1995 E34 BMW 525i Sport

[TalkToFrank]

Love this car!

Dunno if you've thought of this route, but I have a friend in Poland who collects & restores BMW's but also has an E30 drift car. He's built an M50 turbo and swears by it. He always says you couldn't beat the reliability for the money, have you thought of turboing your M50? Would be unreal!

 

[cauld1]

Love this car!

Dunno if you've thought of this route, but I have a friend in Poland who collects & restores BMW's but also has an E30 drift car. He's built an M50 turbo and swears by it. He always says you couldn't beat the reliability for the money, have you thought of turboing your M50? Would be unreal!

Cheers!

Yea, I've thought about it, but I really want to put a S54 in it and save the M50 for my E28 down the line. All in good time as I've to get stuck into my 205 first.

 

[cauld1]

Woops

Futher to the above photo, I've all of the back end split apart now for powdercoating and re-bushing. Going to with powerflex poly bushes for this. Plan is to tidy up the floor where needed and reseal it all.

Thankfully theres nothing too bad there. Have also split the wheels and left them up to KLC for a refresh and change of centre colour.

 

[cauld1]

All bushes ordered over the weekend as well as new rear wheel bearings, cv boots and E31 8 series front lower control arms.

Reason for the lca is that they have a spherical bearing instead of the moulded one the E34 has as standard, and they are a direct fit. Should sharpen the steering up nicely, also need to order a bearing kit for the front upper control arms.

This has also been ordered from PPF in Sweden...

Its their 'budget' one, but comes with a fuel rail and throttle body so thought why not.

The engine parts list has appeared out of nowhere for a winter build next winter. Safe to say Im not committing to a S54 anymore!

 

[cauld1]

Parts have started to arrive, just waiting on the rest of the bushes for the back suspension and then get the trailing arms etc off to the powder coaters.

Have to say, well impressed with the service and packaging from PPF.

E31 8 series lca with better bearing than standard E34.

Intake manifold set on, going to be more space in the bay, few things to figure out as its really early days to be fitting this without the turbo, management etc on, but it looks lovely so will perservere unless its not going to run. The throttle body that came with it is hoooooge compared to standard

Still need to order some por-15 to do thefloor under the fuel tank and suspension then some gravitex over it to keep things nice and tidy. Theres nothing frightening there but want it right.

 

[pablo]

******* hell that looks amazing. baby CSL

 

[cauld1]

Finally got some more progress, all of the back end is with the powdercoaters to get done satin black, have all of the powerflex bushes sitting ready to go back in. Just waiting on the upper front control arm bushes arriving from Moosehead in the US and VAC Motorsports underdrive pulleys from Hack Engineering.

Gave the diff a lick of paint too.

And got another set of trim from BMW, US with side markers and another no. plate blank, all smooth trim now and the rear centre trim is the correct size finally.

Also had more of a play with the new intake manifold, injectors fit and wiring seems to work ok with it too. Just mocked up here but should be grand.

Just need to get a new air filter, some an fittings and braided fuel line and a few other bits to finish this up.

Also did a bit of rust prevention work. Overall its very good underneath, some surface appearing in bits, so took those back and put bilt hamber rust killer on. Hopefully over the next weekend or so can get this all cleaned up and gravitex it to get the suspension and fuel tank back in as we will be redoing the brake and fuel lines again.

 

[michelinman]

Wow! What a truly wonderful build! I am ashamed to admit I've been off RMS for a few years and I have completely missed this car of yours.

Conor, you will have no idea who I am, but I think I met you about 15/20 years ago! Tell your dad that Shak says hi and I am sure he is really proud of you, young sir! Very well done!

 

[cauld1]

Wow! What a truly wonderful build! I am ashamed to admit I've been off RMS for a few years and I have completely missed this car of yours.

Conor, you will have no idea who I am, but I think I met you about 15/20 years ago! Tell your dad that Shak says hi and I am sure he is really proud of you, young sir! Very well done!

Hey Shak, the name certainly rings a bell! Were you involved with qubmc and the night navs?

Thanks very much, hard to believe my dads been partially responsible for going as far with this given his approach to the green triumph from back then!

 

[mboyle290]

Some work in it now! I've subframe poly bushes here never been out of the box if you're interested in them?

 

[michelinman]

Hey Shak, the name certainly rings a bell! Were you involved with qubmc and the night navs?

Thanks very much, hard to believe my dads been partially responsible for going as far with this given his approach to the green triumph from back then!

Wow, you do remember me! Yep, those were the days! A lot of good times with qubmc!

Really great to hear that you and Clifford are working on it together! LOL, the triumph was a beast! How long were the black 11s on the road outside your house??

 

[RallyCiaran]

Wow, you do remember me! Yep, those were the days! A lot of good times with qubmc!

Really great to hear that you and Clifford are working on it together! LOL, the triumph was a beast! How long were the black 11s on the road outside your house??

Shak clear your inbox lad, I've important messages to send you but your inbox is full.

 

[cauld1]

Some work in it now! I've subframe poly bushes here never been out of the box if you're interested in them?

Cheers, yea it's getting to the point where everything has been freshened up. Afraid not sorry, had the other ones ordered all before your message!

 

[cauld1]

Finally all the oarts have arrived.

VAC Engineering billet pullies, totally unnecessary but looked nice so had to be done.

Moosehead Engineering Front upper control arm spherical bearings, vs the standard ones, came with a tool for adjusting them too.

And in, these were a ******* to fit, hope they dont have to come out again anytime soon.

Back end all together, just to torque the wheel bearings and put the drive shafts in and its good to fit.

Had a helper too, thankfully caught ot quickly when he got por15 on his ears and ran up the side of the car

 

[greyfloppyhat]

Lovely big dog, and equally as nice car! Who did you go with for the subframe polybushes out of interest?

 

[cauld1]

Lovely big dog, and equally as nice car! Who did you go with for the subframe polybushes out of interest?

Thanks! Went for powerflex black series subframe and trailing arm bushes, and then purple powerflex diff and anti roll bar bushes. Have purple powerflex anti rollbar bushes in the front and rev shift gearbox and engine mounts.

Hoping it will handle nicely albeit a bit stiff.

 

[cauld1]

Got sent through a photo of my wheels from KLC in Enniskillen, picking them up tomorrow, can't wait to get them back together and on. Got the centres done frozen silver, the dishes polished and the barrels done satin black. Just changes the thing a bit after over 4 years of steel grey centres!

 

[cauld1]

Made a box to cover the wires going into the bulkhead out of some spare stainless that was lying around fhe garage. This to be painted (no ford show car tack here ). But it'll have to wait until the ppf intake is fitted.

Going to keep to. The standard intake for the time being as it's really for plans down the line.

Finally got the back end all back together and fuel and brake lines done (awful photos but still).

Got all the wheels back together, just have to wait until this virus is all over to get tyres on and alignment done.

Got it back on the ground on a spare set of crap wheels we had lying around.

And as if everything was going to smoothly, when taking it off the stands had to lower it onto wood as there was no air in the suspension after being apart. Tried to move it off, wood slipped and wedged between the bottom of the wing and the floor, kinked the wing a little but no broken paint so should go back into place ok fingers crossed.

Just the interior to fit again and that's it done bar cleaning for a while.

 

[big_pete]

My absolute favourite build on here. Just awesome!

 

[HILL9N3GTI]

Your getting their..
I hope no significant damaged was caused that is the last thing you need !
also would it not be better for the box to be spot welded, smooth out the welds and then paint it instead of the rivets ?

 

[Lappintyre]

Whats the story on the Impreza in the background?

 

[cauld1]

My absolute favourite build on here. Just awesome!

Cheers Pete, it's getting to a stage I'm happy with it finally, still a few bits to get sorted but all in good time!

Your getting their..
I hope no significant damaged was caused that is the last thing you need !
also would it not be better for the box to be spot welded, smooth out the welds and then paint it instead of the rivets ?

Probably, but it was a first attempt. No broken paint on the wing or kinks thankfully, should be able to take the worst off it.

Whats the story on the Impreza in the background?

It's a 95 WRX RA that was way too cheap to turn down. Needs a bit of tlc atm, needs shocks and while it's off the road want to tidy some bits, drop subframes and underseal the car. Back arches etc are very good though which is a bonus! Planning while on lockdown to get a bit done on it, as quite miss driving it, was good craic.

 

[michelinman]

Conor, your e34 just gets better and better! I am looking forward to seeing more updates

 

[cauld1]

So, having been working from home for 2 full months now, and arguably doing more hours than usual, I decided it was time to treat myself.

Ordered a set of matching Continental Contisport 5s for the front wheels, so can keep the Toyo proxes as spares as they still have a bit of life in them. Hopefully they'll arrive soon and I can finally get the tyres on and proper wheels back on the car.

Also ordered......a Holset HX35 and turbo manifold. Turbo should arrive this week or early next week and something similar for manifold. Unfortunately couldn't see a way of getting the really, really nice PPF manifolds to work due to being rhd so went for a log manifold. It should do the job. Turbo and manifold I bought were cheaper than the PPF mani alone so had to be done.

Slow build on this of gathering all the parts needed before taking the engine out to start into building it. So that knocked the 'keeping it N/A and buying a S54' on the head too

No new photos, so here are some from last year.

 

[natogreen16v]

I've every faith in you as I know we think the same on this **** but please don't mess up that bay