My road to racing (E30 content)

[R1XPH]

Well if you ever need a hand with any donkey work give me a shout as I live literally 5mins away!

I'll bear that in mind cheers mate. Bulk of the heavy stuff is done now the engine is in mind (pics below).

must be a mass exodus of the area then...lol
i have literally moved today and am now in Milton Keynes,

i feel your pain with working on the car, the same problem i am having/about to have... hope all goes well mate

I'm always darting about with work although now I'm well and truely in 'motorsport alley' I expect I'll be staying round here.



To the car:

So it’s been a while since I’ve been able to do anything to the car. I’ve been planning to get home every weekend for the last 2 months but work offers kept coming up so plans kept getting pushed back.

I bought an M42 (1.8 16v, the same as what was in there before) race engine that was used in TTRS. It’s had quite a bit of work done to it and I plan to do a couple more bits and then get it live mapped and see what extra can be had out of it. When I removed the coils from the spark plugs I was a tad horrified to find that the 1 and 2 plug ‘galleries’ where full of oil. After looking at it is looks as if the cam cover seals may have leaked, this must be the only explanation so I also used the best set of seals I had on the self to hopefully put a stop to that happening again. I split the gearbox, flywheel and clutch from the old engine and fitted it all up to the new one. I also pressure washed off the gearbox and I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely it came up.

Once the engine was I fitted my electric fan to my E36 328i radiator and got that in there:




I have about 3 engines worth of cam covers, upper and lower inlet manifolds, so I cherry picked the best set and got them fitted on. I have also used my COP plate which bolts straight through the cam cover so will support the coils nicely (the threads in the head on my old engine were fubar so it’s nice to be able to properly bolt them down). After that I connected up the Z3 1.9 gear linkage set up which I had fitted before and fitted the alternator and PAS pump.



Couple of jobs to do now:
• I've got a standard airbox and K&N panel filter to fit. (It was rolling roaded with this set up and it has been proven with many other cars its genuinely the best set up for this engine)
• Order some hoses for the water system
• Crimp terminals onto the alternator wires
• Route and fit the PAS pipes


I have had some fun with the E46 steering rack and the M42 exhaust manifold. I did think to begin with I was safe but when the manifold was bolted up tight it caused issues with the linkage. I have now moved the rack onto the forward holes which isn’t ideal but it’s the only way to give the two some breathing space.
I have left the fuel lines disconnected as I will be fitting a dry brake for sampling (as required by the MSA) and also for draining the tank so the fuel level can be kept accurate. I need to get some lengths of pipe and some adaptors and find the best place for it to be fitted.




Lastly, I bought a caliper recon kit and some high temp paint from the local parts place and rebuilt my touring rear calipers. The paint turned out to be more matt grey than black but I thought: 1. They look far better than when rusty and 2. A blind man would like to see it. I am going to move my brake bias valve forward so I won’t be bleeding the brakes just yet.




Next on the list of ‘fun’ involves:
• Fuel tank assembled and fitted
• Engine complete and running
• Roll cage feet mounted in place ready to be welded
• Lots of little jobs!

[Russ_16v]

[Eddie.]

Lovely.

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[R1XPH]

Lovely.

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Thank you



2nd weekend off in a row!

I’ve got a busy few weeks ahead and I have organised getting an exhaust system made while I’m away. I got to work on getting the fuel tank built and fitted along with the prop shaft. It’s nice to now have the running gear complete again.

The tank ready to go in:




After painting and rebuilding the rear calipers I also sprayed the carriers and got them bolted on. I fitted them with the old EBC Green pads which have been in the car since I’ve had it. I will be looking to changed them at some point.






Got my harness eyes mounted as well. I spent a bit of time with the seat in fafing about trying to find the best places for them. The inner tunnel one was the most annoying one to get right but the angles look good and in keeping with the diagrams in the blue book.




Other than that I got lots of little jobs such as wiring on the engine and giving the car a bit of a clean and tidy for its trip to Infinity Exhausts (www.infinity-exhausts.co.uk) next week.

[R1XPH]

My airbox arrived the other day and so did my K&N panel filter. The airbox was a bit dirty (as it would be having been sat on a road car for 20+ years) so I gave it a wash in our parts cleaner at work; it fires the cleaning stuff out at like 300psi, that soon moved the crap and they came up really nice . Will get them on next time I'm home:





My exhaust is done, Infinity have sent me some pictures as I won't be able to see it in the 'metal' for a few weeks. Dead chuffed with it looks like they've done a great job. I just need to paint the valence so it looks better.











Best get it fired up now 8)

[Russ_16v]

Woop woop,! this is going to be soooo much fun

[VeinAST]

Won't sound like a tank now then?

[Tony Hunter]

Keep going Rich.

[R1XPH]

Christmas and New Year has provided me with some time at home and time at home means time on the car. A friend of mine whose race car I ran owns an engineering company so I frequently call on him to knock bits up for me:







I've been focusing on the brakes mainly to try and get them wrapped up. Firstly I got to fitted my brake disc spacers. The Audi G60 discs had a slightly different offset to the E30 ones and the disc had been running offset in the caliper like so:





Some 3mm spacers as per Geoff_bob's drawings have cured this issue and also another issue of the new wheels not clamping the disc properly.








Only problem I found with the spacers is that the drawing has the retaining screw hole in the wrong place for the E30 hub and therefore will need re-drilling to allow the use of one. The hole needs to be 13mm from the edge not 10mm.




I also fitted up some spacers to my steering column to replace my temporary washers. I've dropped the column by 10mm which makes a big difference at the steering wheel. I have some 15mm ones as well to play with.







Next up on the job list was moving the brake bias valve. It was previously here (lower right):





The problem was I couldn't reach it with my harness done up so I decided to move it forward. It now sits next to the gear stick and can be adjusted from the seat. Simple enough job, just needed to make the ‘front’ pipe shorter then make up a new longer ‘rear’ pipe:










I was planning to bleed the brakes but I've decided to make up some swaged braided lines at work to replace the Earls lines which have olive style fittings. I also want to see if the machine shop can find time to squeeze in making up some nice new billet caliper carriers. The ones that came with the kit are made from low spec aluminium and spacers which is just a bit rubbish. I'll also get some zinc coated bolts with the correct shoulder too.


I'm still waiting on them to machine my pads down too so I haven't fitted my new PFB001 front pads.

[Chip-mk1]

Amazing car, not noticed this thread before.

Very cool, and like Daniel said, workshop looks cool too!

[VeinAST]

Those brakes need some use

[Richyy182]

Looking good. Love these, my friends all had these years ago. One friend is building one at the mo

[Zmaster2k]

Just seen this thread, Nice work! E30's are somthing special!

Loving the workshop! Ideal!