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Jan 15, 2017 10:04:39 GMT
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Right, about time i updated this thread as alot has gone on with this car! Around the time of Japfest, the engine started making some nasty knocking noises which i suspected to be the big ends. Combined with the nasty piston slap when cold and the not inconsiderable amount of oil it burned, i decided to take the engine out for a full rebuild. Now, i could have just rebuilt to standard spec, but thats not really my style. Also, when I first started looking at Starions years ago, I found out you can put the twin cam engine from early evos in them, so that had been in the back of my mind ever since owning the car. My car being a 2.0l made it a perfect candidate as I could reuse my block and bottom end, known as a 6 bolt crank (number of flywheel bolts) which is supposedly stronger than the later evo parts. Since this genuinely is my main form of transport, i wanted to keep down time to a minimum. With that in mind, I started collecting bits and doing what i could without the engine removed. The first piece of the puzzle is obviously the twin cam head: Mine is from an EVO III and is the last of this style 4g63. From the EVO IV onwards the engine swapped sides in the bay and the intake and exhaust swapped sides on the head. Being a later cylinder head it unfortunately doesn't bolt straight onto my block as the bolt holes are too small (the early blocks use M12 head bolts, later ones use M11). The fix for this is to run a 1/2" ream down the bolt holes in the head. Although the head was clean it needed to be stripped down for this anyway. Good practice to keep everything in its original place: With the head stripped I could ream the bolt holes out I also lapped the valves quickly to clean off any carbon deposits. You don't want to go mad with this as you can end up making the seats concave (the grinding paste tends to get stuck in the centre of the seat and grinds this more than the edges) and NEVER use the coarse paste. The one on the left has just been done, the one on the right shows a 'before'. The lapping also makes it easy to see the condition of the seats, the grey line clearly shows the contact of the valve to the seat. You want this to be about the width of a pencil line, but there should be specs available for your engine - usually about 1.3-1.5mm maximum, with exhaust usually wider than intake (as the exhausts tend to recess more). The valve below is an exhaust valve and was about 1.3mm so all good. With all that done the head was thoroughly cleaned and new stem seals fitted ready to be assembled again And here it is with a cam cover and shiny bits Intake next time I think!
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Jan 14, 2017 11:11:36 GMT
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loving what your doing, what are you thinking for moving the brake assembly, I'm looking into doing the same in my engine bay although I'm keeping the m20 in mine but want to smooth out the engine bay so fuse board inside the cab and battery into the boot then sort the brake set up out. ive been looking at smaller brake boosters from other makes or maybe losing the booster altogether and using a motorsport type pedal box with brake bias built in. Yeah, i'll be loosing the booster altogether. I was originally going to modify the stock pedal and mount a tandem M/C to the firewall as this guy did: www.bmwforums.com.au/showthread.php/36546-Nigels-E21-S50B30-Project/page5But then I found an OBP bias pedal box for half price (end of line stock) so I went with that as it should be easier to mount and has a pedal ratio of 7.5:1 which should keep the brakes relatively light. Also being a bias box i won't need to faff around with a hydraulic rear bias setup. I was going to wait until i'd got it mounted properly, but since you asked here are some pics The firewall is flat here, so bolting the pedal box in should be a doddle once the old hole is welded up etc Heres the pedal box mocked up to check position Also tried the E46 electronic pedal in place Here's the room you have to play with in the engine bay. Single master cylinders are only about 100mm long with remote reservoirs, so plenty of room for 3 in there. To match this setup i'm using a set of brembos from a Mitsubishi Evo, they're about the cheapest set of matching brembo callipers you can buy, usually a fair bit cheaper than porsche callipers that a lot of people use. 4 Pots from a Nissan or Subaru can probably be had for less, but they don't say brembo on them and that just ain't cool Sky remote for scale They need a clean up and new stickers on the rears, but for just over £200 I ain't complaining They'll be running on 300mm discs up front from an E34 540, and 276 discs in the rear from E36/E46 3 series, but I want to buy some wheels for it first to confirm everything will fit before i go any further. Then to top it off i'll use a .625" master cylinder for the front and a .7" for the rear. This should keep the pedal fairly light and get the bias close, but this can be fine tuned with the bias bar. Obviously if i end up changing the disc sizes then this might affect M/C sizing, but thats the plan currently.
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Last Edit: Jan 14, 2017 11:14:19 GMT by Splitty456
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Jan 13, 2017 13:04:16 GMT
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Moving on, obviously the old M20 has to go and I also want to clean up the engine bay somewhat. That will mean moving the fusebox inside the car (and probably replacing it with a blade fuse box), battery will end up in the boot and removing that eyesore of a brake servo! Also since I plan on mounting the new engine at the same angle as the M20, I made a mockup 'engine' by mounting the S54 head to the M20 block. Off with the M20 head first! Then the S54 head placed on top. The head bolt spacing is actually the same length-ways, but the S54's head bolts are wider apart. Still, i could get 2 head bolts in which is enough to keep it there. I also used some head bolts and cardboard to space the head up, as the S54 block is 10 or 12mm taller than the M20 With the 'engine' in, i could start looking at exhaust manifold routing, space for the airbox, radiator mounting etc. Amazingly, the rear S54 manifold is a perfect fit! The front will work too but needs to be chopped after the collector. This is good because A) the primaries are all equal length and tuned for the engine, and B) I don't have to faff around making exhaust manifolds I'll probably change the flanges, and might need to modify the routing of the rear mnaifold, we shall see. Here you can see the front manifold clashed with the steering coupler, but I'll cut it where it snakes close to the block and all should be good Then over to the intake side - THOSE THROTTLE BODIES!!! The airbox technically fits, but not much chance of getting an elbow onto the inlet. I'm sure i'll think of something for that... currently thinking of a hard pipe with a flange that bolts to the airbox? or a fibreglass cowl maybe? any thoughts are welcome! I also threw the vanos on to check for rad clearnace - as expected i'll need to recess the radiator into the front panel (later 6 cyl cars came like this from factory) and finally a parting shot with the cam cover on: Looking good already
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Jan 10, 2017 19:42:57 GMT
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Hahah, I swear this is only stuff i've researched for various projects, i'm not THAT bad
One pub quiz I was at, the picture round we had to name cars based on a picture. About the only time i've done well in a pub quiz!
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Jan 10, 2017 19:29:50 GMT
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I like the details as well, as you mentioned the splines on the gearboxs, could I use a E46 five speed box on my E36 328, or would this be an eleven spline? Yes, as far as i know it was only the E46 M3 that had the 11 spline gearbox. E46 328/330 ZF five speed is the same 10 spline input as your E36, in fact its the same box used in the E36 M3 3.0 and 328 touring ( and a bunch of 5 series'). FUN FACT: the same ZF box came in the E34 525TDS. This is fun because that engine sat at the same angle as the old M20, therefore if you have a big power M20 an E34 diesel gearbox will bolt up to it, sit at the correct angle and not blow up that often. Imagine what I could do if i didn't fill my brain with all this useless car info!!
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Jan 10, 2017 18:40:29 GMT
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More catching up now, this time the gearbox! Now, obviously the E21 drivetrain won't be able to handle nearly 3x the original power output, so will need to be replaced. There are a few options, the best probably being the ZF 5 speed found in E36 328 tourings, E46 328 and 330s. Its more than strong enough and just about fits in the E21 tunnel. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted the 6 speed gearbox! The only thing putting me off was the price, then I happened upon an E36 M3 Evo SMG gearbox for just £70!! The SMG system is a bit strange, in that is uses the same Getrag 6 speed gearbox as the manual cars, but controlled by an ECU. Because the gear linkage is controlled by a computer, the SMG boxes don't have any of the pins and springs that give the gear linkage 'feel' and layout the 'H' pattern that you feel when changing gears. To convert an SMG box to manual, you simply need to add these pins and springs. One way of doing this is to take the SMG bellhousing and machine the holes needed for the pins and add them this way, alternately you find a scrap manual gearbox and swap the bellhousings over! Eventually I found a scrap E46 M3 manual gearbox and set about swapping the bell housing to my good, 60K mile SMG box: Here is the 2 bell housings side by side, can you spot the difference? This is a closeup of the SMG, notice the cast lumps? On the manual this is where the shift pins sit Here is the manual, see the addition of a bearing to the arm, and 2 pins in the casting? this is what gives resistance as you move the gear stick left - right, along with the spring. Another advantage of the E36 evo gearbox is it uses a 10 spline input shaft which is shared with loads of other BMWs, whereas the E46 uses an 11 spline input shaft and is the only car in BMWs range to do so. This basically means I can use clutch kits and flywheels for M50/52/54/S50 cars, which tend to be cheaper than E46 parts. E36 10 spline: E46 11 spline: Sorry for all the words and boring pictures, but i love all this nerdy technical stuff :lol: I promise the next update will be more interesting!!
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Jan 10, 2017 13:36:17 GMT
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Nov 21, 2016 14:28:19 GMT
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This might seem like rearranging deckchairs on the titanic, but its too cold and rainy to start welding sills or chopping out trans tunnels (y'know, important stuff), so i'm thinking about interior options. The car is a BMW e21 that was originally ordered with gold paint and green (yes, green) interior. The car came with a pair of Escort RS2000 recaro seats and the previous owner has done a good job of painting the vinyl door cards/handles etc black. Unfortunately the carpet is still mostly green after a failed attempt to dye it black, and as nice as the recaros are the light grey velour upholstery isn't really doing it for me... So has anyone got any tips for dying old BMW loop pile carpet, and has anyone attempted dying velour seats?
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Last Edit: Nov 21, 2016 14:28:59 GMT by Splitty456
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Sept 21, 2016 15:20:22 GMT
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Good on you for keeping this one on the road! You don't know the half of it yet! Anyway, after the accident and subsequent repairs I didn't really do much to the Starion. It carried on with daily duties while I tried to get on with my other project (A BMW E21 with an E46 M3 lump, I will make a thread for it one day). Then it came time for the MOT... Now, the car isn't in bad shape overall, but there was one spot I knew the MOT man probably wouldn't like too much... Doesn't look too bad, right? Sadly, it always looks worse on the inside It's hard to see there, but there was about 2" of inner sill that had just gone completely! Also the rear quarter panel was basically held together by underseal and paint where it went under to meet sill. It looked okay, but wasn't up to much structurally! Here it is after I'd finished chopping out rust, I admit, it was somewhat worse than expected! Then followed a couple of days making up small panels and welding them in... I probably did take pictures, but you guys know the score and honestly after the 5th or 6th panel it gets pretty boring... I do have pictures of the outer panel however, as I remember being quite proud of it! (even though it's just a sheet of metal with a couple of bends in it...) Then welded in (along with a couple of other patches) Then I think I ground the welds back, slapped some primer on it for the MOT and forgot about it until spring when I finally got round to finishing it off... That took care of the bodywork, but i was still left with 2 badly buckled wheels and 4 tyres that were at least 13 years old (the car was stored for 10 years, remember). Obviously the sane thing to do in a situation like that is buy a set of brand new rotas from Drifworks! Then shod in some part worns as I was unsure about tyre sizes at this point and finally on the car! (better pics are coming, promise!) Now, I'd love to say that will all this effort it flew through the MOT with flying colors, but sadly not. It failed on leaky shocks and front pads, with advisories for brake lines as well... Que another frantic week sourcing some used rear shocks and an incredibly painful weekend changing them. I think I also had to replace the boots on the driveshafts (which is never fun), and both seals on the Diff as well (as they fell apart when the driveshafts came out). This did mean I could replace the diff oil however, as the filler plug was (and still is) completely seized in the housing so the only way to get oil in was through one of the halfshaft holes After all this it finally did pass the MOT, but with an advisory of 'rear shocks not changed, only cleaned'
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Sept 20, 2016 15:23:57 GMT
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Alright guys, so i may have slacked somewhat on keeping this thread updated, but cool things are happening with this car so we're gonna fly through a couple of key events to bring us up to speed, okay? First off, 'the incident' What actually happened was a Peugeot driver pulled out in front of me on a round about on a rainy monday morning. I'm not exactly a morning person at the best of times, on a monday in the first rain after summer i was barely even human. So Mr dozy peugeot driver pulls out in front of me and I lock up the brakes and go skidding into some armco. What a curse word. I did manage to miss the Peugeot, which i suppose is good news? Now, i've never crashed a car before, naturally it made sense to wait until I owned an incredibly rare one to give it a try... I tried to make it look a bit more presentable while i scoured the land for Mitsubishi Starion body panels But then, by some miracle, and just after just 3 days of searching, I found a bloke selling off bits of a Starion he had stripped. And even better it was RED!!! So a road trip oop north the following weekend yielded a new front bumper, front valance and passenger side wing, as well as a few interior bits and bobs that needed tidying. best of all he only wanted £150 for the lot! So I dropped in on a friend in the midlands and we set to work... With the front end off, it was only really this panel that had taken any damage. After some creative hammering it was looking better We even found some red paint Then simply bolt the new bits on There, looks like a Starion again! and all in the space of a week! I even managed to grab some fancy pics at Silverstone a few weeks later: I later went back to red light surrounds to get rid of the 'too much eyeliner' look... The only damage left from this ordeal was a couple of buckled wheels, but we'll talk about that next time....
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Mar 25, 2016 12:50:18 GMT
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Well, after owning this for about 8 months, I thought I'd better put a thread up for it... The story starts with me looking for a Porsche 944 as a nice retro daily... at the time I had an E46 BMW 330ci which was nice to drive but utterly dull and a W124 Mercedes 300TD which was cool and interesting but otherwise a complete shed. What I needed was a cool interesting car that was also nice to drive and a 944 seemed to fit the bill perfectly, until I saw the Starion for sale, that is... Now I've always loved Starions, but with prices slowly going up I sort of gave up on owning one a while ago and forgot about them. You can imagine how I felt when I saw this one for sale at a price I could almost afford! It had to be done. So i viewed it and arranged a date to collect it, scabbing a lift from my mate who was racing at Oulton park to take me to get the thing. This is what greeted us when we pulled into the yard Obligatory first fill shot, excuse the slightly ragged looking mug filling it up, racing invariably involves a lot of drinking... And here I am ready for the maiden voyage back down to essex! After this not much happened for a few months really... The Starion served good daily duty while I prepared for a 2 week biking holiday to Spain (Naturally the head gasket on my bike went a week before we were due to leave, so I ended up buying a VFR 3 days before we left... all good fun!) Then a couple of weeks after the holiday a terrible terrible thing happened...
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Feb 29, 2016 13:42:11 GMT
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Deposit Taken
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Feb 25, 2016 13:26:15 GMT
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PM'd you Cti Stu
Still available people, who doesn't love BBS wheels!!
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Feb 18, 2016 21:04:27 GMT
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Can I play? Pretty bad picture but you get the idea Heres a slightly better one Or i've got this old heap if you prefer haha
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Feb 12, 2016 15:20:42 GMT
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BUMP!
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Cool! Loving the flashes of colour everywhere!
Also look forward to seeing how you get on with the E30 diff, i'll be doing the same to mine sometime this year
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Hello All I have a number of parts for sale that came with my E21 but won't be using for my project. First up, a cam belt kit and water pump for M20 engines, brand new in box. The belt kit a contitech kit for round tooth E30 M20s and a set of round tooth pulleys will be included (not pictured as I forgot to dig them out of the glovebox!) £60 plus postage Next up a set of 5 15x7 ET24 BBS RZ wheels from an E30 (standard sport wheels). 4 have been painted black so ideally could do with a refurb but could easily be run as is. there are no buckles or dents in any of them and very little in the way of kerb marks. The spare is pretty much perfect. The 4 black ones are shod in Maxxis winter tyres all with 6mm + of tread, the spare is a summer Maxxis but on the wear markers. No centre caps unfortunately. £120 collection is preferred from Orsett, Essex Thirdly, a pair of brand new in box Spax PSX adjustable shock absorbers for 45mm (non 323) E21 struts. £150 plus postage There is also a set of lowering springs on the car with adjustable rear shocks (Koni I think) that I won't be using, so feel free to message me if you're interested and I can try and get some pics for you. Finally the old engine and box from my car, a 79 320/6, is surplus to requirements. Its a carb'd M20B20 with a 4 speed and has 85000 miles on it and has an E28 5 series carb and air box fitted. I've got all the service history for the car and although it has been sat for a while it still fires up and runs fine. Also the gearbox rattles in neutral but otherwise is fine (this is well documented in the service history and I believe is fairly common with these boxes). Its still in the car currently so can be heard running. Not sure what to ask for this, so make me an offer if you're interested, it will only end up on ebay otherwise!
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