tinkwithanr

See, now your just showing off.

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!

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.

Haha, yeah. That chair was left over from a 'never-finished' go-cart project. Figured I might as well use it for something. Only two pics, it's late and I'm tired. More in depth explanations will come in a day or two. Long story short: 265/45/16 tires on 9.5" wheels (28 offset) E30 Rear Subframe (3.25 LSD) Custom Control Arms - 3.25" Narrow from the diff flange to the wheel hub per side Stock '02 Body w/Turbo Flare Minor tubing of the wheel well When it's all said and done the 265's will have 'extra' space so I can step up to 17" (275 or 295) if/when manufacturers stop making wide 16" tires. Standard ride height will probably be a little lower than below: The new control arms also let me use the Z3 hubs as opposed to the e81 hubs, which space the hub flange out from the backing plate an extra 1.5". This gives room for the wilwood calipers to fit between the inner side of the wheel face and the rotor. More to come.

Progress on Fiona has been slow. Right now I'm waiting on the new inner barrels for the front wheels to come in. Once I get those I can get the tires mounted and start checking the clearances for the front suspension. In the rear the next step is to take the subframe and trailing arms to the sand blaster (my cabinet isn't big enough) to clean them up so I can weld the camber/toe adjustments on and reinforce everything. I did get some new front tires in a lower profile. They seem to fit much better in the wheel wells. That being said I have been busy in the shop. A few weeks ago my dad and I installed this little beauty, a 2-post, 9000lb lift. I've only used it for a couple weeks and I already can't imagine going back. : At the same time we also got some pallet racking to help get all my extra parts and tools organized and off the floor. I also made some more progress on the bike, stripped it down to the frame so I can get that and the swing arm sandblasted with Fiona's parts. Once that comes back I can make up the new rear shock mounts and work on forming the new seat. I'd like to have it back on the road to get some fall riding in. Then the latest distraction is this guy: 1969 Jeep CJ-5 My sister and I bought it for my dad for father's day to replace the one he sold the day before my parents got married. Kind of a full circle thing. The body is in good shape overall but it needs the brakes and steering freshened up. The 304 V8 really makes this thing move. Until next time.

Snapped some pictures of the front tonight. First I mounted the front lip and center (since the barrel won't clear the strut tube). Overall the fit is decent with the flare. I could stand to come out another half inch or so, but unless I need to buy new lips I won't worry about it. I may also need to run a small spacer to clear the tire on the strut, so we'll see how that goes. Plenty of clearance between the rim and the flare: Then I got really curious, so I seated the bead on outside lip to get an idea of how well it would 'fit'. I still need to trim the stock fender for the flares, so I couldn't compress the suspension yet. That being said I really wish they offered this tire in a /45 profile as opposed to the /50 that I got. It's gonna be a pain to get these to tuck right and be able to have a halfway decent turning radius. I'm also very concerned about the clutch master cylinder that is on the driver side. I have a bad feeling that it and the tire are going to be fighting over the same real estate. But the next step is to trim the fender and see how bad the clearance is with the footwells.

Thanks man, your slightly further along than I am lol. I mean if you really wanted to see this get done you'd send me your front driver flare!!!

Here's where I got all of my info. http://extradrei.com/5lug.html Obviously it requires the use of an e30 rear subframe, and it does add track width so you'll need a different offset for your wheels.

Made a lot of headway on fitting the wheels and tires today. Started by finishing up the roll center spacers, which let me mount the steering arms on the struts and bolt the front suspension back together. All bolted together: In place: And of course I forgot to take picture of the front completely back together. I'll have to grab some tomorrow. That being said, with everything together I confirmed the fact that I'm going to need to get new inner barrels to clear the strut. I'm going to aim for a total width of 8" or 8.5" which should fit the 225 tires nicely. I may also add a small spacer (~5mm) to fill out the flare a bit better. But I'll wait to get the wheel put together first and see what it looks like. For the rear I 'mounted' one of the 265's on the 9.5" wheel to test the fitment with the correct hubs on the swingarm. It's going to be a tight fit to say the least, not that I expected anything else. I still need to add the camber/toe adjustment tabs to the rear subframe, so that will help to dial out some of the excess camber you see in the pic. Not a lot of clearance on the inner fender, but enough. Straight on side shot. With the flares properly fit and the wheel tucked in it won't have any rubbing issues at full compression. Here is the inner clearance with the trailing arm. Pretty much non existent. Considering the whole wheel will be moved in almost another inch when I'm done, the trailing arm will need some custom work done to it. Here you can see how the wheels fit with the flares as I got them. My plan is to get new barrels and lips for the rear, 1" narrower lip and 1" wider barrel. That should let it tuck into the flares nicely and have full travel with no clearance issues (once I do some more sheet metal work of course). Once I can confirm the wheel fitment and offsets I can work on making the rear coilover mounts, and then it can be a rolling chassis again! As always, thanks for looking!

Very valid points so far. If your looking for more wheel options, by far the best way to go would just be using the adapters Todd mentioned. It would be the easiest and cheapest option if your only going to end up with <200 HP and not racing on a track. For my project car I'm using E12 front struts (with custom roll center spacers to adapt them to the 2002 steering arm) and an E30 rear subframe assembly with Z3/E87 bits to convert it to 5-lug. Not only did this give me the 5-lug (which I admit I did partially for piece of mind, looks, and just because I could), but it also gave me much stronger axles, hubs and differential. Overae the ll it seemed like the best solution taking into account my increased power.

I'm going to go ahead and nominate Jason Gipson. Can't think of a better person to be the head of our group.

Great work Steve, huge improvement. Now the site doesn't feel as old as our cars!

Man, if only those were 5x120. The E50 is the only set of wheels I like more than the Epsilon's I have now. I could never bring myself to drill them for a different bolt pattern or run spacers though.

Not sure as of now. If I keep the turbo flares I will probably have to tub the inside of the wheel well, but time will tell. I have a few idea's, but not sure which route I'll take yet.

Sorry for the delay guys, I'll shoot you an email shortly. Here's a shot from this past weekend. From Left to Right: Layla - 1971 Honda CB350 - I picked her up about a month ago. Plans are to strip it down to the bare essentials and repaint. Then ride the hell out of her. She'll be styled in the 'cafe racer' theme. Fiona - 1975 BMW 2002 - The project you've all (hopefully) come to know and love. Vern - 1972 BMW 2002 - This little guy is actually my dad's. He picked it up this past winter after a vendor at work turned me onto an estate sale. Very original, some minimal rust issues that will most likely be fixed at some point. The plans for Vern are to keep him original and just enjoy his charm. Ironically Vern is exactly how Fiona looked from the factory (exterior color and trim level), minus the taillights. No progress to report on Fiona, but her tires came in. My initial thoughts, "this will be interesting.." Kuhmo Ecsta XS "Extreme Performance Summer Tire" (whatever that means lol) Front: 225-50-16 Rear: 265-45-16 In case you were wondering, there ain't gonna be no 'stretch' or 'stance' on this one. I would classify this as a meat lover's special if you know what I mean. For example, here is the new rear tire next to the stock rear tire on Vern: And here it is 'fitted' into the rear wheel well: As of right now I honestly don't know that I'm going to get these to fit. I may step down to 245/45's if these give me to much hassle. The good news is I got a hell of a deal on them, and the 911 guys love them so I shouldn't have an issue selling them to get a different set. That being said I have a few ideas up my sleeve and I wanna see where those take me first. I'd like to not have to worry about traction. As always, thanks for looking!

Good to know. I've already laid out the bolt pattern for the flange in CAD, so the hard part is done.

Haven't had much time to work on the car lately, I've had to work 60-70 hours the past couple of weeks. My new oil pump did come in though, so I took some time to start planning out my oil system a bit. The new pump in all it's glory. Used, but in great condition. I'll probably end up sending it in for a rebuild at some point before the car is done, but for now I'll just keep it as is for help with mocking everything up. First up was to cut out the stock sump. For the final setup I will probably end up with either a full billet pan or welding up a custom one from a CAD design (as opposed to just modifying the stock cast pan) but for now I will use the stock one minus sump for mocking up. This pan already had a stripped drain plug, so no real harm. For mounting the pump I really see two options, driver or passenger side. Initially I was leaning towards the driver side to help keep it away from the heat of the headers and to simplify the scavenging lines coming from the pan. This is roughly where it would go: And the output ports from the top. The first three would run to the oil tank and the last is the pressure out to the block. I also mocked it up on the passenger side. This would be nice because it would allow a shorter pressure side run into the block, as well as keep the oil tank on the driver side away from the headers. The main downside to this position would be messier scavenging lines from the pan due to the tilt of the engine. The next step will be figuring out what kind of capacity I will need for the oil tank, and seeing where I can shoehorn that into the engine bay. Also, someone mentioned the fact of using the non-OEM stainless bolts to mount the spacer on the bottom of the strut housings, so I figured I would post up my calculations: Thanks for your concern. You are correct, the stock BMW bolts are ISO grade 12.9 (which for the record is the equivalent of SAE grade 8 so that's a bit misleading). I have gone through the calculations comparing the two different grades and it will be fine, keeping in mind the stock '02 strut housing uses M8 bolts and the e12 strut uses M10 (probably because of the much larger curb weight). Taking those into account: M8 Minor Diameter (the 'area' that a stress will be applied) = 6.596mm M8 Stress Area = 34.15mm^2 M10 Minor Diameter = 8.315mm M10 Stress Area = 54.274mm^2 So the M10 fastener has 59% more cross sectional area for a stress to act over. This means that even though the grade 12.9 bolts has 54% more tensile strength than the stainless bolt, because the stainless fastener is larger in diameter it is still stronger overall than the stock fastener. I do admit that the above maths are only valid for tension or shear failure, I didn't bother to test for thread failure. This is because the threads would pull out of the steel housing or the aluminum spacer (for the bolts holding the pitman arm to the spacer) before the threads on either fastener failed. All that being said, thanks for bringing it up. It never hurts to check and double check things, especially when it comes to critical components.

Duh, how could I forget.

Yup, I'll go ahead and say I planned it that way....