The Suspension

As you have probably noticed by now the car has been lowered. We wanted to do something to the suspension, but we didn’t have that much money. Since the car is old the dampers are shot and the springs are a little saggy. We decided to look for a suspension kit that came with dampers and springs so that we could replace them all in one go. We have a limited budget so coilovers were not an option, after asking around on forums we decided on a kit from JAMEX with four dampers and springs. This kit lowered the car by 60mm at the front and 55mm at the rear. As you can see in the pictures the rear looks nice and low, but the front still looks a little high. This is due to the fact we got the kit for the inline 6 engine and we still have the 4 cylinder in there. Once we swap the engines it should sit right at the front. Changing the suspension is a pretty easy job, except as is always the case on an old car that is covered in dirt and rust, nothing ever works the way you want it. The rear suspension is easy; you just need to remove the damper and the link to the anti-roll bar before trying to compress the spring. The first corner took us 3 hours the other one took us 1, since we already knew how we were going to go about it. The front was a different matter, we removed the strut with the spring and damper in it as this is the easiest way to go about it. After getting a ball joint splitter this was very easy to do. We then quickly disassembled the top of the strut and got the old spring off. At this point we ran into a bit of a problem, we didn’t have the tool to unscrew the top of the strut. We tried using the clamps on the plate and then hammering the clamps but it wouldn’t budge. We tried holding it a vice and using a big adjustable wrench on the plate but it just kept slipping. We also went to our local car parts dealer to see if they might have the strut top removal tool which they sadly didn’t have, however they were mighty helpful and they lent us a wire brush and some really thin penetrating oil to clean up the top and lube it up. By this time we decided to call it quits as it was getting late. A couple of days latter we decided to try again, I had come up with some ideas of what we could do, but Alden came up with the idea we finally used which worked. We ended up taking two clamps which we used to clamp a wrench down onto the strut top. Then we used a massive scaffolding poll which we put onto the wrench and a shorter pole which we fixed to the strut, then as Alden stood on the strut to hold it in place I pulled on the pole… We heard a groan and then a creak, so we looked and we saw we had shifted the top, this had broken the rust, and the top spun out freely!

So quick as a flash we rebuilt the strut and fit it too the car, sadly it was late and we had to leave the other side for the next day. The next day we did the other side in exactly the same fashion which went off without a hitch. Well that was the car lowered then, we have very limited resources qua tools and money but we always manage to come up with ingenious solutions. As you can see from the pictures the car is starting to take shape, as a sneak peak, next time I will talk about the most recent improvements to the interior.

Cheers Aitor

Das Boot

The first thing that we finished (although when you do a project like this nothing is ever finished) was the boot. When we got the car there were no gas struts on the rear boot, and every time we lifted it we almost broke our back. We wanted to try and loose as much weight from the boot as possible. In the vein of that we lost all the trim plastic on the interior, the rear windshield wiper assembly, the exterior plastic trim under the licence plate and the badge ; ) The only things left are the things that are needed to keep the car road legal. We thought about the possibilities of removing the rear screen as that is where most of the weight is, but firstly the shape is to complex to mould in plastic by ourselves (it curves in two axis) and secondly it would not be heated and therefore a little dangerous for everyday use on chilly days. Then as you have probably noticed we painted the boot black. Personally I love it, and I think once it has all the black details on it, it will look pimp.




As you would imagine once the wiper was removed there was a hole left in the glass. Funnily enough one of the bits of the interior fit right into the hole and looked factory fresh.

Light Weight Stage 1

The first thing we did to the car was to reduce its weight. Weight is a key issue with any moving object, lower weight means it is easier to accelerate (F=ma, if the force stays the same and the mass comes down then the acceleration must go up) the car, and it also means that the car will handle better

We started with this is because you can do it for free ;) and because we did not have to wait for any parts to arrive. We started on this immediately, removing as many items which were unnecessary for our purpose. The idea was to keep the car comfortable enough to go down to the shops but not as plush as when BMW delivered it. The first decision we took was to turn it into a 2 seater, when we bought the car it only came with one front driver’s seat. We switched this over to the other side converting it into the co-pilots seat, we have also already sourced a bucket seat and harness for the driver, which still need to be delivered. The only things left in the car now are the upper dash, the front seat and belt, the front door cards, the interior A pillar trim, the steering wheel, the steering column surround and the panel under the steering wheel. The most notable things that are gone are the rear seats, all the carpet, the rear seatbelts, the boot trim, rear door cards, the B and C pillar trim, and anything that was not welded to the car or deemed important. I think that we probably pulled out about 75 kilos worth of stuff.

We did encounter some problems though; we initially did not see how we could remove the upper half of the rear seats. So a, TOP TIP what you have to do is insert a screw driver into the slots on the metal bar that holds the sears to the car. Which will un-hook the seats from the car, and then you can just lift them strait out. Another problem that we encountered was rust in the driver’s foot well, now our car is pretty solid and has very little rust except for this point which is rather annoying because its also a jacking point, so we will have to get this sorted at some point (as it is a possible MOT failure). Another thing we had to do was modify the interior loom ever so slightly, since we got rid of the trim around the gearlever there was no where to put the front electric window switches. We then came up with the idea of relocating them to the dash, we tried fitting one of the buttons into one of the pre-made holes in the dash and it fit! But we ran into a problem the wiring loom as it was too short! So we decided to extend the cables, we used some wires that came from house hold electrical cable and some bullet connectors to extend them. We then had to cut the old loom open lengthen the cable and then re-tape and reroute the loom. You can see the result in the pictures. I will post a picture of the dash as soon as I can get one.

Currently this is all we will do to make the car lighter; the next step will be to remove the black stuff that is glued to the interior of the car (sound deadening?). Another thing that we want to do is replace the passenger’s windows and the windows behind those with Plexiglas or acrylic. We also want to remove the sound deadening material from under the bonnet.
Some pictures of the interior







Cheers Aitor

Stock Pictures

I thought I would add the pictures of what the car looked like before we did anything to it. So without further ado here they are.






Sorry for the rathet poor quality

Welcome!

This is the first post in our project Blog! Me (Aitor Molina Encabo) and my mate (Alden Markby) are preparing a car to go drifting! We are students at the University of Hertfordshire; we both study Automotive Engineering with Motorsports. Alden and I are both very passionate about cars, we love to talk about them work on them look at them and discuss them. We both wanted to do something that would give us practical experience, and would allow us to apply the things we learned in class to real life. It is also a great way to learn about how a car is put together and how all the different subsystems work. No matter how much theory one learns, getting your hands dirty and doing the work is just as valuable. The universities formula student program did not appeal to us, because we felt that we joined we would not have enough time to concentrate on our studies and do the work required for formula student to the demanded standard. So we decided that we would look for our own project. We wanted to do something that was slightly different and a bit more unique. We decided that we wanted to tune a car to go drifting, we decided on this because it is an emerging tuning scene and because 95% of the cars sold in the last 20 years are front wheel drive so we would have something a bit out of the ordinary. We got very lucky when we managed to acquire a red BMW E30 3 series touring for the princely sum of 150 pounds! This was acquired from A1 BMW Spares http://www.a1bmwspares.co.uk/ who are specialized in 3 series, they are really great and can help you get any parts for a good price. Currently we have already lowered the car and striped the interior; I will post pictures and diary entries, with tips and tricks on how to go about it, shortly. The only downside to our car was that it was a 318i Auto and that the paint was a little bad. We want to put a 12v M20 engine and manual box, which would give us 170hp. After that we want to supercharge or turbo charge the car, we still haven’t decided because this stage is still far away! In the end we are hoping for 200-220hp with lots of torque! We don’t want to go to mad on the boost because we do not have the money for forged pistons and con rods. we are hoping that with a lower compression head gasket we can get away with it. Body wise we are slowly fixing it, currently the lacquer on the hood is gone and on one of the wings its also shabby, however the car is free of rust(well except the drivers footwell which has a bit) and dings. In the end the car will have a black boot, black hood, black rims with a red lip, black rear view mirrors, a redone wing in red and general wash, Tcut and polish. Well apart from this there is also my car a Citroen AX GTi which we are giving a light restoration and tune up. Well that’s enough for the first post, we will keep you updated on both cars and will post many pics of the work and progress, I hope you enjoy our blog as much as we enjoy this project.

Cheers Aitor