325 Classic Touring Car rebuild.

[taylorspug]

Great thread!

Thanks! I'm hoping to have alot more updates once the new year kicks in and I locate a donor engine. Spoke to my engine guy today actually, we discussed visually cool things, like getting the inlet for the ITB's mocked up and made.

[tomislav]

EPIC!

[taylorspug]

Update on what I have been doing. There wont be alot of text here, as I wrote a long post out explaining what I had been up to with fitting the gearbox and piping up the clutch system, but my dickhead laptop then decided to restart itself, and Chrome saved none of my data. Can't be arsed to write it all again, so here's a load of random unexplained photos:





















They are all in order. Basically the M3 gearbox has a non standard very nicely fabricated mount which some halfwit tw@t had butchered the mounting holes in so I had to weld them up and re-drill them, and the clutch master cylinder needed a push in fitting making for it so I could run a braided line to it, I made it out of an air line connector welded to a threaded boss.

I have also started drawing out a wiring diagram for the car, but I will go into that another day as the laptop wasting 45 minutes of my life has put me in a bad mood.

[Neilios]

How many hours do you guys put into building these cars?

Only asking as my body is giving up on me and I guess this will be my last year racing motocross and I fancy building a track/race car and always liked the E30's, it will go nice with my E92 m sport.

[tomislav]

Not sure if a B20 block would be my first choice as its a slightly weaker cast than the B25, it also lacks water/steam holes between the cylinders, which I would have thought to be very beneficial to a race car?

I had some dealings with ant@atech a few years back, whenever he built m20b28 engines he used b20 blocks bored out for the very reason that they didnt have these steam holes and so were stronger slightly, hope that helps

[Demlotcrew]

Not sure if a B20 block would be my first choice as its a slightly weaker cast than the B25, it also lacks water/steam holes between the cylinders, which I would have thought to be very beneficial to a race car?

I had some dealings with ant@atech a few years back, whenever he built m20b28 engines he used b20 blocks bored out for the very reason that they didnt have these steam holes and so were stronger slightly, hope that helps

A trick that I taught him

Its ok for a road car, but no so good for a track engine that sees sustained high RPM's.

Andrew

[taylorspug]

How many hours do you guys put into building these cars?

Only asking as my body is giving up on me and I guess this will be my last year racing motocross and I fancy building a track/race car and always liked the E30's, it will go nice with my E92 m sport.

Sorry for the late reply- only just spotted this topic had a few extra posts on it! I have no clue on hours, but this car owes me over a year of work now. Money is on the tight side so progress hasnt been fast- indeed the last few weeks it has been fairly non existent as I have been gathering parts and data for the engine build. Really its all relative to the amount of care and detail you want to put into it- I could slap a 'race car' together in a month if I wanted, but I just can't allow myself to work like that! Even down to getting the bodywork up to a good standard- something that shouldn't really be a top priority on a race car, I have done as I like to start as I mean to go on.

As for the block issues, to me its not really an issue. I guess its all relative to what you know from your own experiences, but I personally much prefer the fresh round bores to the little holes.

Lets put it this way- I have in the other corner of my workshop an extremely high spec Peugeot 16v engine- 2.1 litre iron block, all forged, the bottom end will cope with 280hp @ 8k+ all day long. If you saw the gaps between the bores and the thickness of the castings compared to an M20 block you would probably go a funny colour! Its that on the edge that taking the bores out from 87mm to 87.5mm makes the block go porous unless you get lucky! Hence I have more than enough faith in this sturdy bit of German engineering. ;)

So to that end I will just have the holes in the head welded up too and go with that. Worth noting aswell that the cooling system on my car is massively uprated from standard, specifically to provide huge water volume without needing to keep more than 5 or 6 psi of pressure in the system.

I have an update to do, as I finally have a set of pistons and rods that are exactly what I want, so I can start confusing everyone and myself with measurements and compression ratios!

Oh and I got bored and painted some more bits....

[taylorspug]

Although it isn't massive due to my own commitments I have an update as promised.

Firstly some engine parts. I have finally sourced the correct M52 pistons and rods I need. These are from an M52B25 engine, and are the regular type of rod, rather than the cracked big end type, which look like a pain to me as you cant resize them at all. It took me 2 attempts to get a set of pistons and rods, the first set unfortunately arrived smashed to pieces by the courier despite the box being clearly marked FRAGILE. Then I remembered this set that I had seen on Ebay a couple of months back. They never sold so I got in touch with the guy and put in a cheeky bid which he accepted. The bonus was he works at an engineering company so the big ends and pistons had all been checked for size and machined/honed accordingly. Saves me a job.



The rods will be used pretty much as is, apart from some weight matching. The pistons will be machined to copy the engines original high compression items, which it appears they will be a perfect replacement for once modified. They are a MUCH better design for a higher revving engine too. I will do a post specifically about the various measurements and machining processes once I have them all.

Next I decided to get the front and rear anti-roll bars and mounts painted ready to be installed once I have the new bushes. Did them red, as that immediately makes them better/the car faster.







As you can see these bars are adjustable, and came with the car when I bought it. They are BMW ARB's that have been modified to add the adjustment plates. The rear bar is an E30 M3 item, and the front is, I think, an 18mm item from a 325ix touring. As you can see from the third picture this runs what appears to be a less common ARB mount, which is 60mm wide and I can only find bushes for in 18mm. Here: http://www.superflex.co.uk/proddetail.p ... 2533%2F18K

Next step will be to get the bushes and fit the bars. I already have nice rose jonted droplinks for these, however the front ones I want to modify so that they pick up on the strut rather than the wishbone a-la M3. Plan to do this by using the current joints, but getting some 8mm stainless round bar and cutting a thread onto it. Then I will weld a mounting tab onto the struts.

[Demlotcrew]

Superflex make decent enough bushes, but still soft for a track car

[taylorspug]

Thought someone might say that.

Unfortunately I think my options are limited with the front bar especially, as I can't get the bushes for that style of mount/size of bar anywhere else (unless anyone has any suggestions). While I'm sure it would be easier to just upgrade the bars, I don't want to go off on a tangent before I've even got the car up and running! The old bushes are absolutely shot too- so anything is an improvement on those...

[Demlotcrew]

There is no reason why you have to stay with those clamps, why not use a stock E30 non IX clamp?

The other option is for an upgrade to a U clamp which houses a solid nylon bush.

This stiffened up the ARB on my car quite considerably.



You can pick them up from IE

http://www.iemotorsport.com/bmw/E30-sus ... pvtmt.html

I had to ream their largest bush out as it was too small, but I had issues with the stock clamps about to fail.



The bush has only seen one track day and was already showing signs of deformation. The clamp was also about to pop out of the slot in the subframe, that would have been fun fixing at the track.

The only downside to these U clamps is that they lower the ARB by about 12mm, so your IX bar may sit way too low and offer little ground clearance.

HTH

[Rav335uk]

With those brackets weled on the ARB lower than the origional holes, what effect would that have?

[taylorspug]

I'd only decided to stick with them as they did actually look a slightly better design of clamp than the non-IX one. Even though some of the parts on this car from before I bought it are a bit behind the times, it was built by good people so I guess they must have used those clamps for the same reason back in the day, when nothing better was readily available.

But on the other hand, my old bushes look EXACTLY the same as yours as far as deformation goes, which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence...! I will give it some thought, but I have to put in an order with Ireland soon for a few engine and parts so I could get these too. You are right, it is a much better solution. Thanks for the advice- probably saved me a few quid in the long run.

[Demlotcrew]

On the rear they are below the bar, on the front they are above the bar, as long as when the suspension is loaded the ARB ends are parallel to the chassis rails the ARB will function as designed.

The issue comes with ride heights and suspension travel. The front will need very high misalignment ball joints/rod ends to use them on the struts and the rears will need very very short drop links (1x Male and 1x Female) and you may find the rear bar reaches a certain point and becomes inactive because of the acute angle the drop link is sitting at.

HTH Ravi.

[Jozi]

On the rear they are below the bar, on the front they are above the bar, as long as when the suspension is loaded the ARB ends are parallel to the chassis rails.

the issue comes with ride heights and suspension travel. The front will need very high misalignment ball joints/rod ends to use them on the struts and the rears will need very very short drop links (1x Male and 1x Female) and you may find the rear bar reaches a certain point and becomes inactive because of the acute angle the drop link is sitting at.

HTH Ravi.

Going a little off topic....

I've got adjustable front links (also mouted to the strut) but what options are there for shorter rear links do you know?

[Demlotcrew]

You can make your own for the rear. It all depends on the ARB.

I have

2x M10 Female rod ends coupled with a threaded M10 rod and two half height lock nuts.

You can see them on this photo.



If you need shorter ones, then you would simply buy 1x M10 Male Rod end and screw it in to a M10 female rod end and you would only need one half height lock nut.

HTH

Sorry taylorspug

[Rav335uk]

Could the "Tab"welded onto the strut housing, like the M3 ones, help this out?

[taylorspug]

With those brackets weled on the ARB lower than the origional holes, what effect would that have?

Do I not have the bars upside down in the pictures, so the brackets are actually on top? Still its a valid point either way. With an adjustable length droplink it makes very little difference apart from physically packaging it all, I'd just aim to have the arm of the ARB sitting as level as possible with the car on the ground, with the droplink at 90 degrees to the bar. As soon as the drop link isn't acting on the bar in a 1:1 ratio, you are introducing another moment, which isn't particularly desirable as its basically wasting suspension movement that could be acting on the bar.

[Demlotcrew]

Anchoring the drop link to the strut is why you need high misalignment drop links, either way you want the drop links to be as long as possible to take the load and unfortunately the only optimal way of doing this is to have the holes through the end of the ARB like regular ARB's

There are clearance issues for both implementations

[Rav335uk]

I'm curious, as i've never seen this approach.
Normally what people have done is to drill out another hole next to the origional one.

[taylorspug]

No apologies required- feel free to discuss any issue or quirk of E30s that my car brings up! As I said in my original post I'm learning myself here, as far as E30s go this is my first (I nearly bought a 325 Sport for £500 once- but thats another very smoke filled story). So all of this is very relevant.

EDIT: Good to see we have described exactly the same thing with regard to droplinks and angles too!

[Jozi]

I've welded on a bit of cut up box section to the struts on my bc's and used adjustable drop links. The linkage is at quite an angle though.







Taylorspug, did I miss it or are you doing reinforcement to the rear arb also while your at it?



Easily done diy

[Demlotcrew]

Josi,

You are probably not going to be running such large steering angles (lock) but look at how twisted the two ball joints are without being locked down inside the turn buckle.



What is all the clingfilm for

Andrew

[taylorspug]

That was my plan regarding the front links, although as confirmed by your pictures the angle is something that really needs to be looked at. I will get my bar mocked up on the car this week and get my thinking cap on.

Rear mounts I had considered reinforcing, but I have so many jobs to do there are a few that I was going to leave for now until the car was at least running. I was going to do the arms themselves for sure, as the metal just looks plain too thin there and I'm concerned it will fatigue very quickly. The hangers for the actual bar I was going to leave until I'd decided what I needed to do. The ones you have made there I have never seen before but they look good- as you say simple to fabricate! Presumably the extra pickups just bolt through the floor?

[Jozi]

Yeah, I need to look at it again and see can it be done better. I had the whole arches and more covered with bilthamber deox gel, covering it with cling film stops it from drying out if left for a few days.

Bolts through the floor and has the little plate on top. If you have a touring (as I do) there's 2 studs right where it bolts through the floor

[Demlotcrew]

This is my turd at full lock;



Sadly due to the moment ratio of the arm and the strut this is as close to level I can get the ARB, if I were to lower it, the end of the ARB would collide with the control arm on full droop (of which there is very little!).

[taylorspug]

Andrew,

Thats a very useful photo and information- thanks! I will get mine mocked up this week and get some photos/thoughts up on here.

Dan.

[Demlotcrew]

No worries Dan,

I will take some photos of the rear ARB clearances that I also suffer from

Andrew

[Jozi]

Is the bracket for the ARB something you bought lose or was it part of the coilover setup?

[Demlotcrew]

Sadly It came with the coilovers. The advantage is the location and position is adjustable so you can fine tune etc. I believe that AST offer two versions, road and race. The race versions use locking collars, the road version uses two bolt and clamps the bracket on to the strut.

HTH

[Jozi]

Looks ideal compared to the solution I came up with. I might contact them and see if it's something they sell separately. Some serious kit that ast have!

[Demlotcrew]

Its good and its bad, adds un spring weight, but adds adjustably!

You can see the road going version of the bracket in this photo.

[Jozi]

Can't be that much extra weight that you would notice it? I had a look online for AST and got similar pics, they would hardly fit my BC coils or be sold separately.

[Phill172]

Sorry to jump on the thread, but whats the spec on the bolts you have used for the driveshaft, wondered about changing them as the socket head ones are a pain in the arse!

Can you get a full socket onto them?

Sorry taylorspug

[Demlotcrew]

Hi Phil,

They are Grade 5 Titanium with an ultimate tensile strength of only 970MPa.

The stock bolts have an ultimate tensile strength of 1000Mpa.

Doing the Math.

1000*0.9 = 900Mpa
900*0.9 = 810Mpa

970*0.9 = 873Mpa
873*0.9 = 785Mpa

These Ti bolts are - 3.185% weaker than the stock bolts. Not much of a concern (for me anyway).



They have a 12mm hex head making them super strong for assembly. I used a regular 12mm Snapon socket and it didnt touch the CV joint at all. (only the rubber, but thats in the way with the stock bolts too).

I think if you were to buy some high tensile 10.9 small head hex bolts they may be better suited for the larger V8 torque.

HTH