Davegerous E21

[ladylike]

you have my respect!! beautiful job

[Dave-ger]

thanks guys, now I just need to find some cool wheels of my own to put on the car. and replace the diff.

[Turbo 3.8L e21]

thanks guys, now I just need to find some cool wheels of my own to put on the car. and replace the diff.

In an e21.. NO WAY!! lol... I've blown x8

[Dave-ger]

wait, so my car's not doing some kind of off the wall odd thing having the diff being all shot? Last time I drove it out of town I seriously thought I was going to die. if it's a common thing, I need to figure out a remedy. I have a diff off a 300,000 mile car to throw in it that supposedly doesn't have the same problem as mine, and the worse case scenario is that I rebuild one of my spare diffs (maybe with an E30 LSD, I hear they fit the E21 cases) or buy an LSD.

[Dave-ger]

got the used replacement diff in. I'm feeling good about it, no leaks so far, and the R&P actually feel like they have proper back lash; my other two don't.... probably part if not all of the problem. how they got that way is a mystery to me.

Soon I'll fire up the car and find out how the new diff does.

In news about looks (most important part of a car), I got sick of the orange wheels. This makes the scion wheels much better I think.






it's about time I do something about my hideous front bumper....

[Mr. Gumby]

Where did you find adapters to make the wheels work & how thick are they?

[Dave-ger]

they're 4X100 wheels, which is the factory bolt pattern for this car. the center bore is too small though, so I have 1" non hub centric spacers up front and 2" honda hub centrics in the back. on the back ones I had to actually bore out the center of the spacer to fit around my hub, and grind down the hub centric part that was meant for the wheel because the scion center bore was too small for even the honda hub centric spacer. I have to run spacers on it anyways because of the weird setup on the car. the tie rods would hit the tires without spacers and I'd probably have other rubbing issues too, unless I had awesome super low or negative offset wheels. my spacers are the style that are machined with pressed in studs and I got them off Ebay a long time ago. I ran the exact same spacers with the 5 spoke wheels.

[Dave-ger]

I've pretty much given up on trying to sell this, so here's a teaser of what's to come.




and a look at some left over damage on the car from the driveline failure that happened on 9/11/10. (how it happened is a long story, and I probably already told it in this thread kind of) For those of you who don't know your way around E21's, my driveline tunnel is very bashed out, that's why it gets smaller towards the front of the car. at least it gave me a lot of room to fit the current exhaust system nicely. I still can't believe I didn't scrap the car after that incident.

[hi its me alec]

I bet that was FREAKY when it happened

[Dave-ger]

That's an understatement.

[Funtington]

White looks KILLER!!!!!!

[Dave-ger]

Thanks hall!


quick mock up of how the seats were:




a rough mock up of about how they currently sit:



I don't know if this comparison pic will do the seat drop any justice, but here it is.




I'm not normally one to take pictures of myself, but look at all the head room I'll have now! This car feels at least 73% more gangster! This is even the passenger seat, which isn't all broken down like the driver's seat, so I'll sit slightly lower on the driver's side, which is good. Anyone who's tall-ish at all who's ridden in this car knows how bad the lack of head room was.


PS: I'll sell that E30 backseat that's on the roof real cheap if anyone wants it!


my bastardized seat bracketry.


installed seats, I put the crappy, hacked up, and burned carpet back in for now because it's better than nothing. I don't want a bare floor, my toyota pickup is louder inside than I want my BMW to be.



notice that the back of the lower seat cushions are lower than the trans tunnel!

[Dave-ger]

BLING BLING!






I need to do a few finishing touches, but now I should be able to run both fans in the summer without the stereo turning off and on.

the pics are terrible from Florescent lighting and all that Chrome! so, I'm sure you'll understand.

[DeeAOne]

What made you decide to go with a 12A of all engines? Badass car man love the originality.

[Dave-ger]

thanks man. I went with the 12A because rebuilding an M10 seemed like it would have a boring result. On top of that, a friend of mine sold the 12A to me for a great deal with a lot of things to go with it. I had always thought rotaries were cool (more than I do now, lol), and I just couldn't turn it down. It has a dowel leak now, so I might have to rebuild it actually. I'm debating between that, a 13B, or putting my recently acquired 2.3 ford turbo motor in it. The bay would be absolutely stuffed with the 2.3, and it's heavier, so that's why I'm not sure if I'll do it.

Oh yea, the 12A is really small and light, that was a big reason to get it as well.