Finally got some decent pics

So,
I finally took some time off from working on the car long enough to get out and drive it and take a couple decent pics:

Catching Up Again

Well,
It's been a while since I posted an update. Suspension work is done, for now anyway. Brakes are awesome, no noise, good stopping power, still need to bed them in before my first track day on December 12th. Sadly this will also be the last track day till the new year.

Since the last update I have managed to:

• install my wideband (replaced stock sensor with LC-1 and wired analogue output into stock ecu harness)
  
• send the injectors out for cleaning and flowing
• re install cleaned injectors
• replace fuel filter
  
• replace the valve cover and plug gaskets (plug holes were full of oil)
  
• install new plugs
• install my innovate LMA-3 for data logging
• change out the trans fluid from whatever was in it to Redline MTL
• spend about a week clay baring, polishing, sealing, and coating to clean up the paint some
  

Car is running well, though a bit lean up top for my liking... like 14:1 lean :( On a related note, it has also developed a warm and cold start issue, has to crank a while before it fires. Given that there was no rail pressure when I pulled the injectors, I think the check valve in the fuel pump assembly has gone bad and is allowing the fuel pressure to drain off when the car sits for a bit. New fuel pump assembly will be here Wednesday. Still need to tap one of the injectors and a manifold vacuum source to round out the data logging. Should have that done by the weekend along with the fuel pump.

New Struts and Shocks

As previously mentioned, the shocks and struts were shot when I picked up the car. I assume they were original to the car so they were probably 40,000 miles past due for replacement. I found a great deal from bavauto and go the front struts for $159 each and the rear for around $100 each. Since the factory bump stops were also falling apart on the rear and gone on the front, I picked up a set of boots and bump stops from Harrison. I managed to get them all swapped out late this afternoon. Looks like I'm on schedule to have it back on the ground Thursday after work.

Front Pic:


Rear Pic:


The replacement bulbs I ordered for the on board computer (OBC) showed up about 30 minutes ago. I swapped out the bulb over the clock portion of the OBC, turned the key on, and sure enough, clock works perfectly now. As I suspected, the memo function was turned on (indicator for the memo function is in the clock portion of the display) so that was causing an anoying tripple beep at the same number of minutes after the hour, every hour....

Tomorrow evening I will rebuild the brake calipers and get everything bolted back up and ready to bleed the system.

Clamps Part 3: Vendication

Well,
Turner responded to my emails about the brake lines not having the correct fittings on them yesterday. Of course, the initial comment was as expected:

"Very odd, this is the first problem we have had with these lines since we started selling them in 1995."

Long and short of it is they said they checked all the lines they had in stock (30 sets) and could not find a single problem with any of those. That being the case they did not want to refund the price of the lines or comp me a rebuilt caliper. Instead they created a UPS call ticket for UPS to pickup the DEFECTIVE line set. I realy don't see how I could have made it more clear that the lines had the wrong fittings. The brake fittings are all M10X1.0 which is 25.4 threads per inch. The male fittings on these lines were 24 threads per inch so they are most likely to 3/8-24NF as this is the most common US brake fitting size.....

Lucky for me the guys around the corner at Harrions Motorsport had a set of UUC lines in stock. What do you know, those had the correct M10X1.0 fittings on them and they matched the stock fittings to perfection. They also had a M10x1.0 thread chaser they were kind enough to let me use. I was able to clean the caliper threads up with no issues.

While I was at Harrison I went ahead and grabbaed a few more items to help finish up the current brake and suspension work. These were rear shock mounts (common point of failure on E36's) and brake caliper rebuild kits (Andrew suggested I go ahead and do this now while everything is off the car). After I got home and looked over my shocks I called Harrison back ordered a full set of front and rear bump stops and bust boost to round out the parts for this stage of the build.

And finally a picture of the parts from yesterday:

No more door rattles

Seth this "mod" is just for you :)
While I was out visiting my family I stopped in at harbor freight and picked up a few things, like an big hot melt glue gun. Since I'm stuck waiting on parts till Monday I figured I would pull the door panels and re glue all the loose / falling off parts:



After adding a couple pounds of glue to each door they now close with a nice solid thud. If any rattles come from the door area now it has to be inside the door skin. And finally a picture of project 363 in it's current condition:

Clamps Part 2: WTF?

Well I had hoped to have the brake job finished last night. However, I ran into a snag. After spending several hours running around town trying to find an 11mm flair nut wrench for the oem brake line fittings, I finally managed to get one full set of lines off the car (Rear lines are in 3 sections, two flex lines and one hard line) and one calliper ready for installation of the brass slide bushings and steel lines.

As I attempted to snug down the steel line into the cliper, DOHHHH! The fitting went loose. I slowly backed the fitting out and started trying to figure out WTF the problem was. Here it is:





Some how the lines shipped with the wrong male fittings. Of course, I did not get to this point until after turner had closed for the weekend.

All the female fitting are the correct 26 threads per inch, while all the male fittings in the line kit are 24 threads per inch. I'm sure Turner will refund me for the lines, but I also now have a damaged calliper as a result. Lets see if they are willing to send me a rebuilt calliper to make things right.

Clamps

As mentioned in the "Acquisition" post, the rotors looked like the originals with over 100,000 miles on them. Since I'm planning on driving the crap out of this car I decided to go ahead and upgrade rather than just clean up. I placed the order for rotors, Axis Ultimate pads, steel lines, brass caliper slide bushings, and Motul RBF600 fluid friday night from Turner Motorsports. After a bit of confusion with the tracking number (ups online was saying the package had been rescheduled, the phone system said it was on time, and as usual the manager I eventually got a call from had no clue) the boxes arrived around 3:00 PM.

Just a quick note to the tard that put the wheels back on after the last tire change by the previous owner, TURN DOWN THE TORQUE SETTING ON YOUR F'ING IMPACT GUN YOU ASS BAG!. I managed to get all the lugs loose with the use of a 1/2" breaker bar and a 2 foot extension. I dam near broke the breaker bar trying to get one of them off. I would imagine they were torqued to well over 200ft/lb..... gotta love shitty tire shops.

I manged to get everything broken down last night with the exception of the 16mm caliper bracket bolts on the front and the brake line fittings (11mm). Should have it all buttoned up tonight but won't be back on the road till next week when the replacement shocks show up :)

Catching up

So, up to this point I have done the following:

• Cleaned and conditioned all the leather
• Removed, re dyed, re installed the parcel shelf (it had turned purple over the years)
• Pulled out about 70 lbs of weight (full size spare, trunk and rear seat area sound absorption matt)
• Changed the oil and filter
• Inspected all the bushings and mounts

That about covers it so far.. Car has not been driven much as the brakes and shocks / strusts are shot. Shocks and struts are the oem units with 108,000 miles on them as are the brake rotors.

The Acquisition

So, the X sold in about 48 hours (Friday 9/9/2009), way sooner than I thought. Being the impatient sort that I am I wanted to find my M3 AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! I found a 95 that would have made a nice track day car, but needed a lot of TLC in the paint and interior department to fulfill the weekend toy role. After several days of driving Seth and Andrew crazy with my outlandish schemes I finally happen upon a very clean looking Cosmos Black 1995 M3 in an Ebay classified add (Thursday 9/15/2009). Luckily Andrew was not busy Friday and was kind enough to give me a ride up to Anderson South Carolina to have a good look at the car and bring it home if it all checked out.

As luck would have it, everything did check out. The shocks were worn and the brake rotors were shot, expected for a car with 100K miles on the clock. I was most impressed with the quality of the paint, how stock the car was, and the fact that all the switches and knobs all worked perfectly. To date the only items I have found that are not working are:

• Passenger side fog light
• Selector vent on the left hand side of the glove box
• Clock portion of th display on the OBC

I went a tab bit over budget, but the car was so clean and I was so tired of shopping that I had to bring her home with me. $8,000 and 130 miles later and my new toy was resting comfortably in my garage.

Enough talk, time for some pics!

And So it Begins

So, not so long ago I found myself contemplating the fact that I could no longer afford to finish building my 2008 Evolution X into the track monster / weekend toy that I wanted it to be. I talked it over with a couple of my buddies, Seth and Andrew, and finally decided to put the X up for sale. My plan was to take the diference between the payoff amount and the selling price and find myself a nice project car.

I started shopping for a nice used sports car, checking all the past favorites (RX-7's, E30's, ls1-swaps, etc) in the $6,000 - $7,500 price range. I found lots of cool cars, some way cheaper than my predicted price point but needing lots or work, and some that were ready to jump in and hit the road corse but way out side my dubget. To be honest, I never really gave much thought to the E36 line, they just never did a lot for me that could remember anyway.

My buddy Seth and I were kicking around idea's one day and he mentioned the E36 M3's. As we were talking about the options, an image came up from memory... it was the cover of Car and Driver ( I think, may have been motortrend) from years past, with none other than the 1995 E36 M3, in Dakar Yellow. I remeber reading the review way back in 1995 and thinking "man, what a cool car, I wish I could afford one of those".

Over the next couple days I spent hours googling the interwebs and reading everyting I could find about the E36 3's. I settled on the fact that I wanted a 1995 model for the following reasons:

1. Non staggered wheel and tire package (more tail happy)
2. Suspension settings that more closely resembled the Euro models (US version got a geometry change in 1996 that introduced more understeer)
3. OBDI so I could switch to stand alone engine management if I desired
4. 3.0 S50B30US has a better rod ratio for rev potential
5. Combo of S50B30US and OBDI responds way better to mods than S50B32US or S52
6. 1995's were going for the least money.

Well, two days after posting my car for sale on EvoM it was sold. I had just about $7,300 to spend on an E36 M3 so I got to work trying to track one down.