MyE28.com

duggi wrote:
I feel exactly the same way -- having started with an m20-powered e28, I find the m30 versions to feel nose-heavy and unbalanced. I know that they're still beautifully balanced cars (in the grand scheme of things) and handle very well, it's just the perspective.

I have a 731 in mine and can't recommend it more! You sticking with the stock 731 cam (should be a 264º)?

Nice! Thanks.
I'm currently having a 731 head built with 885 valves and a 274 cam, should be a fun combo. The bigger valves and cam should be good for about +20 ish whp. With that I'm also swapping the stock diff for a S3.25 that I picked up a while ago.
I'm hoping the 3.25 lsd will suit the revvier head better, I hope it's enough of a change from the stock 2.93. Otherwise I might have to try a S3.46

KrautnotRice wrote:

duggi wrote:I have a 731 in mine and can't recommend it more! You sticking with the stock 731 cam (should be a 264º)?

Nice! Thanks.
I'm currently having a 731 head built with 885 valves and a 274 cam, should be a fun combo. The bigger valves and cam should be good for about +20 ish whp. With that I'm also swapping the stock diff for a S3.25 that I picked up a while ago.
I'm hoping the 3.25 lsd will suit the revvier head better, I hope it's enough of a change from the stock 2.93. Otherwise I might have to try a S3.46

I swapped in a 3.25 while my car was still an "eta" and I was underwhelmed...it's just too close to the 2.93 to really "feel" the difference. I did notice it on long uphill grades on the highway -- specifically I no longer needed to shift down from 4th to 3rd (in the auto) to maintain 75 mph, but still had no acceleration in those conditions. Even after the "i" upgrade and swapping in a manual, I still wasn't happy with the 3.25. This summer I had a 3.64 LSD built with the clutches upgraded to 40% and it's been a LOT better.

My 731 is stock (from the 323i it came from) and while I plan on removing it for 885-spec porting and valves in a few years, I'm still very happy with the performance. I'm running it with an Alpina B3 2.7 chip and it's superb (if you're interested in a copy, I might know someone who can make that happen..dm me). I'm working on swapping in a stock 535i exhaust with OBX m20 headers next. When I remove the head I also plan on having the intake manifold extrude-honed.

I strongly suggest getting a larger-bore throttle body - it made a significant difference for me on top of the other modifications. I got mine from Riot Racing/West Coast Riots -- highly recommend: http://www.westcoastriots.com

duggi wrote: I swapped in a 3.25 while my car was still an "eta" and I was underwhelmed...it's just too close to the 2.93 to really "feel" the difference. I did notice it on long uphill grades on the highway -- specifically I no longer needed to shift down from 4th to 3rd (in the auto) to maintain 75 mph, but still had no acceleration in those conditions. Even after the "i" upgrade and swapping in a manual, I still wasn't happy with the 3.25. This summer I had a 3.64 LSD built with the clutches upgraded to 40% and it's been a LOT better.

My 731 is stock (from the 323i it came from) and while I plan on removing it for 885-spec porting and valves in a few years, I'm still very happy with the performance. I'm running it with an Alpina B3 2.7 chip and it's superb (if you're interested in a copy, I might know someone who can make that happen..dm me). I'm working on swapping in a stock 535i exhaust with OBX m20 headers next. When I remove the head I also plan on having the intake manifold extrude-honed.

I strongly suggest getting a larger-bore throttle body - it made a significant difference for me on top of the other modifications. I got mine from Riot Racing/West Coast Riots -- highly recommend: http://www.westcoastriots.com

Thanks, that's the feedback I was looking for regarding the diff ratio.
I might take you up on the Alpina chip offer.
Those OBX headers are on my shopping list, too. Seems like the only option out there.
Said shopping list seems to be growing larger all the time! lol

The old girl was due for an oil change and it's finally convenient for me to do that at home. With the front end hanging over the edge:





I've been using Castrol GTX conventional 20W50. The spare quarts stay in the trunk and I check and top off every fill up. Usually half a bottle every fill up (!) as it burns about a quart every 600 miles...



After I replaced the tie rods I attempted my first ever string alignment after reading Shawn D.'s tips. I used his newspaper / wax paper trick and it worked great. On the test drive afterwards the car tracked straight.







I tied the string to the rear tow hook, looped all the way around all four tires and held it down with a German precision instrument ^^.
The layers of newspaper / wax paper under the front tires made it super easy to adjust the tie rods!
I put three sand bags onto each front seat plus three on the rear seat as per Rod Paine's directions. The tank was only half full though and I didn't put a sand bag in the trunk *doh*

The replacement SOFICA blower motor also arrived from South26, thanks again Andy!
Over the last couple days I've been lubing the bearings with 3-IN-ONE oil, every time I walk by I put a drop onto the shaft right above the bearing and let it soak into the bearings.

When I first got the car, 2 years ago, it had a dead in-tank fuel pump but still ran with just the main pump. Switching over to a single in-tank pump was one of the first things I did. I got a new, aftermarket in-tank lifter pump, gutted it and reused the hanger assembly to fit a Walbro 255lph pump from CA Tuned. The red stuff is rescue tape to prevent the electrical connection to ground out against the metal.
In fact, I want to pull it back up in a few days to see how well the rescue tape has held up and I might redo the connection now that I have more electrical stuff on hand. This is what it looked like before it went in:







^^I know, mismatched hose clamps. How do I live with myself?!

Nice work. I have to say I loved driving Maytag (eta) before my suspension upgrade. I now know how bad that old suspension was. The car is flipping amazing to drive now which has remotivated me on my m20 build plans...

You're gonna regret you went walbro and not tre...

cek wrote:Nice work. I have to say I loved driving Maytag (eta) before my suspension upgrade. I now know how bad that old suspension was. The car is flipping amazing to drive now which has remotivated me on my m20 build plans...

You're gonna regret you went walbro and not tre...

Thanks. I've been living vicariously through Maytag's thread, it's been major motivation. I once spent 3 hours at the self car wash detailing my engine compartment, but it's all dirty again now. lol
I hope the Walbro holds up, but if not at least I'll know what to do.
I can't wait 'til I get coilovers on my car, but it's sooo far down the list right now with the pending cylinder head swap and body work. I'm several thousand bucks away from that point still, sadly.

KrautnotRice wrote: I hope the Walbro holds up, but if not at least I'll know what to do.

I don't think Walbros have reliability issues. It's noise. They get obnoxiously loud.

Today I pulled the instrument cluster to replace the two light bulbs at the top, one was dim and the other was out.
I used the opportunity to clean certain areas with Deoxit.
My speedo, odo, econometer and cruise stopped working all at once and I thought it might be the white connector at the back of the cluster, I Deox'd it as well but no luck. I guess I'll have to check the speed sensor in the diff.







I cleaned these speedo connector prongs as well.



Looks like the original batteries in the cluster.
Can someone chime in if I'm supposed to change them?
Thank you!

You're getting a lot done, kudos. Check the pins on the speedo side as well for corrosion, I recall finding corrosion in odd, out of the way places. In fact you may as well remove the temp gauge, and everything else and go over everything with a fine tooth comb. Wish I had some wisdom for you on the sudden drop out of all your gauges, perhaps one of the gurus will pop in and shed some light.

Regarding those batteries, if they're original they're probably due for a replacement but check their voltage. Thinking they should be in the range of 2.5v, Bentley likely has a spec. Cheers.

Oh, and careful with the fuel gauge needle! I bumped mine out of place once and had to keep going back in to get it ''perfect" again. Its the little things.

Lapisblau wrote:You're getting a lot done, kudos. Check the pins on the speedo side as well for corrosion, I recall finding corrosion in odd, out of the way places. In fact you may as well remove the temp gauge, and everything else and go over everything with a fine tooth comb. Wish I had some wisdom for you on the sudden drop out of all your gauges, perhaps one of the gurus will pop in and shed some light.

Regarding those batteries, if they're original they're probably due for a replacement but check their voltage. Thinking they should be in the range of 2.5v, Bentley likely has a spec. Cheers.

Oh, and careful with the fuel gauge needle! I bumped mine out of place once and had to keep going back in to get it ''perfect" again. Its the little things.

Thanks! I will recheck the speedo side connection, that's the white plug on the back of the cluster. I noticed there's some tension on the wires from the harness, so maybe something came loose.

Got some replacement stop light sockets from Blunt Tech and some electrical supplies from The Electrical Depot: Bosch relays, relay sockets, 12 & 16 ga wire, and some light bulbs from a place in Florida (I forget the name). Those weird looking metal sockets with wire pigtails were a random ebay score to experiment with.
I've been meaning to beef up the headlight wiring and modify the tail lights.



Teaser shot:

The tail lights are done modded, I now have triple tail lights per side and double stop lights.

Also of note: the stock tail light locations are still the stock spec 5W bulbs. I did pick up the popular 10W upgrade bulbs but found that it makes the center tail light way brighter than the other two, so I put the 5W back.

The BMW Z4 3.0 factory (short throw) shifter was one of the first things I picked up for this car a couple years ago. I never got around to ordering all the bushings to install it until recently: I got whatever aftermarket parts Blunt carries for it, like the Meyle rubber bump stop and the Febi shifter plate mounts, the rest (OEM parts) I picked up from Tischer at getBMWparts.com
Hopefully that's all I need to get rid of all the shifter slop. A (weighted) ZHP shift knob will probably follow.
Also snagged a new hood emblem and grommets from Blunt and some real ceramic fuses.



While spending 4 weeks in ze Vaterland last year, this was the only E28 I saw:



Naturally I had to have it. Looks like a Lachssilber over Cardinal slicktop, with a leather wrapped dash (Individual program?), fog lights but no passenger side mirror. It's still rocking the TRX wheels.

KrautnotRice wrote:While spending 4 weeks in ze Vaterland last year, this was the only E28 I saw:



Naturally I had to have it. Looks like a Lachssilber over Cardinal slicktop, with a leather wrapped dash (Individual program?), fog lights but no passenger side mirror. It's still rocking the TRX wheels.

Dude... Where did you find that?

davintosh wrote: Dude... Where did you find that?

Found it at a well sorted toy store in Northern Germany. It's pretty common that toy stores that carry r/c stuff and the like also carry "Modell Autos".
Happy hunting, and be sure to let us know what you find!

This is what the electrical side of my modified tail lights look like.
There's a ton of different ways to do this, by far the easiest is to purchase a MrFixit's MoBetta MoBrighta product that suits your needs. However, I wanted to do it myself mostly because I had a lot of electrical supplies in stock and I enjoy wiring jobs. Call me a masochist.

In a nutshell, this is what i did:
-Constant 12V+ from antenna power plug to relays (12ga)
-Take signals for stop & tail lights from metal circuitry to trigger relays (16ga)
-Dual grounds to body (yellow, 12ga)
-One Bosch relay 0 332 019 151 for added tails, one for added stop lights
-Modified new Hella stop light sockets with ebay pigtails
-Standard 3496 dual filament bulbs (CEC brand made in China, nickel base)

Because my car's metal circuitry is still in good shape, I'm still grounding the bulbs to that, only supplying 12V+ via the pigtails.
I added two tail lights and one stop light per side. The relays only power the additional stop lights and one of the additional tail lights per side, the other additional tail light I connected to the stock tail light circuitry via a jumper lead.

Note the side by side relays (brown) in their relay sockets for easy replacing, one for the added stop lights, the other for two of the added tail lights. These are the same relays I'm going to use for upgrading the headlight wiring, so I picked up 5 total relays. Two for the front, two for the rear and one spare to carry onboard because pimpin' ain't easy.

Driver's side:





Coming over to the passenger side:





Esploded view of my modified sockets:



All three tail lights again:



Here's the dual stop lights, with and without tail lights on (sorry for the poor picture quality):





Also, the radio does not cut out when I step on the brakes, that only happened the night I worked on the car after the battery was almost dead.

My 86 ETA was losing power to the radio when I would touch the brakes too... Turns out it was a fuse that was really corroded/loose.

I really like what you've done to yours. Digging the tail light setup.

Nesset wrote:My 86 ETA was losing power to the radio when I would touch the brakes too... Turns out it was a fuse that was really corroded/loose.

I really like what you've done to yours. Digging the tail light setup.

Thanks Nesset.

Quick update:
Not too much has happened to the beemer in the last few months, except a giant bird flew into my front corner while I was doing 70.
The impact smashed the low beam and dented the valance, but luckily the grill is fine. Got a new euro valance a while ago anyway, and I received a new low beam from Schmiedmann.



A few days ago, I installed Eibach Pro lowering springs I got from another forum member here. I did only the front, because I'm happy with the rear stance on (tired and sagging) stock springs. To my surprise, the front is only about 1/2" lower than before. Guess the old springs were really saggy.
The ride is very nice and compliant and the stock shocks seem to pair well with the Eibachs. No complaints there.









AFTER:






I got four new tires today. The old ones were KUMHO Ecsta AST (junk) in 225/50r16, to upgrade them I decided to spring for the Continental ExtremeContact Sport (their new replacement for the DW) in 205/55r16.
Going down in tire size to a closer to stock size was on purpose, because I was tired of the heavy steering feel. 'Sides, it's not like ETA is struggling for traction with its fierce 120hp.
I was never happy with the KUMHOs, I felt like their wet traction was disastrous, though dry traction wasn't terrible. They were bought new in '12 (by the PO), yet 3 of them recently developed bulges, making them useless.

New tires:









The Contis feel amazing. YUGE difference in steering feel, way lighter and better. Haven't gotten a chance to push them yet or drive in the rain, so I'll report back on that later. Initial reaction is super positive though.

New low beam installed, but still rockin' the feathers, because cultural appropriation:



Thank you for looking and happy weekend.

a great read, thanks for sharing

Dubs wrote:a great read, thanks for sharing

^^^Thanks for reading.

Got a few thousand miles on the new Continental ExtremeContact Sport tires and front Eibach springs now and all is very well.
I finally made it down to the BMW Zentrum (museum) in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
I'll post the rest of the pics later, but here's a teaser.

Just wandering through the Eye Candy section and wanted to comment that I love the patina on your car. I'm sure you have other ideas, but I wouldn't paint it!

zentropy wrote:Just wandering through the Eye Candy section and wanted to comment that I love the patina on your car. I'm sure you have other ideas, but I wouldn't paint it!

Thanks, zentropy. Yeah I wish I could afford a paint job, but in the mean time at least it's a cool old car and not a Lexus or Prius.

More pics from the BMW Zentrum in Spartanburg, SC:

Happy new year everyone!
We got some snow here in the SC lowcountry, and since that almost never happens I snapped a pic of the ol' girl...



In other news, the rebuilt 731 cylinder head arrived and will get installed soon.

Just reread your entire thread! Where are you located in SC? Not too far away to be coming down for Savannah meets(I'm about 45 min south).
Love the eta, glad to see someone giving them love.

Thanks, Ben.
I'm in the lowcountry, 1.5 hours north of Savannah, I drive down there often though, last year I've gone to Savannah and Hilton Head cars & coffee quite a bit. Pretty soon, the old eta will get a little boost in power and a new clutch.

Ben912 wrote:Just reread your entire thread! Where are you located in SC? Not too far away to be coming down for Savannah meets(I'm about 45 min south).
Love the eta, glad to see someone giving them love.

Well got a bit of an update.
Some of you may have noticed I've been selling off many e28 parts lately and the reason being is that my shell is too far gone to save for me. Since I don't have the luxury of owning two cars, I can't just park the e28 and restore it later, so with all the body damage, crumpled frame rail, rust, shot paint, shot dash, bad cylinder head, janky exhaust and now a worn out clutch I decided to change course.
I hope to get a nicer one down the road as I love the platform. I've had many, many smiles driving this thing hard through the twisties and up and down the east coast.

Needing more space, enter the Krautbomber:
A '93 MB 300te.
White on grey, all original body panels, good original paint, no body damage, near flawless upholstery (MB Tex), perfect dash, quiet exhaust, cold a/c, strong and smooth engine and trans and it's a RWD wagon with over 200 hp.
The car runs very smoothly and is refreshingly quiet inside. It does need a couple things of course, but they should be well within my capabilities.

Sorry for the poor picture quality, it was getting dark and I'm all thumbs with a camera anyway.













^^^^^Just as it arrived at home, not even washed yet or anything, so let these be the 'before' pics.
Rear muffler hangers should arrive in the morning here at my local NAPA. It needs shocks and a few other minor things. 16" wheels perhaps, so I can transfer my beloved Contis? Time will tell.
The first thing I will probably do is a major clean / detail / paint correction / wax. Then just put a few miles on it to learn the car and see what all it really needs over the next few weeks.
Thank you for reading and, as always, comments welcome.