lelio

your right about the axle's. It didnt occur to me because i didnt have any nissan axles. but i probably could have gone to a junkyard and got some and welded together a hybrid bmw/nissan axle shaft, it would've been a little less work. oh well. this works too.

The Nissan drive shaft was a 2 part. much shorter than 02's but the Nissan transmission was a lot longer so it came out just right. nissan diff with part of driveshaft; and you can see the second piece and how it connects to the trans in these 2; I almost got away with 0 modification the the subframe but in the end i had to shave about a square inch of sheet metal off or the diff wouldn't align straight. a better pic of the adapter plates and before i knew i would have to take that notch out. ; and here's the ugliest part, the trunk hack; I was hoping to do something like the v bar you described. and just have it attach to the same spot the rear x bar of the cage attaches to the strut tower on either side. or have the v bars attach directly to the bottom of the x bar. i definitely need to do something since as you can see i lost a lot of structure there. ill also be laying in sheet metal to try and pretty it up some and ill have to rebuild part of the gas tank mounting which was kinda rusting away anyway. basically what i had to was make a plate that mounted to the back of the nissan diff, weld it to the the plate that org diff bolts to, cutout the structure that the plate mounts to, attach those together through the bushings then hold the whole assembly in the car in the right position while i welded the structure (trimmed to fit) back into the car (slightly further back, up higher and to the left) with the use of that square piece of tubing. I cant find the pics of the axles being assembled, but i have a few of the finished product at least. you can also see the adapter plate i made for the diff on the left.

thanks for the advice, Ive been lazy about updating, but i actually found a solution, kind of similar to what you suggested. I put in the nissan VLSD. took the bmw axles apart, cut an inch out of the middle of one and 2 inches out of the other, Because the diff's input is off center. then i put them in a lathe and put a 1/4 inch hole exactly in the center of each cut off end, put a good chamfer all around while i was at it. then i connected the ends together with a 1/4 inch pin and took them to someone who is a much better welder than i am to weld them together perfectly straight and centered. (perfectly meaning within about .005"). if that doesn't make sense i have some pictures on the shop pc, If I work on the car tomorrow ill get them all together and post some here. then I replaced 2 cv joints that looked a little doubtful but kept 2 that looked good (I was planning to replace them all regardless but turned out to be harder to find and more expensive than thought. ). I made 2 adapter plates that bolt up to the bmw's cv joint on one side and the nissan diff's output flanges on the other. mounting the diff was a little hairy too, I had to cut into the very front of the trunk a bit and add a support bar that goes from the bottom of each strut tower and ties in with the little bit of stuctural sheet metal there too. ill be welding in a little sheet metal to pretty it up soon. that was for the back bolts on the diff, the front ones got an adapter plate to bolt onto the subframe. Also i got lucky and the drive shaft from a 240sx fit in perfectly with no modification. I just had to weld in a mount for the support bearing. so drive train has been 100% completed as of a month or 2 ago Im currently working on rebuilding the the transmission tunnel and firewall. after that will be the roll cage which i hope to tie into my diff support bar. Im gonna really try to get on this pictures thing, there's so much i haven't put on the journal.

Ireland Engineering says they dont have any. anyone know where i can get them? preferably new or rebuilt.

so, almost a year later and Im finally getting around to this part. so i thought id bump this thread in case anyone came up with anything since last time. or if M20Curtis has broken the latest one he was talking about. I found a used Nissan Viscous LSD that would work fine except its about 3 inches wider than the stock BMW one (i have a feeling this would be the case with most stronger Diffs), which would mean i would have to find some short axles with flanges on both sides that i would make adapter plates for. which is proving kind of difficult to find and will no doubt get expensive if i do. im torn because it would be so easy to just use a BMW LSD and have the custom drive shaft made, but im not building this car to drive it gently. perhaps someone knows of a decent shop that works on BMW diffs ? i could talk to them and see what kind of options there are for similar size diffs, even if i have to spend a bit of money to have one rebuilt special. or if anyone knows a good shop that i can talk to about getting short/custom axles.

your awesome. that makes much more sense than what i was trying to do with them. thanks a lot.

i bought'em from ireland and am installing and i feel like im failing an IQ test. what do i do with these 2 clips and bars(bottom of picture)? I assume they somehow attach the spring to the curved bar like the clip on the stock one does, but i just dont see how. anyone installed these before? the instructions are very generic and make no mention of them. i know im gonna smack myself when i figure this out and it's so simple.

so these number's represent the engine's with EVERYTHING on them. transmissions, manifolds etc. my hoist scale only reads within 25lbs or so nissan: ~650lb bmw: ~575lb so much for weight loss. i blame it on the transmission. the nissan has a power steering pump and turbo that the m10 doesnt, but those cant add that much. if you look at the m10's little 4 speed next to the sr20's it looks tiny. do the 5 speed converted ones wiegh much more? when i get into preparing the sr20 ill weigh the engine and transmission seperate and get a better idea of where the weight is.

so im at the point where im going to have to mess around with the steering arm and wheel hub for brakes and steering and it occured to me that if i Raised the spindle an inch or 2 i would be lowering the car while retaining full suspension travel. Is this is a really bad idea? i guess id have to check how much i could go before the tire started hitting stuff at the top of travel and id still go for stiffer springs and shocks. as far as suspension goes i wanna stick with proven solutions since I have no expierence whatsoever in suspension tuning, but if people have done this before with better results than just lowering springs id like to know. thanks

i would vote yes, i missed that option in the profile as well and have been a little frustrated with the order for a the few weeks id been here. although putting this as sticky solves the problem as well since i know i can change it now.

thanks for the encouragement, and good luck with your turbo m10 (or did you mean supercharged? do people ever do that to these motors?). mechanically I intend to take my time and do things clean efficient and strong with performance always taking first priority. but i may let down some people as far as aesthetic goes. Im not going to have an expensive paint job, im going to remove all trim, weld up the wholes and DIY flat black paint. thats just the kind of car im interested in, stripped down basic and fun to drive. with the interior im aiming for clean painted sheet metal, racing seats/harnesses, gauges and toggle switches mounted on brushed alimnum. you get the idea. a race car that you can drive to work. maybe this weekend ill get around to weighing them, right now im all caught up in working out the steering and brakes situation.

like TMK-001 said it is the sr20det, i bought the front clip of a 180sx(very similar to an s13 silvia), ill be putting it in transmision and all so there won't be any bellhousing issues to work out. I may have to redo some of the transmision tunnel though, as the nissan bellhousing is quite a bit bigger. I like the sr20 200hp more than the s14's 190hp because its already a turbo. that's total personal preference though. NA motors definetly have their benefits. winstontj , your right, this car will be worth nothing to anyone except for me, i better like it I have the sr20 and the m10 sitting on palettes next to each other right now, i keep meaning to weigh them, ill post it when i do . I weighed the whole car when i bought it (1280 lb on the front 1040 on the rear, 2320 total) . but ive taken so much else out in the process it wont really be a good indicator as far as engines go. i still havent decided what i want to do with the rear end. I was thinking it would be perfect to put in some kind of muscle car rear end, just so i could have the trifecta: german chassis, japanese engine, american drivetrain in reality ill put it off for a while and see how much patience and money i have left when i get to it. its good to know its an option, albeit a risky one to just use the stock one.

i know this has been talked about but im attempting my own conversion and was interested in some info, hopefully from NickVyse, you did the e21 rack right? what was the dimension between the inside of the tierods and what was the amount of travel (in distance, not turns) from lock to lock? I measured the stock 2002 stearing set up as ~16 inches (40cm) between the inner tie rods and ~8 inches (20cm) full travel . This was with the box and arms already out so i could have completely screwed up, please let me know if anyone knows better dimensions. Im not too educated on how changing the pivote points would effect things, it seems like you could have problems where bumps would make the tire steer if you put it too far off, or maybe change how well the steering "finds" straight if you get my meaning. what im getting to is, did the e21 rack pivot in about the same place? and if not did you notice any symptoms similar to the ones mentioned above? I realize you had the turning radius problem because of the longer arms on our cars. Shortening the steering arm is something i can play with. how is your's coming along lately? pretty much shortening the steering arms looks like a neccesity, even if you could find the perfect rack and pinion set up with 16 inches between the tie rods and 8 inches travel that would put your steering column only 4 inches out from centerline of the car , and were only a few inches out from the firewall. i guess that's not impossible, but it would require some pretty tight steering column joints.

thanks for your input guys. so it sounds like the stock non-lsd diff might do ok with 200hp... Probably only because the tires would spin before you could put that much force on it. and believe me im going to make the car as light as possible so yes that is a good point, less weight = less force, (sr20 is all aluminum block BTW) i could go the cheap route and have that just be my fusible link for the drivetrain. the only thing im really risking is the price of having to make a different drive shaft if i find i need something different. In the end i suspect ill have to put in something that ill have to custom fabricate everything on, I was just hoping to cheat on this one part of the car and maybe do something that someone else has trailblazed. I shouldve known better. also i realize some of the points winstontj makes are valid, but i am going into it with my eyes open. Im bolting in a 200hp motor, not 300. its small and lightweight , it makes that hp stock so it should be reliable(ish ) fuel injected etc. . it seems like pretty "usable, drivable, functional power" to me . i threw out 300-350hp as something i wanna prepare for happening YEARS down the road because i realize the chassis will have a LOT of catching up to do before it's equal with even 200 hp. im working on brakes right now, and ill have to get new wheels and tires before its running and once it is running suspension will be the first thing i turn to , then there's a roll cage somewhere in the future for the usual reasons plus I dont know how much power the frame would take before twisting. im sure a billion other things im not thinking of, but ill deal with it, ive got time. honestly im sure even the m10 could make more HP than the SR20 if you put enough work into it . For me its about playing to my skills, doing something fun and unique and saving some cash over what it would cost to get an m10 past 200hp . I have no background in tuning engine's like that , i dont have the cash or knowledge to start building that kind of power from scratch (I got much respect for you guys that have), but i do have a full machine shop at my disposal, i can make anything i might need, motor mounts, drivetain pieces, quite easily. So bolt in power just makes sense for me.

yeah i figured there'd be some of that. after the response i got in this thread ; http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,57/page,viewtopic/t,271134/highlight,/ come on people, sacrilege can be fun! mother just doesn't understand me...

nissan sr20. keeping a journal with a little more info here: http://sil02.livejournal.com/

and what have people done when they needed to handle more than that? I've seen that you can do the 320 LSD swap which would be nice, but not necessarily stronger, especially since your still using the same cv joints on the outside of the axle. the engine im putting in makes 200 hp but may get up to 300-350 in the next few years. There's gotta be people making that and more from m10's or various other swaps. What have you guys done? Im gonna have to spend some money on a custom driveshaft and i don't wanna have to do it twice

Thanks for the input guys, it was a hard decision and i took awhile to think and research, i was very close to doing a rotary but in the end it scared me off with heat and fragility issues. I went with the SR20. Keeping a journal here on my progress here: http://sil02.livejournal.com/

Im pretty sure im taking that piece out on my project . Im doing some major firewall surgery and was gonna take a disc grinder to it. If you cant find new maybe i could try to cut it out kinda clean, im not sure how clean i could get it though... You could even give it a try yourself if you wanted, my shop's in Sun Valley, CA

thanks, i guess i just kept seeing talk of fabricating this and that for the m20 to fit in, but if there's a version that actually bolts right on to the stock tranny , i can see the favorability. I still might go for something exotic though. I really like these cars but i want it to eventully be a high horsepower car. So if anyone knows of people who have gone to all the trouble to put in other kinds of engines id like to hear about it.

hello, new here. Ive been looking into buying an 02 for a few weeks now as a project car. I see a lot of people doing m20 swaps but not anything else. it seems like the m20 needs a lot of fabrication to make work so why is it the favorite? is it just a really good engine? or is it the only thing that can possibly fit? or is it just brand loyalty? just curious if anyone's heard of attempts to put in other motors in these cars. it be a dream to fit in a toyota 1jz-gte, but if thats just to long maybe a nissan sr20. i dunno, something thats designed for a turbo . it just seems if your going to go to all that trouble why not put in the best possible engine? i could very easily be talking out my ass here, i know very little about the m20 maybe it is all that you could ever want in an engine, ill continue to look into it, in the meantime, please school me.