Pulled my 3.5 5 speed Bavaria out of storage today.....

Ohmess

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Great thread. Two comments -- I have the Coupe King exhaust on my e9, and they incorporate a Maganaflow resonator. I would recommend that.

As to brakes, I just rebuilt my master, rear balancer, all four calipers and added stainless steel lines. I am of the view that the stock BMW brakes are excellent. I would forego the Willwoods and put the money into tires or something else.
 

Gpdenver

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Great thread. Two comments -- I have the Coupe King exhaust on my e9, and they incorporate a Maganaflow resonator. I would recommend that.

As to brakes, I just rebuilt my master, rear balancer, all four calipers and added stainless steel lines. I am of the view that the stock BMW brakes are excellent. I would forego the Willwoods and put the money into tires or something else.

I am either going to add a Magnaflow resonator, or a Vibrant. I like both brands, and have had good experiences with both.

As far as the brakes go, for $1100 including new hubs, rotors, stainless lines, calipers, rotors, etc the Ireland Engineering big brake kit seems like a no brainer to me. The factory brakes on the car are good for a 1972, but I almost never leave anything alone while I am in there if I can make it better. 300mm rotors and Wilwood superlite calipers will improve the stopping power greatly. For now this car is on the backburner, I have a few new land rovers and the 911 that are getting all of my attention currently.
RyMzcrl.jpg
 

e30strube

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I have the Willwood setup for my car, but haven't installed it yet. For the total cost, it actually seems like a good deal. It includes pads, hubs, lines, calipers, rotors...essentially everything. For coilovers, a shop called CATuned (from Sacramento) is now building a coilover setup for the car. It may be worth reaching out to them for pricing, specs, etc.
 

SkiFast

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I was planning on buying the Ireland/Willwood front brake set up, but not clear what is best for the Master Brake Cylinder (MBC). I had just ordered a new MBC the night before looking at the Ireland Engineering website. What they sell for the e9 is: E12/Early E24 Brakes SKU: E9BMC (currently out of stock). But listed under the Big Brake Kit they recommend the following: "You must either switch to a single line master cylinder like BMW 34 31 1 150 229, or “T” the hard lines then run 1 line to the caliper.", the employee thought it might be off a 320i. Others recommend an e28 (5 series). I don't think I want to T the line (fearing the balance might get compromised). Suggestions?
 

Gpdenver

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Well after seeing that Bavaria sale on bring a trailer, and thinking about how much nicer my car is in it's current state, I figured the car deserved an upgrade. I just did a $7400 parts haul for the Bavaria.

- Wilwood front and rear 4 piston calipers 300mm vented rotors wheel bearings, hubs, wheel studs, etc.
-Upgraded sway bars front and rear. Ireland Engineering/st 28.5mm front 22mm rear
-CATuned custom adjustable height coilover kit with 30 way adjustable dampers
-Ireland Engineering Ceramic coated CSL style long tube exhaust manifold
-Upgraded rear subframe mounts
-Front control arms, trans mount, motor mounts, water pump, windage tray, lower gasket set, steering coupler, and tons of other bushings.

Probably going to finish it off with a set of triple Weber's or ITB's and possibly a quick respray. Then drive the wheels off of it...

I'll try and remember to post some updates here as the parts show up and I get to installing them. My car addiction has gotten much worse, as has the scale of the builds. Glad the e3 is finally getting the respect we have all know it deserves, at least from a market value standpoint!
 

Gpdenver

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Patiently awaiting parts so I can put it on the ground floor and rip it apart.

I stayed up late last night and kept ordering parts, but still cant decide between fuel injection and ITB's or triple Weber 45's. I am leaning more to the fuel injection and ITB routes, and possibly an engine build. Want to keep this N/A and M30, currently the car sports a m30b34 3.5 and a 5 speed. Want to keep it a m30 and 5 speed, but thinking about a VAC motorsports cnc ported and built head with springs, billet rockers, valves, etc, and a built bottom end with something in the neighborhood of 11.5 to 1 compression. I would do a stand alone ECU, and run a wideband 02 sensor which would be extremely helpful for living up here at altitude. Decisions, decisions....

I'll try and turn this into more of a build thread once I get started.


PXL_20210501_021050773.jpg
 

Bearmw

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Some things to consider:

What fuel do you intend to use? Available octane may limit performance.
Do you like the stock brake booster feel or are you willing to make a sacrifice in order to fit ITBs or triple carbs? ITBs are not worth much without a bunch of compression. If you can make a turbo work I think it's worth considering but there is not a ton of space to work with.
What pads are available for oversized brakes? Will it retain low temp braking or is it better for track use? Will the pads make any unwanted noise at low temps?

I like an all out modified car as much as the next person but every mod has some trade offs. What is your intended use?
 

Gpdenver

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Some things to consider:

What fuel do you intend to use? Available octane may limit performance.
Do you like the stock brake booster feel or are you willing to make a sacrifice in order to fit ITBs or triple carbs? ITBs are not worth much without a bunch of compression. If you can make a turbo work I think it's worth considering but there is not a ton of space to work with.
What pads are available for oversized brakes? Will it retain low temp braking or is it better for track use? Will the pads make any unwanted noise at low temps?

I like an all out modified car as much as the next person but every mod has some trade offs. What is your intended use
No turbo for this build, I have plenty of cars to actually go fast. This is going to be a more "mild" build by my standards. Mostly about achieving the glorious ITB and long tube header sounds these cars can make.

The Wilwood brakes will have a factory like pedal feel, and there are plenty of pad compounds available. I went with a street/track compound, but the pads should not be noisy. I have these calipers on multiple cars of mine, one of my favorite upgrades.

The intended use is just a weekend toy car/canyon carver that looks and sounds good while doing it.

Just for reference, here is a picture of the engine bay in the Alfa that we built. 400 whp on wastegate pressure, and 550 whp if we turn it up. The car weighs 2000lbs. No need to go this fast with the BMW, just looking to take it to the next level. If parts don't exist, we build them. Building these cars to my specs is my hobby, I get no joy out of restoring cars. I just like to hotrod old European cars
PXL_20201114_220722349.jpg
 
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Bearmw

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Thanks for your response and I am glad to hear that there are good pad choices available for the IE kit. I once updated an E30 with a BBK that although better in some respects became unacceptable due to lack of street friendly pads. I am intrigued by your plan. As you are probably aware Racehead makes some interesting and relatively inexpensive ITBs. What are you considering? Will you be running Alpha N or a hybrid tune maybe with MAF? I am also wondering what air filtration you might use as well as idle control. Keep up the good work. You have a great looking car.
 

Gpdenver

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Thanks for your response and I am glad to hear that there are good pad choices available for the IE kit. I once updated an E30 with a BBK that although better in some respects became unacceptable due to lack of street friendly pads. I am intrigued by your plan. As you are probably aware Racehead makes some interesting and relatively inexpensive ITBs. What are you considering? Will you be running Alpha N or a hybrid tune maybe with MAF? I am also wondering what air filtration you might use as well as idle control. Keep up the good work. You have a great looking car
I saw the racehead engineering kit, and love the look. I was also considering hiding it all behind Jenvey classic ITB's, with open trumpets or an Alpina plenum.
View attachment 122696
Some sort of standalone engine management. AEM, Haltech, ECUmasters, whatever the tuner likes for ITB's. Getting the drivability is easy to get wrong with ITB's. To tune ITB's you run the main fuel map off of the TPS, then run a compensation fuel map that uses barometric pressure to compensate for altitude. You also need to get the MAP sensor signal off of a 6-1 plenum so it can get a stable signal. So it uses TPS/MAP barometric pressure and wideband O2 sensors to run well. Also will have flex fuel sensor, and I will run it on E85 most of the time, 108 octane!

None of these plans are set in stone, but these are just my initial thoughts...
 
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billpatterson

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Well after seeing that Bavaria sale on bring a trailer, and thinking about how much nicer my car is in it's current state, I figured the car deserved an upgrade. I just did a $7400 parts haul for the Bavaria.

- Wilwood front and rear 4 piston calipers 300mm vented rotors wheel bearings, hubs, wheel studs, etc.
-Upgraded sway bars front and rear. Ireland Engineering/st 28.5mm front 22mm rear
-CATuned custom adjustable height coilover kit with 30 way adjustable dampers
-Ireland Engineering Ceramic coated CSL style long tube exhaust manifold
-Upgraded rear subframe mounts
-Front control arms, trans mount, motor mounts, water pump, windage tray, lower gasket set, steering coupler, and tons of other bushings.

Probably going to finish it off with a set of triple Weber's or ITB's and possibly a quick respray. Then drive the wheels off of it...

I'll try and remember to post some updates here as the parts show up and I get to installing them. My car addiction has gotten much worse, as has the scale of the builds. Glad the e3 is finally getting the respect we have all know it deserves, at least from a market value standpoint!

Hi Gpdenver,

You mentioned replacing a steering coupler in the above post. I want to remove some slop in the steering of my '73 bavaria. Can I ask you where you got the coupler from and was it BMW/OEM or aftermarket?

Appreciated,
Bill


Gpdenver

 
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