Danny's White BMW (92 525i Thread)

[dannyzabolotny]

Hey, just my 2 cents, came across another thread about you mentioning the vaelo single mass flywheel conversion clutch kit. 10/10 would recommend, mine rattles a bit but that's known for those. But the price for the kit compared to OE parts is a steal, and I prefer the feel as well. Feels more mechanical, less guidance.

Yeah, it's a lovely kit. It eliminates the weird feel and failure points of a dual-mass while still keeping OEM drivability since it's a similar weight to stock. It's really a win-win setup, which is why I've installed it on so many customer cars. When the time comes to S50 swap this car, I'll be doing a Valeo single mass kit as well.

[BleedsBlue]

When the time comes to S50 swap this car, I'll be doing a Valeo single mass kit as well.

You have my attention! Excited to see this.

[moroza]

What Valeo kit? I have one of their OE-weight SMF conversions in my 37BZ swap, further modified to be a medium-lightweight. Seems like a quality kit, just mismatches E34 pedal geometry (it's for an E46) and ends up being too light.

[JPR10]

just came across this thread after being MIA on here for awhile... weren't you a big E39 guy? at one point having like 2-3 540s? lol

[dannyzabolotny]

just came across this thread after being MIA on here for awhile... weren't you a big E39 guy? at one point having like 2-3 540s? lol

Yeah, I was. I still work on them all the time in my shop, the chain guides never stopped. I started having more E34’s at one point and then it just became all E34. I enjoy the simplicity, the lighter weight, and the reliability. The engine in this white 525i has 270k miles, and it’s still on the original clutch as well.

[dannyzabolotny]

Here's a nice big update— I finally got the suspension on this car sorted. Read on if you care...

It started with some proper rear tires, since the car had all-season 235's that looked silly and stretched on the 9.5" rear M-Pars. Those were replaced with some lightly used Bridgestone Pole Position S04's in 265/35/18 from Dane (thanks!). Not only do they look way better, the new tires actually have some grip... but not so much grip that I can't do burnouts with them



Last week I carved out some time in my busy shop schedule to redo the whole suspension.



The parts pile was quite healthy. This is about two months' worth of gathering up parts, it would've been way too much to order all at once (I'm still poor). Not pictured were the Bilstein shocks and Bavauto springs that were taken from my gold parts car.



Everything came off pretty easily, which was surprising when you take into account the age of all the components. Out of everything I removed, the only parts that had ever been replaced were the thrust arm bushings in 2010. All of the ball joints on the control arms and center link were super beat. It's truly remarkable how all of this stuff survived 29 years and 271k miles.



The shocks were completely dead, with zero rebound— all of their fluid was long gone. It's actually surprising that the car didn't bounce all that much.



Some of y'all might remember the last 525i/5 that I had, well here's how it looks now while being parted out in my shop's parking lot. No sense in letting a perfectly good set of Bilsteins and lowering springs go to waste, right?



I also got some Racing Dynamics M5 sway bars off another friend, and they're a huge upgrade from the wimpy stock 525i bars. The front bar is a 27mm and the rear is 19mm; both are adjustable. Goodbye to body roll!



For the thrust arms I went with new Meyle HD arms, for the lower arms I used a set of E31 lower arms that were on closeout on Rockauto, and the center link + tie rods were Lemforder. As for the idler bushing, I pressed out the old bushing and pressed in a new Corteco bushing. Having a press in the shop is lovely!



The Bilsteins and lowering springs went into this car's housings, along with new shock mounts and spring pads. Shiny new parts are always lovely.





With the front all put together, it was time to turn my attention to the rear. Out came the back seat and parcel shelf, both of which were still in good shape somehow. The rear speakers sounded really blown so I figured I'd replace them while everything was apart.



Turns out these weren't even the stock speakers, they were some junk from Radioshack. Period correct garbage! They got replaced with stock BMW/Nokia speakers from my 95 car, which fixed everything.

Photo Dec 11, 2 31 03 PM by daniel.zabolotny, on Flickr

The rear shocks looked to be the originals as well... either that or they were replaced a long time ago with genuine BMW units. The rear Bilsteins got the same treatment as the fronts, with new mounts and spring pads.



The original dogbones were completely fried, so they were replaced with nice new Lemforder units.



The rear sway bar also got swapped in at this time.



With the whole suspension addressed, I replaced the motor and transmission mounts. For being the originals, the motor mounts were in surprisingly good condition, with no separation and being about the same height as the new mounts. The transmission mounts were a lot worse though, squished and cracked pretty bad.



The following day, Dane and I aligned the car using his toe plates and some measuring tape. Dane did a great job and the car tracks nice and straight now.



The last thing I did with the car on the lift was replacing the clutch slave cylinder and flushing all the fluid in the brakes and clutch. The slave cylinder was still original and while it worked okay, I've been stranded by these before so it was cheap insurance to just replace it. The fluid in the system was absolutely awful, with the first two rounds yielding some awful dark green crap. It took 4 rounds to get the fluid looking halfway decent... I'll get it even better when I upgrade the brakes and replace all the lines.



With everything in the suspension addressed, it was time for the grand reveal of the new ride height.







I'm very pleased with how it sits. No more 4x4 ride height but it's not too low either. The ride is about what you'd expect from Bilsteins— good on smooth roads and a bit too firm on bad roads. All in all it's pretty good. The sway bars are really the game-changer here, there's practically no body roll with them and it's so much easier to control the car at the limits.

The last thing I addressed on the car in this round of work was the valve cover gasket, as it was starting to smell like burning oil. I forgot to take a picture of the valve cover when it was off, but it was pretty clean with no real surprises.



I also decided to replace the spark plugs since they were of an indeterminate age. While the plugs were out, I compression tested the engine, with excellent results— 145-150 across all 6 cylinders, which is absolutely superb for an original engine with 271k miles. The old plugs were pretty dingy so I was happy to replace them as well.



With this massive round of work completed, Dane and I took our cars to our favorite mountain road for a little bit of "testing." To say this suspension overhaul was an improvement would be a massive understatement. I had previously driven the car on the same road with the old suspension, and with the new suspension it was just so much faster through every corner. Ironically, it felt slower because the car wasn't diving around like a boat. At this point the main limiting factors are the brakes and the mediocre front tires— both will be addressed in the near future.



The next things the car needs are the CSB and guibo; both are in pretty bad shape at this point, with the CSB making some noise in first gear. I'll get those ordered shortly, along with all the shifter components needed to freshen things up.



I'm super pleased with the car at this point, it's an absolute joy to drive now.

[fo3]

Interesting reading about the sway bars. Good stuff happening there but I wish I knew more about bavauto springs (like who the manufacturer was).
White E34s rule. I'm still struggling with dyeing/repainting my interior into some sort of original ultramarine, plus can't get good rims, but I'll join your club, aussie made King springs, r16 e39 wheels with 225/55 for now. Still high in the back because kmacs max setting to improve rear camber from -4.5 i got after installing the springs to -1.5. That raises it a bit and gives it a rake which I'm cool with. Probably not cool enough for you LOL. Have some aussie summer sunshine though.
Image1.jpg
Since I glued on a new headliner and had to also glue on the rear view mirror, every day I wake up and they're still sticking up makes that day a good day

[JThomp33]

Awesome work and I'm sure that is night and day with the suspension. The fitment is spot on as well, makes me miss my 9.5" wide Style 65's. I'm also hoping to score a set of RD swaybars. Did you use Poly bushings in the sway bar mounts?

[bigsixe34]

Wow great job! Looks awesome and definitely must ride the same with all that work. I love seeing these cars brought back from the dead.

Interesting reading about the sway bars. Good stuff happening there but I wish I knew more about bavauto springs (like who the manufacturer was).

BAVarian AUTOsport is a now defunct (as of March 2019) company that was based in New Hampshire. More or less a Pep Boys for BMW. Some good parts and some not good parts. More of a cosmetic mod shop than a mechanical one, though the springs in question were one of several exceptions to that. Years ago the springs' rep was being on the softer end but giving a big drop. Significantly lower than, say, H&R which were on the stiffer end but with much less ride height difference. They were a good choice if you had a daily that was driven enthusiastically here and there, but not a good choice for a track setup.

[fo3]

BAVarian AUTOsport is a now defunct (as of March 2019) company that was based in New Hampshire. More or less a Pep Boys for BMW. Some good parts and some not good parts. More of a cosmetic mod shop than a mechanical one, though the springs in question were one of several exceptions to that. Years ago the springs' rep was being on the softer end but giving a big drop. Significantly lower than, say, H&R which were on the stiffer end but with much less ride height difference. They were a good choice if you had a daily that was driven enthusiastically here and there, but not a good choice for a track setup.

Cheers, yeah I know about bavauto and their rebranding of parts, back in 2017 I was interested in their suspension and rebranded ignition coils etc but shipping from them just cost too much to get to Australia. These days people wanting a big drop with soft droopy coils go for vogtland. I was just wondering who the supplier of the bavauto springs actually were. As you say H&R and eibach don't drop so much.

In the end I went with aussie king springs as the other option here used to be AP, but AP were no longer locally in stock after 2019 (2 month order in times). I wonder if bav auto used AP, or apex, or something else.
King springs are low, but not soft and noodly. They repurpose springs that will fit (as marques don't design their own anyway). From memory lowered rear E34 springs are regular nissan sunny/datsun 210 springs according to Kings. Which makes them low, but OE style so not soft and binding.

[BleedsBlue]

Love it Danny, nice list there!

[dannyzabolotny]

Interesting reading about the sway bars. Good stuff happening there but I wish I knew more about bavauto springs (like who the manufacturer was).
White E34s rule. I'm still struggling with dyeing/repainting my interior into some sort of original ultramarine, plus can't get good rims, but I'll join your club, aussie made King springs, r16 e39 wheels with 225/55 for now. Still high in the back because kmacs max setting to improve rear camber from -4.5 i got after installing the springs to -1.5. That raises it a bit and gives it a rake which I'm cool with. Probably not cool enough for you LOL. Have some aussie summer sunshine though.
Image1.jpg
Since I glued on a new headliner and had to also glue on the rear view mirror, every day I wake up and they're still sticking up makes that day a good day

I'll admit, white is not my favorite color as far as E34's go, but it is incredibly durable and seems to last, especially in single stage form. The only cheap E34's with good paint are the single stage Alpine White cars and the single stage Zinnoberrot/Brilliantrot. The fact that white hides dirt and scratches pretty well is a nice bonus too.

Nothing wrong with some camber! A bit of negative camber is fine on a BMW, and as long as the toe is correct the tires don't wear much worse. My friend Dane runs quite a bit of camber all around on his 535i/5 and it hasn't caused any problems.

Awesome work and I'm sure that is night and day with the suspension. The fitment is spot on as well, makes me miss my 9.5" wide Style 65's. I'm also hoping to score a set of RD swaybars. Did you use Poly bushings in the sway bar mounts?

I love the fitment with E38 M-Pars... they sit real nice without any spacers, though I will likely need a 3mm slip-on spacer in the rear because there's an occasional rub on the inner wheel arch. Fenders need to be rolled or flattened out as well, since they rub under hard compression.

Yep, poly bushings in both sway bars. I greased them up before installation and so far it's been very quiet.

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Earlier today I took the car on an impromptu roadtrip up to Cottonwood, AZ (about 120 miles each way) to get a car with a friend. Through word of mouth, we found out about a manual transmission E46 325xit and got it for a very good price. The 525i performed excellently, averaging 23-24mpg the whole time at around 80-85. The Bilsteins actually ride super well on the highway, they just don't seem to like the rough roads around town.







I like that the 525i has gotten to the point where I can hop in it and take a road trip without worrying about it. Even at 271k miles, it's doing better than ever!

[moroza]

ORLY? Mevotech CMS101247 and 8 have E31-specific spherical joints, do they? Can you tell where they're manufactured?

[dannyzabolotny]

ORLY? Mevotech CMS101247 and 8 have E31-specific spherical joints, do they? Can you tell where they're manufactured?

Yep, those are the ones. My friends and I bought a couple of sets when they were on closeout at Rock Auto, for dirt cheap. I’ll take a look at the packaging to see if there’s any info about where they were made.

Update: checked the packaging... zero info on origin. So I'll assume China unless otherwise specified. For how cheap they were, I don't particularly care... it was like $40 for the pair of E31 arms. Lower arms rarely ever fail, and they're easy enough to replace if they do, so it's all good.

[justinca540i]

For someone who isn't big into the E46, tends to pick up a handful of them.

Always fun to see what stories you have and what new changes you make. Want to do my subframe reinforcement?

[dannyzabolotny]

For someone who isn't big into the E46, tends to pick up a handful of them.

Always fun to see what stories you have and what new changes you make. Want to do my subframe reinforcement?

Well this one is for my friend. Not sure what his long-term plans are for it, but I'll probably end up doing so maintenance on it— diff bushings, CSB, flex disc, control arm bushings... typical E46 things.

I mean if you wanted to make the trip out here, I'd do it. But it's quite a drive from the Bay Area to Phoenix, haha. How's your subframe looking? As I recall, your car used to be an automatic until fairly recently so it should be okay.

[dannyzabolotny]

The other day I got tired of my dirty engine bay, so I power washed it. Side note, I don't know why people are always scared of doing this to their engines... as long as everything is sealed properly, there's very little risk of anything going wrong.

Before:





After:





It's not perfect, but it's a pretty solid improvement and will make working on the car a lot less messy in the future. After cleaning the engine bay, I gave the rest of the car a thorough wash, followed by some spray wax and tire shine, just to make it look extra nice for Cars & Coffee the next morning.

Man, I need some smilies and new foglights already... that's the worst part of the car cosmetically.



Dane and I reppin' the white E34's, along with an E30 ix.



Later that day I had to go to the hardware store to buy some new fluorescent bulbs for the shop. Given that they're 96" long, I had to get a little creative to transport them back to the shop.



Yesterday I bought a new oil drain for the shop, and it fit perfectly into the trunk:



Who needs a truck? Not me! One of these days I'll get a tow hitch so I can haul engines and things that I can't fit inside the car.

[BleedsBlue]

Hey Danny. Have you heard of a Touring?

LOL

[dannyzabolotny]

Hey Danny. Have you heard of a Touring?

LOL

Been there, done that. Had a 2000 540it, a 1992 525it, and a 1994 530it. Each time, I sold them for the same reasons: I don't use the extra space very often, I don't care for the extra weight, don't like all the extra road/wind noise, and I'm not a fan of the handling. This 525i has enough room for me and my stuff for 95% of the time. Eventually I plan on getting a tow hitch so I can just use a small trailer for hauling around engines and other stuff that's too large to fit in the car.

[BleedsBlue]

Been there, done that. Had a 2000 540it, a 1992 525it, and a 1994 530it. Each time, I sold them for the same reasons: I don't use the extra space very often, I don't care for the extra weight, don't like all the extra road/wind noise, and I'm not a fan of the handling. This 525i has enough room for me and my stuff for 95% of the time. Eventually I plan on getting a tow hitch so I can just use a small trailer for hauling around engines and other stuff that's too large to fit in the car.

I hear you - that all sounds fair. I love the OEM towing options if you can find them.

I try to adhere to a 5%/95% rule, of favoring the 95% use case. Many people (see: almost all truck owners) focus on the 5%.

Me, I'm just randomly attracted to wagons. It's a curse.

[dannyzabolotny]

I hear you - that all sounds fair. I love the OEM towing options if you can find them.

I try to adhere to a 5%/95% rule, of favoring the 95% use case. Many people (see: almost all truck owners) focus on the 5%.

Me, I'm just randomly attracted to wagons. It's a curse.

That 5/95 rule is the same reason that I don't have bucket seats or a gutted interior in any of my cars... while I do enjoy taking them to the track, I'm not willing to make extreme compromises for the handful of times I'm at the track. Since I don't have the space or money to have a separate track car, that just means sacrificing some track performance in order to keep the car docile and comfortable on the street.

I still do like the way wagons look, but after having owned a few of them, I don't have much of an urge to own one again.

[dannyzabolotny]

The other day I got an idea when looking at my engine bay... I had previously power washed the engine bay and degreased it, but there was a lot of dirt that seemed to be resistant to coming off. The trick that ended up working was using a clay bar and some dish soap, it gently removed the embedded dirt without being too abrasive.



There's still some cosmoline left, but I'm okay with that— it's better than the dirt that was there before.



The throttle cable appeared to be original, so after 272k miles of service I figured it was worth replacing. New Genuine BMW cables are still available, and at $35 it's a no-brainer.

Moving the heater valve out of the way made the job a lot easier.





Inside the car, the throttle pedal rod had accumulated a ton of dirt, along with the bushings being visibly destroyed.



After a good cleaning, the rod was reinstalled with new bushings and fresh lubricant.



To say the new cable and bushings made a big difference would be an understatement— it's a night and day difference! The throttle is so much more responsive now, which makes downshifting and throttle modulation a lot easier. I highly recommend doing this to your E34 if you haven't already.

Last night I picked up something I've been wanting for ages now... a proper 3.23 LSD. Aside from my E39 M5, I've never owned a BMW with an LSD so this will be exciting! No idea how many miles are on it, but it locks up real good and doesn't make any noise— my friend had it in his S50 525i and he did a ton of awesome burnouts with it. It's a little leaky so it will get new side seals, fill & drain plugs, rear cover seal, and a really thorough cleaning.



After an initial power washing with degreaser it looked a lot better:



Another thing I picked up from the same car was a Kamotors carbon fiber intake. I'm normally not a huge fan of carbon fiber, but this intake has a great sound so I'll let it slide. The install was super easy, and if I hadn't taken the time to clean things, it would have taken all of 5 minutes.





I guess I should order all the CSB/flex disc/shifter parts now so I can do all of that when I'm ready to install the diff. I'm stoked to do some fat donuts in the near future!

[dannyzabolotny]

Earlier today, Dane and I celebrated the new year by driving up South Mountain here in Phoenix. It's a lovely road, especially in the morning before it gets jam-packed with tourists and cyclists. The 525i performed beautifully, and hearing that carbon fiber intake at 6500rpm was nothing short of a religious experience... modern turbo engines just can't match the purity of an M50NV. The way it revs up, the growl it has at wide open throttle, the climbing on cam, mmmm.

Dane took some lovely photos as well:

[moroza]

Some fine lookin' scenes with the Alpine twins! Even if one of them needs a door/fender alignment...

[eduTek]

Yep, poly bushings in both sway bars. I greased them up before installation and so far it's been very quiet.

I have a set of RD sway bars that need new bushings and end links. Where did you find replacements? I pulled mine from a manual-donor sedan for my touring...which is also Alpine White. Love the build!