ZROSSA'S 79 635

[ZROSSA]

Howdy all,

I have been making a bit of progress on the 79 so I thought I would start a project thread. A first for me!

I bought this car in 2008 from a fellow up north and decided it would be wise to drive back the 1000 kms home. Bit of a mistake. It leaked petrol from the tank and the head lights didn't work. Fortunately I had a friend drive me up so we managed to get those issues under control and made it home with no other issues.

The car is registered as a 1979 but I think its a late 78 build. It has the m90 and dogleg five speed. I believe less than 100 RHD 635 were made in 78.

Its one of five project I have going at the moment....im a sucker for punishment.... so the going has been a bit slow.

Here is how it sits at the moment:

[ZROSSA]

Sorry about that ending. It was my first time posting a photo as well! Must now go grab a wine and look at the tits section to celebrate!

Back now.....So my plans for the car are pretty simple. Big feet, suspension that can handle them and an engine that can cause them grief. The car also needs to look pretty sharp. Its not a full retso but I expect we will end up painting it.

It came with what I call the chinless spoiler. I think it was in a ding at some time and the front was replaced with that of a 628 or something. I looked at getting an alpina one but couldn't get anyone to send it to New Zealand. So in the end I made one from the original nose and a r32 skyline spoiler. I will grab a photo and post it in the next addition. The wheels are bbs from a 5 series, 10.5 x 18 and 9 x 18. The front guards have been rolled. I don't think I need to roll the rears. I will also remove the side trim to give it a more up to date look.

I like my cars to stop and go around corners...fast! to that end I have done quite a bit to the suspension. The front is running coil overs of a evo 4 (I think) that have been modified to work with the sixes up right. There is adjustable camber at the top and we have built in another 2 degrees of caster from factory. I had 25mm bump steer plate made that also push the tires out another 15mm. All the front bushings are now super pro from the UK. Unfortunately the spring adjusters were damaged when we were putting this together. They are a stupid size 58mm....I have now been waiting over 6 month for my machinist to make new ones hence front suspension isnt in

I have been planing the rear suspension for a long time. I was originally going to change it around so that it worked more like that in the e36's and Audi tt's but in the end I decided there wasnt enough room and that might have a bit of trouble getting through the local certification process. I had a look at what BMW did with the e30m3 and also what ford did with the race cosworths in the group A era. Bmw change the trailing arm angle from 23 degrees to 12, fords was adjustable betwen 12 and 6 degrees. (the holy grail of the ford forums is the 8 degree beam) . I also wanted the arms on car adjustable. This is the result

[ZROSSA]

The new beam angle is 9 degrees. I have changed the mount from horizontal to vertical. There are locking half nuts that can be moved up or down to adjust camber. Toe is adjusted by moving the "jack screw" in or out. It has a right hand tread on one side and a left hand tread on the other. This mounts to the chassis via a female rod end. On the outside mount for the trailing arm I have used a urethane bushing from superflex. This was done to give a little compliance to the rear. Obviously when adjusting the suspension the movement is actually an arc. I felt that if there wasn't compliance then the slight arc movement would put bending loads in the bolt the rod end is attached too or try to spread the trailing arms apart. Didn't really want that to happen.

So that's it for now. The engine will be getting a holset hx52 in the near future.....that should apply the appropriate amount of grief to the rear tires

Cheers,

Douglas

[ZROSSA]

I have been sneaking into the shed when possible and have managed to get a few things done.

I have now mounted the front coil overs. The camber plates required a bit of modification to the top of the towers. I didn't like the fact that I had to remove a bit of the "lip" at the rear so I made a strut bar to put some strength back into the area and painted it a nice shinny gold.....Because that is all I had!

[ZROSSA]

The new brake brake pads arrive today so I should be able to get all the suspension buttoned up this weekend. As it stands at the moment I have a 15mm spacer in the rear and 20mm spacer in the front. These are just what was around the shed but it has worked out surprisingly well. I will keep the rear as is. The front is actually two 10mm spacer so a no go. I have a lathe so might have a go at making some 25mm bolt on spacers for the front. the problem is.....I have never used the lathe! Guess it would be a good time to jump in and learn.

[jps635]

I don't really understand that rear end but nice work just the same. Those offset strut spacers look like those Gaz made.

I've got 15mm TMS spacers all round - they're very good quality. To meet LV cert I fixed these to the rims using 5mm csk machine screws - one hole drilled and tapped in each rim about 6mm deep. I also rolled the rear guards slightly, just take your time doing a little at a time.

What brakes you using?

Chris

[MrE]

That's great commitment Douglas, keep up the good work.

If I didn't know better I would have sworn that was Shipper's car...



viewtopic.php?t=26300

-Ellis.

[Shipper 01]

Wait, what? I better check my car is still there!

[tschultz]

^^I was thinking the same thing!!

Nice work, keep the progress going

[ZROSSA]

Thanks for the encouragement!

Chris, The brakes are standard with braided brake lines. The car has been siting in front of my winery for about a year now so I am just trying to get it back on its feet and moving again.

In the shed is a 260z that I have been building for a number of years to go have a play in Targa with. I need to get this done so I can get the Bmw inside to do the turbo work. Some bugger broke in a couple of months ago and stole the engine I had planed for the 260z, so there is a bit of a hold up. Me being me, have over complicated it and am now putting in a turbo charged vw r32 engine in the zed. Problem is....there is no easy RWD transmission options for it. Now I am waiting on a couple of VW LT van gearboxes that I am bringing in from the UK. Hopefully they will be here late January.

The turbo plans have changed a little. I bought a bw s200 turbo for my Quattro about six months ago. I decided that I didn't really want to Cut up an original Quattro so I have swapped it for a quattro Coupe and audi v8. So that turbo is now spare. Its good for about 550 bhp so will be much more responsive on the 635 and it's far more compact than the holsets.

So anyhow, All the bolts and brake pads are now here so I had better stop typing and get off my arse, spray the vineyard and then put it all back together!

Cheers, D

[ZROSSA]

A little more progress.

I started to fill in the trim holes. I was originally just going to do the upper ones but had to take the lower ones off as well to attack a bit of rust and I really like the look without them. I will fill those over Easter. I have also trial fitted the front spoiler I made. I am pretty pleased with the result. Its now back of the car while I fit the intercooler. These things are never straight forward and even though I measured god only know how many times there is still quite a bit of cutting and fabrication to do. The oil cooler and mounts are in the way so I suspect a new solution for that will need to be found. I don't want people to see the cooler.

Turbo plans have changed again.....I will now use a holset Hx50 (in the shed). The problem with these holsets is that the exhaust housing are generally far to large for petrol applications. Buying smaller ones isn't that easy or cheap which kind of negates the whole point of going with the holset in the first place! This has kept me up many a night searching the net and harassing nearly every turbo guru in New Zealand. I think I may have found a solution with the Borg warner housings. Just waiting for the one I ordered to show up now. It will probably need a bit of machining to make it work but there is a large variety available and they are really good value.

I have also attached a photo of the front spoiler. There are little driving lights that will go into the corners of the grill. Should look pretty cool!

[v-wiz]

Nice... Is that car on jacks safe sitting on gravel?

[ZROSSA]

The gravel is just a very thin layer. Under neath is what we call red metal. We use it to make our driveways and so forth around here. When compacted it goes like concrete. Solid as a rock!

D

[ZROSSA]

The previous owner at some stage messed around with the rear springs so that they were no longer captive. I thought I had better pull them out and remedy the situation. As some of you might remember, I bought a set of coilovers from an early Evo that I was going to use as parts. I looked at retrofitting the helper springs to the bilstiens but it would have meant machining up a few bits and I didn't have any materials to do so at the time. So I had a closer look at the rsr set up from the evo. For once everything seemed to match up. The Bmw top mount fitted so I ground of the spring locating portion. I found a generic coil over spring perch in the box of spares. Just had to open the hole up a little bit so it now fits the top mount. The original rsr spring was way to short so I pulled the 250lb ones of my race car. Perfect fit! The rsr bottom mount was the same width as the Bmw one. Just had to ream the Hole from 12mm to 14 mm.

The whole set up is about 50 mm shorter than the bilstiens. I am pleased with the result. I will probably be able to sell the old shocks for more than I have in this. So next on the list is a rear battery box.

I am also contemplating a rear strut brace but I cant really get my head around that one. To me all the chassis loads go through the sub frame. So the best result would be had by making sure the sub frame doesn't move. The rear shocks have rubber bush's and deflect around any way.....So how can a brace help? If we had solid bushings then I could see the benefit. In a race car we would tie in the sub frame and diff mounts to stop the whole thing moving about. We would then tie that into the shock towers as it gives good triangulation.......But this is not a race car. It still has rubber mounts. Am I missing something?

Cheers,

D

[jps635]

Interested to see what your plans are for battery box, thinking of doing the same, but unsure of requirements for venting and possible drain?? Where in the boot are you going to locate it?

[ZROSSA]

Howdy Chris,

Ideally it would be in the left rear where the jack is. I cant see myself putting it there though, so I guess it will tuck up next to the left rear wheel well as close to the fire wall as I can get it. I think if the battery is sealed then you don't have to worry about venting but I will double check on that.

I am still contemplating doing a brace to make the diff mount stronger so that i can then tie the battery box into it as well.

I need to stop inventing projects for it however!

i got it primed and the rear suspension back in last night....Progress being made all be it slowly.

Cheers, D

[jps635]

Thanks Douglas

Once you have it all sussed please let me know. I favour centrally placed as well, as far forward as possible longitudinally so can still get stuff either side, with an accessible battery switch, and not too big a hassle to remove. I've also thought about incorporating a rear strut brace but like yourself the jury is still out on this. My shell is inherently stiff in any case so unsure. If I were to install one would prefer to pick up on a reinforcing plate welded to the strut turrets, but not sure on this either - averse to welding being done in there.