75 2002 Sleeper - M20B32, ITB, LSD

[creede]

Bravo. Looking really nice. Glad to see the project still moving forward.

[tinkwithanr]

No progress on the car this week, I've been fabricating some equipment for the shop (to use on the car!). I did want to share two things though.

 

First up, I made a facebook page for my "company"  Tinker Engineering. For the time being it's mostly just a profile on my shop and personal projects that I have going on right now. In due time I'd like to develop a number of things for BMW's and Subaru's to offer to the public as well as service and modifications for vehicles. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/TinkerEngineering

 

 

Second, while I was browsing though my normal automotive forums I got a pretty big surprise. I've followed the posts on Build-Threads.com for a few years now, and I love going there to see the crazy stuff that comes out of Norway/Sweden/Finland etc (I think it must be something in the water up there). Low and behold the latest blog he featured was my little build! At first I didn't even realize it was mine lol, took a minute to sink in. You can find it here:

 

http://www.build-threads.com/build-threads/1975-bmw-2002/

 

Pretty cool that Fiona's story/progress is getting out in the world. She's had a long journey so far, but there's still a ways to go.

[tinkwithanr]

Got a little bit of progress to report from tonight. (Still working on the video update, but it should be good when it's done).

 

I finally took the time to reassemble the wheels (un-refurbished ATM, I figured this way I won't mess up a newly painted wheel with all the test fitting) and mount the tires on them. Originally I was going to take pictures of the process, but working alone it was all I could manage to get the damn things on the wheels. After an hour and a half of hand to hand combat I got it done. Funny enough the first wheel took and hour, once I got the hang of it the rest of them went together fairly quickly. 

 

With the wheels and tires mounted and filled with air they could finally do the job they were born for, holding up the car. Well, the front wheels that is, the rear ones still need some kind of suspension to attach to, more on that later. So I threw the front wheels on the coilovers for the first time and set her down. And WOW, she was low. So low that  I couldn't get the low-pro jack out from under the front subframe (~2.5 high). At first I was just going to put some 2x4's under the front wheels to get the jack out, but then I remembered that it had coilovers. So you can raise it. Duh. So after some tweaking of spring perches I found a somewhat happy height. It's still seems a bit lower than I was planning, but it's really hard to say until I get the front fenders cut and mount the flares up there to match the rear. I may end up making some upper strut mount spacers, it all depends on where the shock is sitting in it's range of travel with my desired ride height.

 

I also threw the rear wheel in the fender with the rear supported at where I think it will end up. So this should be roughly what the final ride height will look like (sorry for the crappy phone pics, left the dslr at home on accident):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice how tucked in the rear wheel is the the fender and body. I will probably have to do some more trimming on the inside, but I really like how that looks in this picture. With as big as the tires are, I don't want it to seem like an old school muscle car dragster with a lot of rake or anything like that.

 

 

 

 

 

More to come in the next few days. Thanks for looking!

[tinkwithanr]

As fun as it's been fitting the rear wheels, I've come to the conclusion that the front is gonna be even more 'fun'. To start I threw the front tires on and got to work trimming the front of the wheel wells. Sadly this meant cutting into my custom front mounts, but I can always make more. Here you can see the area along the bottom that needed to be trimmed.

 

 

 

I still need to remove the springs from the coils and check that it will clear lock to lock under full compression, but it seems to be in the ballpark. This meant that I could turn my focus to the rear of the front wheel wells. The passenger side was simple enough, trim away sheet metal until the tire doesn't hit anymore. In the end the passenger will loose a little bit of leg room, but I don't think I'll be sitting over there that much lol. I still need to take the cuts a bit higher to account for suspension compression, but it shouldn't need to be any higher than the outer fender brace at the top of the pic.

 

 

 

View from passenger side. Not to intrusive.

 

 

 

Next up was the driver side. To be honest I've been kind of avoiding working on this section just because I hadn't really though of a way to do it properly yet. The main problem:

 

 

 

It's not entirely clear from the pic, but the clutch master cylinder and the tire wanted to occupy the same space. And seeing as my thesis on 4th dimensional physics has taken a back seat to this project, I had to figure out a different place for the clutch master. A few ideas had gone through my mind, from angling the clutch pedal (bad idea) to making a special linkage to raise the master cylinder up and over. I really wasn't satisfied with this idea either. It would add extra complexity that I didn't need, wouldn't save that much space, and to top it all off as soon as the tire cleared the master cylinder it would start hitting the pedal mount itself. 

 

This was the best picture I could get of the interference. The fact I couldn't get a better one just goes to show how tight things are in there.

 

 

 

Then I got an idea. I took a couple measurements, said some prayers, and took a saw to my pretty pedal assembly....

 

Turning this:

 

 

 

 

Into this:

 

 

 

Which then let's the tire do this:

 

 

 

With the master cylinder now sitting here, snuggly in the engine compartent:

 

 

 

With the pictures out of the way, some more technical jargin. You may have noticed how close the clutch pedal now looks to the brake. That's a combination of a few things. First, the camera angle exaggerates it due to the fact the clutch pedal was positioned much further forward compared to the brake and gas. This can easily be adjusted in the linkage, I just didn't bother at the time. Second, the clutch pedal isn't sitting square to the firewall due to the fact that I reused existing holes in the firewall to mock the pedal in place. Once I finalize where I need it to go I'll weld in a new, reinforced section of steel to make sure the pedal is securely mounted. The thin gauge material that's there now wouldn't really cut it.

 

Another concern I had initially was that the floor mounted brake and gas pedals wouldn't travel along the same path as the clutch, resulting in an awkward feel from the pedals. However, after testing them, the path of travel is remarkably similar. Plus the fact that the clutch will always be operated with your left foot, and the brake + gas pedals with your right, I don't see it being an issue. I'm sure the setup will need some more fine tuning, and I'll need to add some stronger mounting points for the clutch pedal (all of the mounts for the original 3-pedal setup were left on the brake-gas assembly), but overall I think it will end up being a simple and effective solution.

 

And with that I'll just leave a few pics as she sits now. The more I look at the front turbo dam, the more I think it's not wide enough anymore...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[peterman]

Looks great!  If you are concerned about the feel of the clutch, you could add a hinge to pedal so it can rock along your horizontal axis so when you press on the top of the pedal it rocks back and feels like its moving down.  Probably not worth the effort but its a thought.

[Mike_B]

Nice progress!

I know the floor mounted pedals are a nod to the original setup, but wouldn't hanging pedals solve most of your issues?

[tinkwithanr]

If you like at the height that the clutch pedal is, you'll see that a brake pedal in roughly the same location would interfere with the steering column. So by having a hanging clutch and floor mounted brake, I'm able to package everything easier. At least that's the plan lol.

[eurotrash]

showoff.  

[tinkwithanr]

I see what you did there lol.

[tinkwithanr]

Always a good call.

 

 

 

Not to give away too much, but I came to the conclusion I'll be needing this in the near future for "things". Kudo's to those that know what it is and what it does.

 

[Supraman007]

looks like it's going to be a Planishing hammer or English Wheel. 

[GoFaSSter]

Nice English wheel. Keep your fingers out of the way.

[tinkwithanr]

looks like it's going to be a Planishing hammer or English Wheel. 

 

 

Nice English wheel. Keep your fingers out of the way.

 

Well done Sirs.

[tinkwithanr]

So knowing what my wheels and tires were going to look like, I've had the idea in the back of my mind that the turbo flares weren't really going to cut it anymore. So I've been slowly adding to my metal working capabilities in case it came to coming up with something on my own. I'm also going to need to make up some parks for the cb350, namely an aluminum tank and seat pan, so I should get plenty of use out of the equipment.

 

I put this planishing hammer together a few weeks ago. This is used to help rough out more drastic shapes, and then you can move on to the english wheel to smooth them out and fine tune them:

 

 

 

 

I've had this bead roller for a while now. It started off as a Harbor Freight cheapo model, but then I added a LOT of reinforcement and some style:

 

 

 

Next up is a Beverly Shear. This is used to cut the sheet metal into shape, and it is especially good at complex curves and tight bends that would be much harder with air shears.

 

 

 

 

Then we have a cheap metal brake. I found it for sale locally for dirt cheap, so I picked it up a couple months ago. The plan is to beef it up much like the bead roller, as well as add fingers to make it a true box brake.

 

 

 

 

With the English Wheel pretty much complete (of course I forgot to take a picture with the wheel and dies in place, I'll grab one next time), I wanted to start figuring out what the flares might look like. I'd done some CAD renderings, but they never really did it justice. The best way to judge something is in the real world. So some TIG welding rod and a lot of blue painters tape later, I had a VERY rough idea of what it was going to take to contain the tires.

 

 

 

They are a bit hard to really capture with just a picture, which is one of the reasons the CAD renderings never made me that happy. I will say that I'm much more confident now that I've 'seen' the idea on the car.

 

 

 

 

 

Overall I think these should be pretty original on a 2002. All the flares I've seen before, whether they were pig cheek, box flare, gruppe 2, or turbo flares, is that they always stay below the beltline trim. Which always leaves an awkward transition between the upper and lower sections of the body. My idea with these flares is to keep the main design cues and body shape (the indent that runs below the stainless trim along with the sloping curve that follows below that) while pulling the whole body out to cover the extra track width. The majority of the extra width will be carried by the section of the body directly above the beltline trim, which includes the hood, trunk, and body below the rear windows. 

 

There is still a lot of design work and details to work out, including how to mold in the rear bumper, rocker panels, and come up with a new front air dam. But hopefully this design will end up being somewhat unique, while still carrying a strong period/motorsport vibe. 

 

I mean honestly, how hard can it be??

[Tommy]

Wow! Unique - yes definitely. Whether it's going to be good or bad - we'll see. Hurry up, can't wait!

BTW I'm getting pretty jealous for you tools.

 

"how hard can it be??" - Just the right attitude!

 

  Tommy