Finally, after 6 years, the car moved under its own power.  Rather than wax poetic about rounding bends and journeys coming to a close, I will sum it up by saying that it’s pretty bloomin’ awesome to have made it to this point.

I’m pretty stoked.  As you can probably tell from the sound in the video, that’s a set of open headers you’re listening to.  Not nearly as loud as I had thought it would be, but not quiet either.  After I took this video as proof, I fired it up and put it in first gear to make sure that the car moved.  It does, with no issues.  The clutch feels perfect and I can’t wait for the roads to be washed this spring so I can take the car out for some real driving.  Alas, I am getting ahead of myself.

All 4 lights working

I should document the fix for the oil leak.  It turns out the only 3 people that ever had this problem were the people that bought this product from HMS Motorsport.  We used to have a guy working here who sent these items out to a machine shop and had them tapped to a US Pipe Thread size.  No big deal, but if you’re trying to figure out what hydraulic fitting to order, why would you think that a part from Germany is anything but metric thread?  A few sets of fittings later, I arrived at a set of 3/8NPT to AN-10 adapters that work beautifully.  Live and learn.

So once i got the oil system buttoned up and the garage full of exhaust fumes, I decided to tackle all the other little naggling problems.  The high beams didn’t work, and for once in my life it was the simple fix – the fuses had blown.  After realizing this and getting the right fuses in for the H1/H4 upgrade – all is well with the lighting.

I then modified the plastic engine covers to fit with each other.  I had to grind down and/or cut a little bit off the fuel rail cover to make it fit with the 318/M3 cowl covers.  This was quite easy with a nice straight cut hobby saw and a dremel.  With fresh plastics, the engine is really starting to look good.

Fresh and Clean

No shield yet.

Tie Rod Boots

A friend of mine helped out and threw together a heat shield for the intake out of cardboard.  It looks really great – and allows for complete thermal separation from the rest of the engine bay.  It does this while still allowing for the ABS Unit and cruise control.  Definitely a good thing.  You can see my “hot air” intake here, which is the largest air filter I could fit.  The shield is not in the picture as it’s still in cardboard.  I plan on measuring everything and picking up some metal while the car is out at VSR for exhaust work.  I also finally closed up the tie rod boots, locking the plates onto the inner tie rods.

There are still little things to be taken care of.  I buttoned up the toe/alignment and camber setup, but ran into a very lame problem.  I installed the Ireland Engineering Adjustable Rear Camber/Toe brackets.  This is pretty cool, except there is little to no room to tighten the final nut on the outboard side.  I purchased a cheap 18mm wrench to “massage” so that I could get it on the nut and turn it.  I managed to tighten the passenger side with no issues.  When I got to the driver’s side, the wrench opened up into a 19mm since I had to take so much material off the wrench.  I will probably just go buy another cheap wrench and hope that it holds together long enough to tighten the last nut.

I have to finish mounting the rear M-Technic bumper cover – I was missing some hardware to button that up until this past week.  Then it’s time to run speaker wire for the stereo, and wait for the snow to melt.

So the big news today is that the car runs.  After Derek pointed out that I really do need a good battery to start a car – after a couple chugs of the starter, it sprang to life like it had only missed a week of duty.  Quite loud without any exhaust, but smooth.  After it ran for a few seconds, we noticed a pretty serious oil leak coming from behind the Turner OIl filter housing plate.  It seems that my oil filter housing is threaded which doesn’t work with this kit.  I’ll buy some more metric/AN adapter fittings and stop that leak pretty easliy.  I had hoped to get video to put here, but the oil leak stopped me from running it any more.  I’ll try to have video up shortly.

I also wired in a new temperature sender which was made by a DIY’er from an E30 specific forum.  It goes in the Driver’s side brake duct.  I made a long wiring harness to come into the cabin of the car because whatever wires were there before no longer existed.

Other things I did but did not take photos of include wiring the headlights completely, modifying the cruise control to work with the E36 throttle body, finishing the OBD-I vacuum hose setup, finishing all the brake pipe, and installing the fluids.  I also had the front and rear glass installed, and put on the windshield wipers.

To finish things off, I installed a set of Racing Dynamics pedals that I stashed away when I realized that they were not being produced any more a few years back.  I had these on my first E30, and loved them.  I have yet to really figure out how to mount the dead pedal efficiently to the carpet.

And here’s a shot of the suede headliner my wife and I made.  It was definitely tricky – and I am not 100% happy with the fitment (probably more my installation job than anything) but I’d say I’m 95% happy with it.  And once I’m driving the car I’m certain I’ll forget about it.

Yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted any progress here.  I helped make a film, played a lot of concerts in the US, and Europe, and wrote a lot of music that was performed in Carnegie Hall, in Chicago’s Harris Theater and Symphony Hall, as well as some Opera and other craziness.  And I had a son.  Everything has been going very well.

But with all that going on, the car has taken a back seat.  That’s just the way it goes.  I have been poking away at it whenever I have a free moment, which is pretty seldom.

To that end, here’s what I’ve gotten done.  I built and installed the stainless steel hoses for the oil cooler.  These took me a really long time to figure out, because I didn’t know that you needed to seat the hose all the way into the sleeve.  This allows the hose to expand enough to get the pressed-in part to go in far enough to catch the threads.  I held the hose in my left hand and used a rubber mallet to seat the sleeve on the hose.  It worked like magic, and now my hoses are done.

I routed the feed line through the radiator core, and the return line up through the headlight area.  I used a 180 degree fitting on the feed line on the cooler, so that the hose runs above the cooler.  On the return side, I used a 90 degree fitting to run straight up into the headlights.

I covered the steel hose with rubber hose where it comes in contact with any painted surfaces.  Obviously this is to prevent chafing on the paint.  I used the Turner kit to bolt the AN fittings to the Euro Oil Filter housing.  Another great piece from Turner.  I got my fittings from BAT in Florida.  They had the ultra cool “titanium” colored fittings which I like way more than the red and blue standard fittings available elsewhere.  These are a little more subdued.

Using the factory locations for the oil cooler, I had to make a small bracket to raise one point so that the cooler sat level in the car.  Very simple, and it does the trick well.

You can also see the M42 radiator that I’m using.  I’m using this because it has an integrated overflow tank.  I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble with overheating, as I’m running the SPAL fan infront of it.  We shall see.  But in any event, I used some random hose from the auto parts store for the top hose, and a slightly modified M20 hose for the bottom hose.  I had to build risers for the radiator to get it to the right height for the top bracket to work.  I made them out of square tube stock with large rubber bushings.

Here's a shot of the radiator risers.

I installed the driver’s seat to see how the factory sliders with Recaro brackets work.  The answer is exactly as I thought it would be… too high.  If you’re 5′ 10″ or shorter, this setup will work very very well for you.  If you are any taller, you need to take a different route.  Here’s a bunch of photos of the seat.  Recaro Sport Topline with custom upholstery and stitching.  You can see the vintage seat slider in these pics.  This is just for a test fit to get the height dialed in.

Another thing that I have found is that the new trim pieces don’t have the same finish as the old ones.  The rear center console is brand new, and the front center console is not new.  The two finishes are very different in feel and luster.  The worst thing is that I bought a brand new front section, and it doesn’t match either.  It has the old style finish.  It kinda stinks, but not the end of the world.

One thing I’m not so stoked on is the coolant return hose to the overflow tank.  The spider hose has a union fitting coming out of it, which is a different size than the fitting on the radiator.  I found some hose laying around that was the right size, but not quite long enough.  None of the hose I found worked the way I wanted, but I need to move past this point, so I concocted this silly thing…  It will work fine for now, but will be fixed later I’m sure.  You can also see the new Power Steering reservoir I installed.

There is a wire that has three wires in it that was cut.  I thought it was the brake wear sensor, but as far as I know, the brake wear sensor only has two wires in it.  So I have to think about what it is.  My brain is too caught up in diapers to know right away.

I snapped some photos of the back of the brake calipers because they looked particularly sexy.

So I snapped a couple photos of the car, so that I had something new to look at while away from the car.

I had a few free hours today to work on the car. Nothing Crazy, but some good stuff to check off the list. I installed my new Differential drain plugs, which are now 14mm allens instead of 10mm, so I had to use a special setup to install them because there isn’t really enough room to use a huge 14mm tool with the spare tire well. I filled the diff with fluid so that I wouldn’t forget to do it later down the road.

Fresh and Clean

Rear Heatshield

Then I cleaned and installed the exhaust heat shields underneath the car. Used some Purple Power and a lot of elbow grease with a brass bristled brush. The heatshield looks almost brand new now, which is good because it looked like poo before.

Then I had to replace one of the brake pipes from the Master Cylinder to the ABS unit because the E30 M3 uses a special pipe with two different size fittings. So I replicated one of the pipes I had already bent, and fixed a couple of the shortcomings of my previous bending job.

The line I replaced

The New Line before bending

Brake Pipe at Master Cylinder

Once the pipe was installed, I started working on a couple other little things that needed to be done. I tidied up the engine wiring underneath the intake manifold. You can see in the picture of the plugged coolant hose that I installed the Intake Manifold braces as well. So why did I have to plug a hose? because I am not going to use the throttle body de-icing system. This car will never see snow, and will only see freezing temperatures if I get caught out in a freak weather event.

Intake Manifold On

Plugged Coolant Hose

O2 Sensor Wiring Mounted

I’ve got some A/C Parts on the way, as well as a Power Steering Pump and a couple other tidbits. I plan on having one evening this coming week to work on the car, but we’ll see how the schedule works out.

Heater Valve

I started out the work this week by buttoning up the heater valve installation. When i refurbished my heater box, I either misplaced, lost or threw out all the hardware needed to bolt in the heater valve. No big deal, it was all about 3 cents from the dealer, but it was definitely specialty hardware. Square M5 nuts that slide into the plastic work perfectly don’t just sit on most hardware shelves. So once that stuff showed up, I put it all together as shown on the left. The Bracket that normally holds the two pipes is NLA, so I will have to fashion one from some other metal on my own. No biggie.

I installed this thing, and got the new grommet installed on the firewall that surrounds the heater pipes. The easiest way of doing this is with dish soap. I know it sounds funny, but lube it up and it slides right in.

E28 M5 Oil Cooler Installed

I bought an E28 Oil Cooler becuase it has a larger capacity and I didn’t have an Oil Cooler. So I mounted it up to factory locations with some custom rubber bushings. It’s not quite level. I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep it like this or drill/fabricate a mount that allows it to mount perfectly level. I’m leaning towards leaving it as is, but we’ll see.

Now I need to figure out the plumbing on this thing.  That’s one of the last things I have on my list to do that I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  Keep in mind I have the Euro Oil Filter housing on my motor, I haven’t decided if I can run stock lines from a Euro E36 M3, or if I have to plumb  with stainless hose and fittings.  We’ll see.

Half Shaft Installed

Half Shaft Installed

Driveshaft Installed

Guibo installed

I then went to finish putting the driveline together. I put the half shafts in and bolted them up. I had installed the Diff a week ago or so. It’s a 3.25 out of an M Roadster. I bought a finned M Roadster Diff cover as well, which I installed with new hardware and gasket. I’m still waiting on my new drain plugs as you can see, and once they’re in I will fill the diff with fluid.

Once I got the half shafts installed, I worked my way forward to the driveshaft. It’s an E36 328 driveshaft that I picked up from a local yard. I swapped the center support bearing out for the E30 unit with new dust covers. One thing I will tell people is that you really need to make sure the first dust cover is seated well before putting the bearing on, otherwise you’ll never get it to go on. I used a properly sized pipe that slid over the splines section that I was able to tap in with a dead blow hammer. It sat perfectly on the inner bearing race. And of course all the normal hints like marking the shaft before you separate each section apply here.

A/C Compressor Installed

I also installed the A/C Bracket and compressor. I had originally thought that I was going to use the compressor from an M Roadster because it was smaller, but I didn’t realize that it mounts with a different plate/bracket situation. So since I had already powdercoated the standard bracket, I went with the standard compressor. Now all I need is the right pulley tensioner assembly and a Power steering pump and I’ll be all set with the accessory belt situation. Once that’s done I can install my radiator.

E30 M3 Gauge Cluster

Oil Temp Sender Wired

I installed my E30 M3 Gauge cluster in the car. I had to run wires for the Oil temperature gauge. This was pretty easy, I had to tap switched 12 volts, ground and run a signal wire. I ran the signal wire and installed it in pin 19 on the body harness plug. This is where it sits in an E30 M3, and I’ll be able to build my X20 plug to interface with the c101 and have it all work out nicely. I don’t have this sitting quite right, as the trim piece is covering some of the turn signals. We’ll see what I can do to fix that.

Dashboard Trim Panels

Center Consoles

E-Brake Console

Rear Seat Finished

Once I installed the gauge cluster and the trim panel below it I installed the center consoles and shift knob again, since I had to take them out to install the heater valve. The Brand new rear console piece has a totally different material finish than the old school front console. I am assuming this has to do with the Recycle-ability of car parts changing. I also pulled the rear seat bottom out because I had to install the last set of receptacles that were backordered from BMW. It’s all set now, with the receptacles sitting nicely in their spot in the rear seat. I have the third belt hidden under the seat, as I don’t plan on having 3 rear passengers at any time soon. My rear parcel shelf doesn’t have any holes in it yet, so I don’t have the weird triangle thing on it to hold the third belt anyway.

Painting the Rotors

I started this day by cleaning and degreasing the brake rotors. I am using Frozen Rotors for my rotors because they rock. They’re on every car I drive. Per the recommendation of the guys over at Diversified Cryogenics (the Frozen Rotor folks) I am painting these with 1500 degree exhaust paint. I masked off the rotor face. I sprayed the paint in a few coats throughout the first part of the day.

And then I moved on. I pulled the car down off the lift (We have a 4 post lift) so that I could pull the wheels off and do some more suspension work.

Spring Height Differences

The first thing I did was pull the front wheels off so that I could swap out the front springs. I had originally purchased 8″ springs from H&R when I had the debacle of the not-fitting front springs from TC Kline. These springs were too tall. With the coils spun all the way to the lowest settings, the front end was still too high. So it was time to put in the 6″ springs.

Now that I’ve swapped these out, I’m happy with how the car sits.  I have enough adjustment to lower or raise the car’s height in front.  We’ll see how the 400# springs feel.

I also just want to say that the E30 M3 Front strut housing design makes it infinitely easier to swap out the springs.  All you have to do is pull four bolts on the bottom of the tie rod lever and three at the strut tower and the whole unit comes out, ready to be worked on.  Much cooler than having to pull the tie rod and control arm off the standard E30 version.

Brake Calipers Rebuilt

I finished rebuilding the brake calipers with all new seals. I added all new hardware, including the bushings and caliper pins. There’s not much to say about rebuilding calipers, it’s a pretty easy process, but it’s much easier with compressed air. Having these powdercoated makes cleaning them very easy. With just a paper towel wipe, these will clean up pretty good.

Brake Carrier and Rotor Installed

Front Caliper and Brake Pads

Parking Brake Installed with heat shield

Rear Rotors and Calipers Installed

Brand New Half Shaft

Headlight Buckets Installed

I built my freshly powdercoated headlight buckets with H1/H4 hella light fixtures. I purchased them from Susquehanna Motorsports in Pennsylvania, a place I’ve purchased 3 sets of lights from (for all my E30′s) and I’m quite happy with them.  They seem to always have what I need, in stock, ready to go with little drama.  That’s what we go for here at HMS.

Of course, the headlights went in with new OE hardware including new body nuts and screws so that these things should be cake to adjust for the rest of their life.  One thing that I didn’t figure out is how to get the new headlight adjusters to fit into the small notch they are supposed to go into.  The only thing I didn’t try is heating up the plastic to see if that makes it more malleable.  But they work fine as is, and aren’t bouncing around at all.  Only time will tell if this shortcut comes back to bite me in the ass.

The Ultra-Rare M-Technic Badge

In full effect

Once The headlights were installed, I put the European Grilles back on, and installed the fabled M-Technic Grille Badge that my buddy Chris had. This thing is apparently über-rare and completely NLA. So it’s cool to have one on my car. It’s the little things, right? I wish these things installed differently, but you just bend the tabs around the slats in the grille. Seems to work fine, but it’d be nice to have something with threads I think.

City Lights rockin

Fogs are working

Rear Lights Working

The next thing I worked on was lighting. I didn’t get the low beams working, I have to suss out a few more relays to get them their requisite 12 volts. But I did get the city lights working. Love em. Also, the Fog lights work as well. I want to re-wire the fog light connectors, as they are a little ratty and I want them to be money. I measured them and ordered some from BMW, we’ll see if they are the right ones.

I also go the rear lights working, in addition the reverse lights and stop lights.  The Blinkers work, but I didn’t have the right bulbs, which I now have.  The system does not like it when you install dual filament bulbs where you aren’t supposed to.  I ended up with a hazard flasher relay that was freaking out.  Good stuff.

Windshield wiper hardware

More Hardware

Sunroof Deflector Guides

I got all new hardware for the winshield wipers, which included some new rubber pieces to keep them all snug around the sheet metal. These pictures aren’t very exciting for you, I’m sure, but refreshing these things is very satisfying when building a car.

I also got new guides for the sunroof window deflector. These are the small pieces that attach to the deflector and the sheet metal, which force the deflector down as the sunroof comes forward. The old ones were all scuffed up, and these look a lot nicer. Not only that, since they are so smooth the sunroof is able to go forward much more smoothly. Function following form is nice too.

Rear Seat and Belts

Rear Seat Belt

B Pillar Seat Belt

Here’s two shots of the BMW Evo seat belts installed, along with my rear seat from an M3. Yes I know the upholstery is a little tired, but the rear seat will be recovered to match the new Recaro’s I have coming.

It should be said, that seat belts should be replaced every 10-15 years in a street car. The belts do degrade over time, and you’ll want to go ahead and spend the money on new belts. Totally worth it. Now, spending the cash for the red belts was questionable, but in my opinion worth it. But don’t trust me, it was my opinion that got me into this whole mess.

Moisture Barrier

Door Card Installed

Passenger Door card

I made a moisture barrier out of some heavy duty plastic from Home Depot. In this picture, I made it a little big, I had to trim it a little bit, so that it was completely hidden by the door pad, but you get the idea. I used Silicone to adhere it, because once dried the silicone can be cleaned up with no mess if I want it to.

I still have to install the the door pulls.  I thought that I lost them, but a few days ago I found them, so next time I’m working on the car, I’ll throw those on, as well as the mirror switch and door handle surrounds.

Fuel Pump Access Door

In the “not so exciting” department, I installed the new fuel pump and fuel pump hoses. I also installed the fuel level senders, which are also not very exciting. But of course the car wouldn’t go anywhere without these items, so they’re pretty important. Besides, I really wanted to close off these fuel doors so I could install the rear seat.

I will have to re-open it though, because I want to double and triple check that all the hoses are on correctly before I fill the system with fuel.

New Light Switch Plate

Illuminated Shift Knob

Continuing in the interior, I installed a new headlight switch plate and button, as the one in the car was pretty gnarly with no silk screening on the button. I also picked up the lighted shift knob with integrated shift boot from Turner Motorsport. This thing is totally awesome. They do a really nice job with the kit that they supply (I assume it’s their kit and not BMW’s). It comes with the right wiring to splice into the light for the cigarette lighter, providing a quick disconnect for the shift knob. Top notch. The feel on this thing is killer. I wish it wasn’t so expensive, otherwise I’d have it on my daily driver.

Since I wasn’t quite as prepared as I might have liked when I did the first batch of powdercoat, I had to send a second batch of parts to get powdercoated.  I ended up doing some stuff black, like the headlight buckets and windshield wipers.  i am extremely happy with how this stuff turned out.  Really looks great on the car.

So we’ve got the cowl cover, headlight buckets, headlight rings,  exhaust hanger, and A/C bracket all done in black.  In gray we have the swaybars, brackets, brake calipers and an extra set of headlight rings.

The working space

So Then came the day when it was time to put the motor in. This day marked a huge swing in momentum. I have really turned up the juice since this day. In any event, I had to start by clearing a bunch of space in the garage. I was stoked to be able to do this on a lift, it made it a hell of a lot easier.

After I cleared space, and got all the necessary tools together, everything started to work itself out. I covered every painted surface with a thick blanket to help with safeguarding the paint, and rolled the engine over to the car.

Fetch Me The Engine Hoist!

A view from below the car

Starting to go in

Coming together

Almost in!

Sitting in the bay

The engine leveler that we had was barely adequate.  I had to work it pretty hard by installing it almost all the way back, and then using literally all the threads it had to get the motor to tilt enough to go into the transmission tunnel easily.

But that was pretty much it.  It was really that easy – there weren’t any tricks except for muscle. And for that I never EVER could have done it alone, I had the help of Matt (fellow HMS Rocka) to help guide the motor in. You can’t see him in any of the pictures, but he’s under the car making it all happen. We got it to slide in really easily – those of you that have done this swap already know how easy it actually is.  We just took our time to make sure it wasn’t hanging up on any of the freshly painted sheet metal.  We didn’t even tear up any of the brand new sound insulation that was installed on the firewall.

So once the engine was installed, I bolted up all the mounts and got on to putting the shift linkage together.

Transmission Mounts

Shifter installed

Closeup of the linkage

Another shot from below

With the E36 ZF transmission, you can still use the E30 transmission crossbrace. These are stock transmission mounts – I fully expect to blow through these pretty quickly, but I want to run them to see what it’s like. Remember, I’m not going for a race car feel, I want it to be cush and quiet. So wherever I can use rubber mounts, I am.  I installed the UUC Short Shift Kit with DSSR.  This is an awesome piece.  And even though it’s made for an E36, it fits my E30 perfectly.   The shifter is a little bit farther towards the passenger side than it normally is in an E30 with the Getrag G260 transmission, but It’s not uncomfortable at all.

The next few pictures are just some shots I took of the engine sitting on it’s mounts.  This felt really good – a real milestone, and as I mentioned before a turning point for my own energy putting the car together.

These motor mounts are not the ones i will run for real.  As you can see on the Driver’s side, the mount is tweaked pretty good.  I have already replaced these, as you will see in subsequent pictures with the Green Trapezoidal 535i mounts.  I found a thread somewhere on some forum with these mounts listed as working well.  They obviously didn’t work for me.

Sitting quietly

passenger motor mount

driver motor mount

ready to fire it up

intake side

intake side

money shot

A/C going in

So then I ordered a brake master cylinder to go with my new E30 M3 brake setup.  I wanted to ditch my standard E30 MC and upgrade to an E30 M3 unit so that my brake system felt exactly like the M3 system.  Having fallen in love with the way my buddy Kael’s M3 brakes felt, I wanted to get that same feeling in this car.  So I did what any good consumer would do, I called a supplier and ordered it.  Showed up a couple days later and was totally wrong.  I couldn’t put this thing in if I tried.

So, return it and try to get the right part, but wouldn’t you know it – that was the “last one” and they aren’t going to re-order the part.  Ok, send it back, pay the restocking fee (I swear to you that HMS Motorsport has the most lenient return policy of anyone in the business) and find the part elsewhere.

*sigh*