Ke70Daves New Euro Toy

[ke70dave]

Hah yep! I saw a few brackets like mine for sale for quits alot of cash. $15bucks at bunnings and an afternoon and i made that. 

[LittleRedSpirit]

Epic update!

Are you going to dyno it and bring it to the drags then to set a benchmark?

[ke70dave]

I probably should!

On the weekend i tackled cleaning up my wiring. I removed the original wiring loom as much as i could. I have a spare oem harness that i am going to strip out all of the engine stuff and just have the other wires (starter motor, alternator, gauges etc). that way i can remove all the old injector wiring etc from the car. 

I unfortunately had a setback. In trying to get the tachometer output working i appear to have blown one of the outputs on the ecu. Opened it up and i can see the cooked transistor. Will replace that at some stage. Own fault, shorted it by mistake....

 

[ke70dave]

Right well. Where did those 6 months go? Who knows. Ill tell you where they went painting the house. Would would have thought it would take so much effort to paint a house? Another 2 Saturdays and the house will be painted i reckon. 

Anyway, e30 has kept going. drive it to work a few times a week. Surprised my megasquirt install has given basically zero trouble. I make slight changes to the tune every now and then. get great fuel economy and it really is a dream to drive. love the baby 6 cylinder. 

Big news as of a few weeks ago, i picked up a second hand door to replace the dented door. Car costs have been on the low priority so took me a few years to finally find a white one from the early model that was in pretty good condition. picked this one up for $40. It does have a small rust bubble on it, but for $40 it will last me a few yrs. All that is left from the incident a few yrs ago (Read back a few pages...) is a new bonnet, its got a ding or two and is the wrong color.... I have a red one in the shed but that costs to much to get painted. I almost had a white one secured the other month, but upon further investigation the "slight rust" was basically "it was rusted to shit" so i left that one. 

I did buy a second hand subframe, plan is to weld on the brackets to allow toe and camber adjustment. but thats been in teh shed for a few weeks now. Maybe christmas holiday project 😐

anyway, here is a happy snap of when i washed it last weekend for the first time in...forever.

 

Edited August 28, 2019 by ke70dave

[ke70dave]

Minor update. I got some lower and much stiffer springs for the rear. Looks cooler and is much nicer to drive. No more bounce in the rear. And i went to the skid control "grip and slide" at lakeside last weekend. Loads of fun fooling about. Next upgrades will be tires!

[ke70dave]

Well time goes on, 

Latest project has been changing the oil pump drive arrangement. 

My engine being the older style has a distributor in the side of the block, this distributor also drives the oil pump. Bit of an odd arrangment because the oil pump is actually in the sump driven off the drive shaft (as opposed to the pump being on the crank like alot of engines) 

Anyway crux of the story is ever since i have owned this engine i have had a very annoying vibration sound at about 2000rpm through to about 3000rpm. Loud enough that you can hear it if you rev it while stationary, but once you are moving you cant hear it. 

I actually identified the issue as being the distributor itself. However since i have converted to the LS1 coils on the megasquirt i dont need the distributor anymore!

so i finally got around to tracking down the late model parts to remove the distributor (basically the distributor gear with a cap to block the hole. 

Removing and replacing the sump IN the car was a complete pain in the ass. IF you look closely you can see a strategically placed block of wood under the engine mount to make it possible.  But eventually we got it done. I had a spare sump that i cleaned up, new gasket. Cleaned up the oil pump which was in pretty good condition. 

Got it all back together the other weekend and it all seems to work as it should, and best part is the annoying sound is gone! 

Have also been doing a bit more tuning, mainly on the Advanced acceleration enrichement in megasquirt. pretty interesting algorithm that tries to predict how much fuel is stuck on the walls of the cylinder and how much is sucked off the walls. its only minor adjustments (+/- ~5%) but it has made a good difference to how it drives. Anyway a couple of photos, as well as a cool wide angle photo for fun. 

You can see the block/crank/rods looks fairly crusty....and it was....so i made the executive decision to put the sump back on and forget about the crustyness. 

Edited December 2, 2019 by ke70dave

[ke70dave]

One year on hey, and what a strange year it was. 

Covid has kept us all on our toes, strange working form home arrangements but we had a second child in February 2020. Working from home permanently was pretty great in seeing the family every day. 

I lost my job in july but was very lucky to find something else very quickly and it has a company car. I'm not allowed to drive the car for non-work purposes, but  i can drive it home every day. so I sold my little Subaru Impreza runaround in july and I just use the e30 when required. (which isn't very often with the way things work at the moment)

I don't even think i even changed the oil in 2020 in the e30. I did just buy some in the xmas sales so ill do that when i get a chance.

In june i got a set of bridgestone RE003 for the car as they had a buy 3 get 4 deal going. The tyre size is a weird size of 205 55 r15. and hardly anyone makes a tyre in that size. Lots of people go 205 50 R15 that is quite common but it makes the rolling diameter a bit small for my liking. the Re003 are pretty damn sticky though and really transformed the car, sticky enough for cruising around. 

I think i might consider 16" wheels in the future as there just isnt many R15 options anymore. But given how long its going to be before it requires tyres again that might be a while!

After a long drive on the highway in November last year I got sick of the stiffer springs in the back, and i put the oem springs back in but i took out the rubber spring pads which lowered it about 10mm and its actually pretty great. So the back is oem sport springs and the fronts are slightly lower king spring (which are only slightly stiffer than oem). I think it actually looks pretty good being slightly higher at the back (but not as high as what it was with the other king springs from a few pages back. raising the back slightly has also considerably reduced the negative camber and toe in so i dont need to get those correction kits anymore, so thats a plus. 

To counteract the now softer springs  i picked up whiteline 3 way adjustable sway bar for $250 i think it was in the pre Christmas sales. OEM is the "mtech" one which is 14.5mm, so already the stiffest oem one. but this new one is 16mm. It has made a subtle but very nice difference even just on the softest setting. Can dive into corners with more confidence but no real change to comfort at all. the new swaybar bushes have probably also helped too. It seems to have really helped with the inside wheel spinning on tight corners. 

My steering wheel leather is in quite poor shape so i am considering getting something different. its 380mm that is on the big side so i don't want to get a 350mm, that would be too small as the steering ratio is simliar to that of a school bus. so i dunno what to do there. A nardi classic has always been my favourite wheel but might not suit the interior. Perhaps a nardi gara 3 would be nice with the padded centre and they come in 370mm. I have been keeping an eye on yahoo auction, at least we are buying almost 80yen now. 

Pending how things go i do plan to do some more skid pan events this year. so will report back when/if that ever happens. 

Anyway a couple of photos!

Edited January 6, 2021 by ke70dave

[altezzaclub]

That last photo looks great!   I'd say that's a perfect ride height.

[ke70dave]

Thanks! photo is just taken on the phone of all things. but bit of christmas lights there makes it look pretty good. 

I bought a new Mic for the DSLR and did a bit of night testing a few months back. Not the most exciting video but gives an idea of the sound of the mighty 2.3L 6cr but perhaps i should make some more videos....

https://youtu.be/EdDi6myfYfk

And For the first time in a while i have another update only 1 day after my last one. took the bonnet off last night to fix some dents that i have been meaning to fix for approximately......3 years. got a can of color matched paint done up and i sprayed some on the paper there and it looks close enough to me. Better than dents anyway....

I started bashing the dents last night but got in trouble for waking the kids. So ill see if i can get some bashing in before they go to bed tonight....

One of these days id like to get the whole car painted professionally, but that's going to have to until i have a spare $5k or so...so might be some time. 

Edited January 6, 2021 by ke70dave

[Banjo]

We all know Dave luvs his Euro Toy (E30), but I wonder if he is so dedicated as this guy, who when he put down his last spanner, & drained the oil for the last time, . . . . had to take his Bemmer with him. (well a replica anyway)

Now there's a good idea for my olde KE30, if my kids don't want it.

Instead of the usual Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes,  it will be . . . . .  Rust to Rust !

Cheers Banjo

Edited January 20, 2021 by Banjo

[ke70dave]

haha i am not that committed! 

Pluss that looks to be an e92 convertible. yuck! haha

rust to rust is actually chemically correct to. since steel starts out as iron oxide....ah i need a coffee. 

I suppose i should update on the dodgy dave's panel beating day. what started as "lets just take the bonnet" off resulted in the below. 

I ended up removing all of the AC components. with the intention of assessing condition and determining if they need to be replaced. someone has been playing in here (which is expected) and there is a huge miss match of parts. Looks like i am basically up for a new of everything. 

some notes:

- mixture of original black orings (R12) and new green orings (R134a compliant) - funnily enough the green ones were found in the easy to get places, the black ones in the hard to get...
- a generic R134a TX valve has been put in in place of the R12 one (will get a new one of these, genuine is about $70)
- original full copper evaporator under the dash (very cool, as the new ones are all aluminium. Hopefully this is salvageable. I am going to remove it and clean it up. worst case some brazing will fix any damage) - This is going to be a pain in the ass to remove. as its designed to be easily accessible to LHD cars that don't have 3 pedals and a steering column in the way. 
- All but one hose is trashed. these hoses are all available brand new (around $140 each). they are on the exhaust side so its no wonder they perished. I might actually look into custom hoses as i would like to re-route the hoses if i can - they sort of get in the way of...everything. 
-Compressor original "made in west germany" R12 compliant 
-R134a pressure switch and receiver dryer - looks like the newest thing in the system - everything i read suggests to buy a new dryer/reciver - they only cost 60$ 
- condenser- looks to be original R12 tube and fin unit. its only a single pass where as the r134a ones are dual pass  (cause r134a isn't as good as the atmospheric destroying delicious r12). Probably just get a new one of these as they only cost about $140. 
-condenser fan is original but it looks fine to me. 

I also realised recently that my condensor fan acts as a secondary cooling fan for the engine, with a 2 speed temp switch in the radiator giving two speeds of fan (ie turns on slow at X deg, and then goes fast when it gets to X deg.) there is a massive resistor on the fan that i assume does the slow speed. This has never worked as long as i have had it, and i have just relied on the mechanical engine fan. So this is something to investigate further. 

but anyway, i ended up removing most of the front end. Attacked it with degreaser and a scrubbing brush. gave the engine a good clean at the same time. Came up quite good. 

Painted that strip under the head lights, touched up the paint on the front valance thing (had surface rust around most edges). Put a different kidney grill on that i bought years ago. mine was quite broken and cracked. I also managed to straighten out the chrome bumper a little bit more. Its still not perfect. but its better than it was. 

I actually ran out of paint but this was the weekend when QLD had their lock down due to the....thing. So I did the best i could and put it all back together. 

The bonnet isn't perfect but its up to the point now where a bit of fillter in the dents will get it sorted. might see how enthusiastic i get after i finish this carport i am building at home....I do have a spray gun and a compressor here. but its a tiny compressor. Maybe an upgrade is in order

Anyway, couple of photos of some old shitty AC bits that you might...enjoy?

Best part is when you stand back about 10m you cant see any of the imperfections i'm talking about.

Edited February 10, 2021 by ke70dave

[LittleRedSpirit]

Looks awesome Dave, all the better for it.  I think youve got your terms backwards with the refrigeration bits, the condenser is in the front of the car, the evaporator is under the dash, unless im learning something.  Ride height is perfect yes.

[ke70dave]

yep round the wrong way, fixed it up. 

I am almost there on the AC stuff. will get some photos at some stage. 

I ended up buying a generic Sanden modern compressor as new OEM just wasn't available anywhere and am half way through fabricating a bracket to mount it to the engine....picking up the last bit of steel tomorrow! 

All going well it might be complete over the weekend. 

The evaporator and condenser were determined to be acceptable by a local AC guy, he reckons once I have the compressor installed, just got to swap out the TX valve and put in a new dryer and it should be good to go. Which is good as it is SOO DAMN HOT lately. 

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by ke70dave

[ke70dave]

Well things have progressed slowly.

Attached you can see the setup i have come up with. 

Its a sanden SD5h09 compressor, grand total of $350 brand new. As opposed to my only other option was an R134a rebuild oem compression from USA, for $1600...

Being a standard size i was able to buy those laser cut adjustable brackets from a company down in NSW that specialises in putting AC on things that dont come with AC.

I then got a bit of 10mm steel and made up the plate. managed to drill 4 holes in the right place to bolt it on. 

All that is left is to weld it together and then clean up the bracket. You can see where ive started drawing the outline of where i might cut it off.

But anyway, will update once its cold! 

 

 

[ke70dave]

Right well time marches on and waits for noone!

Progress has been slow and steady on AC project. 

- TX valve has been replaced - painful job. found various types of 0-rings on the old tx valve. some green ones, some black ones, and even some brown ones (viton?). all repalced with new r134a compliant green ones. 

- bracket is finished. did have some dramas with it when i first put it on that i had forgotten about the crank angle sensor bracket. had to notch it out of the back (not in photo im afraid). but will be good. in heinsight i probably should have hung the compressor a bit lower but it will still work. fine. 

- I bought a TIG welder and have been learning to TIG. Since the new AC compressor has slighlty different sized pipes than the old one i had to weld on 2 fittings to the hard lines, one shown in the photo. Then i bought some rubber pipe and crimps and a crimp tool to make my own hoses from a shop up north that specialises in hot rod AC. i pressure tested my welds with house mains water pressure (~450kpa). Once i get my hoses made i will get my vaccum pump onto it to test before taking it to the shop for gas. 

So hopefully i am on the home stretch of AC! might get the bracket put back in on the long weekend and start on the pipes. 

in unrelated news i attended a lake side "euro day" a few weeks back. really good fun, never driven on lakeside before. what a cool race track. heres a photo of my brother and i with big grins on with a Ferrari Dino in hot pursuit!  had a blast. e30 performed floorlessly. Didnt explode so my DIY road tune must be ok.

Edited April 28, 2021 by ke70dave