welding on my skidplate (mostly just for practice, since I don't care about it). Stopped to talk to the wife. Then went to lean over to pick up the gloves again, stumbled a bit, and put my hand down DIRECTLY on the weld I had just done. Serious suckage.
Anyhow, took good care of it for a couple days and hand is almost back to normal.....will surely have a nice scar to show for it though, lol. Lesson learned.
On to one of the few remaining projects: the exhaust. I'm swapping the magnaflow for a stock muffler since I'm going to get a ticket....the M42 with no resonator and the magnaflow is just too loud and raspy and annoying-sounding. Will throw a stocker on there and figure out something later to make the car sound good.
So, had to adapt the M42 exhaust to fit correctly on the car, since it's a different arrangement of hangars, and the one on there didn't work well...held the exhaust too low.
So, I cut off the original hangar bracket from the M10 exhaust:
welded it onto the M42 in the spot I wanted it. My first "functional" weld. Not beautiful, but it is strong. Bashed the hell out of it with a hammer to check, lol.
Also switched to .030 wire from the .035. It seems to work much better and I'm starting to figure out the settings on this welder that work ok. Still have much practice to do!
still have to get it all hooked up to the rest of the system.
So within an hour of registration opening, 21 cars signed up for the first event - including most of our team. Right now 19 subies, 7 BMWs, and 2 front-drivers. Looks like Shawn, who won modified RWD last year in the RX7, is moving to modified front this year in an '86 Celica (which I think he's co-driving). Bit sad on this, as I wanted to see this season if another year of experience and the work I've done on the car were enough to catch up to him, but guess I'll never know. Roberto in the PR-champ RX7 (also driven by Gorka for 2nd in MR) is moving to MR this season, and has improved his car somewhat as well. Nick and Pat/Jason have been doing a lot to their cars as well, so looks like it should be a competitive bunch in MR this year.
The blue ETA (Scott, Helgesen, Spoth, etc) got some upgrades as well and will be running 2 drivers in PR and 1 in MR this year. Scott, the first e30 rallycrosser I met, isn't doing it this year - I think he wants to spend more time on the track and maybe his back isn't holding up to the rallycross beating. Also too bad, always enjoyed his conversation and sass at the events.
Looks like Jesse is the only e30 in RWD Stock this year, so wonder if he'll bump up to run with the rest of us or not.
put the whole exhaust together today, after doing some welding (which I'm happy to say I'm getting better at, though they're still not too pretty).
Decided after much research to pick up a Dynomax Super Turbo muffler, since they were on sale at the local auto parts store AND I had a $10 off coupon. So for $45 picked it up. Nice and small, and have heard good things about the sound on M42 cars.
Keep in mind, this is some wierd non-stock catback I have that doesn't fit all that well, so I just patched it together to get it to fit. It also has no resonator in it.
After getting it all together, went for a drive. It actually sounds great at all throttle levels, and there is little to no rasp whatsoever. That said, it's still a bit louder than I'd like in this county, where enforcement is pretty strict.
I looked around trying to find a small resonator, but the way the b-pipe is made there's really no place to put one longer than about 8-10", which sucks.
Luckily, I happened to just find someone on R3V who is selling me the rear pipe, a stock one with the stock resonator. So it's cheaper than buying a resonator AND is the correct shape to fit in my heat sheilded area/"exhaust tunnel" correctly. The OEM resonator should bring the sound level down to where I want it.
Overall, pretty pleased with the progress. The exhaust is "almost" there with just over 4 weeks to go before the first event :)
pics:
First weld. Some splatter, but not terrible :)
cheated and used some reducers since the inlet pipe wasn't the right size...
blackout
installed. as you can see, this particular pipe doesn't follow the stock exhaust route, and sits too low (lowest point of the car, basically)
will work out a permanent hanger setup once I get the new pipe in
so, this is the garage after a week of working on stuff and not cleaning...
so spent the rest of the day cleaning...
Lexy went with me to the parts store. I wasn't buying paint, but she really wanted some yellow engine paint, lol
out front spotted a very nice Peugeot 505sti....nice
weather was a bit nicer today, with some sun to go with the 35 degrees. Time for some little projects.
First: I require a cupholder when I drive. Period. Screw those universal fit ones at the auto parts store. Let's get some 3" PVC pipe:
Cut it and do some profile grinding.
Use some marine epoxy to secure it in place. Cometically ghetto. Functionally excellent for bottles, cups, or whatever.
Second thing. Once again the speedo seems to be not working. The old "jiggle the plug" trick doesn't work any more. I'm tired of dealing with it. It's old BMW.....it will just break again. So we'll do this the easy way:
Did a few other little things, and then decided to go ahead and install the old-school hitch. I don't have anything to use with it at the moment (other than a bike rack that usually goes on the 4Runner), but eventually plan to either make for buy a rack/basket to carry a gearbox on so I don't have to cram every corner of the car with gear on event days. Or might get a cheap HF trailer. ANyhow, this hitch ain't exactly hardcore. It's a Class III, with a tongue weight of 200lbs and tow weight of 2000lbs. Basically it just bolts to the bottom of the bumper and the bottom of the spare tire well. I may add a vertical steel piece to tie into the middle rear trunk support, just because I'm paranoid, lol.
tested it by sticking an old roof rack bar in it and jumping up and down on it (I weigh about 175)....seemed fine.
Also I had previously tucked the bumpers, but never got around to "pinning" the pistons, so when another e30 guy bumps me in grid line from an angle, my bumper pops out on one side, lol. Can't have that now that the hitch is bolted to it.
There are "difficult" ways to do it, but I just did the easy way. Drilled some holes in the bumper, used them to access the pistons, drilled a hole in them, put a bolt through. I'll get some rubber plugs to go in the bumper holes (or maybe I just won't...)
Got an email today from Norbert Schneider, who runs the RG318is Cup series in Germany, as I've talked about before. A couple weeks ago I mailed him some of our team Dirty e-Thirties stickers, plus an SCCA RallyCross banner and some stickers - as payback for the decal set he previously sent me.
He said they just started their rally season last week and he finished 3rd in an event defined mostly by snow and ice....sounds like much fun :)
Also he asked if I was using a DME chip (I have a Conforti Chip) and offered to send me one of the chips they run in their spec rally cars, which apparently raise the rev limiter to 8000rpm and have an "optimal" torque curve for the M42 318. So I'm definitely interested in that, if the M42 can hold that kind of revs safely. AFAIK they run otherwise stock engines (except for exhaust and perhaps intakes), so if they're running full rallies reliably, should be fine for rallycross. Anyhow, I inquired further :)
DUDE! That looks nasty...
I have a nice round burn on my leg from the GT6 exhaust pipe :)
irish44j wrote:
Currently two big things are coming UPS and will arrive next week: the rest of the exhaust, and a skidplate. Will talk about the latter when it arrives, as it should be an upgrade over what I have now in several ways.
In the meantime, with no big projects on the car to do, I pulled the trigger on the trailer idea. Initially I had thought of putting a "rack" coming off the tow hitch, but I'd be very limited in weight and it generally just didn't seem like a great idea with this small hitch. So trailer it was. The obvious choice is the small Harbor Freight 4x4 mini-trailer, which is pretty popular with track guys. Always makes me chuckle seeing a track-built Z06 going to Summit towing a $200 HF trailer with nothing but 4 tires on it :)
But now I'm going to do that. The e30 can fit all my gear in the car, but packing and unpacking is a real hassle and there's no room for other things I'd like to bring but don't "need."
HF had the trailers on sale for $220 this week, so I planned to head down there today to get one. But, then one popped up on NASIOC. Actually being sold by a fellow rallycrosser who just (with his wife), completed a round trip DC-to-Guatemala-to-Oregon-to-DC road rally. In Oregon he bought the trailer to haul back some stuff he picked up there, and then put it up for sale when he arrived. I ended up getting the trailer, already assembled with a deck, plus a new spare tire, for the price of one new at HF, so that was a good deal I think.
as bought:
Anyhow, went out and met Matt to pick it up, and towed it home with the 4runner. Incidentally, behind the 4Runner it is totall invisible...can't see it, can't hear it, even when turning lol.
Got it home and immediately started to work. I had already done some research on GRM and other places on different packing methods, and decided on one that would give me the most flexibility to carry what I wanted to.
So, stage 1....tire/wheel rack. Some people just drop them down in the "void" area between the rails, but I didn't really like that setup exactly, so went with a variation on it. Welded some angle iron pieces at the desired spread to hold the wheels where I want them. This allowed me to put them a few inches further forward than using the "opening" on the trailer, which balances them over the axle better. Right now I only need about 10lbs of weight on the front to have good balance, and I'll probably have 50-75lbs of gear up there at least for the appropriate tongue weight.
test fit. This is not how I'll tie them down, though this method they do not move, even if I push them to the side as hard as possible.
temporarily cut and reused the floor piece previously on it. I have some other plans, so that won't be there for long.
Car is looking GOOD! Loving the progress. I have been thinking about doing the sunroof frame on mine, so I am glad I saw the mistake you had made before I did the same thing!
Also, happy belated birthday! Mine is the 20th of December, but I am the same age as my e30 and didnt get a welder lol
Looking forward to updates
Josh
Congrats on getting a welder (a cheap Snap-on?! Lucky!) and your first welder burn. Everybody does it... let's hope it's your last. Welding is my favorite thing to do in the garage.
Pretty cool that the German rally guys are noticing you and offering cool go-fast stuff!
Wow.
I've been reading a lot on Bob is the oil guy and I'm surprised at how much I didn't know and how much I mistakenly thought I knew!
Oh and congrats on the latest acquisition!
Your work amazes me!
CLNSC3 wrote: Car is looking GOOD! Loving the progress. I have been thinking about doing the sunroof frame on mine, so I am glad I saw the mistake you had made before I did the same thing! Also, happy belated birthday! Mine is the 20th of December, but I am the same age as my e30 and didnt get a welder lol Looking forward to updates Josh
thanks, to you as well. THe sunroof frame is actually pretty easy if you do it the right way. Less easy if you do it the way I did (but still pretty easy). There's a good how-to on r3vlimited forum with photos of all the spot welds and other commentary.
Winston wrote: Congrats on getting a welder (a cheap Snap-on?! Lucky!) and your first welder burn. Everybody does it... let's hope it's your last. Welding is my favorite thing to do in the garage. Pretty cool that the German rally guys are noticing you and offering cool go-fast stuff!
yup....$150 and it works great :)
I'm starting to aggressively LOOK for things to weld, even stuff that doesn't need to be welded, lol. My main restraint is the noise from my grinder for the prep work, which means "not after kids bedtime," "not early on a Sunday morning," and "not during baby's nap time".....and of course, that accounts for all but 2-3 hours on any given day, lol.
The German guys have been really cool - several of them are members of our facebook "team" page for the local rallycross e30s.
They also assured me that the M42, even with high mileage, can take an 8k redline no problem. They said that all of their rally cars run 8k chips on "old, beat engines" and they have never had a failure related to that. Which is funny, since on the US e30 forums everyone screams bloody murder if anyone increases their limiter above 7k.
The_Jed wrote: Wow. I've been reading a lot on Bob is the oil guy and I'm surprised at how much I didn't know and how much I mistakenly thought I knew!
lol...true. I actually have to go look up half the terms and acronyms they use in there constantly.
more on the trailer today. Picked up some 2" angle iron to complete a front wedge/platform to give a bit more space to the trailer. While I was at Lowes I checked out the various Husky pickup truck gearboxes they had there, but that's more than I want to spend on this. Instead, went with a Contico box. Much cheaper, just as useful and probably tougher anyhow.
also fits small children well, lol
went to work mocking up the front section.
then welded it all up. Also added a piece of wood as a center support for the floor.
Found some beefy plywood back in the shed, and cut out a floor
will eventually paint it and install some tiedowns, but here's a mockup of it all put together. I like the front wedge, gives a place to stash the spare, and some room for other stuff that I might want to bring along...
irish44j wrote:CLNSC3 wrote: Car is looking GOOD! Loving the progress. I have been thinking about doing the sunroof frame on mine, so I am glad I saw the mistake you had made before I did the same thing! Also, happy belated birthday! Mine is the 20th of December, but I am the same age as my e30 and didnt get a welder lol Looking forward to updates Joshthanks, to you as well. THe sunroof frame is actually pretty easy if you do it the right way. Less easy if you do it the way I did (but still pretty easy). There's a good how-to on r3vlimited forum with photos of all the spot welds and other commentary.
Awesome, I will go find that thread right now. I feel you on the cold weather, I work out of a garage that is not insulated and has 4-6" gaps between the ground and the bottom of the walls. lol So the winter has been slow going with the wrenching.
Did you sell the wheel stud conversion hardware that you took off? I need to get some of those for my e30 here before too long so if you are looking to sell em' I will take them off your hands!
yep, I sold it to one of the other rallycross guys. But check out www.motorsporthardware.com and tell him I referred you. His stuff is a good price and well worth it!
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