Lazurblau 325i project thread

[TheWipprSnappr]

Hello fellow r3vlimiters! I've been on here a while but I'm just now getting around to posting my project. I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to vehicle documentation, so hopefully this thread will give me a kick in the pants. This is my 1991 lazurblau 325i. I bought this car back in March 2016 so this thread is long overdue.

A bit of backstory on the car: I first saw this car on CL and fell in love with it instantly. At the time already had an e30 (325ix) in my possession (which I still own), so I already had an idea of the undertaking I would be undergoing with this car. I emailed the owner and received no response. Weeks had gone by with still no response and when I checked to see if it was still for sale, the post had been removed. Honestly, my heart pretty much sank. About a month passed and just as I was starting to move on, I was looking through craigslist and saw it had been posted again. I emailed the owner again and this time he responded. I scheduled a time to meet and see the car. Only downside was the car was in Davenport, IA, quite a long haul from Kansas City, but I knew I had to have it. So, I picked up one of my buds and fellow e30 owner to make the trip with me. When I got there I was pleasantly surprised at how good the car looked in person. I could tell from the pics that the paint was in pretty bad shape but the body was extremely straight with very minor dings. When I asked about the post being deleted, he had said that he liked the car enough that he wanted to keep it and make it a project but recently had to repost it because with kids growing up and other vehicles, he couldn't justify keeping it. After a bit of negotiating I was able to bring it back home at a very fair price. Best part was the car made it all the way back, 6 hours, without any problems whatsoever.

Sorry for the long intro. Lets get to some pics!

First pic of the car upon being back


Some more the following week




That's all I have time to post now. Ill update soon with the progress I have made so far.

[IceWhite]

Decent looking car. Seems like a win for you.

[TheWipprSnappr]

The car ran pretty well when I got it but I still wanted to do some refreshing, given the car had 189k on a broken odo and the PO said he had put at least 30k on it since it had gone out.

Pic of the engine bay when I first got it, after I had added the garagistic strut bar.


The first items that needed attention were:
Driveshaft vibration - installed new guibo, CSB(culprit), and coupling nut.

Vacuum Leak - coming from the bottom side of the Intake hose, impossible to see.


Timing belt and water pump - OP said he had done it about 40k ago but I didn't want to risk anything. Also replaced the camshaft seal while I had it apart.

Alternator and PS belts - I had my alternator belt snap going down the interstate on my iX. Not a fun experience. So I decided to replace these as soon as I could. Masterpro was all I could source at the time. But ill eventually replace with gates or conti.


Toward the end of summer, the car was in need of some new tires. Rather than replace the ones on the bottlecaps, I figured it was time to upgrade.

15x7 D-force LTW5s with 205/55r15 Dunlop DZ102s. In love with these wheels and tires. Super light weight and for the price, the DZ102s are an exceptional tire imo.

That wheel gap! Its almost painful to look at. :hitler:




Before fall I wanted to refresh some other bits in the engine bay.
New plugs, wires, cap and rotor, vc gasket, and rocker shaft plugs. Bought new rear rotors as well but didn't have time to install those yet tho.


Gave it a much needed valve adjustment as well


Old rotor vs New


Also painted the valve cover to spruce things up a bit under the hood. Not too bad for a days worth of work.


Its pretty evident by the beer in the photo that im cutting costs in other aspects of my life to fund this project. No craft beers for this guy.

That's it for now. More to come.

[gofredo50]

Lazur is a fantastic color for e30s. Shame it's so rare. Glad you are giving this one the love it deserves.

[stonea]

Man thats a beautiful color

[325isman]

Car

Great looking car.....great work

[Rontgen]

Looking good! Congrats!

[TheWipprSnappr]

Lazur is a fantastic color for e30s. Shame it's so rare. Glad you are giving this one the love it deserves.

Man thats a beautiful color

Lazur is becoming one of my favorite e30 colors, along with lagunengrun.

[TheWipprSnappr]

Looking good! Congrats!

Great looking car.....great work

Thanks!

[TheWipprSnappr]

Fall had just begun at this point and it was time to do something about the interior. It wasn't terrible but the indigo comfort seats that came in the car were badly torn. Luckily the car came with two black perforated vinyl sport seats in great condition (just a small tear in the driver's side bolster).

First it need a good cleaning. Didn't take a pic of the old comfort seats but just picture typical torn e30 seats. Also I picked up an mtech1 wheel for a decent price and threw it on prior to cleaning.


freshened up the seat belt buckles while they were out.


the faded one is from a different set but that's basically what they looked like before.

All cleaned up. the floor mats it came with were garbage so I stole the ones out of my iX temporarily.


you can see the tear in the bolster sewn up with the wrong color thread


Not to worry, I wouldn't have to deal with it for long because, spoiler alert:



Last major thing I wanted to accomplish before winter was upgrading the suspension. the current struts were going out and I needed to do something about that awful wheel gap. I scored some goodies here on r3v for a good price and got to work. The struts are Bilstein HDs with roughly 10k, still in great shape. Springs are Eibach Progressive Springs. I know there are a lot of reviews about these being super soft but I got them for extremely cheap and they honestly don't drive and handle that bad. Eventually I will be looking into H&R race/billy sports or coilovers.

Removing the old struts



New cartridge in


New spring installed. Forgot to do a side by side with the oem but its something like -1.6" drop.


Other side finished up


Pulled the car out for shits and giggles to see how the rake looked with the front dropped. not too obnoxious but the rear still needed to be refreshed.


Rear spring comparison. oem on left


spoiler alert, I bought the UUC sway bar kit


Final ride height.


Not too bad for my first suspension job. Ran into a couple hiccups but that was to be expected. Got it done in a couple of weekends, since I wasn't in a huge hurry to get it back on the road.

After that it was on to the swaybar installation.


Started with the rear first. Getting mounts in postion for drilling


trailing arm tabs for extra support. Welding isn't exactly my forte, so I had my dad take care of these

This summer I hope to try and learn so I can do things like this myself.

OEM along side the beefier 19mm


After wrestling around with it for a bit, I finally got it installed. Overall Im pretty disappointed with the fitment of the rear. Hard to tell from the pic, but at neutral ride height it only has about 2mm of clearance between the bar and the floor of the trunk so any compression in the rear springs and it rubs. I bought some new, slightly thicker spring pads so hopefully it will resolve this.


Here are some more shots of the rear bar installed.





had to get creative on supporting the brake lines. and by creative, I mean how can I support these without welding?.............Behold, the zip tie.



The front was a little less annoying. Glad I decided to do this since the old bushings were literally crumbling in my hand.
22mm bar vs OEM. Mmm beefy ;D


Some pics of the front installed.


Don't mind the transmission leak

thought this picture was kinda neat


Once I got past the annoyance of the fitment, I was actually quite pleased. The car rides on rails now and it is such a joy to drive. UUC may not be the best but I do recommend the 22mm/19mm spec e30 sway bar kit upgrade.

That's it for now, more to come.

[TheWipprSnappr]

Kind of a slow day at work today, so I guess ill update with some more progress. It sucks having to play catch up with all this stuff but were nearly there!

I took a little break from the car over the winter so I could spend my time eating, playing video games, and of course hoarding e30 parts. Also, I do almost all my work out of my parents garage which is about 2 hours from my apt in KC. This limits my opportunities to work on it to weekends only. Hopefully this summer Ill be moving into a house with a place to store all my parts and tools.

On to some updates....
The last few weekends however have been uncharacteristically nice with 60 degrees and sunshine so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to work on it.

I bought some bosch smilies awhile back and was eager to get them in.


soldering everything up


All wired up. Probably my favorite modification, from a visual standpoint. Completely changes the attitude of the front end. All it needs is some euro grills to match.

I almost have to walk backwards into work in the morning because I cant stop looking at it.

Here it is alongside the iX.


Also stopped to get gas one day and looked in the back glass and with the sun shining thought it made for a cool pic.


That view looks a little different now because of my latest addition. Last weekend I installed these vintage Recaro seats with power recline.

Saw these for sale on here last year so I did a little splurging.

Used some e36 switches I had laying around to temporarily adjust the backs.


Im waiting to wire them up permanently since it will involve pulling the carpet. Also Ill be trading interiors with the iX which is is grey. Basically changing everything to match these bad boys.

Here they are both installed minus the wiring and switches


Super stoked with the way they look. They go perfectly with the Mtech1 wheel IMO.

That basically brings us to the present. Ill try to be diligent with my upcoming plans.
Current to-do list includes:
-Finish collecting parts for 5 speed swap. Currently have g260, driveshaft, clutch, flywheel, shifter, pedal box. Basically everything but the slave and a few odds and ends and poly bushings that I want to upgrade.
-Mtech1 spoiler. bought last year as well, currently in storage, no pics atm.
-replace fcabs and rear sub frame bushings, also rtabs with eccentric hardware for toe/camber correction.
-possibly e90 drop hats for the front.

Basically I want to get the 5 speed in before I do anything major so I can get a feel for the manual transmission and driving it before worrying about adding power.

Thanks for reading so far. That's it for now, more to come.

[TheWipprSnappr]

Here are some more detailed pics of the seat installation. Completely forgot to include these.

Regreased the sliders. a task that probably hadn't been done on these since 1991.


Massive recaro adapters. super straight forward installation.


As far as the seatbelts I was a little confused, but I ended up just adding a large washer and bolting them on with one of the rear bolts in the adapter.

Is this what everyone usually does with their recaros? I figured it was my best bet since there was no place to mount on the seat and they seem to be a perfect location where they are.
Any input is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[CorvallisBMW]

Nice work

[325eturbo]

Looking good on the update. Good job taking your time and throwing paint on stuff as you go. Things like that seat belt red make a big difference when it starts to add up.

[TheWipprSnappr]

Nice work

Thanks!