Add less to make it more.

Now that the car can move under its own power and I have had some time to explore it I have realized a few things.

 Weight. 

 This car is much heavier than needs be - take the sound deadening. By spending an afternoon removing everything behind the driver (it is surprisingly intuitive to remove parts from the inside of this car) I was able to shed 151 lbs. This was enough to bring the car until 3000 lbs weight as measured by a truck scale (same scaled was used before/after) 

 The biggest shock however was the sound deadening. 60 lbs! It took two garbage bags to contain it all, and I didn't even take out the tar paper like stuff that is glued down! This was just removable mats! 

 Grip.

  It has it.  This car is capable of holding on far past where I can. I desperately need a seat and a proper belt because as it is I am pressed against the door on right turns, and I can't even take lefts violently because I'll end up half wedged between the two seats. The Ventus RS-3 tires are mind-bogglingly good for the price, and have ever been wearing very well. I am shocked these are not an R-Compound tire. They don't have the most solid turn in response but I suspect that is more related to mounting these "225" (they're actually much larger) sections on a 7 inch wide wheel, and having them round the edges a bit. If I could put these on a 9 Inch wheel I suspect the car would feel many times better on turn in. 

 Automatics suck.

 I can't take this automatic shit. How do people do this? I am getting more anxious for those manual parts to materialize. I finally found a source for some of them, so hopefully it happens soon!

 Depreciation is the friend of the working class racer

 This car sold for 31,327$ (US) when new, in 1992. With inflation that is just under 49,000$ for this car.

 I bought it for less than the tax that was paid when it was new.

  Reliability

 I spend most of my time pushing this cars limits. So far, all it has done is suggested gently that I replace a few light bulbs and perhaps figure out why it's a bit rich sometimes. 

 

Dave coleman was right

 I'll be blunt here:
 I like things that don't belong.
I like cars that are here because for one shining moment, a car company had some sort of frenzy wash over them and cause them to spit out a car that no one really needs. Cars like the Mazda 323 GTX. Who really needed an AWD, Turbo 1.8L Mazda GLC? nobody did. What about the turbo celica? Yes, the 5th generation Celica certainly needed an infusion of engine to compliment the styling and sporting pretention, but why turn it into a leather clad luxury cruiser that was so heavy it almost landed right back where it started before the steroids? Passion, thats why. They wanted to go racing. They wanted to win hearts and minds. They wanted to sell cars to people that want to slide them into a bush at 3 am on a backroad, push it out of the ditch and then do it again.

  I like cars that shouldn't exist and were made for idiots with bad ideas about how to spend their free time.

   I can promise you without even gracing the google with a search to make sure this prediction is right that if you go to the first big Mazda GTX/Celica All-trac/Etc forum you can find, you will end up with a die hard group of suckers passionate hobbyists trying to develop go fast parts out of someones garage and a history of "mass produced" parts that started as a budget experiment 5 years ago. Even with the DSM world, where there is a nice mix of professional and backyard parts developers there is always a sense that the parts exist a bit more for passion than they do for business.

Do you think these guys thought "Hey Walt, lets build a Mazda 323 world record speed car, we can get the parts from pep boys!"

So I hope all that helps explain my next statement.

    BMW owners are getting fucked.

So are Audi, Porsche, Lexus, Infinity, Mercedes, Jaguar and every other "up scale" brand owner.
It has been extremely annoying getting into the "BMW world" because for the first time I'm dealing with a car where there is a clear and solid curtain drawn between the owners/enthusiasts and the hard working souls that make the parts that make the car better, faster, stronger and more enjoyable. With my previous cars, they were either so obscure (What do you mean a "turbo AWD" celica?) or so budget minded (New DSM Turbo; 400$!)  that most of the solutions for go-fast fun started right in the communities because they had to. No company looked at the masses of Celica All-tracs being sold (all 5000 of them...) and thought "Someone needs to engineer an exhaust system that will last for 20 years, be quieter than stock and not rattle to much at idle!". No, rather they looked right past the cars that didn't quite belong.  So when you did buy an upgrade you understood what makes it superior and why it exists; you know the reason it is better than the original design and why its worth your hard earned dollars.

 In the BMW world, for better or for worse, there are professionals with giant warehouses and millions of dollars worth of stock. Businesses that have been around for enough time that they aren't really expected to justify anything, be it cost or design choices, and for the most part this is probably a good thing because they actually know what they are doing. I'm used to going to one vendor for suspension, one for clutches, one for engine parts, and for everything else buying universal performance parts and hoping they fit (or making them)

 Now however I could literally turn my car into a competition club racer with one phone call to Turner Motorsports and a huge amount of lucre leaving my pocketbook.

 This leads me to the biggest thing that is starting to get to me. BMW parts really are more expensive for no tangible reason. Some of them I can understand. I know BMW builds some of the worlds finest engines so naturally I would expect that replacement parts specifically for the engine internals would have to maintain this high level of quality, which means expense. That's fine. The fact is, replacement parts from the manufacturer or the high quality aftermarket vendors are actually quite reasonable. Yes they are a bit more, but the quality of these parts actually seems to go up in proportion to the value, so my complaint is not with "BMW parts"
In fact, I can even understand why suspension components are a bit more money because it isn't an easy feat to improve on a car that starts life with world-destroying handling as a design goal.

BMW Upgraded parts: Forged from pure Ridiculouslyexpensivium

   No dear reader what pisses me off to no end is why on EARTH a clutch for my 450 HP 4g63-powered AWD car was less than 500$ and a clutch to simply replace the stock one on an e36 is 1300$ from the same vendor. There is no possible way the clutch meant to tolerate 8000 rpm of 20 psi all wheel drive insanity is that much cheaper to make than a clutch designed to handle the earth shattering the 5000 RPM 189 HP two-wheel drive fury of a BMW 325is. (which actually weighs less in stock trim than a first generation AWD DSM does)

 I have been over-focusing on this fact instead of just accepting it, and I keep trying to find the reason this is acceptable. This problem that exists for not just BMW owners but Porsche, Lexus, Infinity, and other "up market" brands that aren't nearly as exclusive as they're marketed to be. After all, they will sell these cars to anyone who can pay... so who are they fooling?

 The fact is the fault is with us (well, not me) the owners. We pay to much for this stuff that costs this much for no other reason than the original car cost more than average, so by nature all parts for it must have that same halo cast over them. The original car cost this much because it was made to the highest standards to be superior to every other offering from every other manufacturer. It was painstakingly researched and tested. It was refined, broken and then refined again. I don't think small parts vendors go to this length, and even the few that do don't justify the 2-3 times multiplication of the same parts for other cars. It's enough to make a guy want to call it a day and buy a Nissan.

So, in closing. BMW owners are idiots with to much money and they are ruining my budget for this project.

(This has all been an extremely elaborate way of saying I haven't updated much because I'm poor and I have to spend my money slowly and wisely)

I haven't updated in a while because I haven't had any parts to work with!

Tires are pending dampeners which are pending springs which are pending upper spring plates which are pending BMW germany which is pending a man in a warehouse pulling them out of a box and putting them into a different box, and then sending that box to somewhere in the southern parts of north america, so they can then send them to the north-west most part of america, so our shipping proxy can hold them so someone can pick them up so I can get them from him and then I can drive out to the car and install them.

 The upper spring plate is what is holding everything up, for those of you that are paying attention. The 10$ part.

This upcoming weekend should see good progress as all the complex dances of parts come together for the final act, and the curtain sets on the chapter of getting this car on the road.

ubc scc autocross

Wet autocross.

Progressively digressing.

Not-really-but-sort-of-related rant:


  Friday was truly a great day, but now that I think back to it I don't think I actually got anything at all accomplished and I was mostly annoyed the whole day.  I spent all day with the car, having won the day off by wrestling it from the hands of a vicious wolverine, so nothing to complain about there.


     However I have to say I'm starting to believe you could predict weather patterns based largely on my schedule for working on the BM. In fact, I think in a few weeks time there will be several phone calls made my way to inquire as to my plans for the weekend, and if they include working on the car then the caller will be canceling a weekend camping trip with the family and instead staying inside with a good book.


 You see Friday was due to be sunny by all accounts made by men of industry and science. The first thing I saw that morning was not a good sign. Grey. Sheets of grey clouds, but at least to start there was no moisture on the ground. So I woke up to grey, I drove to the office in grey, I drove to Maple ridge in grey, and just as I pulled in to the garage the grey started to pelt me with some mildly wet weather that spent 8 hours creeping up behind me until all the sudden I was wet and bothered, and that is the only context for those words that means someone did not have a good time.


  Yes I know I have a covered garage, and yes I know I'm in Vancouver so this is not worth being surprised by but it's still nearly supernatural the way the rain arrives and leaves with my efforts to repair my new project because once again on the way home after 8 hours of mildly damp weather this was my sight:

 So yes, annoyed with weather. Now on to cars.




Sure, I remember to connect that.
  I think.

     Today was a big day. Packed across two cars were parts galore. Among many smaller parts that I don't even remember ordering much less what they do was my new tires, my new alternator and my new suspension parts (some of which new-to-me and donated graciously from the black BM shown).

 Sadly it didn't go quite as planned.
 I still don't understand exactlly why but I decided to install the alternator and new belts with the car outside and then move it inside, ignorant of the fact that the rain was starting and the car only needed to be moved 8 feet, albeit diagonally.


 So an hour later when I had just finished installing the alternator and  I realized I had neglected to actually connect the alternator to the car, I was a bit irked. I don't know if you've ever found yourself in a situation where you have struggled with a stubborn, frustrating, hard to see, slightly damp, slightly dark, slightly out of reach mechanical device but every second it isn't doing what you want is another second your ego starts leaking air, and it compounds exponentially until you think you're obviously terrible at this sort of thing and you should really quit now and pay someone else to solve problems for you. 


 If you have you know that the best feeling in the world is the moment when it finally works and you realize that you have achieved something that had been very recently beyond your limits. 

 So if you have ever had that moment then you also understand that when that moment is followed immediately by a moment where you realize you didn't actually install it properly, you might suddenly feel like less of a man.


 So all things in perspective when I forgot to connect the car harness to the alternator outputs there may have been some crying followed by a lot of swearing, which evolved into more swearing as I realized that the posts were on the back of the alternator.
Behind the dust cover.
Under the air intake for the alternator.
Up against the power steering fluid pump. 
Beside the frame.
Under the air intake for the engine. 


 Plus, I couldn't find the Nuts for the posts (which are some bizzare thread pitch that no other nut on the car will fit, and are each a different size because why the hell not damnit, we're BMW and we can do whatever we want).


 Check the work bench, check the car. Checked the work bench, checked the car. Bench, car, bench, car, everything in between, inside house, inside pockets, inside cars, inside tool boxes, inside stacked tires, on ground, and then just as the last standing part of my ego was feeling up to poking his head above ground after the last incident... "oh look, they're right there, already on the alternator posts."


That little part of my ego crawled back into his hole and died. 


 So much later when the alternator was installed (and connected) I started the car and hey look at that, it's charging properly, no more warning lights. 


So I moved it inside and tried to get on with the agenda.

     Initially that went quite well actually. First I checked to make sure that my engine computer wasn't flooded (apparently it's known to happen due to some bad plumbing routing. They're Germans, not Italians) which it wasn't, then I spent an hour waiting for some other BM owner to finish installing his expensive go-fast-boutique parts (I mean, his awesome new dampeners which enabled him to generously give me the old ones...) Then I removed the later model side skirt to see why the hole in the skirt doesn't line up with the hole in the frame used to raise the car with the special jack that inserts into the frame. I gently removed the very rusted screws holding the skirt on, and right as I was about to stick my fingers into the black void between the body and the underside of the side skirt I pondered how many spiders might be living in there. Turns out, a lot but they had all been killed or moved on. Removing the side skirt revealed no more than 4 large collections of spiders eggs and several dozen dead spiders, and that was enough to make me glad I was wearing gloves. 


After removing the skirt I realize it was fiberglass, which means aftermarket, which means no wonder it doesn't fit because the aftermarket doesn't actually bother wasting time measuring and fitting onto the cars they're building parts for. I mean, why bother making sure that your installed part doesn't interfere with the ability to maintain anything on the underside of the car. Who in their right mind would want to do that!


     So after removing them and comparing to the OEM parts sitting right next to me on the visa BM with the fancy suspension, I realized that the holes were simply to low. Oh well.

So with the skirt off I went to install the jack only to nearly have a heart attack. 




The heart attack moment:


   You see, this car has a rebuilt status on the body (not the heart attack, i'm getting to that). This is actually very common with mid-90s European cars that are coming down in price because a minor accident that requires some new body panels and some paint can end up costing a ridiculous amount of money. For example, if you need to replace a factory wheel because someone drives over a curb, that will be 2000$ if you're ICBC and need to buy it from the dealer. Four wheels will cost you more than you could pay for an example of this decade old car with zero miles on it and a free BMW engineer to maintain it for the first 5 years.


So the value of the car in the body shop world is less than the cost of repairs, which then means the insurance provider asks you to choose between paying to have it "rebuilt" or just taking a payout for the car. For some cars such as this, the payout in their twisted system of evaluating value of various vehicles isn't enough to buy the same car from the classifieds, requiring you to say "Yes I would like to keep my expensive car and not downgrade to a kia thank you" and then requiring the insurance company to declare it "rebuilt".


 In the case of my car, after finding out it was rebuilt we spent a bit more time lining up various key areas, checking clearances and figuring out what the hell happened. We already knew it had a fender repaired as the drivers side was a different color of biege, but that was it. Turned out the car was perfect. The underside was completely symetrical and every suspension or chassis point I checked had not been "repaired" or otherwised hacked back into working order.


So as I went to put the jack into the perfectly round hole in the frame, I was a bit alarmed when it didn't fit. I looked into the frame support hole and it was bent in at the sides like an "8". After some more swearing, a cigarette and some thoughts of how much damage it would take to do that, and how much clay must have been shoved in the giant crater behind the fender to make everything bolt up properly again, I looked with both eyes and then pulled the plastic insert tube out of the frame support hole, put the jack in (perfectly) and put my heart back in my chest. 


After that scare, all I could do was sit around for an hour waiting for Zach to finish his fuel filter install which meant I couldn't even smoke. What a jerk. 

Cut to an hour later and my car is up on stands with the front wheels off. 


 The first bad sign had been the visible condition of the struts. They actually had a "wear" curve in them from where they had been slowly worn down by the motion of the strut over who knows how many years. I honestly would not be surprised if these were the original struts put on the car in 02/92 when it left the factory. 


   The other factor that served to reinforced this idea was the bolts keeping the strut onto the wheel spindle. I probably owe BMW for using high quality metals for fasteners, because I have never had to fight a bolt the entire way out of a car. Normally, you crack it loose and the rest is easy, but these bolts had to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and twisted all the way out.

 After wrestling with the strut and finally getting it out, I for the first time thought to check if my non-M springs would fit on my M struts. 

                                                          (non-M left, M3 part right) 




 The answer is no. 
No they will not.


So, back in the struts go, or they would except that the amount of internal destruction that has occurred means the struts could expand to be taller than they were ever intended to be, which means reinstallation is either painful and bloody or involves a BFH (Big F@#$* Hammer) and a hope that nothing gets to badly relocated. 


On any other car, I would have used the hammer. Damn you BMW for making a car I don't want to injure anymore than I have to. 

 So in closing for today. 


 Tires: Not installed 
 Dampeners: Not installed
 Alternator: Yes, but I don't really feel I can claim this as a victory after the nature of the battle.
 Fuel filter: No
 M3 suspension bits: No.
 Cigarettes: 15
 Beer: Not enough
 Rain: Yes. We have that. 
  


 Also, it's totally normal to keep slicks in your house, right?

Logic, who knew?

Updated.... but not greatly. Have boxes of parts to install tomorrow.


 However what I hadn't yet mentioned was the awesome piece of troubleshooting that was performed last weekend.

 When I bought the car, I neglected to mention that it had a steady miss at idle (obviously at idle, not like I was revving a car that had 16 month old gas in it)

 Sunday after the rain started the only thing I could think to do was work on the engine in the cover of the garage, so I set at it.

First I wanted to identify which cylinder was out but it turns out with such a quiet engine that is already down a cylinder that can be a bit tricky. Certainly not as easy as it would be on a high strung 4 cyl like I was used to.

I pulled off each coil connector in turn, and I thought I could hear a difference on all of them. The number 3 cylinder did seem to make *less* of a difference, but it wasn't enough to convince myself. At this point I did a compression test which immediately ruled out a major mechanically problem as numbers came back 220-215-210-210-200 psi, so I put things back together with new plugs (no luck there, but they definitely needed changing anyway, that moisture you see is unburned fuel) and called it a day.

 Then purely by chance later that day I was reading a thread about how an inline 6 is harmonically perfectly balanced, and how BMW likes to impress people by leaving glasses of water on the engine while it's running and being reved, and then some random forum goer happens to mention using the wave pattern on the surface of the water to track a difference in vibration caused by a miss.

 Bingo.

 It's really simple actually, i was a bit sad I didn't think of it myself first. Put a glass of water on a flat spot on the head, start the engine and observe the surface vibration (keep in mind I was already down a cylinder. Tested on a perfectly running I6 engine that was there helping, the water is nearly still)Then simply unplug each coil in turn, watching for a change in the water. If it doesn't change, there is your dead hole. Turns out my ear was right and it was #3.

So, I was excited that I could now simply replace the coils and have a mechanically beautiful engine.

But wait, it got even better.

The next day I went back out to the car to remove the alternator (it needed replacement) and had some time to kill so I figured, why not check the coil plug boot? I didn't expect anything, but hey who will it hurt.
So I pulled the 1 and 3 coils, swapped the boots and started her up.

The misfire followed the boot!

So in the end I Tracked down a misfire that turned out to be just a fricking coil plug boot. How awesome is that, I got a stonkin deal on the price because when it ran it had a steady miss. I actually bought it believing 100% that it would need a rebuild.

Turns out all it needs is a 6.47$ Coil plug boot.

What a day!

Track meat

Its whats for dinner.

Delicious delicious R-compounds... mmm... 

Shoulda bought a boat.

Excited to break into this car.

It's the only car I've owned that seems to reward me for spending time with it. Only one where I feel better on the way back home than the way out to see it. Only one that leaves me better than it found me, so to speak.

So on Sunday I eagerly drove out, hoping to finish cleaning the interior, remove the front struts and install my new M3 camber plates.

12:42 am:

Connect battery.
   Start engine, perform Austin Powers homage to move car sideways
       open (powered)windows
          open (powered)sunroof
             disconnect battery

                remove center console (no thanks to you, bolt from hell!)



















Stopped for a small amount of nicotine refreshment...

Rain. 
Fuck.
Fuck. Rain.


    Fuck rain. 

                              Reconnect battery
                        Windows won't work. ?
                    Sunroof won't work.
                  Reconnect computer?
              Reconnect stereo?
          Reconnect heated seat switches.... really?
      REALLY?

(Ok fine then BMW run the power window switch harness from the heated seat harness, see if I care.)


 Stare hatefully at the sky,  longingly at car.


     Work on the engine instead, under the shelter of the garage.



The best part? What happened 3 blocks away on the way home:

 Sometimes I think the sun is trying to get me killed.

Where to begin

So the plan for this tan receptionist transportation is emphatically simple but needlessly OCD.


Most of my effort will go into the suspension and maintenance to let it drive to and from events without issue while still being friendly enough to drive around the city and reliable enough to take cross country, so in a very uncharacteristic move, I'm going to leave the damn thing alone.


Obviously it needs to be converted to manual, it needs new dampeners, springs and bushings as well as a step up to the better designed M car suspension hard parts, but after that the next upgrade will be to the monkey behind the wheel.


First however is the business of cleaning out 20 years worth of commuting, spilled drinks and mystery stains from the interior. 


 Today I unbolted the seats to get a good look at everything inside, attempted to fix the steering wheel cover and tried to pull up the carpet.


 You'll notice there was not a lot of success in those tasks because it turns out BMW employees get paid by how many fasteners they install on the interior. Just to remove the carpet alone I needed 247 different screw driver sizes and shapes, and the steering wheel was held in place by the flying monkeys from the wizard of oz, so I had to distract them with a small poodle before I could attempt to remove the wheel, and when I did the horn got stuck on causing them to return.

Eventually I did get it off only to find that the horn was shorting against the middle bit and the only reason it wasn't making noise all the time was because of a single piece of electrical tape that I knocked free in my attempt to make it better.


 Everything did eventually come out, just in time for it to start raining so I could put it back in.

Maybe next week will get off to a better pace.

The first misstep

The unlikely story of the purchase of a beige car.

The story:

One seemingly ritualistic hobby I have is checking car classifieds. I have checked them every day without fail since I was around 19 with exception given to those days I was restrained from the internet by either beauty or brawn

You need to understand that this disease is so bad I will shop for a car the day I purchase one I have just found. I will look for a car when I get up in the morning, when I get to work, when I take my lunch, when I go home, after supper and before bed. 

I will do it on the weekends, on holiday, on planes, on trains and once - even while on a girl.

The real tragedy however is that seemingly in spite of this illness I have a bit of a knack for picking terrible cars for real money hoping to strike a find, but I don't.

In fact I can tell you that 90% of the time my ideas are so bad they make the philosophy behind "shoot first and ask later" seem patient and considered.

So my luck with cars being somewhat infamous by this point in my life, I have yet to own one that doesn't blow up, over heat, bite, scratch, kick, scream, punch, pull hair or just plain insult everyone within a 50 foot radius. I seem to find the ex-sex pistols drummer of the car world, coming down off a 16 year binge only to look in the mirror, wonder when it stopped being the hottest thing around and then proceed to projectile vomit on anyone in range just to prove that it is still a wild thing.

So, when I spoke with a very rational man who was selling a very rational car for a very irrational price last week I started counting the minutes until the other shoe dropped.

It would sell before I got there. It would be covered in bees. It would be smelling of a mix of excrement and rotten oranges. It would be facing the wrong way up.

But it wasn't.

The Car:

In fact, other than being a very unexpected (but not entirely unwelcome) beige, and being stored in the furthest possible place it could be without needing a border crossing to go see it the car was in remarkable shape.

Everything electrical worked, the interior (although in need of attention) was respectable and even had suede and heated seats (mostly). The car was all there, there was no unexpected rust or dented panels. No smells or puddles of goo, no former tenants and no missing parts (in fact even some extras).

Even better it ran, and ran well. No noises, no smoking, no hesitation and most importantly, it hasn't thrown up its lunch once.

Of course it wasn't just cheap because the owner was hemorrhaging into his higher logic centers. It was still an automatic, still had collapsed struts that allowed for so much movement I miss-diagnosed it as a completely destroyed wheel bearing, it had still had sat unused for years and somehow the color manages to be both beige and shouty.

I kept looking for the other shoe under every panel, post and pocket. All I really found was potential pouring profusely from every plain. (Sorry, that got away from me there)

So I bought it.

I bought a classic,

straight six,

two door,

rear-wheel drive

Teutonic sports car

and it will be put to work.