AutoX e21 Used As A Commuter?

[uberpanzer]

So, drove the e21 to work two days this week (regular daily driver needed to go to the shop to get some things taken care of I couldn't do). For those of you that know me and know how little the car has been on the road in the last 5 years, this is actually sorta impressive. All things considered, it did fairly well. That being said, there are things that need to be addressed and this helped me see some of them.

- New tires all around. The fronts are a set of Falken Azenis Sports from back before they add RT615 to the name (so old) and don't have much tread left. The rears have so much sidewall that even with the rear suspension dialed up to the highest position on the coil-overs, there is still some rubbing under hard acceleration or when going over large bumps on the highway at speed.

- AFR has to be off, since I'm detonating to no end above 4k and the car just seems 'sluggish' for what it is. I can't 'prove this' right now since the last round of electrical work that I had a shop do for me while trying to get it to pass CA smog ended up not being doing 100% right and they made my extra gauges (which include my wide band O2 meter) no longer work. But this should help wake the car up, as long as it doesn't cause other drive-ability issues.

- Suspension bushings probably need to be completely redone, as I think it has been close to a decade since I last went through them. There's a little bit of shimmy at speeds between 60-70mph, smooths out above that, although seems to come back as I approach 100. Yes, even with the AFR off, it pulls easily up to there.

- Heater valve doesn't seem to be closed all the way. I pulled the console and fans long ago, but the heater core is still there as an aux heat exchanger in case things start getting hot under the hood. But since the valve isn't closed all the way, once up to temp and up to highway speeds, it gets DAMN hot inside the car, even in the low 60s in SoCal 'fall'.

- With the rake that the rear suspension and tire set-up gives the car, the headlight low beams are basically useless. Not as bad as it sounds though, since that means that I can turn on the high beams and NOT have them hit anyone in the face. That is also needed since the driver's side low beam filament has burned out, which prompted the H4/LED purchase I mentioned the other day in a Legion Facebook posting.

- Along with the extra gauges not working, that electrical work I had done caused my hazard switch to be removed for some reason. Which means no turn signals. I've been meaning to figure out a way to wire the hazard switch harness into a toggle switch, this may now be my chance. I'll just have to make the time to do it (....hey, it could happen! ).

Originally was just going to post this on FB, but decided it was a bit long-winded for there. Pic of the car will be on the truncated post there, in case anyone wants to see the current set-up of the car. I'll see about getting some more up there too.


EDIT:
Trying to post a pic from FB so I don't have to host it somewhere else...




(This is the way the rear bumper was sectioned. It is a late e30 plastic bumper, some of the inner portion sectioned out to fit the width of the e21. Bumper was originally white, sprayed about 15 years ago with some Crylon plastic paint.)