New E30 340i project now to be M52 B28 turbo!

[MarkT]

Little update Managed to get hold of my new front ARB (dirt cheap lol). Came from prodrive originally, off of one of their GT2 DB9's. Really happy with this as they are like hens teeth and the blades themselves are a couple of hundred each, if you can find them. Theyre going to be a little stiff but hey ho it's not the end of the world.

I'm also hoping to replicate something along the lines of the DTM version with cockpit adjustableness. Ultimate toy eh!




The likelyhood in finding another set is pretty slim, so I'm just going to use a traditional rear one to start with then get an Eibach rear when funds allow. Could anyone tell me what the largest rear ARB is and where to find one

[MarkT]

Couple of quick pics of the in-situ adjusters

[MarkT]

Had a couple of days in the workshop, borrowing my uncles as it's pretty much got everything in it bar a mill, which would be really usefull!

First thing I made up these brackets which are to fit the RX7 calipers to the E30 uprights. Very simple, found the pattern off of the net. They need a couple of coats of paint to tart them up a little, but pretty much ready



Next thing I looked at were the adjustment barrels. Fairly simple in construction. Basically to a short length of 50mm box section and welded a plate on one end. The plate having a 1/2" hole in the centre for the threadded bar. Then I took a shorter section of 50mm Dia dowel bar and grinded 4 flats on each so that it could be located into the box section. At each end of the dowel bar I tapped M12 threadded holes then made up a bottom cap to enclose it all. This was made from 2 plates spot welded together one smaller than the other to locate it in the bottom of the box section.

That's pretty much it, I need to source a M24 tap and corresponding drill bit so tha I can fit the adjusters that are in a pic above.

[MarkT]

Another little update. Been spending most of my time sorting out the house, but all other available time's been sent on stripping down the donor 325. Glad to say that, I've now finally finished stripping the donor and can start work on modding.

So spent a couple of hours removing the spring seats and fixing brackets and grinding back flush to fit a set of rally design coilover conversion tubes which I've purchased today.

So these will be welded on when they arrive and the new Gaz inserts err, inserted. Then I should be able to figure out what length springs I can order.

After that I'll look in to turning the bore of the brake disc centres out to clear the E30 hubs, then I can fit the new hubs/bearings, discs, mounting brackets and calipers. That'll be pretty much the front legs sorted.

[winx]

very interesting, loving the updates

[MarkT]

Cheers mate. Hopefully get some progress pics sorted soon. Just been spending most of my time stripping the 325i donor. That's totally finished now All I've got to do now is lift out the engine from the 728 then I can get cracking on the interesting stuff!

[MarkT]

Little update again. No pics as the camera batteries were flat! Not much to see really. Spent a couple of hours yesterday stripping down the spring seats and welds off of the original damper bodies and welded the new coil over tubes on. Also modified the retaining collars as the flange on the top of the had rusted off, so they were cleaned up on the lathe and some m24 nuts were welded back on. Should make future removal easier. Going to tidy up and repaint with a little Hammerite smooth then get some pics up.

Next job on the struts is to remove the hubs and replace with new ones, the bolt on the caliper brackets, discs and RX7 calipers. Get some pics up soon.

Any know the size of the retaining nut for the hub/bearing assembly?

[MarkT]

Another update, been mostly spending time transfering parts over from my donor car. The track car came absoloutly bare.

Most importantly, I've now finished modifying the rear beam to accept the adjustable trailing arms. Basically I've pretty much replicated the DTM rear beam that allows control over the roll centre, this was done using some 2" dia tube running through the beam to retain the strength of the beam and to allow access to the head of the M16 retaining bolt. Then on top of that some 50x50 box section with plates welded to the top and bottom to hold the retaining bolt in location. Pics to follow

[MarkT]

Effectively the assembly on the left hand side is what I have just fabricated.

[MarkT]

Heres a pic of the inesrts that will run through the modified beam. Made up from some 50x50 boxsection with the front cut out of it two 3mm plates with M16 holes drilled through the centre and then a short section of 50mm dia tube to pass through the beam


Here's the rear beam with the outer subframe bracket removed and having been cleaned up. A lot of care and attention was taken to measure the spacing of the trailing arms and the previous location of them too. The above sleeves/barrels were then welded back into the stock place. Further adjustment can be made from there.


Here's the finnished beam. Just need to press out the bushes and turn up some nylon items to replace them.


Please excuse my untidy welding, great penetration but the tidyness is getting better lol

[Gunni]

you are going to have to cut and modify the manifold as it angles the turbo into the head when flipped.

[MarkT]

Funnily enough, i've just taken the M52 out and started playing with the ebay manifold on the head. The clearence would be too tight if I wanted to bolt a T3 flanged turbo straight to it, however i'm using a TD05 and am going to have to make an up pipe of some description converting the two. This should bring the turbo up a little further to clear the inside wing and position the turbo so I won't have to start remanufacturing wastegate brackets etc.

Failing that, it'll be a case of using the tubular ones I have here and inverting them with some kind of collector with the TD05 flange on the end.

[MarkT]

Time for an update

Finished fabricating the rear subframe and trailing arm set-up, which seems to work a treat. Just need to turn up the subframe bushes out of some delrin which is going to happen soon.




Needs a little lick of paint just to tidy it up. I've built up the new LSD with the shafts and prop off of the 325i that I had broken earlier on. Need to turn up the subframe bushes and rebuild the rear braking system, then I can put the rear end set-up on the car.

I've now taken the M52 out of the 7 series and have also started looking at mounting the turbo. I have trial fitted the ebay manifold inverted and should just clear enough after making up an up pipe to convert the T3 flange to TD05. In the pics below you can see the flange clearence and roughly where I'd like the turbo to be mounted.




I have also started to fit the M20 flywheel. Struggling as its fouling on the engine. Have I got to grind a little off of the sump casting?

Lastly I have also started on the fabrication stage of the adjustable front lower arms and am modifying at the moment the front subframe to accept a clevis set-up. Not too much to see at the moment appart for a chopped up subframe.

[MarkT]

Did a little more pottering in the workshop last night. Made up some delrin engine mounts



And started to modify the front subframe to raise the roll centre and change over to a clevis set up to take a rose joint.

Chopped out the existing set up



Cut out to form a platform level with the chassis rails



And then welded in plate to re-inforce and for something to weld the clevis to




Thats all for now. Going to do a little more tomorrow night

[DanThe]

Coming together now! Cant wait to see that beam on the car and how well it will work

[MarkT]

Me too. Really gutted. Just found a sweedish site with a bloke who's done the same thing but WAY better http://rejsa.nu/forum/viewtopic.php?p=7 ... b50805I'll get the rear subframe on soon. I'm just waiting for a frient of mine to turn the bush material down to a suitable size as i've only access to a model making lathe!

[MarkT]

Another update! Had a little more time in the workshop, and I have finished off the front subframe. This time doing the more fiddly bits of fabricating and welding the lower arm mounting points. Lots of measurements checking for allignment etc. all of which were off of the square edges of the subframe which are parralell with the chassis rails.

Firstly made up the clevis/mounting point, this was using some 50x50 box section, drilling holes through the diaganol centres and then cutting off the front face for access on the car.



This was then welded to the cut out sections after allignment and finally bracing was added to the back of the clevis, however not pictured here.



The last thing done was to knock up some rose joint spacers, not all the same length in the pic below as I'm yet to work out how short they need to be.




Also, just gotten back the bits and peices that I haven't been able to turn up, the delrin for the rear subframe bushes, G60 brake disks and the housings for the bottom ball joints

So hopefully I will be able to fit the rear subframe, get the front legs near complete and fabricate the lower arms.

Quick question, on the front lower arms i'm going to fabricate a turn buckle to adjust castor. This turnbuckle isn't going back to the stock location (where the lollypop bushes are mounted) due to ease of component fabrication. Now the question is, should I have the turnbuckle behind the lower arm (like a compression strut) or in front (my logic is that steel is more durable under tension rather than compression). Or will this mess up the geometry elsewhere?

Thanks

[MarkT]

Had a spare hour earlier on today, so have fitted the flywheel, clutch, box and starter off of the 325 12v.

Flywheel fitted and torqued up.



Friction plate centred. The lovely people of spec had sent a centring tool with their kit which was really useful.



Pressure plate fitted and torqued. BMW having lovely locating lugs on their flywheel made life easier.



Finally gearbox and starter motor. Problem I had with using the 325 M20 box is that the 4 smalle bolts don't line up with their corresponding holes if they had them at all. I guess this is fine as the 4 larger ones do the majority of the work?

[winx]

brilliant stuff, very interesting

[MarkT]

Doing well for project time at the mo! Did a little in the workshop last night, which was making up the rear subframe bushes out of delrin. TBH It's really good stuff to machine and even a complete tule like me can get a half decent finish. I was hoping to press the bushes in as they are, but the delrin really isn't as compressive as i'd first thought, so i'll have to get my man to run the mill down both sides to create a rebate for the little pressed lugs in the bush housing, or file them down lol.





Also started to look at fabricating the new lower arms, which involved pairing off some tube section in the lathe, and organising some solid bar for tapping to M16 for the rose joint. No pics of this though.

[magpie]

that box will be very close to the tunnel.you'll need to mod the linkage and box support bracket.

why not use m42 box?

[MarkT]

Strength was the main issue, when asking no one really seemed to know the power limit on the M42 box. Fabricating the support bracket really isn't an issue and I've found a man who can TIG so twisting the selector rod shouldn't be a problem.

[MarkT]

Just a quicky, fettled the rear subframe and have now managed to press in the rear subframe bushes! Tomorrow should be a major turning point in the build... I'm actually going to start to re-build the car Woohoo

[redeye]

sick

[MarkT]

Just spent most of a steady day at work, working and painting up the sub frames and trailing arms. My welding looks way better with a lick of paint. Also just spent half an hour in the work shop and have just done one of the most awkward bloody jobs on the car... Bolting the rear subframe and diff up. It's amaising how weak you are when your led on your back on the floor. Good news is that the delrin bushes are great and fit wonderfully. The bad, is that the roll centre adjustment part of the sub frame clashes with the floor of the car. No big deal, I'll just cut some access windows in the rear bench Also fitted up the front sub frame just to see what it looked like. No dramas there!

Pressed in delrin bushes


Built up sub frame and diff


Bolted in after half an hour of banging my head on sharp objects


Here you can see the subframe fouling on the chassis, the bush hasn't pulled all the way home


Just to the right of the hole is where I'll have to make an access window


And a quick pic of the front subframe mounted up

[martinpallot]

What steering rack are you going to be using? Looking at those clevises you have mounted on the X member you're going to have some awful handling characteristics if using a bmw rack

[MarkT]

Explain more please?

[martinpallot]

The points at which the suspension components pivot from need to be in line, looking at the pictures you have there the clevis is not in the same position as the stock mountings, the reason for this being that as the strut moves up and down you will get bump steer as a result of the variance between the point at which the inner tie rod pivots and the point at which the bottom arm pivots. Will probably also affect the ackerman steer when the suspension is active as the lengths between the the two will be significantly varied. remember to also move the steering rack upwards when raising roll centres.

Here's some pictures of my crossmember, Note how much further inboard my bottom arm mounts are to yours, ingore the bent tie rods, the centre line of the bottom arms is parallel to the centre line of the tie rods.

[MarkT]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the pics there. I think I'll try looking for a suitable rack first seeing as I've done a load of fabrication work, failing that, I've got another front subframe and it'll be back to the drawingboard.

[MarkT]

Little update. Have done a few bits and peices, pressed some new bearings in the trailing arms, one of which broke when I pressed the hub into the centre of the bearing, which is odd as it was the second side of the bearing which broke and the other one wen't together fine but feels really notchy/coarse when the hub is spun around. So both need to be replaced.

Good new's is that I have just brought a TIG welder, just a cheap DC inverter one, but it'll be good to get started with and weld stainless etc with too. Bad news that it's going to be a hell of a learning curve.

And finally, I've made a huge ski hatch in the rear bulkhead (for access and welding in the cage), scribed in some box section (for rear turrets) and started hacking up a really quite mint shell to weld into!

I'll get some pics up soon.

[MarkT]

Hopefully this is going to get resurected soon!

[toby]

[magpie]

shame it's never going to be finished after all that fabricating .

[Lurch320i]

Why won't it be finished?there's some fantastic fabrication ideas in there

[MarkT]

Hopefully this is going to get resurected soon!

Hahahaha over 3 years ago! Actually have done some work on the car now. I've put the suspension and wheels back on to move it to it's new home in Surrey. Just need to build the home now!

Not lost interest in the project at all however now own a 200 year old house that isn't in the best of shape.

Got lots of ideas brewing as always, for example making some slide throttles for 5hits and giggles and finally finishing off the rear adjustable trailing arms. Now they're bolted to the car it's revealed that i'm going to have to carve out large chunks of the floor pan to get it all to work properly!