I'm whitebulat, and my whole life (since middle school) has led to me buying this car. I had just become a car guy out of nowhere in 7th grade after meeting this beast on the PS2:
I never ever stopped playing that game, or reading about and asking about cars with my dad the Mercedes engineer. He influenced my taste to be German first with a side of Italian. I had a class with a still friend back then who thought the same way and we decided we should build a racecar. By circumstance we were into BMWs first so we both went home one night to figure out which one to build. The 3 series was obviously the best platform because it was the smallest, and a quick look on wikipedia through all of the generations at the time gave us a quick look at what was out there. Both of us chose to start building (drawing pictures of) E30 M3s knowing we'd be able to get one together because they were old, cheap and simple.
Now we're both in college with questionable etas and the story switches to the progress of mine. I finally have one!
Took a decent amount of time in the search and picked it up for an optimistic deal, fairly clean with occasional starting issues and needing alignment. Felt good about the purchase because me and my girlfriend liked the look with the diving boards and the owner was nice, unnecessarily honest and took it to smog on his dime. Where the car scored about 3% as much as bad stuff as the average passing vehicle in every category.
Having never extensively driven a manual car, let alone an e30, the first Mulholland cruise in this thing was divine. I was finally feeling a lightweight BMW chassis with the signature inline 6, all my very own and as good as I thought it would be. The handling was there, even if a front shock was blown and the tires were all around on their last legs.
Everything being immediately perfect, of course there has to be some shit or this wouldn't be a real story. Before that run, the brake booster went out on the way home from buying. I had derpy steering without the alignment that was actually improper tie rods and pathetically weak brakes, and I didn't know when the timing belt had last been replaced- the Mulholland trip was one I known I shouldn't have taken but I couldn't stand to baby my baby forever.
I got away with that one, but soon after got lost and ended up a good 50 miles from home, in a particularly hard area of the 405 to call for help from, just canyons in the Irvine area w/o many street signs. I had been running on reserve for a while and pulled off to look for any recognizable area, couldn't find one and pulled over where I could to call with my limited battery life. It took a lil while but AAA pulled through, Vanilla Shake didn't. At the moment a new problem arose after being given enough gas to go fill up and go home- she wouldn't start. We were both baffled and nothing worked, so my dad had to come all the way down to pick me up from a nearby mechanic. Those guys were very nice and serviced it for free- they thought replacing the CPS would fix the issue and it didn't. We managed to get it home the next day, and it wasn't looking well.
From the time I had bought it to now it suddenly looked like not a single thing worked right. We brought over friend E30s and home mechanics to have more failed diagnoses and multiple O'Reilly parts such as a brake booster fail after taking many hours to put in. We had been slowly chipping away for months, and it did not produce results.
Bottom line was I had next to no mechanical experience at the time having just learned to remove a wheel. I had wasted a good chunk of money throwing parts at it friends told me may work and going back and forth diagnosing new things I had broken for good fees at local repair shops. I did what I should've done in the first place. I ran to Long Beach Autohaus, gave them my savings, and they converted Vanilla Shake into a mechanically solid car. Expensive, but thorough, and thus began her
PUNK PHASE
Spotted in action on closed roads (not my channel):
That's more what I was going for. Summary of what's been replaced / done so far:
CPS, Timing / Water, Brake Booster, Master Cylinder, Tie Rods, alignments, suspension bushings / arms, motor mounts, cluster / odometer, full ignition system besides plugs / coil, all the key relays, Red46 skid plate. Ireland Engineering springs + Konis (at least 4 times playing with the strut assembly and I've still forgotten a specific washer), Mark D chip (thanks guardodoc!), KAmotors intake, Thrush glasspack muffler, maintenance list is longer than my memory.
Will get around to putting on my poly RTABs, handbrake, rear shocks, diff / subframe mounts on at an undetermined date. Throwing on some new yellow Bosch Merc lights soon (thanks kid8!), and will have to decide which camber plates to get. When that's all sorted out, the engine will be rebuilt or swapped for a fresh one. Power and efficiency are as good as new, oil consumption is at the point where a quart won't last 1000 miles any more though.
The body and appearance will be given obligatory attention, that front valance which looks fresh has eaten it a few too many times and has actually always been split in the middle- it was mounted by a couple screws from the side when I bought it. Either getting that fixed or replacing and whiting the car out with skirts, rear apron, spoiler, and likely 16x8 Hartage reps by ESM with 205/50 or 225/45 tires.
Motivation:
All of this stuff will be coming together to hopefully create a competitive GTS2 car and something to take autoXing, and BMWCCAing. The goal for the rebuild or swap is the most efficient, cheapest, and fresh engine available. Under 3000 CCs for BMWCCA purposes, so the main item I am looking at is either a fresh M20B25 or an I head and higher compression rotating assembly to put on my engine. I am also on the look for aluminum 24v engines. Power is the last factor, I am looking for a non excessive amount. I've always thought power is something you'll just get used to and the real fun is racing around the turns as adults with go-karts do. The purpose of this build is to get me to the track and have an engine that forces me to scavenge tenths by cornering smoothly, but I wouldn't mind the extra grunt to attend a casual hoon every now and then. If anyone is trying to dump something that may help me reach the goal, let me know!
Now you know our story thus far. I was serious when I said I hadn't ever removed a wheel when I bought this car, and her feisty attitude has fixed that and a half. I've been carefully giving her bits of care and she has been responding more happily each time. Hope it's been somewhat enjoyable to see!
I never ever stopped playing that game, or reading about and asking about cars with my dad the Mercedes engineer. He influenced my taste to be German first with a side of Italian. I had a class with a still friend back then who thought the same way and we decided we should build a racecar. By circumstance we were into BMWs first so we both went home one night to figure out which one to build. The 3 series was obviously the best platform because it was the smallest, and a quick look on wikipedia through all of the generations at the time gave us a quick look at what was out there. Both of us chose to start building (drawing pictures of) E30 M3s knowing we'd be able to get one together because they were old, cheap and simple.
Now we're both in college with questionable etas and the story switches to the progress of mine. I finally have one!
Took a decent amount of time in the search and picked it up for an optimistic deal, fairly clean with occasional starting issues and needing alignment. Felt good about the purchase because me and my girlfriend liked the look with the diving boards and the owner was nice, unnecessarily honest and took it to smog on his dime. Where the car scored about 3% as much as bad stuff as the average passing vehicle in every category.
Having never extensively driven a manual car, let alone an e30, the first Mulholland cruise in this thing was divine. I was finally feeling a lightweight BMW chassis with the signature inline 6, all my very own and as good as I thought it would be. The handling was there, even if a front shock was blown and the tires were all around on their last legs.
Everything being immediately perfect, of course there has to be some shit or this wouldn't be a real story. Before that run, the brake booster went out on the way home from buying. I had derpy steering without the alignment that was actually improper tie rods and pathetically weak brakes, and I didn't know when the timing belt had last been replaced- the Mulholland trip was one I known I shouldn't have taken but I couldn't stand to baby my baby forever.
I got away with that one, but soon after got lost and ended up a good 50 miles from home, in a particularly hard area of the 405 to call for help from, just canyons in the Irvine area w/o many street signs. I had been running on reserve for a while and pulled off to look for any recognizable area, couldn't find one and pulled over where I could to call with my limited battery life. It took a lil while but AAA pulled through, Vanilla Shake didn't. At the moment a new problem arose after being given enough gas to go fill up and go home- she wouldn't start. We were both baffled and nothing worked, so my dad had to come all the way down to pick me up from a nearby mechanic. Those guys were very nice and serviced it for free- they thought replacing the CPS would fix the issue and it didn't. We managed to get it home the next day, and it wasn't looking well.
From the time I had bought it to now it suddenly looked like not a single thing worked right. We brought over friend E30s and home mechanics to have more failed diagnoses and multiple O'Reilly parts such as a brake booster fail after taking many hours to put in. We had been slowly chipping away for months, and it did not produce results.
Bottom line was I had next to no mechanical experience at the time having just learned to remove a wheel. I had wasted a good chunk of money throwing parts at it friends told me may work and going back and forth diagnosing new things I had broken for good fees at local repair shops. I did what I should've done in the first place. I ran to Long Beach Autohaus, gave them my savings, and they converted Vanilla Shake into a mechanically solid car. Expensive, but thorough, and thus began her
PUNK PHASE
Spotted in action on closed roads (not my channel):
That's more what I was going for. Summary of what's been replaced / done so far:
CPS, Timing / Water, Brake Booster, Master Cylinder, Tie Rods, alignments, suspension bushings / arms, motor mounts, cluster / odometer, full ignition system besides plugs / coil, all the key relays, Red46 skid plate. Ireland Engineering springs + Konis (at least 4 times playing with the strut assembly and I've still forgotten a specific washer), Mark D chip (thanks guardodoc!), KAmotors intake, Thrush glasspack muffler, maintenance list is longer than my memory.
Will get around to putting on my poly RTABs, handbrake, rear shocks, diff / subframe mounts on at an undetermined date. Throwing on some new yellow Bosch Merc lights soon (thanks kid8!), and will have to decide which camber plates to get. When that's all sorted out, the engine will be rebuilt or swapped for a fresh one. Power and efficiency are as good as new, oil consumption is at the point where a quart won't last 1000 miles any more though.
The body and appearance will be given obligatory attention, that front valance which looks fresh has eaten it a few too many times and has actually always been split in the middle- it was mounted by a couple screws from the side when I bought it. Either getting that fixed or replacing and whiting the car out with skirts, rear apron, spoiler, and likely 16x8 Hartage reps by ESM with 205/50 or 225/45 tires.
Motivation:
All of this stuff will be coming together to hopefully create a competitive GTS2 car and something to take autoXing, and BMWCCAing. The goal for the rebuild or swap is the most efficient, cheapest, and fresh engine available. Under 3000 CCs for BMWCCA purposes, so the main item I am looking at is either a fresh M20B25 or an I head and higher compression rotating assembly to put on my engine. I am also on the look for aluminum 24v engines. Power is the last factor, I am looking for a non excessive amount. I've always thought power is something you'll just get used to and the real fun is racing around the turns as adults with go-karts do. The purpose of this build is to get me to the track and have an engine that forces me to scavenge tenths by cornering smoothly, but I wouldn't mind the extra grunt to attend a casual hoon every now and then. If anyone is trying to dump something that may help me reach the goal, let me know!
Now you know our story thus far. I was serious when I said I hadn't ever removed a wheel when I bought this car, and her feisty attitude has fixed that and a half. I've been carefully giving her bits of care and she has been responding more happily each time. Hope it's been somewhat enjoyable to see!
DREWLIENTE
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