1992 E36 325i LS build

[bimerok]

It came with universal mount and I had to customize the pocket area. Few pix here

[lloydjoe]

Now that the yard is dirt once again and ready for grass, yesterday I had a chance to work on the car for the afternoon.

Got the intake torqued down, fabricated a simple throttle cable mount.



Connected some of the sensors, still waiting for the idle air controller and the power steering pump pulley.


Going to fabricate a heat shield today that bolts to the bracket on the strut tower. I dont really like the fpr and all the lines being right there.

[lloydjoe]

Got it to fire up this morning. This is the first time I have tried to turn the motor over. I cycled the key a few times to set the fuel pressure and check for leaks before I started it. Something is weird with the speedo, its acting like a tach but nothing is hooked up to either one . I still need to make one heat shield before I warm it up and brake it in. So today I am cleaning my garage, as you can see its a mess. Then maybe work on the car a bit. Still to do:

- air inlet filter
- one more heat shield
- assemble the interior
- install overflow/expansion jug (then fill with coolant)
- cut throttle cable to fit and install
- bleed brakes
- install clutch reservoir and bleed
- fill powersteering
- hook up reverse lockout solenoid
- install tail pipe on exhaust
- rad fan and head lights

and I think that is pretty much it. Tomorrow I am going to double check the part numbers of the dipstick and dipstick tube that I have. Something is not correct with it. I thought I bought a tube and dipstick from the F-body camaro LS1, those cars call for between 5.5-5.7 quarts of oil depending on who you talk to. I have just under 6 in it (spilled a container) and it is barely on the dipstick, only showing about 3/8''. However when I searched for LS1 oil capacity on the vette forums they say between 6.5-7. Either way, I know I have oil pressure at an idle and I will probably end up adding the extra quart.

- - - Updated - - -



This throttle body is deeper then the stock ones and its creating issues with trying to get a 90* coupler on it, and tight enough not to hit the rad fan shroud.




Probably going to move this brake line to the other side to give a little room for the coil. Need a shorter braided line then.


Just enough room for the clutch reservoir

[lloydjoe]

Well, I did the cam brake in today, discovered an oil leak but just let it run to break it in (leak wasnt too bad). Had some frustrating times today that chewed up a more hours then I wanted, but oh well.

Mounting places for the clutch reservoir


Reservoir mounted


This is what took most of my time today, the OEM plastic fitting broke. It was brand new and was a pain in the ass to install because there is no room in there. BMW says its in stock, in Germany... so 5-7 weeks away, which means snow will be here by then



But as you can see, I measured it up and created a replacement from 5/16" fuel line, bent it and flared both ends, filed it down, and so far it works. After this I found another fitting that I had that was loose :oops: but got it fixed. Tried to bleed it with a vacuum pump and still cant get it to work proper, it builds no pressure.

Put the hood on and played with the air inlet piping, just need to hunt for a filter tomorrow now.


That throttlebody is a pain in the ass


Also need to make the air inlet temperature sensor wires longer. It would work fine if the air inlet was going to the passenger side, but its not.

[lloydjoe]

First trip out, the brakes dont seem too bad with that booster and master setup although they do need bleeding again. There is a coolant leak from the drivers side rear steam line fitting, that one is easy to get to . I know people made comments before with the stock GM clutch and the BMW master cylinder and how easy the pedal goes down, but I wish I could feel what they have because I am sure I can push the pedal down with a finger or two and there is no feedback feeling with the twin disc clutch.

I also have a driveline vibration that was there with the stock motor, at that time I thought it was just a bad bearing/mount in the driveshaft and didnt worry about it. The only thing stock still is the rear diff, cv joints, and rear brakes. All the tires are brand new but I am going to bring it down tomorrow to get the balance checked on them again.

Now I can put the rest of the interior back together since its on the road

[lloydjoe]

Got most of the vibration figured out, had two bad bearings in the back and one cv joint that didn't want to flex properly. Installed new bearings, pads, rotors and CV joints. Only vibration now is from the motor, almost feels like a partially dead cylinder that gradually grows over 2400 rpm. Not sure how much driveline noise/engine vibrations is considered normal with Vorshlag motor/tranny mounts.

Had to machine the tips of the rocker arms to clear the walls of the valve covers (they were rubbing on the edge making noise).

Also had the mounting tabs on the front hubs machined down where the bottom of the strut bolts on. I installed the M3 front hubs with future plans of upgrading the brakes to something that is non-BMW. Then there was a large amount of camber which I did not want. With comparing the measurements between the 325i hubs and the M3 hubs I came up with 105 thou, but once in the mill my buddy came up with 118 thou. I reassembled everything, installed new lower control arms, did a rough alignment in the garage with a tape measure and the wheels look pretty straight right now. I am going to do a proper alignment in the near future.

One other thing to mention, I adjusted the throttle cable so there is almost no slack in it so I can get the most movement possible out of the throttle plate. It still only goes to 86% with the pedal to the floor. It will read 100% if I turn the throttle plate by hand. I don't know if the 92mm Fast throttle body has a different cam profile compared to the stock one as I don't have a stock one to compare it to. I am going to make an extension arm on the end of the gas pedal and move the cable up more to allow more movement of the cam.

[lloydjoe]

The alignment was done and the camber was in spec. If anyone wants to use the M3 hubs to be able to use larger brakes and retain the normal amount of camber without using camber plates, just need to machine 118 thou from the two strut mounting tabs.

[TipsyMcStagger]

Mounting places for the clutch reservoir


Reservoir mounted

Tell me more about those nutserts. Where did you source them and how are they installed?

And where'd you source that clutch reservoir?

Thanks.

Tipsy

[TipsyMcStagger]

Tell me more about those nutserts. Where did you source them and how are they installed?

And where'd you source that clutch reservoir?

Thanks.

Tipsy

I think I found my answer to one question. Looks like they're rivnuts. Pretty cool.

Tipsy

[lloydjoe]

The nut things were just something I stumbled upon at PrincesAuto, but I googled the rivnuts and they are pretty much the same. Pretty easy to use, just drill the proper size hole, insert the nut piece and squeeze the tool like a rivet gun.

As for the clutch reservoir, I hate to admit it but it is the brake reservoir from a Ford Focus hatchback. About a 2002 model. I just went walking in the local junkyard with a tape measure to see what would fit. It has the level switch in it so you can wire it up to a dummy light if someone feels the need. My harness just goes no where, just for looks so the connector wasnt sitting there empty.

Winter is almost gone here and I want to get the car out. I put the diff reinforcement plates, new diff with LSD, and new mounts in the day before it snowed in the fall. Still have not tried it out other than the drive around the block.

[natem31995]

impressive build. keep up the good work.

[lloydjoe]

I have been watching a few build threads on here and havent seen this before. Have many people ever bent the single bolt on the front of the E36 diff that holds it from tilting up/down? Now that my car has a few thousand kilometers on it I have been driving it harder, and well I have bent two of these bolts in the last 100 kms (60 miles). The first one bent, caused the front of the diff to tilt up, the 3" aluminum vorshlag driveshaft was then rubbing on the driverside parking brake cable support clip, the seam in the tunnel and gouged the shaft causing it to vibrate the car pretty bad. I then had a 2.75" steel shaft made up for more clearance, installed a new bolt, checked the driveline angles and all was good. Went for a drive, had no vibrations at all. Launched the car once and did a few hard pulls and hard shifts with no issues. Did one burnout for a few seconds and the vibration was back, bent the second bolt, angle of the diff is off, driveshaft has no marks on it.

I have a 6.2 with a wide ratio t56 magnum, 3.73 LSD diff, Toyo R1R tires, and TCKline suspension. It does get an amazing amount of traction I think. I would like to have a solution for this before taking it to the drag strip 3 hours away.

First bolt:



Second bolt:

[TipsyMcStagger]

I have been watching a few build threads on here and havent seen this before. Have many people ever bent the single bolt on the front of the E36 diff that holds it from tilting up/down?

Apparently, it's not all that uncommon. Have a look here and here.

I bought a 3.38 LSD from a guy on CL not too long ago. In our exchange of emails he wrote, "Oh and I modified the diff case to run a bolt through with a 12+ grade bolt and nut. That's what I am running on my turbo M3. Never broke one yet."

Up until receiving that email, I had never heard of this issue/mod.

Tipsy

[sdobart]

Diff bolt bending or breaking is a very common problem. People do it with the stock motors. There are a couple of braces you can buy, Mike Radowski from MaximumPSI in New Jersey makes one that is pretty cheap. Requires welding on though. The other is by ActiveAutowerkes, not sure if it's made anymore and is very expensive.

I personally run AKG Solid Aluminum diff bushings. They make a front bushing that takes an oversize 14mm bolt (stock is 12mm). In order to run this you have to tap your diff housing to 14mm. I've had no issues with this setup and a 14mm Grade 10.9 bolt. The solid aluminum allows 0 flex, and the larger bolt size is more resilient to bending.

[ButteDorFrank]

nice car ! lots of sweet new parts under that hood ! ... I have a lq4 collecting dust here too waiting to be swapped into my e21 ... I'll be reading alot more when the time comes !

post up some more videos !

[lloydjoe]

Thanks for the info, I think I am going to go with making one like the maximum PSI version. I am surprised more people that do the v8 swaps don't do this while everything else is being done.

Yes, I have to remember to grab my video camera more often when I head out. The battery life on the GoPro cameras are so annoying that I dont want to use them most of the time.

[lloydjoe]

I finally got around to removing the 2.75" driveshaft this evening and found something else. The driveshaft flange was cracked. I didn't notice it when I removed the bolt couple weeks a go. When I first looked at it, I thought that it cracked because something was in between the two surfaces creating a pressure point, but it was clean. I then measured the diameters of the centering rings and they are tight, but the do fit in each other, plus you can see marks all the way around that proves it was installed straight. Time to get another flange and get the driveshaft fixed. New diff brace and exhaust are on the list before I drive it again.

[jon volk]

I havent driven my RXT cutch, but I can say the pedal is so light that it feels broken.

The driveshaft flange that I have from JTR is beefy aluminum and must be a new design. Theres pics in my build thread.

[lloydjoe]

I havent driven my RXT cutch, but I can say the pedal is so light that it feels broken.

The driveshaft flange that I have from JTR is beefy aluminum and must be a new design. Theres pics in my build thread.

The part number wrote on your pressure plate is slightly different than mine, not sure if there is a difference between the two but I can say that my clutch pedal is very light. I must of drained a couple cups of fluid out the clutch bleed port when I was setting it up, thought it had air in the system somewhere because it didn't feel like it built any pressure. Very easy to depress, engages smooth, and the twin disc clutch feels like it will never let me down.

That JTR one does seem to be thick at the flange, but being aluminum it needs to be thicker than steel to have the same strength. I am going to see what the drive shaft repair shop can do for locating a flange. It takes too long to get things across the border into Canada it seems.

[jon volk]

How far off the floor does the clutch engage? Did you measure the throw out bearing to pressure plate clearance before bolting it up? I'm curious where yours ended up. Mine measures around .060"

[lloydjoe]

I didn't measure it when I put it together, just bolted it up. It feels like the clutch starts to engage about a third the way off the floor and is pretty much fully engaged just over half of the way off the floor. No issues with shifting into any gear while fully stopped. So far I only missed a couple of 6500+ rpm shifts, probably because I was excited and wasn't paying attention haha. You will probably be pleased with yours.

[lloydjoe]

Got the car back together with a new exhaust (way quieter but still gets loud at WOT), new driveshaft with a chromoly slip yoke for the front and the JTR flange for the rear. Checked again for cracked sub frame mounts and they are all good (I have the reinforcement plates in there). The car starts to vibrate just below 80 kph and the vibration gets louder as the speed increases. No vibrations in the steering wheel, its all in the chassis/rear of the car. While the car was in the air waiting for the driveshaft I also put on different wheels with not so sticky tires (balancing was checked on them). Had the car running on a hoist today and when the vibration starts, the driver side of the diff housing has a 'ting ting' sound, the guys listening to it thought possibly a bearing or internal alignment issue. Driveshaft spins straight, cv axles are good, all bushings were new this spring (replaced with OEM style). Guess its time to tear open an almost new diff this winter

[lloydjoe]

When I got the car put away for the winter I drained the diff fluid, it had an enormous amount of metal filings and sludge in it for less than 2000 kms. Trying to find a decent 210mm BMW diff here is kind of challenging without spending an arm and a leg. Upon disassembly the gear set was still wearing straight but the pinion bearing was rough. Probably could of just put in a new bearing but then I should probably avoid launching the car with sticky tires still. So I decided to go the Ford 8.8 way.

This is what I drained out of the BMW diff:


The way the 8.8 sits in the car now:


The back, the OEM sway bar still fits with lots of clearance:


I still need to get a couple of different washers or plates for the front two bolts but its at the point I can get the CV joints and driveshaft made. The length of the driveshaft is actually really close, the pictures look like a huge gap but the driveshaft is pushed almost all the way to the tranny seal right now. I have to get the mating U-joint/flange piece yet before I decide on what to do with it.

[kc jr 54]

Looks great! Your subframe looks pretty darn close to my own lol

Just waiting on DSS for my axles and drive shaft (ordered the beginning of December) and I'll be finished.

I went with their chromoly pinion yoke and used their stub shaft 930cv joints for the axles.

[lloydjoe]

Well the diff has been in for a while now and I have been driving it with little issues that I have been either working on or waiting to work on. I dont have any videos of it yet, still breaking in the diff. Have about another 400 kms to go. So far I do like the choice of going to the 4:10 ratio, with the 6th gear being 0.5:1 on the trans it makes it a bit easier to go down the highway running closer to 2000 rpm although first gear is really short. The CV axles seals that were put in from the shop when the diff was rebuilt were crappy, leaked right away. I had to change them out after driving for about 45 minutes.

The CV axles (they sent extra pieces and didnt bill me for them, called them up and shipped them back):


Passenger side:


Drivers side:


The signal converter came in last week for my speedometer, planning on hooking that up this week. I hope by the end of the month it will be broke in.