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Thread: The schwarzes loch build - supercharged e36 convertible

  1. #126
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Posts
    1,089
    My Cars
    '96 328iC, '89 325i
    Quote Originally Posted by CblockM3 View Post
    Man it seems like you have had some bad luck with this car, props for not giving up on it.
    I can't. Couldn't even imagine it. I love it way too much. Put my soul into it. Once my e30 is sorted out I plan a little resto for the car to bring it up to its full potential.

    Ha I didn't even take pictures of more bad luck... took me a month to put it back together. Got a ddm bumper, painted it in my garage. Drove it to work because I was so happy and it looked so good. Hit a contractor bucket on the highway that fell off a truck, got bounced around (few other cars hit it first) and then popped in front of me with no warning and I nailed it. Broke the lux slats again, cracked the bumper (thankfully not severely) and cracked the new trim strip... I was seeing red for hours.
    Last edited by cpalella; 07-23-2015 at 02:08 PM.


    '96 328iC, '96 328i, '89 s52 swapped 325i
    Shadetree30

  2. #127
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Posts
    1,089
    My Cars
    '96 328iC, '89 325i
    Got new tires. The pilots were pretty worn out. They were great tires, but I need more grip. So I got a set of bf goodrich rivals 245/40r17. Had them installed without any spacers and they were fine. Added spacers to improve the fitment, and they rubbed everywhere. Made the stupid mistake of installing everything, driving around the block, assuming they were fine then drove to work the next day. Well, they rubbed everywhere and I jacked up my passenger fender and made those new tires look old and ugly from all the rubbing. That was dumb. Rolled all the fenders again and raised the rear like an inch. Front doesn't rub, rear rubs a little on big bumps.






    Finally got a new radio. The oem unit finally died. Volume control stopped working. I got kenwood bt958hd. Cleanest aftermarket radio I could find with all the features I wanted. I just wish it wasn't so shiny and then it would blend in very nicely. I also ordered new speakers and an amp.








    A set of coilovers came up for sale locally that I think would suit my new tire setup and ride height. The GC coilovers I have currently are EXCELLENT AND SUPERB and they ride incredibly well. But I like my car lowered more than they recommend and I had very little shock travel in the front. The AST zero clearance coilovers were built specifically to offer high quality performance at a low ride height. I won't be slamming the car on the ground, but probably maintain the current ride height. I also wanted to try these since the suspension travel should be much less and help limit rubbing. If they work out, my GC setup will be for sale.

    Last edited by cpalella; 07-23-2015 at 02:20 PM.


    '96 328iC, '96 328i, '89 s52 swapped 325i
    Shadetree30

  3. #128
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Posts
    1,089
    My Cars
    '96 328iC, '89 325i
    While the exhaust was still bolted to the car, I tacked the places where it was cracked to preserve positioning. You can also see where I ghetto rigged a bracket to replace the bracket that broke.





    Here are a couple close ups of where the welds cracked. You can see the crack directly at the outer edge of the factory weld. You can also see some of my tack welds.









    Please excuse the dirty car. Its honestly hard for me to look at. Probably the dirtiest the car has been in years. It had to sit outside for a couple days a while back while I worked on the e30 and I haven't had a chance to clean it since.

    Anyway, started pulling the suspension off to install the AST zero clearance coilovers. Also note the nice exhaust tip centering.



    Last edited by cpalella; 09-24-2015 at 04:12 PM.


    '96 328iC, '96 328i, '89 s52 swapped 325i
    Shadetree30

  4. #129
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Los Angeles
    Posts
    1,089
    My Cars
    '96 328iC, '89 325i
    Wow. Nearly 2.5 years since I last posted here. A lot has happened, both good and bad. Unfortunately, my plans to do a mini resto on this car were rather violently interrupted about 2 years ago on the dot. Those were dark times... about 4 months prior to the incident with the E36, I had an accident in my E30, literally a week or two after it felt comfortably "finished". It was supposed to be my daily.

    Viewer discretion is advised. I promise the updates and the photos get better.



    Merging out of highway traffic, someone pulled out of a dead stopped lane with no warning right in front of me. I swerved but caught the corner of their bumper.



    Luckily there was no structural damage. All cosmetic plus the inner fender. I used this as an opportunity to lose my mind and take the car to the next level, and then a level over that, and maybe another level up from that.

    Painted the engine bay this beautiful color



    Finished the bay looking like this



    The new improvements included a clutchmasters twin disc clutch + hydro throw out bearing, BBK at all 4 corners + 25mm master cylinder, rear seat delete, frp FIA approved bucket seats, CAE style short shifter, fender flares, 16x9s wrapped in toyo r888s, AN converted power steering lines adding a cooler and aluminum reservoir amongst other things

    Here's how the car looks now






    Started hitting more autocross and tracks days. This car is a beast and it loves to be driven hard.



    Also moved into a new place with an extra deep 2 car garage so I've got plenty of room for activities and even my own private garage bathroom! I've already added loads more shelves, brought in my bolt bins, added some decor, 5.1 surround sound. Now just need to get a beer fridge and 220v to power the 80 gal 150psi air compressor my roomate brought [IMG]file:///C:\Users\CHARLE~1.PAL\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlcl ip1\01\clip_image001.gif[/IMG] The LED panel lights are dope. Highly recommended. I calculated that all 9 of them in the garage pull like half the load of ONE of the 200w bulbs that I used to have in there. It's like sunlight and diffused really nicely so there's no shadows.








    Alright now that I've brought you back up from that awful tragic photo of the e30, time to knock you back down.

    After the e30 got smashed, I started dailying the e36. It was not ideal since the car really needed some tlc, but I had no choice. Unfortunately, I was involved in another accident which occurred in very similar circumstances. One of those typical idiotic and impatient LA drivers driving like a fool in the worst circumstances. On my way to work traffic was slowing due to a lane closed for construction. I noticed in my rearview mirror this guy weaving through the slowing traffic behind me. I kept my eye on him. As traffic slowed further he ended up in the lane next to mine, blew past me and then cut me off merging into my lane as traffic slowed in his lane. Right after he cut me off he slammed the brakes since the car in front of him started to brake hard. It was like slow motion... I knew what was going to happen before it happened and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. This is the aftermath.






    I was devastated. Had the car flat bedded to my house and parked it nose first into a corner so I wouldn't see the damage. I knew it would be a while before I was able to work on it since I wasn't even midway through getting the e30 up and running, but I also didn't think it would take THIS long to really make progress on it. "Finishing" the e30 took far longer than I thought it would. I kept adding stuff to the list continuously for a solid year and as components on the car were changed/modified, that would cause new issues to crop up and further testing and refining to make everything work the way I wanted it to. I'll also be honest, I kinda lacked the motivation to even dig into it. Having just gone through nearly the same process on the e30 I was kind of burnt out to the whole idea and I became obsessed with "perfecting and finishing" the e30 instead. Weeks became months became years. Literally. A couple of times I made some effort to find parts, make lists of items I needed, look for deals and I picked up some items, but the passion wasn't really in it and I got discouraged quickly. I didn't even open the hood for at least a solid year to survey the extent of the damage and figure out what was salvageable. Add to that a kind of roller coaster year for me personally and you start to get the picture. I quit my (very good) job nearly a year ago to pursue another (better) opportunity which blew up in my face. I got laid off 3 weeks into the new job which led to unemployment for a few months. Luckily I picked up a job as the purchasing manager for West Coast Customs which was really cool and fun for a while but didn't pay well and included no benefits aka not really a good long term solution. In the meantime I moved into the aforementioned house and garage which was/is awesome. Since then I started a new job with an aerospace component manufacturer which finally rounds out the year of turmoil and leaves me actually MUCH better than I was when I left the first job to begin with.

    That said, here we are. Back on track. I feel that I finally got the e30 to an awesome level of completeness were I can drive it and enjoy it while I revive my beloved e36. As of now I have finally transported the car from the old garage to the new and started to rebuild it in earnest. To be fair I did make some decent progress over the past couple of months. Mostly I did a lot of dirty work that I wasn't looking forward to.

    First step was to pull off the smashed pieces and push it out of the corner so it could get washed and clay barred. Surprisingly it wasn't that hard to get it shining again. This was January 2017




    A month later I sold the stanceworks zero clearance AST coilovers because well, they were super low. Needed to free the funds to have another set of coilovers made to my spec.




    I got a set of blown shocks and springs and stuck those on the car to keep it rollable




    Took me a solid 3 months after the car went in the garage to even open the hood.




    It was a filthy mess. I got discouraged again. Bought a new daily in the meantime. I made sure that I didn't like the car to deter me from doing any modding or deciding to keep it. I hate sedans. But I do like the wheels. Sold the set of polished RSs that came with the car and picked up these. Had them powdered light grey.




    Finally in June I got into it again. 5 months after the car went in the garage I finally put my hands on it.... for an afternoon.




    2 months later in August I surveyed the damage and went to a junkyard to start finding parts. Sawzalled some pieces of a junkyard car and grabbed a new core support plus nose panel.




    Also moved the engine stand and crane in front of the car hoping some good samaritan would pass by and do me the solid of pulling the motor and bolting it to the stand.... didn't happen.

    Since it was clear the only person that would help me was me I rolled up my sleeves. Cut out the crushed inner fender. Man its filthy in there.




    Pulled the motor






    The end of the frame rail flange got a bit mangled so I cut that off too




    In the meantime, I noticed that the pilot bearing was starting to disintegrate. Glad I caught that before it gave serious trouble.




    Welded the new end on the frame rail




    A month later in September I tacked the inner fender in place and checked fitment (apparently not well enough because a week ago I put a fender on that side and it was way off )






    About two weeks later I worked up the courage to get really messy. Pushed the car out of the garage and lifted it on stands as high as it would go. Bought two gallons of industrial degreaser.




    Also took this opportunity to clean out the garage




    Getting a much needed bath. This was awful to do. Really messy, but the end result was worth it. No more black greasy grime all over the bottom of the car. I can actually work on it now without needing to industrial degrease myself right after.




    Some of the "before". This was already after one pass with degreaser and a brush.




    After the cleaning and removing the fenders, some rust was exposed. I wire wheeled it and sealed it. Wasn't that bad.








    Here it is all cleaned up. I honestly didn't know the underbody seal was tan colored. Thought it was black because of all the greasy dirt.




    Sealed and underbody coated the inside of the inner fender




    Degreased the engine next




    In october I finally found motivation to finish the engine bay. Welded some holes shut, cut off some brackets and then filled sanded and primed the fenders








    Ready for paint




    Done





    3 months later I brought the engine to my new garage and the fun really begins. I'll leave the progress here for now. Lots more already happened. Lots of good stuff yet to come.



    '96 328iC, '96 328i, '89 s52 swapped 325i
    Shadetree30

  5. #130
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Peoria, AZ
    Posts
    7,696
    My Cars
    03 zhp, 97 e36m3, 04 zhp
    Damn dude, props for staying dedicated and saving these!

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