E12 Getting Serious

While the Mustang has been getting prettied up with interior trim, the e12 has been getting more serious on the track front. A new roll cage has been installed to improve the safety department. There was much internal debate in Team Orange as to the best way forward for cage. My initial thoughts of a simple bolt in 4 point were in stark contrast to Dad's idea for a welded in full tower-to-tower cage! We ended up settling on a bolt in 6 point cage with harness bar and side intrusion bars. Looks fantastic and should do the job if the worst happens.

There were some fiddly issues such as the glove box not opening anymore, the rear window winders not being able to be turned and the sun visors not being able to be lowered. The rear windows are not a problem as they haven't been lowered in years. The sun visors are annoying, but a pair of sunglasses should fix that. The glove box was more of an issue. The latch for the bonnet is in there, so it has to be able to be opened. In the end, the glove box was just taken off. We'll work something out later.

Dad's biggest concern was that the extra weight would slow him down! Luckily, the new engine components were shipped last week, so the build can commence as soon as they arrive down under.

Interior Coming Together

The interior on the Mustang is starting to come together with some slow and patient work by the "Chief Mechanic" (me). Slowed down mainly by the poor workshop facilities (my bathroom) and the lazy and incompetent staff (me again), it's been a slow process. Luckily, the addition of the e46 has taken the pressure of the Mustang so things can stay apart for longer.

The first step was the completion of the interior panels. The paint on the trims and new arm rests made a huge difference for what was small change. The door trim panels themselves are still the old ones. I just gave them a bit of a clean and stuck them back in. Yes, they have a crack or two and all the chrome is gone, but they still look decent enough.

With the panels done, it was on to the steering wheel which I had previously prepared with a few coats of varnish. The wheel itself went in quite easily and looks awesome. The horn button is a piece of work though! The pieces they sent didn't seem to work and then the wheel itself came with a different electrical connector which was supposed to solve the problem. Don't get me wrong, the button makes the horn work fine; it just keeps the horn on continuously which can be a little annoying and distracting for other drivers! I think I have a work-around involving electrical insulation tape, some drilled out washers and a great deal of swearing.

Finally, the front seats. I purchased some new vinyl upholstery and after reading the instructions in the "trusty" Ford workshop manual, got to it. The work shop states (roughly) "Remove existing upholstery and install new upholstery with dog clips." Yes, that is what I did. It just neglected to mention the multi-layer install, removing securing wires and the amount of skin I lost on those bloody dog clips. The results were well worth it in the end and I no longer cut my rear just getting in on those old seats.

Still to come, headliner, front end suspension (can anyone say "Unsafe at any speed"?) and new tyres. Fun, fun, fun!

Another New Addition

Although we're hardly short of transport, we added another new member to the team. After a huge day of test-driving e46 325xi's, we found the only 330xi in the Salt Lake area. It was a good 40 minutes drive away, but he was the one we'd been looking for. We got a 2003 with 88,000 miles on the clock. He's got the usual stone chips and scratches for the age, but is solid underneath. It is going to be a huge difference compared to driving the Mustang!

Dad Fires at the Creek

The e12 made a fabulous re-appearance at Eastern Creek on Saturday with Dad taking the old girl out for a run at round 4 of the BMWDCNSW Supersprint championship. Although he started the day pretty conservatively, the times tumbled in the afternoon. With a best time of 2:08 only a few seconds off the e12's record at Eastern Creek, it was a fine show of form from both car and driver.

The end result was a third in class which puts Dad within 2 points of the Class B championship lead. With two rounds left and his times coming down rapidly at each event, chances of a strong podium or a win look very good.

Dad's son-in-law (otherwise known as Hak) kindly volunteered to flag marshall to meet Dad's commitment to the volunteer. He also managed to sneak in the photos and some cool videos. There's a top one at the link below
EasternCreek7August2010013.mp4
What a noise this thing makes!

One Door Done

I managed to get the door trim and the arm rest on to the passenger side door. It was an absolute bugger of a job as one screw hole in the arm rest didn't line up with the actual foam of the arm rest. The screw kept going out of alignment. Bit of work with the round file and some oversize washers saw it get attached eventually.

Also got a couple of coats of varnish on to the new steering wheel. It is going to be way nicer than the crappy old split one and safer as it won't have the loose cover on it.

Starting to Shine

I managed to get a straight day at working on the interior of the Mustang. I had to go and work in the car park at work as I was sanding and painting. It was bloody hot, but at least I had good light and no other cars to worry about.

I finished off the passenger door and got some undercoat on that pretty easily. I ran into a bit of a problem with the top coat. I think I tried to go too thick too early. That left a big run which I'll have to get back to and touch up later. The driver's door went much easier. I went a lot lighter with the top coats and ended up with about light coats and nice finish,

While I was painting, I hit the rear side trims with some new paint and got them back in. It made a great difference. I also threw some paint on the rear parcel shelf which made things match up a bit. All up, the effect was really good. Just have to get the door trims back on to finish up that part of the car.

Finally, I got the driver's harness in as well. Some tweaks to the mounting design made a huge difference and I managed to get it installed with a minimum of swearing.

I was absolutely wrecked at the end of the day. It was 34 degrees and I was feeling light headed from dehydration on the way home. Not a good option driving a Mustang that likes to bump steer itself around its lane on the freeway!

Forward Progress

Finally, some forward progress on the Mustang last night. I managed to get one of the harnesses installed. It's not perfect by any means, but it's in and a lot safer than that single lap belt.

I also got some time to wire brush the passenger side door trim where it was all "rusty". Not sure if it was rust or 40 years of built up arm sweat (gross!) but it came off with a wire brush and wire wheel on the drill. There's a before and after shot below. All I have to do now is get some time on it to get the paint on.

Also got under the rear to check that leaky area in front of the axle. The good news is, it doesn't look like fuel. It is a red oily substance. Looks like transmission fluid to me, but I can't work out what it's doing way back there.

The Nasty Interior

Started work on the interior of the Mustang last night. A whole lot of boxes turned up with parts, so I thought it would be a good time to get cracking.

We've got trim parts, headliner, seat upholstery, paint and harnesses to put in. The harnesses are top priority for me as the old lap belts are just not safe enough. The headliner should go in first as all the trim around it will need to be removed to get it in. I don't really want to remove them twice!

Once I got into it, things got a little messy. The door trims came off OK but under the back seat was just a garbage tip! I think I'd better take it down to the car wash and use their industrial vacuum. I think our Dyson would explode if I tried to suck all that up with it.

I don't understand why, but Ford attached the door arm rests with two meaty hex head screws. Why not just a couple of little Phillips heads? Maybe that would make my life too easy.

I needed to get the door trims off so I can rub back the door panels and get some paint on to them. 40 years of arms resting on the window sill have removed the paint and replaced it with surface rust. Not bad, just going to be tedious.

I got all of it out in the end. Even the rear set belt mount where I'm going to mount the harnesses. Worryingly, while I was under there, I noticed what looks like a fuel leak. I'll have to get the professionals on to that one!

I'm going to install the harness on to the seat belt mounting point for the rear seat belt. It should work well. I just need to get a piece of angle and drill some holes in. Would be easy if I had a garage, work shop or even a drill!


The seat upholstery is going to be a tricky one too. It looks simple to cover the seats then clip them on, but I'm guessing this could turn into a fairly serious job.

I'm looking forward to the steering wheel getting here too. They sent me the mounting kit, but now wheel. That old plastic one is cracked as hell so they put a cover over it. The cover would be OK, except it's not tied on so the cover just slips over the wheel if you don't grip it tightly!

Collecting Engine Parts

I've started collecting the engine parts I'm going to need to build up our new track motor. So far, I have the new double valve springs, valve retainers and valves. The valves are 1 mm oversize, so should provide a bit better breathing ability.

I've also got new pistons, clutch, aluminium flywheel, camshaft and sump baffle on order. Should be about 5 weeks plus shipping to Australia from California. The pistons are custom 11.7:1 JE pistons designed to suit the cam, the e21 1.8i head and are 2 mm oversize. The cam is a Top End Performance grind with 316 degrees duration and 11.5 mm lift. I decided to go even bigger than the 304 to make the most of the other mods and to keep the current engine running by not having to take parts out to re-use. By the time we port and polish the head, the engine should breathe a lot better. We're looking for around 180-190 bhp which should give the e12 the power to weight similar to an e30 M3!

Expansion into American "Muscle"


Team Orange has expanded into American Muscle... well it looks like American Muscle, but it's only got the 6 cylinder. Dad decided he needed a Mustang and he found this one in Colorado for a steal. She needs a bit of work (failed the safety inspection mainly because of the brakes), but she is plenty cool.

The USA Adventure Begins

A big change has come across at Team Orange. We've moved to Salt Lake City in sunny Utah! It's been a big process and quite difficult. Perhaps the hardest part was leaving the e12 in Dad's shed. While I thought it would just sit there under the car cover, Dad has had her out twice to Wakefield Park. Couple of good runs although the first was wet and rainy. Second time out showed some big improvements and the times are getting competitive.

No opportunity to invest in a new e12 in the US of A yet. There are a couple for sale in California, but they are both too far away and too automatic. I'm waiting for that pristine 528i 5 speed to appear before I jump in. Oh yeah, it would be nice if they have already done a euro bumper conversion too!

Team Orange transport consists of the work Ford Explorer at the moment although Belinda has gotten into a nice little Mazda MX5. She's a great little goer (the MX5 that is) and I can't wait for summer to get the top down and hit some of those winding canyon roads.

Odd Tyre Discovery

In the process of packing up the e12 to be stored while I'm in the US, I removed the wheels to clean out all the rubbish. In doing so, I noticed a strange wear pattern on the fronts. They are worn about 2/3 of the at out to the outside of the car in a distinct "valley". I'm not sure how this came to be. Maybe it was too high air pressure? It also happens to be about the same point as the edge of contact due to the amount of camber we run. Intriguing!

While I was in the shed, I took the opportunity to pull the motor, gearbox and diff out of the old wrecks I had lying around. Dad's new hoist paid for itself the first day. It made life so much easier.

Final Run for the E12

As Bel and I are moving to the US early in 2010, the October round of the BMWDCNSW championship was the last round I would get to run in for quite some time. I decided to take the e12 out as it was a special day and I wanted my special car for this one!

There'd been some upgrades with a new camshaft installed (a Schrick 304) and I had hopes for big things. It had been quite a while since I'd been out, so the start was pretty slow. I began with 2:07 which was slower than last time I'd been there. Not looking so good for a car with (a little) more power (the camshaft was too big, so we had about 5kW more, but under 4000rpm was pretty sad). I also cut a power steering hose as it was rubbing on the body, so that slowed me down for a session while we fixed it (thanks Peak Performance for their help!).

Things started to get moving in the afternoon session and the times started to come down. First to 2:05, then 2:04, high 2:03 and then 2:03.1 on the last lap of the day. I think that shows there was still some more pace to be found. At that point of the day, everything was a bit overheated and could do with a rest! Still, 2.5 seconds under the personal best and a new club record for Class B was a great result.

Fathers' Day Out

Team Orange headed to Oran Park to celebrate Fathers' day in September. Bel's step-dad Wayne went out in the e21 and my Dad headed out in our trusty Ford Laser. It was a beautiful day but very sad as it was the last time the BMW club would drive there before the track was demolished to build more houses. It is a terrible waste and a horrible end for one of our finest motor sport venues!

The day itself went well with both Dads getting into it and having a great time. The e21 ran without a problem for the whole day while the Laser was fine except for a small coolant leak at the inlet manifold that was solved with some judicious cutting and extra hose clamps.





Andrew was also there in the MX5 and had a great day mixing it up with the bigger cars. The reward for his efforts was race rubber stuck to his road tyres that refuses to come off!

Must send out special thanks to Tom and Robbo for being the trainers for the guys.

The Number Plate Fiasco!

We spent an incredibly frustrating 1.5 days changing the front number plate on the e21 over the weekend. I actually went to fix a rattle in the front driver's side strut. That took all of 5 seconds (it was a loose nut on top), so I thought I'd put on the new Historic Plates. Turns out the old plates were pop-riveted on to the fibreglass Alpina bumper/spoiler. We drilled those out and figured we'd just put some small bolts through. First problem - new plates are smaller and there is an ugly section where the old plates were. Easy - we'll attach a piece of aluminium to the bumper then the plate to the aluminium. Next problem - there was no way to get my hand behind the bumper to put the nuts on. This was obviously why the old ones were riveted. Next solution - loosen the bumper to allow hand in there to do the bolts up. No good - The grill is in the way so it won't rotate far enough. So ti was time to take the grills off. Once the grills were off, I took the bumper off completely as it was already disconnected. The actual attaching of the plate was about 10 minutes. Then we could start re-attaching things. The bumper was a bit of a pain. It wouldn't line up properly and the attaching screws were embarrassing - most were wood screws! Finally got the bumper in about the right spot just in time to tidy up as it was getting dark.

Got back into re-assembly next morning. I decided to use some better grills and blinkers off the wreck out the back as the old ones were all cracked and the attachment points broken. They looked good after a tidy up. The next problem was that the driver's side blinker wouldn't line up. It turned out to be the grill not lining up as the blinker is mounted through the grill - thank you BMW :( . This was because the headlights were in the wrong spot, forcing the grill towards the centre of the car. Some inspection showed that there had obviously been an accident at some point and the front of the car was badly repaired. I knew this when I bought it, but had no idea it was this bad.

The light mount was still pushed in about 10 mm. So we took the headlight assembly out and fixed it as best we could, then elongated the mounting holes to get it in the right spot. Now the grill fitted nicely. The other grill was less of the same and we managed to get it in with less swearing. I also took the chance to fix the broken passenger side blinker while I was there. Finally got the centre (kidney) grill on again and added all the missing screws that the dodgy repairer hadn't bothered with. Also put some grill clips from the later e21 just to be sure. Gave her a wash and she looks exactly the same! Luckily, I know how much better it is underneath.

Some "Infrastructure" Work


We're busy helping Dad build the new headquarters for Team Orange, otherwise known as his new shed in the backyard. This is no ordinary shed though. It's 20m x 10m x 3.1 sidewall. The 3.1m sidewall is high enough to allow installation of the car hoist he has put a deposit on. There's room for 11 cars (as long as they are Escorts or BMW and not another Prado) with still enough space for a 6m x 10m workshop. He's already purchased a lathe, pedestal drill, band saw, benches and loads of other miscellaneous tools. It promises to be a real heaven for petrol heads.

This photo is just the first section of the slab. There's another 4m to go on the left hand side yet!

Great Debut for Matt at Wakefield

We headed down to Wakefield on Sunday for the 4th round of the BMW Drivers Club NSW Supersprint Championship. Matt was making his "debut" in Bel's e21 323i so there was plenty of excitement in the lead up. The e21 was primed with a rebuilt front shock, new rear Konis, modified rear springs and the experimental double sway bar set up front and rear.

Matt had a great start getting the car and himself through practice with no dramas and some solid times. Rough hand timing had him at about 1:25. The afternoon kicked off nicely with times straight down to high 1:23s. More time came off in the second session with some really consistent runs culminating in a 1:23.0. Sadly, the same front shock started to play up with some (as yet) undiagnosed rattles!

Matt stuck with it until the end and, quite literally, drove it until it stopped; with the e21 running out of fuel in the last session of the day! It was a great result as it is the quickest time for the e21 ever around Wakefield. Matt had a great day and we all enjoyed his spirited driving.

Suspension work for the e21

I've been using the time off from track days to get some work done on the e21. The front driver's side shock was rattling, so that's out to be replaced. Turns out it was from a 2002, but it is also a Bilstein sport, so better to fix that replace. As with all things Team Orange, it turned out to be much more complicated that it should have been. Luckily, some help from Herbert at Bavaricars saw me fixed for no cost! Just needs to be re-fitted and we're good to go. My wife's, sister's partner is coming down in 2 weeks to drive the e21 at Wakefield, so it needs to be in top condition.

Since I had the opportunity, I've made some adjustable coilovers for the rear of the e21. If I'd known it was that simple, I'd have done it years ago. Doesn't really help with the ride height yet, at the springs are still stock(ish), but is all ready to use the Eibachs when I upgrade the ones in the e12.

Now I've got all the bits, I just need to get them back into the car!

For those that are interested, I've detailed out what I did to make the coilovers:

1. Buy car that happens to have a spare set of Koni adjustable shocks left in the boot with some aftermarket springs! Alternatively, you can buy them. Most Konis are rebuildable, so a decent second hand set will do for starters. Bilsteins have a similar mounting system, but are more expensive. Depends on you wallet and your needs.

2. Measure up outside of shock - these Konis are 42.4 mm.

3. Purchase threaded collars with ID to suit OD measured in step 2. Make sure you also buy spring seats and locking rings. I bought mine from Fulcrum and they were $120 for the two sets delivered to work.

4. Remove existing struts from spares car (or from original car if you're brave enough)

5. Remove lower spring seat. On the Boges, it was just pressed on, so some good solid hits with the hammer got it off.

6. Cut out the centre section to suit the spring seats. In this case, mine are to suit 60 mm ID springs. I cut it out by drilling a series of holes and using a jigsaw.

7. Apply electrical tape to take up 0.5 mm gap between shock and threaded collar.

8. Fit collars and seats to shocks.

9. I trimmed the springs by a couple of mm to remove any preload. I didn't want any, but this is up to personal preference, requirements and springs.

10. Trial fit to make sure it all works.

11. Paint the bits you worked on and put it all together.

One set of coilovers complete. There won't be any downwards adjustment unless you buy a set of superlow springs. Then you could adjust them up for daily driving and down for track or show.

Big BMW Nationals





We got very lucky with the weather at the BMW Club Nationals over Easter with almost no rain during the events and a completely fine day at Oran Park. The e12 was at the Show of Excellence although it's there to fly the e12 flag, not to be judged. We also entered the Supersprint at Oran Park. The e12 was first in class B at the supersprint with a time of 1:30.79. Not bad for a tired old four cylinder!

Ready for the Nationals

The e12 is finally ready for the Nationals. I painted up and installed the front and rear strut tower braces and gave the old girl her annual wash and polish. Not bad for a track car.