Build progress

[Patrick]

Did loads of little things today which have been bugging me for months!

Brakes are now bled - took the car for a shortish run along the drive way, the brakes work really well

Fixed small fuel leak around the pump

Silver soldered the throttle cable to the threaded adjuster off the donor

Stainless clamped the throttle cable to the throttle pedal (hole cut into clamp to make room cable to go through - the way the cable can't jump out of the pedal when it's slack)

Bolted up brake pedal to servo properly

Installed a bracket for the E30 heater valve switch

Installed the horns

Took various parts off to paint exposed areas of metal

Heat shielded the the coil from the water pipes

and probably some other stuff I've forgotten!

[Patrick]

Some pictures form yesterdays progress:


Throttle cable, engine side


Throttle cable, pedal side


Water heater switch bracket


Horns


Coil heat shield

[Patrick]

And it is time to reveal what were doing with the rear lights:


Hella LED lights


The concept 4 ring lights and 4 ring exhausts!

[peterux]

Nice work, Patrick.

Those lights and exhausts work well together!

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by peterux

Nice work, Patrick.

Those lights and exhausts work well together!

Thanks Peter, just got to get the other side the same now - after one and a half days solid I decided to leave that and collapse on the sofa instead! Detail work like that needs to be left for a clear head I think

[AndyDane]

Just seen the lights - I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought they looked good. I've got them but I've only got a single set - I've got 2 rings but as I'm not doing the build it didn't quite go to plan.

They've fitted the original marlin fog and reverse lights at the bottom and whilst they're the wrong "shape" and don't match the round theme I've gone for everywhere else the gaps that would have been left at the bottom corners would have looked wierd.

So I have the rings with indicators in the middle. I didn't realise the rings are stop and tail but my builder assures me they are.

The only worry they have is that they're going to be too flat to the wings and too angled for SVA. hopefully thats in a few weeks so I'll let you know how it goes.

[Patrick]

Originally Posted by AndyDane

Just seen the lights - I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought they looked good. I've got them but I've only got a single set - I've got 2 rings but as I'm not doing the build it didn't quite go to plan.

They've fitted the original marlin fog and reverse lights at the bottom and whilst they're the wrong "shape" and don't match the round theme I've gone for everywhere else the gaps that would have been left at the bottom corners would have looked wierd.

So I have the rings with indicators in the middle. I didn't realise the rings are stop and tail but my builder assures me they are.

The only worry they have is that they're going to be too flat to the wings and too angled for SVA. hopefully thats in a few weeks so I'll let you know how it goes.

Interesting, the wiring on the ring LED's we have does not suggest they can be used for rear and brake as there is only one plus and one negative.

We've got the marlin fog / reverse. I think we may use these to start with and maybe change for something more interesting later. The race LED high intensity likes look quite interest as an option for the fog light.

Should be interesting to see what the SVA people say about the angle, I am a bit worried about that.

[Patrick]

Not done much this weekend, taken care of a few small things such as the battery holder. Also tried running the car with the original ecu chip - no difference which is odd as it should have a lower idle than the Zone chip. Must be a sensor somewhere.

One thing a number of people have said is: why didn't you rebuild the engine? At the time I lacked the confidence and skill to want to attempt it! The plan is to get the car on the road and after some shakedown time rebuild the engine!

The first parts for this rebuild arrived this week, a dbilas dynamic 282°/272° cam shaft and new up rated Schrick valve springs.





Took some pictures of the bodywork as well:

[Patrick]

One way vacuum valve conversion. A left over part from Richard's E36 Compact engine conversion! Blocked off the hole in the intake boot and one of the two holes on the side of the throttle body and placed the one way valve in place of the very complex early E30 type layout. Taken the car for a quick spin on the drive way and all is well!

Idle

After much head scratching we purchased a Gunson gastester with build in RPM read out. Low and behold it turns out the engine is idling around 750RPM which is pretty much spot on. Its the gauge that has the wrong read out. It over reads near the bottom of the scale, sits about right at 2000RPM and above it under reads.

As it's overfuelling on idle the mixture needs setting, that's for another day as I can't find the manual.... )

[Patrick]

A final round of engine tuning! Decided to set the idle mixture today as the engine was very obviously running rich. Got the gunson gastester out and it verified the rich running by showing 3.5% CO. After a bit of tweaking of the idle mixture control on the AFM we got this down to around 1.2-1.3%. It's not going to be 100% and it can be fine tuned at the MOT test before SVA.

Wasn't in the mood for much else after the fuel pipe off the tank started spewing petrol all over the place. Replaced the cloth covered stuff with some 3/4" rubber pipe I had in the parts bin. This was a tighter fit and also found a more suitably sized hose clip. Figures crossed it will be fine now!

As it was such a nice day it seemed like the perfect time to take the car for a little spin (on the driveway at least!)

Me driving the first round (mixture not adjusted) and Richard driving second after the adjustment (but the neighbours had returned so he had to be a bit more careful not to take out their car!)

Download the video (12Mb)

[Patrick]

Wiring



Richard has made excellent progress with the wiring, pretty much everything is in place now ready to go!

Bodywork



Rear lights are in and the tank filler hole is drilled. The wings are not the same, the left one is longer than the right one. Makes for an interesting task lining up the lights. Rear view is nearly done, the real lights still need to go in (rather than the reflectors) the fog lights need to go on. As do the number plate lights!

Also started removing the flash lines from the tub, what a PITA job!

Finally a bit of future tuning news:



This is a crank from a BMW M52B28 engine, with a spacer at the front end this will drop right into the M20 block. Combined with 130mm conrods from a M20B20 and the pistons from the M20B25 this will result in a 2.8 ltr stroker engine. The parts been put in the box ready for rebuilding the engine at some point in the future.

[peterux]

Hi Patrick,
looks like you are making some really good progress and the car is comming together nicely. I'm going down to Marlin next week to pick up my body parts and a list of sundry items so hope to be catching you up again soon!
A bit worrying about the wings being diffrent lengths, i'll have to see what mine are like but I can't believe there would be different moulds?

Your tuning ideas are interesting for next winter!

ATB, Peter

[Patrick]

The tub is not straight either. From everything I've seen pretty much all fibre glass part will warp or will not be 100% not matter what they are for. I managed to install the left wing too high at the back because of the length difference, it just means I have to drill new holes and patch up the old ones - luckily that easily done with fibreglass - do lots and lots and lots of measuring

2.7 engine conversion using a 2.4 diesel or 2.7 eta crank are really popular on the E30 scene but they are so involved requiring you to deck the block and install an adjustable pulley. 2.8 conversions are less talked about but much easier to do as the only machining involved is a spacer (that I can make at home on the lathe)! On top of that you get an extra 100cc. With the spiky dbilas cam and stand alone engine management it should result in more than 200bhp and loads more torque.

[Patrick]

Richard spent a good deal of yesterday wiring stuff up again - I was changing the rear disks, pads and handbrake shoes on my daily driver (while putting a screw driver through my forehead, but that's another story)

A little bit of an update to the site to make it a bit easier to view images:

There is a new preview function to all images on the site, it's now no longer necessary to download large images to get a closer look at each one.

Just click the thumbnail or the "preview" button. You'll get a short loading animation and the image will appear. If you want to download a full size one like before click "Full Size" button or the "Right Click Save As here to download full size" link in the preview.

http://jquery.com/demo/thickbox/ if anyone else wants to use it, a very slick piece of coding

[Patrick]

Time has come to spend hours and hours debating where to put the gauges! After many, many permutations with print outs and bluetak here's the results:



Dash masked and all the hole centre marked from the graph paper used to precisely layout the dials




The next question, how to cut the holes in the ali without needing to spend a good £50-£60 on the correct hole punching tools for the job!

[MartinClan]

Originally Posted by Patrick

The next question, how to cut the holes in the ali without needing to spend a good £50-£60 on the correct hole punching tools for the job!

Chain drill - its a pita but if you have the patience and a half round file to finish it works fine!

Robin

[Patrick]

Gauges! Hole cut and the gauges are resting in there - looks really good



Our dad had an adjustable bit for his lathe he made many years ago which he used to cut the holes for us



Without 3 tones of wires hanging out and a nice cover it will look really good.

[Patrick]

Did a lot of prep work on the bonnet side panels today. Did some initial cuts on the metal today to start fitting the panels in. Also spent a lot of time on the passenger side re fitting the door and adjusting it. For some reason the passenger side causes more trouble than the driver side!

[JG]

Gotta say, that engine installation just looks soooo nice. You've done a great job. You can tell your car is going to have a quality finish

John

[Patrick]

Thanks John

Bumper holes!



Rather than taking the recommend route and blindly drilling holes for the bumpers in the back and then fitting the tub around it we fitted the tub and then did the bumpers. Drawback, the mounting holes for the tub are now slightly wrong - not to bad can fill those up and move them as needed.

On the + side the bumper holes are not pretty much spot on.



In order order to located the exact position of the holes we inserted a felt marker in each bumper mounting hole, put masking tape on the inside of the tub. Mounted the tub then marked out the approx position of the holes with the markers. Took the tub off and had a look. The passenger side (shock horror!) was too far up and the driver side about right. So taking the height of the driver side as the default - which is approx 25mm up from flat of the area where the fog / reverse lights are mounted. The centre to centre between the bumper mounts is 930mm so we measure 25mm up and 930mm between the two centres. The estimate from the marker was only 4mm too close together.



To double check all the measurements we drilled a small pilot hole from the back at the marked location, making sure the drill ran parallel to the mount hole. The tub was then refitted and a visual check made through the pilot holes to make sure then were in the correct place. The look like they were so we too a hole saw and cut out the final size holes, again making sure the drill ran parallel to the mounting hole. After drilling the first hole - due to it not being straight on - I though it was a full hole size out. Turns out it just my eyes and the fact that the hole is not straight on! Stuck a bumper through the hole lift the back of the tub a bit and it went right in! Repeat for hole number 2 Very happy these are now sitting right it was one of those things we were not looking forward to.



Spent more time on the front of the tub on the passenger side trying to get it to fit better after the bumpers were installed. Took quite a bit of material off the bottom to bring it down. Its now sitting much better but still needs some work. You may also notice the colour sample (formerly part of an E39 M5 diffuser) pretty sure this will be the cars colour, but what is it? So far the top suggestion is LeMans blue as that was a standard colour on the M5.