Fiona: A 1975 2002

[TinkWithanR]

Worked on the front suspension some more tonight. First up was to remove, clean up, and shorten the steering arms. Here they are sandblasted before shortening:



The stock length between centers is 175mm. The stock e21 length is ~130mm, but I ended up at 125mm exactly on both arms. I was shooting for slightly faster than stock, so this should be perfect.

Here is the arm after cutting:



A shortened arm next to the unshortened arm:



Both arms welded up:




When figuring out the placement of the steering rack in relation to the rest of the suspension there are a number of things to take into consideration. So I made sure to take some notes and measurements, and try to preserve the stock traits as much as possible.




But in order to mount the steering rack, I first wanted to finish cleaning up the subframe. So first was to drop it out of the car:




After looking it over there was minimal rust, just lots of grease and grime:




And here it is after sandblasting. Next is to finish grinding smooth the old steering mounts and put the new rack mounts in place. Then it will be off to powdercoat with the rest of the front suspension pieces.




That's all for the night. More to come tomorrow.

[TinkWithanR]

Progress from the past weekend. I finished sandblasting the control arms and radius arms:



Next up was to finished up the reinforcement of the front subframe. In stock form, the center of the subframe is two pieces of 1/8" steel spot welded together. Taking into consideration the greater power output of the m20, the greater weight of the m20, and the fact that my skid plate (due to the very low oil pan) will be mounted to the bottom of the subframe, I felt that it needed to be much stronger.

The stock bottom plate on the subframe:


I cut out the old bottom plate and plasma'd out a new piece out of 1/2 steel plate. This should stiffen up the center of the subframe while giving me a sturdy place to mount the skid plate. The new plate welded in place:


Side views, I ran another weld bead all the way around after this to fully penetrate the 1/2 steel:





With the subframe stiffened up I needed to make up some mounts for the steering rack. After taking many measurements to double check the placement and trying to keep it centered and squared, I tacked the tabs in place. After a final measurement everything was welded in place. I originally wanted to TIG the mounts, but I ran out of argon gas so I had to bust out the MIG. Got the job done just fine, but had to spend some time cleaning up the splatter.

The tab's in place:


The underside of the subframe. You can see the reinforcement plate along with the steering rack mounts:


More of the rack mounts before cleaning the welds:



Rack mounted on the frame:




Subframe and Rack mounted in the car:

[TinkWithanR]

Worked on the control arms tonight. Didn't like the flimsy stamped design, so I started by stitch welding the seams. I also picked up more argon so I could TIG them. This helped keep the head more controlled, gave me more practice TIGing, and made the clean up easier because there's no splatter. I've still got a long way to go before I try and tackle the stainless exhaust, but I am getting better with it.

Side Shot:


Small End:


Other End:



Any guesses as to what these will be?



Lightened:



And now for the first parts made for the car on the lathe! Top Die:


Bottom Die:



Turns the strips into:



Straightened, Clamped and Welded:


Finished Up:




I'm also picking up a new set of Front recaro's with Schroth Harnesses. I was originally planning on getting mine recovered, but these came up locally and will be much cheaper in the long run.

Finally, planning on talking with GC tomorrow to get my spring rates sorted and order their Front Coilover kit. Not sure what I'm doing about the rear yet though, torn between true coilovers and the regular shock/spring/adjuster combo.

[TinkWithanR]

I didn't get as much done tonight as I wanted, but that's because I spent a couple hours figuring out an issue with the surface finish on the lathe. Once I got that sorted, it was time to put the 'new' donor M20 in place. There were a number of reasons I wanted to use this engine instead of the dummy block I had been using. The main reason is this way I will know that the misc accessories and sensors will fit.

It never looks like it will fit....



The transmission at home in it's larger tunnel:



All tucked in:



Lots more room with the rack in there. I still need to shorten the stock column and fabricate new linkage, but that will come later.



Not a ton of room on the exhaust side, but enough. I may run the stock manifolds at first, but ultimately I would like to make a set of custom equal length headers:



Stock down pipe almost fit with the rack conversion, but the boot would not last very long. Of course with the stock steering system it would have no chance in hell of fitting, so it is an improvement.



Clearance of the Oil Pan, a little less than an inch. I don't think I want to go any lower, but it does have room to move back another 3-4":



Here you can see all the extra room with the bell housing compared to the stock steering system. Before I had maybe 1/8" between the track rod and the bottom lip of the bell housing. Here there is plenty of room, I could move the engine forward another 1.5" (cause I hear that's good for handling....)



Placing the front clip in place to check clearance with the front of the engine, the '02 decided to fight back. Having already sweated my body weight out during the afternoon and crying over the cost of new steering u-joints, it was nice to get the hat trick for the night.



After the struggle, the front clip was in place:



Clearance in the Front:



Clearance in the Back:




Looking at the last picture, I have enough room to move the engine back another 1/2" if I want before I'd really start being concerned with rubbing on the firewall under hard acceleration. That being said, I have half a mind to cut out a chunk of firewall so I can move the engine back as far as the oil pan would let me. This would help with the weight balance of the car, but changing spark plugs would be a PITA, and I would also run into issues with the heater box. It could also lead to issues with the intake manifold and throttle bodies. I need to do some more research and see if it would really be worth it.


More to come in the next few days.

[TinkWithanR]

Worked late tonight so not a lot of progress.

Was looking at the e30 HVAC unit and realized that the upper half of the steering column had another u-joint in it. It's also telescoping, so I should be able to adapt it to the upper part of the stock '02 column. The splines match up with the end of the '02 column and the input of the e21 rack, nice to see things didn't change in 20 years lol.



Since I was short on time tonight, I didn't want to start the new engine mounts. So I test fitted the rear seats to get an idea of the room i would have for the rear speakers. Luckily the e24 rear seats stick into the cab further than the stock seats, so this should give me plenty of room for the e30 speakers. I'll just have to make a new rear deck panel to fit around the shape of the seats.





And one just cause I love how they look lol



After figuring that out I worked on figuring out how much I could move the firewall back while still retaining the stock heater box. So first thing was to put the box back in the car. Here you can see that there is a decent amount of room at the top of the trans tunnel, but the top of the firewall does not have as much room.



Here is the other side of the heater box that is exposed to the open air. It's kind of hard to see where it is in relationship to the engine from just this picture, but the grommet in the middle of this picture:



Is the same grommet in the middle of this picture:



Referencing the picture above, it looks like I should be able to move back the 'green' section of the firewall, while the 'red' section could be slightly notched, but not moved back much due to the heater box fan. I'm going to mull it over more in the next couple of days before deciding. Cutting the firewall is going to be a lot of extra work, but it may be worth it in the end to gain better weight distribution, but mostly more clearance up in the nose of the car.

[TinkWithanR]

Got a lot done over the weekend. First up was deciding on the final engine placement. In the end I decided that I would lower the engine down closer to the subframe, and move it back a half an inch. This way the firewall modifications would be minimal, and I would be able to still use the stock e30 driveshaft. So I removed the old engine and transmission mounts and positioned it where I wanted it to be, which told me what needed to be removed:

How the tunnel/firewall looked before the new cuts. Notice that even though I had enlarged the rear section for the G260, the front opening was the same size. This made removing the engine trans pretty difficult, the bottom of the transmission would hit the steering rack before it cleared the upper edge of the tunnel.



So keeping that in mind I cut out enough that would let the engine and trans move in and out much easier, as well as keep the stock sheet metal around the heater box.



With the tunnel and firewall clearanced it was time to make the new mounts. First up was the engine, put in place:



Clearance around the Tunnel:



Driver side plate mounts in place:



Passenger Side plate mounts in place:



To fabricate the rest of the mounts, I used cardboard to make a template, then cut them out of sheet steel and bend them to fit. Cardboard template and metal piece made from the template:



The new passenger mount next to the old one.



The new driver side mount next to the old one.



Next was the trans mount. Individual Parts cut out:



Tacked together, still needs to be fully welded and smoothed out:



And the final placement of the oil pan, it has ~0.5" clearance with the subframe. Since I'll be using poly mounts that should be plenty.



Overall I'm much happier with the new mounts. The old ones looked pretty crappy, and everytime I looked in the bay it bothered me a little. they still need to finish being boxed in and internally braced, but once they get powder coated they should look OEM. Sadly I didn't get to finish them because I started on another project this weekend, which I'll post up shortly.

[TinkWithanR]

So the next parts of the build will involve a lot of body work. I need to fix the rust spots around the trunk floor as well as strip the entire body down to bare metal. I was really not looking forward to laying on my back stripping the undercoat and cutting, grinding and welding the new metal. So I decided to spend a weekend to make my life for the next month much easier.

Two end pieces made up:



Front Subframe Mounting Brackets:



Rear Subframe Mounting Brackets:





Do a Barrel Roll!!

[TinkWithanR]

Haven't got as much done as I would have liked these past few days. Once I got the car on the rotisserie I came to the realization that the shop was a complete disaster, so I decided I should clean up and organize my large pile of parts. I did take time to look at the condition of the underbody now that it can be seen out in the clear.

The first time the underbody has seen the light of day (or light of shop I suppose) since god knows when:



My rotation motivator. Low tech, high effectiveness:



Trunk Under Side. This is probably the worst area considering I didn't really do much repair work previously. It needs pretty extensive repair including the floor, the inner rails, the lip around the gas tank seal as well as the inner and outer fenders.








Driver Side Floor. Not to bad, glad to see my old repair holding up 1.5 years later. I do plan to grind the welds smooth and fully seal everything. I may cut open the frame rails to make sure there is no hidden cancer. That would give me a good excuse to reinforce them as well.



Passenger Side Floor. About the same as the driver side, except the area where the old heat shield was. Pretty much the same course of action as the driver side as well.

[TinkWithanR]

Progress has been a bit slow the past week. I've averaged 10 hours at work per day (weekends included) and then 4-5 hours on the car per day, and a lot of that was planning out my fuel system and suspension components.

I was able to start stripping the body down to bare metal. For this I used a combination of an 'oscillating multi tool' with a scraper attachment and a angle grinder with a wire wheel. After spending a few hours getting it to it's current state, I decided that I wasn't happy with how much progress I was able to make. So I broke down and ordered some fine grade glass bead, which I will use to media blast the entire body in the next week or so. I already have a media blasting pot, so I'll just need to make a small 'booth' with drop cloths to keep the dust down and go at it. This will let me reach into all the nooks and crannies in the body panels and kill any rust, which will help me sleep better at night.

The progress I made before 'quitting' the wire wheel stripping:



In case anyone is wondering, this tools works great at removing undercoating and especially the sound deadening material from the inside of the car;





While I wait for the media blasting stuff to arrive I finished fabing up the new firewall and trans tunnel. I started with the center section:




Interior view, the new location doesn't really cut down on foot room which is nice:




Here are most of the panels tacked in place. I didn't bother to roll any beads or steps into the firewall pieces because they had enough curves in them to be pretty stiff to begin with:




Putting the last piece in place. Start by tacking the side in place:




Side view, you can see the curve that will be put in the piece:




Here is a before/after of two holes I shaved. The before is on the right, fully welded, the after is on the left, ground smooth. When done the whole firewall will be that smooth and covered in a thermal insulator to keep heat out of the cabin.




So... Many... Tack Welds....




Finally the last shot from tonight, the entire new firewall and trans tunnel tacked and ready for welding and grinding smooth. Hopefully I can knock out a large chunk of that tomorrow, but it depends on when I get off work.... And yes, the picture was taken upside down for better lighting (did I mention I f-ing love this rotisserie!! lol).

[TinkWithanR]

Just got home, and I have to leave for work at 7 tomorrow. Pretty tired, so I think I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking. I finished welding up the outside of the firewall and trans tunnel, as well as patched another section of the floor that had 3-4 different previous repair seams in it. Then I started on welding the interior seams of the trans tunnel and firewall but my welder started acting up and it was late so I called it a night. Tomorrow (later today I guess) I'm planning to finish the interior welding and grind down everything. Then I can move on to blasting the rest of the body, assuming my media gets in tomorrow.

Old crappy panel:



Cut Out:



New Patch:


Tacked in place:


I got tired of moving my light around as I tacked stuff in place so I made this handy adjustable torch light. It's always right where I need it to be pointing!


First half of the tunnel welded up:



Exterior of new panels fully welded, ready for grinding:



All tucked in for the night, ready for sleep (me too!):



Goodnight!

[TinkWithanR]

Tonight I finished the rest of the interior welds on the trans tunnel and firewall and started grinding them down. The idea is to make it smooth enough that you can't see the seams once it's covered with seam sealer, undercoating and paint, making it look somewhat OEM.

Just a few pics of the progress. I used up my last grinding wheel before I finished so I'll have to pick some more up tomorrow in the a.m.

Before:



After:

[TinkWithanR]

Put in a solid amount of time today, and with the long weekend I still have two more full days I can throw at her. I'm hoping to get the whole body media blasted/stripped by the end so I can tear into the rust repairs that I know I'm going to come across.

First I started the day like any sane person, grinding down the rest of the underside welds in jeans, long sleeves and a welding jacket. Hell, it was only 95 degrees today.... But luckily that didn't take to long. Next up I took a break and ran to the hardware store where I found a 12ft x 100 ft roll of clear plastic drop cloth. I'll suspend this from the ceiling to make a 'booth' that I can blast the body in. This will hopefully keep the dust and sand from getting all over the rest of the shop.

But before setting up the booth I had to finish removing misc stuff from the unibody. First up was the rear chrome trim, which pops out with 4 plastic tabs:



Rear Emblem, it was a little dirty behind it:



Trunk Lock:



Door hinge and pins:



Rear Side Windows and Surrounding Trim (windows are already out in the pic):



The Trim is held on with a few rivets, you can see two in this pic:



Drilling them out:



Yay, more surprise rust!! Although I guess it shouldn't really be a surprise anymore....



The other Side was just as good:




With the chassis/body stipped down to the bare shell the next step is media blasting to find any hidden cancer that is covered by paint and bondo. First thing tomorrow morning I'll set up the booth and start knocking it out. I hope to have it done by the end of the weekend assuming I don't run out of media or have any other issues...


A little bokeh to end the night with:

[TinkWithanR]

New update with good news and bad news. First the bad:

-Overall progress has been much slower than I had hoped. As I mentioned before, I was really hoping to have the entire body blasted during the long weekend. That hasn't quite happened.
-The sand blaster I was planning to use was left in less than great condition, and so I had to use most of my time Saturday refurbishing it.
-I'm not sure what kind of paint was used in the respray of my car, but damn it is tough to cut through. So even one the blaster was up and running progress is slow at best.
-Some area's of the body were hiding more bondo than I expected, and behind most of it was more rust.

And the Good:

-Some area's were less rusty/messed up that I though, which was a nice change for once.
-That's about it lol


Because of the above, I'm probably close to halfway done with the unibody. That then leaves the hood, trunk, fenders and doors. I'll make a more detailed post about the problems/progress once I finish (hopefully later this week), but here are a few teasers.





FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[TinkWithanR]

While I don't have any pics of the blasting progress (I just finished replacing the last of the stock parts on the sand blaster besides the pot itself, grrr), I figured I could at least share some of the recent parts purchases.

First I broke down and picked up some Blare Spot-Weld cutters. A bit late considering i already removed the nose panel, but I'm sure I'll need it for other parts here shortly. These are particularly slick in that they have a spring loaded centering pin that retracts as you drill. To start, you 'punch' the metal in the center of the spot weld, and then drill until your through the first layer of metal. Much better than the 0.25" drill bit I was using before lol.





Next up my e36 rear diff cover came in. I decided to use this because of the dual rear mounting ears compared to the single ear on the e30 diff. Also, this will let me swap in one of Rogue Engineering's fancy finned diff covers down the line (http://www.rogueengineering.com/rogue/DC/DC_E36.html).

Ignore my 1 minute bead blasting job, I just wanted to knock the grime off.



Should bolt right up with some slight modifiations.




Last but definitely not least was the start of my fuel system. For the past month I have been trying to decide what route to take with my fuel supply. I could keep the stock tank with an e30 318 fuel pump, but that would probably be well undersized for my final power goals. Which means I would have to replace it in the near future, not something I wanted to do. Then there is also the issue of how 'safe' the stock fuel tank is, along with the lack of internal baffling and a single pick up. This would lead me to need to use a surge tank setup, which only adds complexity to the fuel delivery system. This lead me to look into fuel cells, but most of the ones I came across were unsatisfactory. Pretty much all of them used foam for their internal baffling (if they had any at all), which degrades over time. It also doesn't stand up to e85 fuel very well at all, and since I'm planning to use that under boost, none of those tanks would work.

Then I came across the Aeromotive line of Stealth Fuel Cells. Initially I thought they were very overpriced, until I realized that they came with an internal prefilter, pump, and fuel sender all in one package. But by far the best aspect for me was that they use an internal baffling system to keep fuel around the pickup of the pump at all times. This was key for me, because I plan to drive the car very hard, so starvation is a big concern. The specs of my tank in particular are:

15 Gallons (20x18x10) - fits in the stock location for the most part (slight modification required
Internal A1000 Pump - rated for up to 1000hp in forced induction applications (or closer to 600hp in e85, which gives me enough room to work with)
GM 90 Ohm fuel sender - While not the 3-73 ohm range of the stock sender, it's close enough that I can make it work with some simple circuitry.


Shiny:


-10AN Outlet from the pump, that's a lotta fuel lol






Here you can see some of the baffling. The vertical tube on the left is the return line, it dumps back into the center of the tank which is also where the pickup for the pump is, separated by a small wall. If the fuel level gets low in the tank, the return will dump straight back into the baffle, keeping the remaining fuel by the pickup. The baffling also helps keep the pickup submerged during high side-loads (think long, high speed sweeping corners). You can see the pick up and the prefilter on the right side of the picture.

[TinkWithanR]

So it's been a while since I had an update worth posting, between the crazy hot weather and my work schedule it's been hard to make any noticeable progress. Luckily today I managed to knock out enough that it was worth it to catch you guys up.

First thing first, the rest of the Turbo body parts came in from Blunttech (thanks again Steve). All together the kit consists of:

4 fender flares:




Rear Trunklid Spoiler:




Front Spoiler/Lip:




Gasket for between the Body and Flares, along with mounting nuts:





Sadly the Front Driver Side Flare is currently unavailable from anywhere. Supposedly BMW has then in production, but there is no telling when they will be available again. As of right now it's not holding me up, since mounting and trimming the front fenders won't take to long (the time consuming part is going to be the rear flares). Worst case scenario is I'll end up having to get a reproduction and use it until the OEM piece comes back in stock.