e30mclow's latest e30

[Feens]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

makes me want to build another E30.... Great Stuff Ger

[e30mclow]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

Last weekend I:
Made a sturdy tunnel cross brace and trans mount.
Totally redid the removable lower rad/IC support
Offered up a driveshaft to assess options
Sectioned the front subframe for external wastegate clearance
Removed the engine and box for the final few checks



My CNC


Chassis brace/trans mount 80-90% complete. I'll do the final adjustments and last of the bolt holes once things are in their final position.



Getting an idea of the front half shaft length/alignment




Downpipe in


With the removable lower rad support, it is easy to pop the engine forward and access the bell housing bolts



After that, the engine is straight out the top. It is rather tight, but just about manages to fit.



With it out I was able to start the final few beauty items.
Last night I began wire wheeling the block as well as semi-polishing the aluminum bits. I'll paint the block tonight before doing the valve covers/plugs and accessory belt.





I don't want them actually polished, just cleaner looking.

[e30mclow]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

Rebuilt my turbo








Also bought a different turbo. I got a great deal on this, which had a Garrett core, ceramic coated divided T4 housing and is proven to 500hp.




I just need to reseal the hot side, as the previous owner ran too small of an oil return, forcing oil passed the ring seal on the turbine side.
Should be a far better turbo than the ebay one that is currently on there.

Performed a compression test before committing 100%, which thankfully showed perfect compression across all 6


Service


Painted the block


Replaced my rubber steering guibo with a solid one. Out of everything, I'm actually most excited about this upgrade lol. It should really sharpen things up in conjunction with the treehouse racing lower control arm bushings. I can't waitttttt.






Gauge Pod


I'll perhaps place the cutoff switch in the 3rd hole.



Notched subframe for the HKS external wastegate and dump pipe.


IC Piping being finalized



All bolted together





Next up....work permit/visa issues! Some changes in the US (the big orange guy) have made it harder to stay here, so now I have to return to Canada for anywhere between 1 week and 6 months. I/My Company/Our Attorneys were all over things, but it seems like a brick wall has gone up with the immigration folks. My permit is up on Nov 1st, so this is as far as the BMW is going to get for the foreseeable future.

I'm going to drive to Ottawa in a few weeks, so I'm currently getting the s4 ready.

New coilovers




Waxed to death


The final puzzle will be fitting my winter wheels on, now that I have the big ole Porsche brakes up front.
Should be tooooo hard, right?

Quite the squeeze


Fingers crossed for everything to work out, as there is a lot of $$$ things up in the air. I'm not stressing, as whatever happens, happens. I just don't want to have to abandon a 80% complete 1JZ e30 :(

[Circuits]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

Great work Gerard! (as usual)

Best of luck with all the work stuff.

[Feens]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

serious work Ger... Bring the E30 up to Northern Alberta ill look after it for you thats shitty with Visa's ect, do you have citizenship in Canada or just PR? i cant apply for Citizenship until next year i think

[e30mclow]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

Long one!

Moving is painful.

Having had to leave the US in October due to revised visa requirements that I inexplicably do not meet (despite already having been there for 3 years under the same visa), I've been trying hard to get back in just to get my belongings.
Under the new immigration policies I'm owed nothing more than a "computer says no" response, so it was a matter of trying everything. It is a very uneasy feeling knowing that everything you own is in another country that you're not allowed into, yet you must keep making payments/maintaining the place. I won't even start to rant about the tax implications.


Thankfully I was recently issued a 10 year visitor visa which allows me to at least visit for up to 6 months without working.

No sooner was that in my passport than I was straight on a plane to collect my stuff and close out things there financially.
The biggest complication was always going to be the absolute cave that was my garage/driveway down there. I had a company account at my disposal for packing/moving, but having had my S4 joy ridden/wrote off last time (by the movers), I was obviously a little wary of going that route. That, and there really was a tremendous amount of car parts to sift through to see what would make the cut.

I opted to fly in the only man that fully understands car clutter, my father, who is an absolute hero of a mechanic and my best friend. To manage the house full of stuff, my girlfriend was nice enough to fly down from Canada and completely take care of that side of things. In the end, it was all great fun but exhausting. For moving from the US to Canada, every item needs to be itemized and valued, which when dealing with hundreds of car parts makes things tedious.

I dropped my Audi off at a garage in Ottawa on Jan 18th and flew down to North Carolina to meet my father flying in from Ireland. We met in the airport and arrived at the house around 1.30AM.
The next morning, we started gutting my parts car and taking anything unnecessary off to the scrap yard. Sadly, some really good bits had to go, such as a complete B5 S4 2.7TT engine & 6 Speed Box

Starting off:






About 2 hours in we had the rear subframe, 2.93 LSD, front subframe, struts, rear pop out windows, doors and wings saved from the '86 coupe.






By the end of the day we had 3 tons of stuff loaded into/onto an F-150 + 25' trailer.





The end of the line for the gold car. Pity, as it was pretty clean.


Yes, that is a perfectly good Audi 01E and 2.7tt getting dumped. A crime, I know, but I couldn't bring it to a 1 bedroom apartment in Ottawa lol




We then took a break and went to see my friends latest arrival. He had upgraded from a 2 stroke to an all new 4 stroke.







The boss (better half) was arriving a few days later, so we wanted to at least have something to show for our few days head start. We cracked on with the garage, at which point I made the decision to bring my white e30 with me rather than store it there for 1-2 years. I made some calls and secured a 10x30 storage unit in Ottawa. $300/month for an unheated -20c box, but I'd rather that than not be able to tinker.





Off we went, counting spanners and sockets and making a list.







Dad then made a dolly that mates up to the engine mounts on my spare BMW m20b25 + Getrag box. It balanced well and allowed it to be pushed around like a wheelbarrow.



After 3-4 days of what seemed to be never ending packing, sorting, eating, barely sleeping, repeating; we got 100% loaded up. In hindsight dad should have saddled up with me for the adventure, but we were focused too much on the paperwork to have changed his flights. As usual, he was an absolute hero and I couldn't have gotten it done without him. Donna did an unbelievable job on the house, and had the entire place packed and loaded solo.

With the place packed, it was very hard to say goodbye to such a beautiful house/area/friends/colleagues, but what else could I do. The stinger was that with there being no feasible way for me to work physically in the region, we had to let some people go. Absolutely gut wrenching. How very short sighted/naive of the administration.

While the packing was nearing completion and I was submitting my paperwork to Canadian border folks, the talks of the Arctic Blast were heating up. Donna had to fly back in a hurry as she had a case the next morning, so I had no choice but to head North solo, Arctic Blast be damned!
I'm not scared of driving in winter conditions, as I'm pretty used to it after years in Canada, but a fully loaded 20' Truck + Car Trailer deviates from my CV somewhat.

So, off I went!

All strapped up the afternoon before leaving


6AM


The first few hours were fine, but in crossing the Chesapeake Bay I had inadvertently said good bye to the sun for the next 2-3 days


Upon getting into Pennsylvania, things gradually got worse. I never take photos while driving, but I had to capture some of the trip/events. I never took a photo with cars behind me or when I didn't feel comfortable, and in the 600+ mile trip I only took these few. None when it was truly scary.







Checking on things before crossing into New York State


From here, there are no photos as it was severely nerve wracking. I was weighing up options to keep going and drive the next 6-7 hours straight and stay ahead of the weather, or stop for the night and deal with the consequences the following day. I decided to at least get to the point where I was setup for a more comfortable final leg, so I pushed on to a place called Binghamton NY and got a hotel. The last 2 hours were genuinely frightening with trucks in ditches and cars losing control everywhere. You'd set yourself up for a climb up a long hill, only for some twit to cut you off. A few times down changing meant brown pants moments as wheels start skidding while trying to keep momentum going.

An important lesson that I learned years ago in Canada, is that "if you think the highway is bad, you don't ever want to see how bad the small roads are". That's why I didn't get off for the night in the smaller towns.
The next morning I unfortunately had to go cross country for about 50 miles. Just when I was cursing my horrible existence, I saw these tough guys. It was -25c and blowing hard, and here they were headed off somewhere.



What was sobering was seeing how poor some of the towns were in up state New York. Houses that looked derelict had people inside.

I crossed the border with limited hassle from the Canadians due to my exhaustive listing of everything in the truck/on the trailer. After 30mins of paperwork, they didn't even go outside to look at the truck, but simply stated that it was nice to see an actually list for once. I then had to walk across the street to the American side to finalize the export of the 2 vehicles. Mr America there was an utter dcikhead, and despite me having a receipt showing that they in that very office had approved the export, he threatened to impound the Audi. Impossible, as it was in Ottawa getting the timing belt done. Long story short, he took my title and is making me drive back to the US next week to get it back.

All that taken car of I was in the home stretch with it only being -16c and sunny. Rather than wait for assistance, I was mentally done with the trip and decided to empty the truck solo. It took about 4 hours but I just wanted it done.
I then pushed the car off and hoped for the best in letting gravity take over (no brakes). An A1 job as it coasted about 20mm off the wall and lined up perfectly!





So now a new chapter starts up here in Canada once more. I will continue working for the US side of the company as we phase out things there over the next 5-6 months. After that, who knows!

[witchcraftz]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

Crazy adventure! Your description of the roads and drivers sounds like the experience of driving from Vancouver to Calgary in winter.

The US border person sounds like someone who thinks very highly of themselves and likes throwing their authority around.

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

As someone who has moved countries a couple times in the last few years I can understand the pain, granted I have not had the same level of stuff to move or the same level of corporate support.

Congrats on getting it done and taking what you could, hopefully this will work out for you now, back in Canada. The US and UK are making some strange choices for their countries and losing some good people in the name of something, but that is a whole other topic.

I still love that E30!!!

[PRY4SNO]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

What a wild ride. The things we do for cars.

[Feens]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

Jesus Ger you got the run around with the yanks.... good to see the e30 back in canada, im on the hunt for something, the Audi is on kijiji and i need a project, we are driving to nova scotia this summer from Valleyview, so will be passing Ottawa, send me your canadian number and ill give you a buzz

[e30mclow]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

I've been making slow progress, despite having no power or heat in the horrible frozen storage unit.

I don't know what the term for this is - It isn't flooded, more so iced? Anyway, ice all over the place. I've since moved things around to avoid them sticking to the floor.




I sealed my door, so it must be running under the wall from the next unit.

I've pulled and started thinning out the wiring harness:







Until I'm petrified enough to spend $$$$ on a pedal box or remote booster setup, a boosterless 400-450hp death trap will do.
I've downsized the master cylinder to a 17mm piston unit that has all hoses coming off of one side. This along with the offset mods I did a few pages ago allows me to clear the intake manifold.



Lots of e30 race guys run 19mm unassisted master cylinders, so in speaking to some of them, a 17mm is the best compromise for now.

Seems as the intake manifold needs to come off to get the harness out, I decided to have some pieces media blasted.







The media blasting guy had some toys that we'll all appreciate, but I only took one secret photo (he had this, an S2, an 8L s3 and a mk2 VR6 here, but had a b5 RS4 elsewhere)


I then went hunting down odds and ends to link up my heater matrix, so a trip to a pick & pull was needed.
I spotted this there


This is the complex twisty thing I came up with, as it needs to snake around the fuel rail & intake manifold, as you can see.




I then loosely put things back together to avoid losing pieces. I have picked up some 440cc injectors locally from a JDM 2JZ, which I'll swap in once I'm satisfied that it is still running OK.





I've currently got the cam covers off and I'm stripping them down for paint.

I also started making rough layouts for a custom radiator that will fit within the uprights of the front panel, behind the intercooler. I've sent out some CAD drawings for some quotes, so we'll see what comes back.

I'll need to remove the hood latch system completely, but this will free up enough space for a massive puller fan.


I'll be reusing the stock expansion tank so that I'll retain the level sensor/dash light.
I will pick up a new reservoir once I know everything is working.




Hard to get scale on this lump of steel, but it is a 1-2 selector for the Nissan transmission that I'm using. It was quicker to order this at home in Ireland, so it has arrived there and my dad is playing around with it.


We're hoping to be able to modify it to allow me mount my gear lever directly to it. Failing that, we'll need to have someone replicate it using a CNC machine or something.
I've bought a 240sx shifter plate similar to this one, which we're hoping to modify to fit the Nissan cover plate + catch the aforementioned selector, seen below.







So, that's where I'm at.

I'm going to measure and make up some power steering and fuel lines, which will go in before the harness.

Things left to do before I turn the key and burn 35 storage units down:

Fuel Regulator
Power Steering Lines
Custom Rad
Harness (90% complete) + Splice in the gauges (boost and AFR) and Apexi AFC
Bigger Fuel pump (but I'll start it on the stock one)

I should have a turn key moment in late April, hopefully.

Then to drive it, it'll need:

Brake lines & reservoir
Custom front half shaft
Remove the carpet again and weld up the transmission tunnel
Finish the DIY shifter relocation
Balls of steel

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

Love this thread!!!!!!

[witchcraftz]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

What an awesome sleeper car!

[e30mclow]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

Trying to bring the shifter back to the stock e30 position is proving difficult.
My piece came in from Nissan (same as the one my dad got in Ireland), which I was going to modify, but upon measuring the sweep angles that'd have been produced, I figired 1-2, 2-3 and 5-6 movements would have been great, but the left to right movement would have been far too short to be reliable.


I ended up breaking down and dropping my money on an early run of these shifters


It does exactly what I want, and although it is expensive, my efforts would have likely ended up costing the same but taking far longer.

This is the only other option, which you can see is ridiculous, and almost $900CAD lol
I'd need to remove my handbrake mechanism just to fit it!

[e30mclow]

Re: e30mclow's latest e30

I've just recently (last week) moved into a new place with an actual garage, but there has still be some progress.

The focus has been gathering the necessary parts so that when I have the facilities, it should simply be a case of GO!

Cleaned up the cam covers




The wiring harness is all in and tucked away nicely


The AFC is spliced into the ECU via a patch harness



I moddified the radiator, to tuck it within the front panel. I also lucked out and found that a 21" baking tray makes the perfect fan shroud. I've changed from a 16" fan to a 14", so things should fit nicely now.





Just laying in there, but it'll be tucked flush with the core support




Smuggled some parts back from the US over Easter


Custom made relocation shifter, which better damn well work after how long it took and how expensive it was.


I'll need to split the transmission and cut the main selector rod in half to fit it....eeeek.

I've decided to go 5 stud, in order to utilize e46 325i front & rear brakes










This will also allow me to run these Pontiac GTA wheels. 16x8 square, et16 front et0 rear - Perfect e30 specs.
Ignore the tires, they're obviously not going to stay









There has been a whole bunch going on that I don't have photos of, like making up the brake lines, turbo feed lines, 440cc injectors and other small things.

I pick the car up from the unit tomorrow, after which I can hopefully get it running this month.
Then the focus will be pulling the transmission and fitting the shifter, making a driveshaft and then buttoning it all up.

Once the wheels are mocked up and tire sizes are selected, I'll start the necessary bodywork and it'll be DIY paint booth time