The oldest, lightest, slowest e30 - not an e30 rally build this time, just a budget build.

FYI you can use the M10 lighter flywheel on the M42. I'll have to double check my notes but the only thing I had to do was remove the ring gear from the dual mass m42 flywheel, grind a little of the inside diameter with a flap disc wheel, and then tack weld to the m10 flywheel. You may also be able to change starters around or bendix but the ring gear worked great for me. Can't recall if I used a spacer similar to what is used with the m50 flywheel swap. I'll see if I can track down the info, pretty sure it's on here from an e21 I m42 swapped a couple years ago.

Somewhere in here  CLICK ME

In reply to captainawesome :

Thanks I was actually wondering about that. My previous m42s had m20 fly wheels on them. Unfortunately the guy who is coming all the way from Florida to pick up my M10 and all the other crap wants the flywheel with it so I'm going to let him have it since he's coming all this way.  Honestly the M42 is such a buzzy engine I think the dual mass flywheel actually smooths it out pretty nicely in my experience. But if an m20 One pops up cheap I may just pick it up.

Ok, let's finish (ish) up the floor today. As noted, I decided to do this in sections, both for ease of shaping the panels and so I could overlap them to add some structural rigidity to the floor. No "cut out" photos today, just some shots of the finished ("finished") floor..

The Raider Hood is almost finished as well

Now with all the rosette welds ground down. Still need to do a few small areas and a covef panel for the frame rail, since I wanted to paint the inside first.

Seam sealed the outside sections

In unrelated news, I got in my 750IL brake master, as mentioned above. It's supposed to bolt right up to the e30 and give better brake feel. Looks like it fits perfectly

But crap.....something is missing. See underneath where my finger is, that "bump" on the bottom? That's supposed to have another line port, but this one only has two, not three like the e30. One for the rear circuit, and one for each of the front hard lines. I need to think about this - can I just get a distribution block/line splitter and run both front brakes out of the single line, or is there a reason they're split like that? I guess the 750IL must do that for the front brakes.

I am betting the 7er had ABS, which will split the front brakes at the ABS module.  A non ABS vehicle like an early 80s 3er is more cheaply made with separate ports at the master cylinder.

Nothin' wrong with a tee fitting. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

I am betting the 7er had ABS, which will split the front brakes at the ABS module.  A non ABS vehicle like an early 80s 3er is more cheaply made with separate ports at the master cylinder.

Yep, that's what it is. ABS e30s have only two lines going out of the master (but have a plug for the 3rd line so they all have the same MC). I've owned 3 e30s, but none of them had ABS (all pre-87) so I didn't know that. Now I do. I'll just get a $10 "T" piece, piece of cake. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

As another data point, my euro E28 is a non-abs car but uses that same master cylinder now (it was a direct swap for the E28 specific part with a larger bore that was in there originally but swapped to match up with the 750iL E32 brakes on my car). Two lines come out and drop down to two tee's directly below it on the frame rail. They routed the lines off the tee's pairing up front left/right rear and right front/left rear off of the tee's.

I've since added a proportioning valve so now one port goes to a tee which feeds both fronts, the other port goes to the  proportioning valve and then a tee after it to the rear brakes.

adam525i said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

As another data point, my euro E28 is a non-abs car but uses that same master cylinder now (it was a direct swap for the E28 specific part with a larger bore that was in there originally but swapped to match up with the 750iL E32 brakes on my car). Two lines come out and drop down to two tee's directly below it on the frame rail. They routed the lines off the tee's pairing up front left/right rear and right front/left rear off of the tee's.

I've since added a proportioning valve so now one port goes to a tee which feeds both fronts, the other port goes to the  proportioning valve and then a tee after it to the rear brakes.

Makes sense. I've heard the 750IL MC is mostly for people who do e28 brake upgrades to e30s to push more fluid, so we'll see how it feels with stock e30 brakes. My pedal feel with the stock e30 MC sucks, and always have - even with fresh bleeds and good pads. 

Had a few hours today to get some stuff done, so the goal was to finish up the front floor area.

First off, opened up the rally car

First of all, it's been under cover for a few weeks so wanted to air it out and run it for a while. But what I really had to do is check the location of the lower gas pedal bracket and the pedal's correct slope/angle. So, after a few measurements, welded the new bracket into the beater 318

With that done, I finished off the passenger floor with plates over the frame rail and a few other small sections. Then liberal application of seam sealer on the inside and underside.

And eventually, primered the whole area

Oh, I forgot to mention that Stampie swung by yesterday (all the way from Florida!) to pick up the old M10 and related stuff. Not like me, but I actually didn't take any pics. The cost of the engine and stuff for him was $100 plus "whatever garage stuff he wanted to bring for me" (always like to do that and see what I get.) He brought me a couple 12# spools of welding wire, so that's going to be useful.

In any case, with that stuff out of the way, decided to pull the transmission off the M42 so I can put it on a stand and get it off the floor (and get the hoist out of the garage). I don't plan to get working on it immediately (famous last words), but I hate crap in the way on the floor and it being on the stand will get me motivated eventually to get going on it.

Amazon also delivered my $8 brake line T-fitting

So, it'll go something like this. Very exciting.....

Not much going on for NYE, probably just fall asleep on the couch since I was up til like 2am last night.....hang out with a beer and my dog and my GRM shirt :)

Budget stuff: Was at $1244

Master cylinder + T-adaptor: $52

Sold engine: -$100 cash and -$75 (est.) cash equivalent for the welding wire.

Current expenditure: $1121 if my math is correct. 

Hope that Stampie m10 is for the 2002 and has a turbo attached to it at some point.

I'll check my parts stash but pretty sure I have a brand new intake rubber boot TB to airbox for a 318is m42. I'll ship it your way if it's useful to you.

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Was great meeting you and seeing this in person.  Glad I could make some space on your garage floor.

Stampie said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Was great meeting you and seeing this in person.  Glad I could make some space on your garage floor.

Same! 

captainawesome said:

Hope that Stampie m10 is for the 2002 and has a turbo attached to it at some point.

I'll check my parts stash but pretty sure I have a brand new intake rubber boot TB to airbox for a 318is m42. I'll ship it your way if it's useful to you.

That would definitely be useful, as it's a piece I am currently lacking!

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'm out of town until next week so if you're not in a hurry I'll get it out to you.

captainawesome said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I'm out of town until next week so if you're not in a hurry I'll get it out to you.

Defintely in no hurry. Itll be a month or two before this engine is anywhere near the car lol

Stampie said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Was great meeting you and seeing this in person.  Glad I could make some space on your garage floor.

I am sad I missed this!  Josh should have let me know.

In reply to bluej (Forum Supporter) :

I'll blame him but to be honest it wasn't much other than us backing into the driveway, saying damn that e30 is cool, the 924s also, oh let's load the engine, ok cool beans we're heading south.

no worries, another time! bring lil stampie back up for a DC rallycross weekend.

In reply to bluej (Forum Supporter) :

He would like that.

I'm running a Subaru Legacy master cylinder in my Rx7 and had the same issue you're having: stock MC has three outputs (one for each front caliper, one out to the rear), Legacy MC has two outputs.

I've been running a tee for a few months and it's been working great. In fact, I think it's the same Amazon tee...

Yesterday I made a run into Maryland horse country (and mansion country) to see an old rallycross friend Mike Palszinki (sp) who had some parts. He's had a bunch of e30s over the years for rallycross, lemons, AER, etc. Ironically, the one sitting outside his workshop you may remember from the rally car thread as ALSO previously beloning to Dan G. (who I got this car from ), later bought by Jason Reynolds, and now owned by Mike. Apparntly it's going to return as a rallycross car this season.

In any case, picked up a few things from Mike for $50 - some good front  brake calipers and brackets, and a good-condition M20 coolant reservoir. I also grabbed a black-colored e30 back seat he had sitting there, since I want to do black seats in this car and currently it has tan.

Calipers, which I may or may not rebuild - will check them out more closely first.

Since 318s didn't come with a coolant reservoir like this, they don't have the mounting brackets like the M20 cars do. so had to fab some up, using a piece of scrap angle iron and another (profiled) piece from the Raider Hood.

easy peazy

that was yesterday. Today I decided to take all the panels out of the trunk and see what things look like in there, rust-wise. The main trunk section looks pretty good, and the only rusty areas I already knew about, so no surprises.

Both of the "side buckets" are rusty, as they are in pretty much all e30s (brilliant design, bmw...). The one on the passenger side is pretty solid, will just need a couple patch panels at the front and back

The one on the driver's side a previous owner hadn't fixed the rust, but had just rebuilt right over the rust using fiberglass, and also using part of a beer can:

So I ripped all the fiberglass out

to reveal what I expected, basically this will need a full rebuild of the forward half of the box. Shouldn't be too tough, honestly (famous last words). But it's all hidden inside the wheel well and behind the bumper trim, so at least it can be an ugly repair (my specialty).

Also in the trunk, the area where the fuel tank breather hose goes (on the outside in the wheel well) is a notorious e30 rust spot, and this one has some rust areas that went through. The part on the right will be an easy fix, the part of the left is the remnants of the metal tube that goes from the top of the gas tank to the vapor/overfill tank, which literally must have rusted through from the inside.

And here's what it looks like inside the cabin....basically, it's totally gone. So I'll have to bend up some pipe and replace the whole piece. That may wait until I pull the gas tank in the spring, since I don't really want to weld around gas.

I also pulled the rear interior panels. I knew there was rust on both sides in this area where the front of the rear wheel well meets the body skin. On the passenger side it limited itself to the wheelwell itself.

On the driver's side, as you probably saw earlier in this thread, it also ate away the outside panel

I'll cut all this out and patch it. But, as it turns out, a part of the old passenger-side front fender (which is all rusty at the bottom) is actually a perfect replacement fit when you flip it around. So, that's super-convenient.

check that out.....perfectly identical profile for both the fender lip/curve and the indent for the trim. That will make life easier and hopefully make the patch job look better.

Supposed to snow tomorrow and drop 30 degrees. We'll see if I'm in the office or not, if not maybe do some patching. 

Costs for calipers and stuff: $50

Total cost to date: $1171

Not too much going on with teh car this week. It's really cold in the garage and i've been a bit under the weather and not in the mood to do car work. But did a few things today

Finished up the front brake lines with the T-junction so should be good to go on the front end, though the brake lines in the rear will need a LOT of work as they are set up pretty janky (more on that eventually when I turn the car around). In any case, this stuff is done and hopefully won't leak with all my home-flared lines. I put a weld-nut into the shock tower support there so I could bolt the T-fitting onto it and then used an old e30 seatbelt spacer to set it out a bit.

Cut out that rusty part on the rear fender

And more or less cut out the replacement outer piece, though I'm going to do the inner wheel well first. This shoud work pretty well, though it will need a bit of massaging.

Was a bit bored and wanted something easy so I took the wire wheel to the A/C lines along the passenger side of the hood, which were pretty nasty. Then painted them and put back in place. I need to get some better-quality O-rings before i put them back together, don't want to use the Harbor Freight set lol...

The fender flip is something IT7/Spec 7 racers have done for a while.  Quarter panels for '79-85 RX-7s have been NLA for a long time, but the front fenders can be used for patching almost the entire opposite corner.

I bet the factory kind of used to do things that way to simplify the stamping dies, somehow.

I bought a few things from a guy in New Jersey a couple weeks ago and my cousin grabbed them for me on his way down from NYC to DC for New Year's, so that saved me a lot on shipping. I won't need these for a while but figured I'd get them when they popped up for $125 since neither are super easy to find these days - either still installed on M42 cars, or likely in the trash can/scrapyard. Basically the two things my engine didn't come with: the airbox/AFM assembly and the y-pipe which is far more convenient to pay some cash for than fabricate myself.  And hopefully the 02 sensor is still good since it came off a swap car, which will save me a few more bucks if that's the case. Also the intake J-boot looks to be new, no cracking or anthying and it's still soft and appears to be the OEM BMW piece, which go for $70 new, so that may be a big plus as well. All in all, $125 well spent, I think. 

Cost to date: $1296.00

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

I just found my J-boot in the attic. I think it was a cheap knock off for an e36 but may still work. Pretty sure I didn't use this one because the factory one was in decent shape and a better fit. If you still want this one let me know and I can get it sent out.

You're either way more motivated than me or have way more free time. Obviously more talented than me which isn't saying a lot. 

Really enjoying the updates and following along. Thanks for the awesome forum content with your builds.