tranny tubes.....

Decided to add a horizontal tube across the main hoop legs and stitch it to the transmission tunnel. This tube should help considerable if the car gets t-boned right around the main hoop/door area. It should help keep the cage from collapsing inward. Basically should help support the mid-section of the cage in a side impact.

It's safe to say after my new (coming soon) door bars and all the new tubes the car should be much safer.

It was trickier to fit than I thought as we had to cut a diagonal notch for the diagonal bar from the main hoop.....

this one was kinda rough...

The driver side weld came out MUCH better.

Then I welded the tube to the transmission tunnel, should help integrate the cage in one more location to the unibody (there are many others)
and now the complete view of this weekends work...including the new tranny tube....

Pedro the contortionist...

I have to smile when I remember the funky ass positions you have to get in when welding a cage!

Here I am welding the first tube connecting the subframe tubes to the rear tube node.
I can't stess this enough.... when welding ANYTHING get as comfortable as you can get. The more comfortable, the better you can see the cleaner the material is the better your welds will be.....mine are not perfect but it's amazing how much better they are when I happen to be in a more comfy position. Supporting your mig gun with your other hand can be tricky at times when welding in weird positions, but is vital to use you second hand to stabilize the nozzle to give you most control over what you are doing as possible.....

Much like many I initially planed on Tig'ing the cage but in the interest of saving time I opted for the MIG. After welding some of these tubes I have a hard time imagining doing some of these beads in weird positions with a TIG.... having to manage the filler rod and the pedal would of really been a challenge! not to mention just fitting the tig torch in some of these tight confines.....

In any case here is me after I found a "comfortable position allowing me the best view of what I was welding.
the result I must say almost brings a tear to my eye....hehe

Personally I never seen this design done on any 2002 or e30. I think it's elegant and make perfect sense "engineering wise" and much better than other "subframe connector tube" designs. I just looked at it and this is the design that made the most sense.


All the "black" tubes are the new tubes in case you did figure that out already.

like I said not perfect.....but not bad either....

subframe tube done!

Welded the plates in and completed the subframe connector tubes....incredibly I have never seen another '02 with this done to it. I've seen people weld tubes to the area but never actually do it like all the e30 and e36 guys do.

My "comrade" Dimitri, none of this would of been possible without his chain smokin' helping hand.
We are using a Harbor Freight tube notcher in case you where wondering.

Next we tacked in the subframe downbars.

DOM Time!!

Next we started working on the main "X" on the down bars. In case you were wondering DOM tubing is 1.5"x0.095 thick. This is in line with the rule book for a 2000lbs car.

I'm using his welder and Im still trying to figure it out but Im getting decent results.....
Me sparking it up!
It's getting tighter and tighter back there everyday .... more tubes to come !
Here is the completed section........ next the "X" to connect the subframe to the cage.

Subframe connector welded in...

I decided if I was going to ever finish this I would have to start working on it during the week, so I started to go to the shop after work these last 2 days.

Good thing too as we are making great progress....

welded in the subframe posts,

Welded the tube section to side of the "box" as well for additional support.

also did some additional "seam welding" where ever the mig gun would let me.
last step before I weld the cover/base plate is to drench/cover the entire area with POR-15

Happy 4th!

Well I took the day off on the 4th and enjoyed the day. On Saturday I went to the shop http://www.bmwmbenz.com and met up with Dimitri as he already started working on our newest "team" member Adam. His newly acquired e36 race car had a bad head gasket and a cracked head.So since I wanted to watch Dimitri install the freshly welded and machined head so I could learn. I did not get much done on my car. But I'm always ready to learn something new. So I did learn how to install a head gasket on a s50 and properly time the cams etc.....plus we got his car all squared away so he can go to the track next weekend.

So all I did was make the dreaded incisions into my old sheet metal to expose the rear sub-frame mount points. You guys that have done this on the e30 chassis will recognize this as the e30 uses the same chassis/suspension design in the rear. I looked at e30 DTM designs for the subframe mount/roll cage area for ideas.

The idea is simple. You want to channel the energy from the road that gets transfered from the wheels thru suspension arms to the sub-frame into the mounts (now solid) then into the thin(now rusting) chassis sheetmetal. By using a section of DOM tube welded to this area then you can run tubes from the main hoop and also to the rear portion of th cage. This will greatly increase the strength of this aging shell and will also make sure that the rear subframe/ trailing arms maintain their position. Also the stiffer springs (that will be installed) along with the now Solid sub-frame bushings do not cause the sheet metal to collapse or fail.

I decided to first mark it out with a sharpie I just used my judgment and started cutting!
Luckily as you see I made the cut perfectly right along the edge of the "sheet metal box" the mount sits in.

Here is side view of that area. The red lines depict the tubing, welds and the baseplate that will cover the area. This should integrate this vital suspension pickup point into the rollcage.
The rust is just surface rust after closer inspection..... but god know why BMW put that big hole that exposes the sheet metal to water....rust. Maybe there was a plastic plug there at some point.... after welding the tube I will POR-15 this area as it stop rust and is designed to paint right over the stuff and stop it.

Me making the cuts
Then I cut the right side one up as well.....and slid the tubing over it and it was a PERFECT fit! it's 1.75x0.120 wall DOM. Unfortunately......that's as far as I got.

Now I need to decide on how to tie this new pickup point to the rest of the cage.