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Thread: Project 320ish - 1979 M50B25NV E21

  1. #26
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
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    DFW TX USA
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    1983 320I, 1986 325E
    Quote Originally Posted by Somjuan View Post



    I'm not a huge fan of the zender pod, because while it has excellent placement for visual use it blocks air vents and almost never looks like it was meant to be there in my opinion. So I'll 3D print this and fumble around a bit until I can get it to line up well with the dash, look like it belongs, and then fiberglass the lot of it to make a single cohesive piece. Who needs the seatbelt warning light anyhow?
    I never found those center vents to be all that useful. They seem to blow all of the cold air on the windshield... so it can get nice and hot. Also, when the vent is open, it greatly reduces airflow to all of the vents that can be aimed.

  2. #27
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
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    1979 E21 320i
    Thanks Randy!

    Thecatmilton : Yeah, I think that's the difference between pre and post facelift dashes. Those two are my only effective ones other than the four ac vents.
    Attached Images Attached Images
    -John

  3. #28
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
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    Sacramento, California
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    4,704
    My Cars
    1980 BMW 320i E21 M10B18

    Cool

    These cars have " flow thru ventilation",,more air from the vents open the back windows, can even feel the difference when back windows are closed and either the passenger or driver side window is cracked open...... Thats the way there designed.

    Sure
    John--dont forget the 2L crank , rods and pistons have value,, Josh had a set for sale for $400,, 80 mm conrods, crank and pistons,, 1.8L can be bored and use those 3 for more HP, keeping everything else the same..

    Randy
    Last edited by 320iAman; 04-29-2018 at 11:56 PM.

  4. #29
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
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    Sacramento, CA
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    1979 E21 320i
    Plodding along, but I came across a 1980 320is the other week! The tranny was gone and the rust was well beyond repair, but I scared up a set of Recaros! In fact, the rust was so bad that when I stood in the car both my feet went through the floor pan, Flintstones style. I grabbed some other pieces too, so if anyone is looking for sport parts give me a buzz. Got the front lip, the valence, the 3.91 LSD (in good order, working on getting a breakaway torque), toolkit plastics, sport steering wheel, a single sport wheel, and the rear trailing arms available at the moment. Most of the rest was lost to the rust wogglies as I like to call them.

    Parts help fund this adventure! I can ship, but it'll take me longer and be more expensive than picking up. Buyer pays shipping.

    Pictures incoming, but my phone took a bit of a dunk this weekend, so it'll be delayed.
    -John

  5. #30
    Join Date
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    Phone got fixed! No pictures of the recaros, but that's just because they're not worthy of being seen yet. I went ahead and dunked the seat rails in an electrolysis bath to see if they were salvageable, and all but one of them has escaped the need for welding. Pulling that one off and bringing it to the shop to see if it can be easily done, if not, it's not the worst. A little grease and paint post fix and the other three work like a charm.

    These baths are just the best things ever, I dunk the part, attach the electrodes, and walk away. Paint even peels off from the reaction!

    Next small thing was installing this beauty! Now I'm sitting on three spare sport wheels that I've lucked across in the last few months. This wheel tales the cake because of it's limited production, snapped it up off of craigslist for a decent price...probably way too stoked to have this one. Never selling it, ever.



    In more pertinent mods - I need an opinion. For a mere $100 more than the value of the Z3 five speed I could get the Z4 six speed, which bolts on to the engine when paired with the e46 ZHP flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate. I already have a good low mileage 5 speed. The only tangible difference being the final drive. Final drive on the five speed is 1.00, final drive on the 6 speed is 0.85. On the freeway this'll be the difference of 3000 rpm in fifth at 75 miles an hour and 2550 in sixth at 75. Neither here nor there, just curious what others think. It's larger, so it'd be more difficult to fit without some, uh, 'massaging' of the transmission tunnel.



    And in other progress - today I started up the jig for the subframe swap! Here's a couple pictures. It still needs four alignment rods welded to it for the mount ears at the ends and the differential mounts in the middle (to compensate for the proper driveline angle). The shop closed up early, so this was as far as I got. The donor stand is super robust to prevent heat warping, and raised so I can TIG weld the whole thing in two passes. Hopefully. Depending on the bead, I might have to do two passes on each end.



    And that's about it for updates! The differential and transmission reseal kits are on the way for tomorrow. I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon rebuilding the rear brakes.
    Last edited by Somjuan; 05-24-2018 at 07:37 PM. Reason: Math is hard
    -John

  6. #31
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
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    Savannah, GA
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    240
    My Cars
    83 320i 00 540i6 85 535i
    Great progress and options- Excited to see the evolution!

  7. #32
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
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    Sacramento, California
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    1980 BMW 320i E21 M10B18

    Cool

    If your doing a lot of freeway driving 0.85 6 speed will get better economy otherwise 5 speed.

    Randy

  8. #33
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
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    Santa Rosa, CA
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    1981 320i silver
    What's the steering wheel off?

    I'd say the 5 speed. But are all the other ratios the same? What is 1st gear in each of them?

  9. #34
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    All the gears up to 5 are the same! I want to say the first gear is 4.2:1. It's just an extra overdrive, and slightly closer in the ratios. The steering wheel is off of an early e24
    -John

  10. #35
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    All the gears up to 5 are the same! ... It's just an extra overdrive, and slightly closer in the ratios.
    Then the 6 speed can't really be more "close ratio" I wouldn't say. If you had the same differential gear ratio then up shifting from a stop, the shift points would all be the same if the 1 to 5 ratios are all the same.

    It just depends if you'll do a lot of cruising at 85, and want lower rpm at that speed that the overdrive would give you.

    the 5 speed should be fine.

    The 5-speed came out of one of those z-3 sports car convertibles? Do you know what It's diff ratio would have been?

    The 1:1 ratio should be the one you use the most for freeway or highway driving. That is less wear and fewer gears in use.

  11. #36
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    I could have phrased that a little better - the ratios are almost the same. But yeah, ultimately they're close enough I don't think I'd notice any difference other than cruising on the freeway. The diff ratio that came with that transmission was the 3.07 lsd I have for the rear. That's not the standard final drive though, standard is 3.47 I think. The M-sport version had clutch packs, but I'm content with the torsen for a mainly street driven car
    -John

  12. #37
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    I went ahead and found the listing that shows the difference between the two. The big other difference is cost! ZHP flywheels are super expensive. Still tempting though.

    Car 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
    Z3 ZF 4.23 2.52 1.66 1.22 1.00
    Z4 ZF 4.35 2.50 1.66 1.23 1.00 0.85

    I've kept working on this, but I've been twiddling my thumbs waiting on Tuesday since the school shop is closed until then. My welding is getting better, and as of about a half hour after the fact the two guide pins are parallel. Now I chop the e21 frame up and line the drive angle up for the differential. Here's to hoping that goes well. By the level we had for this it was pretty damn level across the whole surface.



    Here we see my welding getting better on the jig - it's been a while. I think I pulled back toward the end of it and got too far from the joint at the end, maybe a welding guru here can chime in?


    Here it is as it's sitting. Totally abandoned the idea of going from the top, it was way easier to use the surface of the table as a level surface. As a welding table it's pretty close, because it's been ground down to flat and leveled in place previously. So no TIG for this subframe - we're keeping it MIG.
    Last edited by Somjuan; 05-29-2018 at 12:16 AM.
    -John

  13. #38
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    Finally done! I had to finish it today because of shop projects. The best part of this was making the section for the fuel filler pipe, because I got to use a massive hammer and an anvil.

    I really need to learn how to leave well enough alone, but the angles are all well within tolerance. I affectionately call this the 'leaning tower of scrap'











    They're in no particular order, but wow. This was an effort. Definitely not a project to just knock out in a weekend, at least for me
    -John

  14. #39
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    The diff ratio that came with that transmission was the 3.07 lsd I have for the rear. That's not the standard final drive though, standard is 3.47 I think.
    The only tangible difference being the final drive. Final drive on the five speed is 1.00, final drive on the 6 speed is 0.85. On the freeway this'll be the difference of 3000 rpm in fifth at 75 miles an hour and 2550 in sixth at 75.

    Using the 5 speed with the correct 3.07 from the same donor car is the thing to do.

    "2550 in sixth at 75. " ? That may be lower than you even want. What rpm would you want for highway cruising? Where would 2550 fall on the powerband?

    I read the Z4 has a top speed of 155 mph and the Z3 130 mph or so. Maybe the 6th gear overdrive is meant for cruising on the Autobahn at over 75 mph.

    You should double check that the 5 speed would give you 3000 rpm at 75. Did you calculate that? What tire diameter?

  15. #40
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    I did. Don't judge too hard, but I'm eyeballing the e39 style 5s. 17x8 205-55-r17
    -John

  16. #41
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    Jan 2006
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    Integra(dead), '89 325is
    Do you think a m52 front sump from a e39 would clear the rack? Can’t seem to find a e34 pan in my budget.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    -Tony

    1989 325is

  17. #42
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    No idea, never looked at the two next to each other. What are they running pulled in your area? I picked mine up for $50 I think, but I pulled it myself. I see them go up for sale for around $150 every so often on the local pages.
    -John

  18. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by Somjuan View Post
    No idea, never looked at the two next to each other. What are they running pulled in your area? I picked mine up for $50 I think, but I pulled it myself. I see them go up for sale for around $150 every so often on the local pages.
    I’ve called every yard in the state and nobody has one. The only ones I’ve been able to find elsewhere are 200-300.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    -Tony

    1989 325is

  19. #44
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    Wow! That's definitely highballing it. I'll keep an eye out around here, shipping to your neck of the woods isn't too bad. They're a pretty quick removal.
    -John

  20. #45
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    Whew. I hate the ETM for the E34. Hundreds of pages of user-unfriendlyness.

    HOWEVER, I think I finished the wiring chart. Hopefully someone here can clear up my points of confusion, mainly with the differences between static and dynamic oil pressure, which tachometer/speed(?) signal to pull off of, etc. I need a working spedometer by the end of this, which I think I can make happen by wiring directly to the ECU/DME outputs and the differential sensor. Red indicates my confidence in where it wires to, yellow is me being uncertain.

    -John

  21. #46
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    Wiring is figured out and ready to solder, but in the meantime I picked up a pair of steering rack bushings from Jester.

    Wow.

    These. Are. Awesome. While I was installing them I changed out all of the tie rods, the control arms, and the sway bar bushings. It's super misaligned, but I can already feel the difference! Now maybe when I go over a pothole it won't be so jarring. Going to the alignment shop tomorrow morning to seal the deal.

    I'm halfway tempted to drive out the bushings on the old arms and replace them with spherical bearings - the design is so bad. And then I'd like to move the sway bar to something more akin to Dave McIntyre's car - a proper torsion bar and so many spherical bearings. But that's just future ponderings, gotta get the engine in first and go from there.

    Just sourced the 323 front housings/struts/springs too, so those'll more properly fit the size of the motor and have a easy drop in damper down the line!
    -John

  22. #47
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    Well, I finally got it in aaaaaaand the right wheel bearing was shot. So I drove home, and busted out the job in about an hour, then went back. Only to find out that I apparently put the new steering rack in off center, so I've got that going for me. They did the alignment and noticed no slop or looseness in the tie rods, so it's good for the next couple days until I have a chance to drop the rack and redo the lock to lock. I'll have to fix that and then adjust the toe a hair before I drive it back in. They're gonna be real mad when I drive in again after I swap out the front housings in a month or so, but maybe I can get it close enough with some string that they won't mind.

    The right side is out of camber by a degree and a half...damper gone bad maybe? Because this one is on the way out.
    -John

  23. #48
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    And a host of lucky parts later....













    Not pictured - a full set of stainless steel braided brake hoses. So it's now officially bilsteins all around, B8s in the rear with ~380lb H&R springs plus adjustable perches, and what I strongly suspect to be Bilstein HDs with lowering springs in the 323 strut housings. I need a puller though, because the top hats on the front are rusted on.
    -John

  24. #49
    Join Date
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    1980 BMW 320i E21 M10B18

    Cool

    That back rim is almost as large as your friend there.

    Randy

  25. #50
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    Jul 2014
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    Elk Grove, CA
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    1982 BMW 320is
    wow those rims and that guy holding the rim looks very familiar. I wonder if i know him

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