Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

[martinpallot]

Some may have seen this on other forums, have just joined on her so thought I would introduce myself, built the car 4 years ago from a 1991 325 sport and competed in local hillclimbs with it, its had various engines in its time, M20, M50 and now the S50 and the whole thing has been an experiment as there werent many of these being used when it was first planned. The car proved to be competetive with the e36 m3 motor in it so in the summer I stripped it down for what originally just going to be a respray and a bit of tidying, as you can see from the pictures things got a little out of hand along the way

As it was in May 2010 at Bouley bay:





Stripping the 8 layers of paint off



Sill stands and exhaust tunnel



Scuttle box for cutoffs



Flared arches and jacking points





Modified floor for e36 twin ear diff cover



New bulkhead and tunnels









New rollcage





Pedal box, handbrake and gear lever turret





Sequential gearbox



modded front x member to raise rollcentres, Rose jointed bottom arms



Testfitted engine and box, sits 5 inches further back than standard





Made engine and gearbox mounts









Thats as far as I am so far. Getting a sandblaster for christmas so wiill clean up the interior, underside and engine bay with that before its onto paint in january. In the meantime got to weld in brackets for allsorts of bits and bobs.

[Tristan]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Wow! Get stuck in mate!

[Graham]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

cool, good man whats the cage? and tell me more about the bottom arms please

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Rollcage and arms are both built by me, the arms are copies of the dtm front arms but use an escort compression strut bracket on the chassis rail for strengh as opposed to the bolt on modified lolipops that were known to bend. The Strut end uses a 5/8ths UNF high tensile bolt instead of the ball joint to enable the use of any normal 5/8ths rod end. The thickest part of an e30 bottom balljoint is 16mm so essentially just needs drilling out. This is the only other picture I have of the arms

[cossymax]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

1st of welcome to the site Martin
Cracking car, and some great fabrication skills / work. bet that gearbox was`nt cheap!!! going to be a proper well sorted E30

Keep up the excellent work, and keep the updates coming with the pictures

[Graham]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Rollcage and arms are both built by me, the arms are copies of the dtm front arms but use an escort compression strut bracket on the chassis rail for strengh as opposed to the bolt on modified lolipops that were known to bend. The Strut end uses a 5/8ths UNF high tensile bolt instead of the ball joint to enable the use of any normal 5/8ths rod end. The thickest part of an e30 bottom balljoint is 16mm so essentially just needs drilling out. This is the only other picture I have of the arms

thanks for that its something i've been considering doing for a good while now, do you have the diamentions?

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Sorry no dimensions, my car runs a wider track so wouldnt be much help. the first set I made I used the standard wishbone as a jig and found this is the best way. The postioning of the compression strut mounting on the botom arm is also important as depending on wheel offsets and steering lock the insides of the tyre may clash.

[Graham]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Sorry no dimensions, my car runs a wider track so wouldnt be much help. the first set I made I used the standard wishbone as a jig and found this is the best way.

yeah using a std wishbone as a jig was my origional intension using 10 inch wide wheels i really dont have a need for wider track, it only just goes on the trailer now!

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

With ten inch wheels you will deffinately have an issue with the wheels hitting the arms, suppose its not such a problem on a track car, maybe make up somelocking tabs on the rack ends?

1st of welcome to the site Martin
Cracking car, and some great fabrication skills / work. bet that gearbox was`nt cheap!!! going to be a proper well sorted E30

Keep up the excellent work, and keep the updates coming with the pictures

Thanks! Box wasnt cheap at all but was seriously holding the car up from competing with the mega money escorts, its more powerfull than any escort but only used to use 2 gears where the escorts use 4 and as the engine is cammed it needed to be on the boil to get the best out of it, hopefully the new ratios will sort it.

Hopefully have some updated pictures this weekend

[Graham]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

With ten inch wheels you will deffinately have an issue with the wheels hitting the arms, suppose its not such a problem on a track car, maybe make up somelocking tabs on the rack ends?

even on std wishbones my wheels wanted to hit the wishbone and just about everything else, i made up some spacers which go in the ends of the rack housing to limit lock

but your right as a circuit car i dont use much lock, on a circuit car generally if you cant catch a slide with half a turn your going off!

[M11rf]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Nice motor, and nice work

[Wessie]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

loving this ! looks like a proper bit of kit - keep the updates coming

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Well progress has been slow over December, as in absolutely nothing got done on the car up until today. I had some 50mm struts off a 323 I broke so thought id have a play with them. I stripped them down, sandblasted them and cut the standard spring perches of, welded some coilover conversion tubes on and some heavy duty arb mounts onto the strut.

Whilst clamping one of them into the vice I realised that the cast piece at the bottom can be made to flex quite easily , so I got a bit of 3mm steel and plated it a bit. I didnt want to wedge it completely and with thick steel as I think it needs a bit of give to avoid potential breakage somewhere else along the casting. We'll se how it goes. Also drilled the bottom ball joint taper out to 5/8ths so that I can use the rose joint arms. All they need now is alick of paint

Still undecided about what inserts to use. I wanted bilsteins but the lack of adjustability can be a problem as Ive found with the current shocks. Think I'll give the Gaz adustables inserts a shot. At 70 quid each they seem good value and Ive had good experiences with Gaz in the past.

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Stripped the car down and rolled it on its side on a frame we made up. Started stripping the underseal off. whats the best way people have done this? The best way we have found so far it a heat gun and scraper at first then buff off with a wire wheel in the Grinder. It works but its painfully slow :cry:

[martinpallot]

Re: Jersey E30 rally car rebuild

Managed to haul my arse into the garage for a couple of hours despite the bollocks weather were having atm. Dressed all the welds off after cutting into my thumb whilst attacking the seam sealer when my chisel slipped :oops: then spent an hour or so finishing the left hand footwell. Think im getting the hang of it now as its coming along faster than yesterday. I modified my scraper to have round sharp edges which has helped a lot. Im hoping itl be done in a weeks time and then I can finally get some primer on it.



I think im going to take it off everywhere apart from the rear arches. Mainly because the sealant is in really good nick round there and because the wheels are spinning most of the time so paint would get shitty even if I stonechipped them.



Also had a brainwave the other day. I had a tech1 sport sitting outisede which i remebered had a bilsteins and a lowering kit on it. The car is a proper rotter so I wasnt too excited until I pulled it apart. They look to have been replaced recently as they're spot on with the exception of the wiper seals in the retaining collars. Theyre solid compared to the FK's that were on the car which I was using with 600lb springs. As I was planning to use some longer springs and go for 450lb's due to adding a roll bar, I think I'l stick with these and see how they perform before I shell out for a new pair of shocks.