Project 320ish - 1979 M50B25NV E21

[Somjuan]

wow those rims and that guy holding the rim looks very familiar. I wonder if i know him

[Somjuan]

Long time no update! I just spent the last two hours cleaning the garage so I can start moving forward with this project. The good news and the bad news is that the e21 is no longer my daily. On my way back from picking up something special with the help of Okieflats my head gasket blew. Never overheated past the 3/4 mark, but the coolant was down by about a gallon from when I started by the time I got home. So that was awesome. On the bright side I gave the M10 a proper send-off on the mountain twisties.


And now for the good news and the reason I drove a bajillion miles out to Windsor from Sacramento -



And that's a 1998 m52 aluminum block from a Z3. Should take a bit of weight off the nose

[Somjuan]

Officially graduating with a degree, which maybe means soon I'll have the money to finish out the rest of the project...after paying off student loans So in the meantime I've been cleaning...and cleaning...and cleaning. I won't bore you guys with the cleaning/shaving of the engine bay, but I'll do a before and after when I'm done. It's become a real case of 'while-you're-in-there-itis'. One thing has led to another and now I'm in the process of measuring and mocking up the provisions for the e36 front suspension to go in. It's just...so much better. I think that front end with the semi-trailing arms in the rear'll make for a much improved driving feel overall, and the power steering would make up for the sin of having all the extra weight up front. And then it hit me that having a power steering pump suddenly made the e28 hydroboost braking system a valid option for trimming away the space by the new intake manifold.

Which led to the realization that ABS is now a viable option if I remove two of the tone rings from the rear and match the tone rings from the e36 front with the e32 rear.

Which made me realize that the best way to hook this all up is with the ENTIRE e36 harness.

Which in turn made me realize that the e36 fusebox could replace the e21 one in the whole car harness because I'm tearing out all the stuff in the engine bay to repaint it anyway.
...So it's all cascaded in a wonderful bit of scope-creep.

But an unrelated part of the fun of cleaning up the engine bay has been realizing that the car was in a front end collision much earlier in its life, and got repaired really really well. If you look very carefully you can see the waves from impact in the chassis rails and fenders.

So that's all a bit overwhelming. So instead, I took a break and started mocking up the cosmetics a bit to motivate myself! And I've been looking around at all sorts of reference for ideas on that one. Here's one of the pictures I found of an e21 with 17" wheels


Totally taking inspiration from this. I wish my car was like this. Running.

The other fun has been trading around and looking for these


And this


And then lastly the real fun of the mockup...the carpet. Out with the blue, and in with the tan! Slapped the seats in just for good measure to see that the replacement rails fit as advertised. They both ended up fitting well. Now just to reupholster them in black leather, which funnily enough can still be bought here : https://www.lseat.com/products/1975-...ers-front.html



...I really need a better camera.

[cgifool]

...So it's all cascaded in a wonderful bit of scope-creep.

Hahaha I love your attitude and optimism! Congratulations on your upcoming graduation! I bet that will be a huge relief! I hope you will get a chance to relax and celebrate before loading your life up with new complexities

I have the same fabric on my recaros and love it. Don't forget to put new foam on the shopping list along with those leather covers.

[Somjuan]

They're definitely for the Recaros. They're a vendor that some people bouncing around 2002faq, Rennlist, and MyE28 found. Quality of the leather is surprisingly good for the price too, I was expecting it to be cheaper to buy my own leather and make them, but not so much.

[okieflats]

Where is this hunk of scrap aluminum now?

[320iAman]

1998 m52 aluminum block was listed in Wards 10 best engines for 1998. Nice find.

Wards 10 Best Engines is an annual list of the ten "best" automobile engines available in the U.S. market, that are selected by Ward's AutoWorld magazine. The list was started in 1994 for Model Year 1995, and has been drawn every year since then, published at the end of the preceding year.
Engines must be available in regular-production vehicles on sale in the U.S. market no later than the first quarter of the year. To be eligible, the engine also must be available in a vehicle with a base price of no more than US$60,000 for the 2015 list, having increased progressively from the US$50,000 base price limit for the 1995 list.^[1] During a 2-month testing period, Wards editors evaluate each engine according to a number of objective and subjective criteria in everyday driving situations – there is no instrumented testing. The selection takes into account power and torque output, noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) levels, technical relevance, and basic comparative numbers. Each engine competes against all others.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward%27s_10_Best_Engines


Randy

[Somjuan]

Glad you guys are still interested! Life hit me with a few doozys, so it’s been on hold for a bit. Hopefully it all works out