Started off as a nice clean 318i lux (apart from rotten rear arch inners) then engine died so decided to put my stage 2 CA to some use as it was sitting in the garden doing nothing at all.
So all started off with just general striping and found some nice water patches under the sound deadening.
Started cleaning up the engine bay and decided to delete the battery tray completely and eliminate the box section that sits in the arch. Got a bit carried away and a lot of brackets and stuff got cut out.
Then got my engine and gearbox mounts from Slide motorsport. Good set of mounts however they were SR20 mounts so the engine mounts refused to sit flush on the subframe. Ended up having to recut them and reweld them in a new position (only a fanny's hair out) and sent back so, Matt made a new set and moved the engine back another 15mm the box sits nice and centre in the gear stick hole and still leaves plenty room for the gearbox to be unbolted from under the bonnet.
Wiring took about a week or so to do as found several SR conversions but wasnt happy with the way some of them just bypass fuses and relays so made my own conversion with a bit of help and knowledge exchange with Matt at Slide.
Will try and upload the video of it firing up first time later.
Once the engine was in, decided to tub out the arches and also put in some reinforcement from the strut tops to the chassis. Working in a pipe bending company with anything from 3" NB pipes to 30" NB pipes kicking about in the yard, it was obvious how to make the top sheet of the arch tub :thumbs:
Finished product with the engine sitting nicely:smokin:
Wiring wise, the fuse box got moved under the glovebox and the ecu sits lovely in the standard position (will get a better pic later)
Gearbox side of the loom and the amplifier got sited on the steering rack side, using the pedal box hole to run the wires through and found a nice grommet that fits nicely (pic to follow)
The break servo is an R33 Skyline unit with a non ABS cylinder. Will get some photos later. It got shifted further away from the engine by around 15mm and a big heat shield made as it sits very close to the turbo.
Intercooler wise, I will go for a mid mount set up and try and keep the viscous fan. Its a US spec Mitsubishi eclipse FMIC that is just wide enough to have a CA radiator to fit between the inlet and outlet ports. Also allows for very short pipework. That is a job for tomorrow to fit the rad and intercooler.
Its going to sits roughly so but under the slam panel.
Also nice and shiny DW super cool radiator came today in the post with a WHAM bar! :wack:
Now the rear axel is a bit work in progress, going to reinforce it a bit and adding camber and toe plates to correct the spastic camber as I like cars LOW:smash:
There are some guys on one of the US forums that sell them but I refused to pay $150+ for something that I could easy work out myself and make myself
Using the 5 series camber bolts and working out their eccentric travel, made some brackets at work which get welded on. Will see how much adjustment they give, but got a feeling camber adjustment will need to be bigger so will have to make my own bolts with a bigger eccentric but this will do for now.
Think this is enough for tonight. Ow! My first set of wheels for this car. Enkei copies 15" x 8J ET0 But I ideally want some 9J at the back to fill out the bolt on arch kit I will be getting soon from Team Sunset lads :thumbs:
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