e30 316 rebuild from Finland

[WhiteLove]

very nice buddy


where you got those bearings from ? thats a very smart idea !


which E36 knuckles will you using ? the m3 3,2 or normal ones ?

[Pazi88]

very nice buddy


where you got those bearings from ? thats a very smart idea !


which E36 knuckles will you using ? the m3 3,2 or normal ones ?

From Ebay. I don't remember the seller exactly. maybe summit?

Normal e36 knuckles. I need e36 3.2 wishbones because those e36 m3 eccentric bushes, don't bring wheel forward enough. But those are so expensive, that i will just modify the bush mounting.

[Pazi88]

Practiced some aluminum welding. I needed that 90 degree bend to compressor housing to save some space for turbo oil return.


Also made the cold side charge pipe from aluminium to save some weight.


But that's all about my turbo e30 let's continue with the white one.

As mentioned previously, the front wheels needed to be more forward. So i made this to the bushing mounts. Now I also have caster adjustment for the front wheels.


Then the needle bearing to the top of the strut and the top mounts in place.


And installed to the car. Also e36 328i brakes in place.


Unfortunately that modification to bush mounts wasn't enough to bring the wheel forward enough, so we hammered the corner little bit to make all fit


Next we needed to make the wheels turn. For that I used basic e30 steering u-joints and one e34 u-joint.


And finished product:


It even fits:


After that I made new brake lines for the front and ran some wires.




Previosly we did rest of the rust work for the trunk and this was the last rust patch for the car:


Trunk painted, seam sealed and some cavity wax sprayed.


Also started to tear apart the engine:


It was filthy as hell but fortunately it was in very good shape inside. Couldn't believe that this has been driven +400 thousand kilometers (over 250k miles).


There are all the parts in box waiting to be cleaned.


Cylinder head waiting for engine shop visit.

[pulze]

mikäs m10 taustalla. ruisku vai kaasari?

[Pazi88]

Kaasari. Noita m10 raatoja on itseasiassa pari kappaletta lähössä sulatukseen.

[Verdigrie]

where you got those bearings from ? thats a very smart idea !

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALL64210-ALL64210-Steel-Roller-Coil-Over-Shock-Thrust-Bearing-and-Washers-Kit-/321631028066?pt=Race_Car_Parts&hash=item4ae2b40362

Something like that should do the job. They're generally called thrust bearings, thrust washers or torrington bearings. The bearings listed in the ad are 2.5" ID x 3.25" OD, so you'll have to measure your springs and hats to find ones that suit.

HTH

[herrakani]

If you have a ZF auto trans, it is literally filled with those type bearings!
I made a couple of roller-bearing mods to my TH2004R with parts of my freshly rebuilt and exploded zf5hp18.

[Pazi88]

If you have a ZF auto trans, it is literally filled with those type bearings!
I made a couple of roller-bearing mods to my TH2004R with parts of my freshly rebuilt and exploded zf5hp18.

And now you tell me I just threw one ZF in the trash. Guess I have to get it back and take the bearings from that for future use.

[herrakani]

The only thing ZF auto gearboxes are good for!!

///EDIT no actually I stood on one zf4hp22 to sand my 730's roof!

[A4crn]

Amazing....a lot of Scandinavian builds are super detailed and clean!!

[Pazi88]

Got the white ONE's head back from the machine shop.




They only did the basic stuff and to save money we did the valve leaking test by ourselves, using this technique: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkH4cNAahZQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkH4cNAahZQ[/ame]

Four inlet valves were leaking, but others were ok.


Next we need to take those valves of and fix leaking. And here are the other parts i have, so maybe this is enough to build one engine


I have also bought 318is/m3 plastic covers for the wire harness:


Also installed drives seat:


But lets move to the turbo one. I finally got the turbosmart kit to fix the leaking wastegate:


luckily the the china wastegate was so exact copy o the real turbosmart, the spare parts fitted to it:


And now it doesn't leak:

When that was installed back to car, I pulled off the old drive shafts:


And fixed. I still need to add straps to outer end, because one's i got were rubbish.


Got the flywheel back from balancing:


Everything needed for clutch upgrade. Even now OEM bolts from BMW.


And installed:


But then i ran into broblem, because the engine wont turn anymore. The pressure assembly is hitting gearbox, so I need to take it of again

By the way, I also made to local magazine:

[herrakani]

'grats on the magazine coverage!

[gearheaded]

By the way, I also made to local magazine:

Whoa that's YOU??

Oh, the car. I get it now. It's looking sweet, keep it coming

[Pazi88]

Unfortunately I have been busy with other cars, so I haven't got time to work with the turbo e30. Hopefully I get it to run next weekend.

One of the reasons I have been so busy, is that I took my e36 out from winter storage and started driving that. But first I made some changes to it. For example I pulled the stock cams out.


And replaced them with M50 non-vanos and m54b30 cams. Stock cams have 9mm lift and 228 degrees of duration. Both new cams have 9,7mm of lift and 240 degrees duration. Nothing crazy, so the car should still pass emissions. The M50 non-vanos intake cam was swapped to exhaust cam and to do so, 2mm was machined off from the gear side:


The M54B30 intake cam isn't also bolt-on for m52 engine. 5mm of the vanos gear has to be machined off.


And after I put the engina back together, I flashed new software to the stock ecu.

Hopefully it now has +230hp. I'm planning to hit dyno this week to check results. (previously I have upgraded m50 intake, exhaust manifolds and big bore thortle body).

And for that white e30, we started assembling the engine. Starting point was this m52b28 engine from e39 with cracked head.


The problem in that was broken threads for head studs. This is common problem for alumium blocks that have been overheated (the crack in the head) and someone has replaced the threads with helicoils. But I know that those will not hold so this block is no go. Fortunately I had one spare m52b28 block sitting on the shelf, so this was the one we decided to use.


Problem in this was the stuck gearbox bolt, that had to be drilled out. No biggie.


And fixed with helicoil:


Then we cleaned the b28 cranck, pistons and rods and checked them for any damage. Everything was fine so we just swapped them to new block. Because the rod bearings tend to be the weak link, we changed them and bolts to new ones:


Rest of the engine parts are going to be from previously dissassemled m50b25 engine, but there was small problem when removing crank sensor:


So we ended up using the m52 front cover. That causes some problems with cooling hoses but nothing serious. Next we need to fix he leaking valves from the head, so we can bolt it in.

[Pazi88]

Engine for the white ONE is going back together. We made this tool to remove leaking valves



We just used grinding paste to fix the leaking, because the valves looked quite ok.

So after reinstalling valves, the head goes in. First new headgasget:


And in his pic everything is installed already.



In this pic we tried on new valvecover, but didn't install it, because we got the wrong seal.


Then I forgot to take DSLR with me, so I didn't took any pictures, but the engine is in the car right now.

I also worked with my turbo e30, and took some poor quality pictures with phone. First I removed the gearbox:


There was some small markings were the pressure assembly had hit the sides:


I just used angle grinder to make more room:


Also I changed the shift pin for 5th gear, because it did't center correctly.


Also added some gold for insulation.


Now everything is assembled again and new clutch works as it should. next thing is to get wheels aligned and engine tuned.