Project E30

[Chris]

my motor mounts were shot and were causing a knocking during my last track weekend.

Pictures of the worn out mounts:





Pictures of the new bling:







Engine response seems better and smoother, and no more clunking!

[HAULN-SS]

excellent. Are those urethane?

[Dave]

damn, worn out is an understatement!

[ScottyB]

damn, worn out is an understatement!

yeah i think you got your money's worth out of the old ones

[Chris]

excellent. Are those urethane?

yup, can't have solid ones for spec e30... plus you want a little movement so things don't break!

I'm thinking I should now do my tranny mount as well... is this a worthwhile part to replace?

[PDenbigh]

I helped Sean put them on his tranny and he said the feedback was improved. He had a mount that looked surprisingly similar to your two piece one ;-). He too noticed the vastly improved throttle response with the engine mounts. I mean hey, why not!?

[PDenbigh]

P.S. Trim those zip ties lazy ;-).

[Evan]

I helped Sean put them on his tranny and he said the feedback was improved. ?

so it changes it from a bowl of oatmeal to a bowl of grits? :thumbup:
:lol:

[Chris]

so I'm prepping the car over the next 2 weekends for VIR and I need some advice on installing sway bars. I'm just curious if there are any tricks for installation or certain positions the bar and end links need to end up in. It looks as easy as removing the old bar and replacing, but things don't always work out that easy in an E30.

Here is one person's discription on pre-loading the end links from the Spec E30 board. Is pre-loading something I should be concerned with and does this sound correct?

The advice I was given was to have the car resting on the wheels (4x8x16 concrete pavers work well) and aim for a 90deg angle between the sway and end link. You do that by removing one end link and adjusting the other to get as close to 90deg as you can. Then twiddle the other link until it matches the bar. Ideally you'd do this with the car at race weight and the driver (or equivalent weight) in the driver's seat.

The way I solved the problem of drilling the holes in the trunk floor was to make up a sharp pin punch by grinding the end of a spare bolt. Then with the billet mount bolted in place I drove the end of the punch through the trunk from below using the through hole in the billet. Remove the mount and drill a slightly over sized hole there and index the other hole from it.

That's probably not a very good explanation of the process, but it might give you a hint as to how to proceed.

Thanks a lot guys for any advice.

[Mike]

yes, i would be concerned with preloading. yes, what he recommends would work. pretty much anything with bushings needs to be preloaded correctly (note: i did not say all).

not sure what he's talking about with the hole drilling?

[Chris]

sorry forgot to mention- the hole drilling is for reinforcement plates that bolt through the trunk floor. common problem for E30 are the rear end links are too weak for upgraded bars.

[Beej]

I dunno about the preloading stuff.

That said, the front should be easy peasy. In the rear, save yourself some time and yank one of the rear springs out - it's next to impossible to pull the old bar out and put the new one in with the rear springs in there. But yeah, make sure you definitely reinforce the trailing arm mounting points, and the 'through the trunk floor' ones are a good idea too.

[Evan]

never heard of worrying about the angle of the bar to the endlink, but maybe on the e30 suspension thats something you worry about.

the most important thing with pre-loading your bar is that there is no preload- ie you dont have to pry the bar to meet the endlink. do you guys use adjustable endlinks?

[Chris]

never heard of worrying about the angle of the bar to the endlink, but maybe on the e30 suspension thats something you worry about.

the most important thing with pre-loading your bar is that there is no preload- ie you dont have to pry the bar to meet the endlink. do you guys use adjustable endlinks?

the front is non adjustable, rear is adjustable.

[Chris]

Here is the front bar installed and under load with vehicle resting on floor. Ireland Engineering is back ordered on the rear bar, and should send it this week (god I hope!) They just sent me the hardware for the rear bar so I could prep pit.

How does this front bar look, notice anything bad?






Here is it unloaded:





Rear hardware installed:

[Chris]

well Bimmerworld is the best! Ireland Engineering won't have my rear bar ready until Friday and there is no way they could ship it to me in time for this weekend. I called Bimmerworld and Rob is going to bring me the rear bar and end links from one of their kits to VIR Saturday morning! He's just going to have IE ship the bar I ordered to them and do an easy swap. How awesome is that!

Damn, Sat. am is going to be busy for me...

[Chris]

Here is the rear bar installed under load. Got this on last Saturday at VIR and it made a huge difference in the car. Much less lean in turns and more prone to oversteer.




Now I have an engine hesitation issue I need to address and shaking under hard braking- probably warped front rotors.

Also, maybe someone has a solution for me. Is there a way I can have front window inserts (using the current window) by removing the window motor and mechanism in the door but still be able to have it securely in the up position so my car can't be broken into as easy? I was thinking of placing the window in the up position and hold it up with two 2x4 boards cut with a groove to support the window from the bottom. These boards would just stay on the inside of the door panel. Does that sound like enough to hold up the window, and keep it water tight?

[HAULN-SS]

I was thinking you could use a block, like you said, but slide it up on a wedge so the harder you pull it over to the high side of the wedge,t he tighter it is pushing up under the window. If you just tried to cut one to length, it'd probably be a real pain, and not work as good.

[Dave]

Pete did something on the XR to be able to have a window and pull it out for track events. IIRC it worked well and was very cleanly done (shock! :-) )

[Chris]

not much of an update, but got around to a couple things this past weekend. I no longer use a battery to lower the windows... it wasn't reliable enough and I had broken some of the parts in the window tracking. Now I just have the glass inserts and hold them up with bolts I drilled through the inside of the door panel.

Also removed the radio, speakers, antenna, front door door panels, and the rear shelf piece... so basically its completely bare inside now.