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Build Thread: The "Basket Case BMW" Project

63K views 599 replies 43 participants last post by  M.Blacktree 
#1 Ā·
Hey everyone! I'd like to start a build thread about my beat-up old BMW. Maybe someone will find it interesting? LOL

Anyway, here's some backstory. My previous project car was a Pontiac Fiero. It was a fun little car. But the drivetrain setup had serious limitations. Plus parts are getting scarce. So I decided to move on to something else. I wanted my new project car to have a front engine RWD layout. I also wanted decent handling. And I didn't want a large or really heavy vehicle.

After some research, I narrowed the options down to the 4th generation F-Body or the E46 BMW. To be honest, I was biased toward the F-Body. I grew up around Chevys and Fords, so it's familiar. But I found a really good deal on an E46, and jumped on it. Now I'm the proud owner of a 2001 330i. I was specifically looking for a 330i, because it has the biggest (non-M3) engine and beefy brakes. IMO that's a good starting point.

Here are some photos from the FB ad. Isn't she gorgeous?! :p







Looks like this car was rode hard, and put away wet. I wanted a project, and I got one! Here's an intro video I made, right after buying the car.



IMO a project needs to have a goal, or at least a direction. So here's where I plan to go with this car. First of all, it will not be a daily driver. And it will not be a "nice" car. This car is so rough that trying to make it pretty would be an exercise in futility. So instead, it's going to be a weekend fun car. My previous project (the Fiero) slowly morphed into a street-legal race car. And I think the BMW will do the same. I plan to do some drag racing, some autocross, and maybe some road racing. I'm not building it to fit into any particular racing class. And I don't really care if it's competitive. I just want to have some fun.

Also, the project car is just a hobby. Other things will take priority. So progress will be slow. But I plan to keep the car for a long time.
 
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#416 Ā·
It's been awhile, eh? Sorry about that. Parts availability has been spotty, so I've been making progress where I can. For example, that limited slip diff that I talked about a few posts above went out of stock, literally right after I made that post. It went on backorder, with no ETA. That's a key part of my rear end suspension and driveline project, so the project came to a grinding halt.

In the meantime, I decided to take care of some maintenance items on the daily driver. Now it has some new sensors (downstream O2 and MAF), a new coolant control valve for the hybrid system, and new front control arms. I also bolted some cheap pizza pans to the wheel covers, to see if the reduced aero drag will improve fuel economy.

I also talked to BC Racing, and they can do the custom spring rates I want. So that's cool. But the lead time is 4-6 weeks.

Also, that limited slip diff finally came back in stock! So I jumped on it. We now have a helical gear LSD coming from the UK. The ETA is end of July or early August.



So things are finally coming together, just not as quickly as I had hoped. Anyway, hope everyone is having a great day. And I'll keep you guys posted. šŸ˜Ž
 
#420 Ā·
Something pretty random just happened. I was trolling fakebook, and noticed Cooper Bogetti was doing some house cleaning. For those who aren't familiar with Cooper, he has a 2JZ powered Camaro. The original transmission from that car was a 5-speed manual gearbox. Just on a whim, I asked if he still had it.



So... what to do with a Borg-Warner T5 gearbox? :unsure:
 
#421 Ā·
Oops, forgot to post a follow-up. Here's a photo of the gearbox.



I misspoke earlier. It's actually a Tremec T5 unit. Tremec bought the design from Borg-Warner sometime in the 1990s, and called it the T5 World Class gearbox. It's rated for 310 ft-lb torque. This is also a pretty popular gearbox, used in Mustangs and Camaros (and a few other cars) through the 1980s and 90s. It also has a healthy aftermarket. There are parts available to beef it up, to handle more torque. I can even get a straight-cut gearset for it, if I want to go that route.

That said, I would like to have a decent automatic transmission with paddle shifters. I'm still going to try to make that happen. But if that doesn't work out, I have this 5-speed manual gearbox to fall back on. It cost me almost nothing. So if I don't use it, I can probably sell it for a profit. Either way, I come out ahead. šŸ˜Ž

Also, I'm still waiting on the coilovers from BC Racing. I ordered them a couple weeks ago. And the lead time is 2-4 weeks. So maybe they'll ship out soon? Keep your fingers crossed.
 
#427 Ā· (Edited)
OK, I have good news and bad news. We'll start with the bad news. Work on the Basket Case is delayed, because I suffered a minor injury. Last week, I pulled a groin muscle at work. So I took it easy for awhile.

Here's the good news. I now have all the parts I need for the suspension rebuild. I also started acquiring some other parts. So after the suspension work is done, we can segue right into that. Also, I'm feeling better. So work on the Basket Case should commence this weekend.

I made a couple low-effort videos, just to keep the Youtube algorithm happy. The first one is already out. It's just an unboxing video for the coilovers. In the second video, I laid out all the parts on the ground, and described all of them. That video will release this weekend. The next video after that should be the actual suspension work.

Here's the coilover unboxing video.



Also, here's a photo of all the suspension parts laid out.



Edit to add: Here's a list of all the parts.
  • Coilovers from BC Racing (6k front / 12k rear spring rates)
  • Sway Bars from Whiteline (30mm front / 20mm rear)
  • FCABs (95A urethane) from Garagistic
  • Strut Tower Reinforcements from BMW
  • Front Sway Bar reinorcements from Morehead Speed Works
  • Toyota Camry RTABs (monoball) from Moog
  • Outer Rear Control Arm Bushings (monoball) from Meyle
  • Inner Rear Control Arm Bushings (urethane "black series") from Powerflex
  • Adjustable Rear Camber Arms from Maxpeedingrods
  • Rear Subframe Bushings (Delrin) from Garagistic
  • Rear Subframe Reinforcements from Turner Motorsport
  • Rear Diff Bushings (polyurethane) from IRP
  • Rear Diff seals from Corteco
  • Finned Rear Diff Cover from eBay
 
#431 Ā·
Here's a progress report on the suspension rebuild. I started with the front suspension, because I thought it would be easier. The E46 front suspension is pretty simple. So I figured I'd knock it out really quick, to get the ball rolling. Then I could move to the rear.

Yeah... about that... :rolleyes:

Removing the front suspension took twice as long as anticipated. One of the control arms wouldn't rotate down far enough to let the strut come out. So I decided to detach the control arm from the steering knuckle, and drop the knuckle out of the way. But the ball joint wouldn't budge. I didn't want to damage it, because that control arm is fairly new. So I tried detaching the inboard balljoint from the crossmember. Negative, ghost rider. So now what?

I decided to drop the crossmember. Of course, that required installing an engine support, detaching the motor mounts, etc. Lots of extra work. But thankfully, I only had to drop the crossmember an inch or two. Below, you can see the engine support fixture, and the crossmember being lowered to let the struts out.





And last but not least, a shot of the front suspension removed. I'm glad that's over. Hopefully the rear suspension won't be such a hassle.



BTW the left side strut tower was mushroomed pretty bad. When I test-fitted the reinforcing plate, there was almost 1/2" gap! I also noticed the ride height at the left front was lower than the right side... by about 1/2". Coincidence? :unsure:

Fixing the strut tower was pretty easy. The sheet metal is thin. I didn't just bang on it with a hammer, because I didn't want a bunch of hammer marks on it. Instead, I placed a block of wood on top, and beat on that with a mallet. Worked great! I don't have any pics, but I got some video. I'll post that later.
 
#435 Ā·
Here's the strut tower that was mushroomed. Now it's nice and flat. Like I mentioned earlier, I used a mallet and a block of scrap wood to beat it back into shape. Nothing fancy here. I moved the block of wood around, to make sure the whole thing was "adjusted" evenly. I also stopped several times, to test-fit the reinforcing plate and judge my progress. And this is the end result.



On a side note, those reinforcing plates cover much more area than the camber plates. I think I've seen people comment that camber plates can be used as reinforcing plates. I would have to disagree. In the photo below, the camber plate is gold colored. The reinforcing plate is black. You can see how much more surface area is covered by the reinforcing plate.



Because it took so long to remove the old suspension, I'll have to split the front suspension project into 2 videos. My original plan was to cover it all in one video. Oh well. I'm editing the video right now. So it will release this weekend.
 
#437 Ā· (Edited)
Over the weekend, I was able to install the FCABs and reassemble most of the front suspension. All that's left is the sway bar install. And that involves welding reinforcing plates onto the chassis.

The polyurethane FCABs had to be installed into my existing lollipops. So of course, the old FCABs had to come out. They were in there pretty tight! First, I tried using a wheel bearing removal tool. But it wasn't strong enough. So the hydraulic press got some exercise. See photos below.









Notice how the front of the lollipop is marked F, so I know which direction to install the bushing. And last but not least, a shot of the FCAB installed.



Edit to add: I also checked the front ride height. The car is still on jackstands, so I used a jack to compress the suspension. With the coilovers set to maximum ride height, it's about an inch lower than stock. That's what I was looking for. So I'll leave the coilovers at that setting, and re-evaluate when the car is back on its wheels.
 
#438 Ā·
The front suspension is finished! (y)

Welding those reinforcement plates was a hassle, because of the tight space. Welding while laying on my back wasn't great, either. (you get showered with hot metal)

Anyway, here are some photos.







Also, there is good news about the ride height. With the car on its wheels, the front ride heights are 13.75" left and 13.85" right. Previously they were 14.5" and 15.0", respectively. So the difference between them has dropped from 0.5" to 0.1". I'm pretty sure that was because of the mushroomed strut tower. The remaining 0.1" difference might be because the concrete isn't perfectly flat. Anyway, the ride height is exactly where I wanted it, i.e. a "two finger" fender gap.

The car looks funny right now, because the rear end is sticking up in the air. We'll fix that soon enough.

I put the dampers and sway bar at the softest setting, to start with. After the suspension is complete, I'll test drive it and adjust things from there.

Now it's time to turn the car around, and start on the rear end. Wish me luck! šŸ˜Ž
 
#441 Ā·
Good news! The rear suspension is out. Thankfully, there wasn't much drama involved. Everything came apart without any trouble. I decided to drop the whole assembly as a unit, then take it all apart on the floor. I figured that would give easier access to things.



That said, I left the axles attached to the hubs. That may have been a mistake. We'll see how that goes.

Also, there were lots of old wasp nests under there. Thankfully, none of them were inhabited. But it makes me wonder if the car spent some time sitting out in a field, or something.



So I went after it with the power washer. The undercarriage looks really nice. No rust! And the subframe mounting points look good. I don't see any cracks or broken spot welds. It's possible there might be some cracks hiding behind the undercoating. But I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. šŸ˜Ž

Speaking of the subframe mounts, I think I'll do that first. The plan is to use the epoxy method to install the reinforcing plates. I'll post updates when available.
 
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