Spec [18/10/06] |
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Exterior
Interior
Chassis
Engine
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Project Build Diary 18th October '06 Genuine hartge centre caps and custom made black Hartge badges fitted to the Hartge wheels.  I think they look superb now they are 'finished'.... 19th October '06 ...however I had my eyes on another set of wheels. I advertised and sold the Hartges. To replace them I've bought a set of BBS RS003, 3 piece split rims in 7J x 16". Here's one trail fitted to the touring.  They need completely rebuilding - I'll fit new rims to them to make the fronts 7.5J and the rears 8.5J, I'll have the centres powdercoated, the centre nut polished and stainless steel bolts fitted. I think these will fit in more with the look I ultimately wanted and hopefully the car will drive better on the road on 16" wheels (I'll still be using 15" on track). The BBS RS has always been my favourite wheel, so although it was a hard decision deciding to sell the Hartges, I'll be pleased with the finished car with the BBS on. 27th November '06 I had a few hours free so I removed the standard e30 power-steering rack, removed the M20 loom and cleaned up the engine bay. The nights are drawing in now so by about 4PM I needed to use my Halogen work lights to see what I was doing.  The engine bay is now ready to accept the M52 engine. 20th December '06 In an attempt to solve my power steering pump alignment issue I scoured the ETK for a different pump mounting bracket. Unfortunately BMW seem to sell their pumps with the brackets attached. Eventually I found an M50 engined e34 power steering pump that had a seperate bracket of the correct +15mm offset.  I ordered one from BMW Germany. Unfortunately when it arrived despite the bracket mounting to the oil filter housing correctly the pump mounting holes were a different spacing to my M52 powersteering pump. At this point I decided to ditch the BMW parts-bin solution and instead made a spacer for the standard bracket from 15mm square aluminium. Finished and fitted I could finally fit the powersteering pump and the accessory drive belt.  Next step was to cut the e36 oil pick up pipe mounting tabs off the windage tray, fit the e34 oil pick up pipe with a new gasket, remove the baffle from the e34 sump (it won't fit with the M52 windage tray), clean up the joining surfaces and fit the e34 sump.   With the sump on, the engine is pretty much ready to go in the e30.  2nd January '07 It transpired that my power-steering pump problems weren't over. The M52 pump seems to use different sized hollow bolts for the fluid lines. I decided to solve the problem the way I should have months ago, rather than messing with the M52 pump. An M3 pump was duly purchased and fitted straight to the M3 oil filter housing with no issues whatsoever. Next I turned my attention to the engine bay. With the engine out it was easy to give the whole bay a good clean and degrease and then grind out, undercoat and paint any small marks or dots of rust that have occured over the years. After that, the E36 3.0l M3 steering rack was fitted along with the custom steering linkage. (More info available in the reference section). N.B. The E36 rack has rack mounting castings that are 14mm shorter than the E30 ones. To fit an E36 rack in the E30 you first have to make up 2 x 14mm high spacers. I finished the day by fitting the E28 M5 rubber engine mounts to the E30 subframe.  4th January '07 Here you can see a comparison between the Getrag 260-5 E30 325i box and a ZF S5D-320Z 328i/M3 box. The boxes have the same bellhousing bolt pattern so are interchangeable, but as the picture shows the bolt pattern is rotated roughly 15° - 20° meaning that if you use the E30 gearbox on an M50/M52/S50 engine your gearlever will not appear in the correct place, meaning a custom linkage is required. From this picture you can also see the E36 gearbox has a larger diameter input shaft.  This comparison shows the different output flange PCD between the two gearboxes. It is the larger PCD flange of the E36 gearbox that requires you to use an E30 M3 propshaft when fitting into an E30 (or an E36 328i propshaft with the centre bearing carrier swapped for an E30 centre bearing and carrier).  I fitted the E36 metal engine mount arms to the block (any E36 6 cylinder mounts) and then lifted the M52 off the engine stand. As I'm using the ZF 5 speed gearbox (from the E36 328i/E36 M3) I fitted a new spigot bearing specific to that gearbox's larger diameter input shaft. If you're using an E30 Gatrag box (and modifying the linkage and taking all the headache that goes with it) you'll need the E30 spigot bearing for the particular box you choose. As I wanted to ditch the E36 dual mass flywheel I trial fitted the E30 325i flywheel. When torqued up the back face of the flywheel touched a few castings on the block. Namely the flywheel timing/locking inspection tube and the rear 2 sump bolt webs. To overcome this problem you could have the backface of the flywheel skimmed, with the added bonus of reducing the rotational mass even further. As I was short of time I ground the offending casting webs back just enough to offer the E30 flywheel sufficient clearance. The flywheel then fits to the back of the M52 crank using the E30 flywheel bolts (the E36 ones are too long). A new e30 325i clutch was then fitted with a new E36 release bearing and E36 clutch fork. This was all followed by the 5 speed ZF gearbox. As I'd used an E30 325i flywheel I also had to fit the E30 starter motor rather than the E36 one.    |