Motors I'm building my own car... UPDATE - Stoneliegh 2013

Yeah - all the wires in the cockpit and boot area will be covered by the carpeting and matting.

I may change the belts later on, but I'll stick with what I've got for now. And IVA (and previously SVA) proofing 'mods' have a habit of 'falling off' after the car in question has passed...

 

'pologies fora question that has probably been answered already, but how much did the kit cost? The Marlin site hasn't emailed me the pricelist yet.
The donor car can be an E30 or an E36, right? I'm asking because there's a possibility the father might be interested in doing something like this

 

PM me you email address and I'll send you the latest price list - I have a copy.

My first stage was a cheaper than on the price list, as Marlin put their prices up half way through the build.

Yes - E30 or E36 - I believe some guys are attempting to fit E46 lumps.

[Edit]Here you go - they're ironing out the wrinkles:

http://www.madabout-kitcars.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1947

 

God damn, all that wiring will put hairs on your chest. Sounds like a total nightmare.

The bloke who had to hacksaw the inlet manifold as well, then make a new one... That's some steely nerves...

On yours: Nice work, always good to see a proper wiring job rather than a snake's wedding behind there. Did you make a note of what everything is in a manual? That'd be sweet - the GOOguide to your own sportster.

 

Yes - I have a couple of wiring diagrams for the hazard lights and another for all the other lighting. I also have a layout of the fuse / relay panel, and the wiring diagrams for all of the standard BMW loom I've reused in the engine bay.

I'm going to attempt to merge all of that into one wiring schematic.

Then that, plus my wiring code diagram will get put in my e30 Bentley Manual for future reference.

I'm also going to have the fuse panel layout laminated and attached to the panel itself, so I don't forget which fuse does what when I'm on the side of the road.

 

Thanks. I got the price list after flooding them with requests. Suddenly got seven mails an hour or so ago

Thanks for the link, but I think dad would like to stick to E36. Easily available and cheap. The E30 is impossible to find here and the E46 is far too expensive.

Uh, you're going to make a pdf of your manual? And post it on your site, I hope?

 

Maybe....

 

Ok - Its slowly dawning on me that the car will be on the road soon, and my mind is suddenly on music.

I don't really want a head unit in the car, as I think it'll spoil the look. That and I don't have a great deal of space in the dash.

What I was thinking of was an amplifier in the boot, connected to my iPhone via some form of dock connector cable. This would give me music and navigation prompts as I have the Navigon app for it, and I could probably get it charging as well.

Is this possible? I've looked at some amps, but I haven't got a clue in this area!

 

With car audio you pretty much need a headunit to get anything from an ipod to the speakers...

 

Nahh, it's easy.

On the iPod dock connector there is a line out, wire that through to a 10k dual gang pot then on to the amp and your almost sorted, a bit too much signal, but workable. Only other thing is to add a power switch to take the amps remote line high


plus, the dock connector has a serial port thats quite easy to interface with allowing you to have track skip buttons on your dash

 

That's really nice Ice - I took a look at your website and watched your vids, and it was very interesting.

As a matter of interest, where did you get your doc connector plug from? and do you have any schematics for the arduino based ipod controller? PCB layouts etc?

And the pot for volume control... How is that wired?

 

You can get the connector from here, or if you can't solder tight pitch pins, there is this.

The pot has one end to iPod signal, the other end to signal ground and the wiper goes to the amp. An additional resistor would seem to also be required to bring the signal level down a bit, at least with my elcheapo amp


I'll put together a diagram of the various connections tonight, the actual diy hardware is very simple, as the arduino board used (this one) does all the hard work for you.

 

Well, here's what I've been labouring over for the past week or so:





The boot hatch and frame is made of 3mm Aluminium plate. The latch plate and door jambs are 6mm plate. The side panel is 1.5mm plate. It's all attached with stainless button heads. The hinges are stainless and attached with countersunk stainless screws. The seatbelt escutcheons (from Europa) are attached with M3 countersunk screws.

Also, my seats from Interior seating arrived. They're very nice!




They're not bolted in yet, as they forgot to send my seat rails.

 

Wow on both counts. Those seats are seriously sexeh. How's it feel in real life? Just as nice as you thought?

 

Seriously nice seats. The alum work is very nice - all well done - but...

You know you'll probably remember the wood crate seat and middle of the night first drive forever!

Coming along nicely.

john

 

Thanks guys. The metal work was a bitch, considering I didn't have a bending brake, rollers or metal dollies... most of the bending was done over the back of my work bench and an off cut of the exhaust pipe, bashing it with alternately with a plastic mallet and a ball pien hammer.

It also involved plenty of blue air, buckets of sweat, gallons of tea and plenty of head scratching.

The seats are very comfortable... they seem very supportive, and the side bolsters stop you moving around too much. That'll come in handy.

 

Nice stuff. Considering you made that rear hatch all by yourself, it's great work!

 

What color are you going to paint this sucker anyway? I don't think you could go wrong with a nice red...

 

It's in the thread. British Racing Green.

 

Pretty sure Roto's only joking... He knows it's going to be BRG. He just wants me to paint it red. I'm sure he's prepared himself for the inevitable disapointment.