bmwe21.net forums

[quote="dave-ger"]"I'm actually really surprised by how much you all like what I have done."

Strange how there's no negative comments about this car at all (yet ), when you look at the slating Hedman gets for his Piglet-mobile.

I really like it too, and to my mind it's a lot cooler than the mega-money E30 on the vwvortex thread.

Would be very interesting to have a vote for our favourite E21 on this site. But could all lead to a massive upset so maybe not...

MadMax wrote:
Would be very interesting to have a vote for our favourite E21 on this site. But could all lead to a massive upset so maybe not...

I wouldn't be upset at all if mine wasn't the winner, I have strange taste and I wouldn't expect it to win a competition based on that.


about the engine being way back, I did want to do that, but I didn't want to screw with the factory mazda oil cooler, and the E21 brake booster was in the way of going any further back than I did. The shifter is a bit too far forward for my taste, but I'm going to see if i can make up for that a bit with an angled shift lever. the oil pan also fits pretty well over the E21 subframe where it sits, and I can reach the spark plugs and everything else on the engine really easily where it sits. The car also feels very well balanced, so that worked out pretty nice as well.

the best thing about the rotary is that the car is so damn light now, I never weighed it with the M10, because it was seized, but with the 12A, a bit over a half tank of gas, and without me in it, it's 2350 pounds. It's not very stripped out or anything besides the AC being removed, going to pull the rest of the ducting and all that since I've decided the car doesn't need a heater ever again either, but that probably won't be significant.


anyways, to talk you all through the conversion a bit better, here is a link for a more detailed look at what I've done with the car:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=139952

it goes a ways into it before it gets to the rotary stuff since I was considering rebuilding an M10 for a while.

it's probably still a bit vague, but it gives you a better idea.

ha this car is awesome, thumbs up all round!

thank you sire. it has a long ways to go, but it's all looking do-able.

what wheels have you got on the front?

im doing alll the planning on dropping in a turbo 2 motor into my 320i as well i was just wondering did you have problems with the bell housing fitting and the wiring was that a problem? plus is your diff holding up? from what some guys on rx7club have told me is if i use a stock 1st gen rx7 drive shaft it should bolt straight up but they recomend me installing a rx7 diff too? your opinon please?????

my front wheels are stock, so are the back ones.


as far as the bell housing, no problem at all, the trans for my 12A is more compact than the M10 one by a bit. as far as the drive line, the drive flange for the stock RX one didn't seem to match if I remember right, I had to make my own, I may have one made or get mine balanced now that I know of a place that can do it (no place in this town can even balance anything with a BMW end on it). the BMW diff is holding up valiantly, it takes my occasional clutch dumps quite well.

cool but yours isnt turbo correct? i wonder if it will hold with a 230hp (after some basic mods) turbo engine? havent been able to find any info at all

yea, it's not turbo, just a stock tired 12A with removed emissions, mechanical secondaries, and custom exhaust from the manifold back. it's not that powerful at this point, I have no idea how much the diff will take, I have a spare, and the one I have doesn't have enough slack in the gears, it's been messed up since before I got the car, it's disposable to me. if/when I blow it up, I'll either make sure the spare is setup better or put a diff from a different car in it.

i am hoping a stock rx7 diff will fit my axels from my car

I highly doubt they will. I plan to just modify my sub frame to accept a different diff if/when the time is right. then the trick would be having CV's the correct lengths, and having them bolt up to both the diff and the axle stubs.. or adapting the axle stubs off something else... going to be tricky if I do it, you should just run your E21 diff until you kill it, it may just take the beating though.

There is a company called Longfield that makes axles for toyota and dana axles, they cryo treat ring and pinion sets, I'm sure it's not common for them, but I'm sure they could do it with your E21 ring and pinion.

look into it


http://www.longfieldsuperaxles.com/

towards the bottom of the page, only $45 for a ring an pinion set to be treated.

why not use an e12 diff and have a custom prop made, there are conversions for e12 diffs easily available and is good for 400bhp.

do you know of any websites that offer that e12 diff swap

fritz bits do the conversion, but you might aswell do it yourself, im sure somebody has drawn the patterns up on here. if not somebody sure should

I personally don't know crap about E12 diffs, but here are some new pics of my car. I've done a few things to it here and there, but nothing huge lately.