The mechanical stuff is essentially done apart from tightening up all the bolts and matching sure everything is secured. Did some final tweaks over the weekend to the rear coil over installation and engine bay brackets.
The rear shock towers needed widening due to the installation of coil overs. With the modification the coil over has 1.5-2cm of sideways movement which should be more than enough to allow for movement under heavy cornering. If not it can always be widened further.
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The AFM bracket required some modification to give the IVC (idle control valve) a little more space when the engine is running.
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Richard spent all day knee deep in BMW wiring diagrams. On reflection buying the “Marlin” loom may not have been the best option – we were told this is custom made for the car, which it’s not. It is in fact it’s a generic Lucas loom, its nicely laid out but is missing several connections needed for the car. The other more worrying thing is that it does not use any relays for turning things on as its laid out – not ideal when running high currently through the switches.
Using the BMW loom and striping out the bits that are not needed might be the better option. It may seem more daunting at first but the cables are still good in 15 – 20 year old BMW. In the end you get all the well thought out circuits laid out as BMW designed them with lots of built in protection for the car – you don’t want things going up in smoke!
Easy wires to replace that were rotten on our loom – In the car audio world it’s know as TB3 – the big three. Alternator to starter, started to battery and ground straps. These were not in the best of condition and will be replaced with new 4AWG cable – thicker that standard which allows it to handle more current with less voltage drop – not so important unless your running high current amplifiers! However new good earth can’t hurt to get everything running nicely.
We will be using the Lucas loom as we have it and wire in the BMW fuse
box, this will provide all of the required relays. We will also add extra
cables as required to the loom. These modifications will hopefully
improve the safety and reliability of the electric system over the standard Lucas loom.