89 325ix

[BoulderE30]

Picked up this '89 325ix about a week ago. I've been a long time lurker. Now that I have one I figured I would create an account and finally post.

Got it from a friend who is a BMW Tech. It currently has 224k miles on it. He got it from an old lady @ 180k. Originally bought from the dealership I work for.

He did quite a bit of work to it right before I got it from him.

[BoulderE30]

more pictures


New shift boot




ebrake boot



LED high beams (HID headlights on the way)



LED reverse lights

[BoulderE30]

Fixed.

[jeenyus]

awesome base to play with! Gonna be a fun project for sure. Dump an s54 in there. ;)

[AudioNToxication]

Why does everyone say put a S54 in it? The gearing is too fucked up and difficult to solve to put that much power into.
The M54 makes way more sense.

[jeenyus]

Why does everyone say put a S54 in it? The gearing is too fucked up and difficult to solve to put that much power into.
The M54 makes way more sense.

lol, cause the S54 is one hell of an engine man!

[stonea]

Nice ix!!!

[BoulderE30]

awesome base to play with! Gonna be a fun project for sure. Dump an s54 in there. ;)

He has an S54 sitting around that he could throw in... He is in the process of putting a V8 into one of his E30s as well

[BoulderE30]

I have Thule racks showing up Friday, Renown wheel on order, window tint should be tomorrow (20%), all season tires for the stock basket weaves came in today, but won't go on for a few more weeks. That should be it for a while. Still trying to figure out what shifter to put in... The new one needs to have the linkage rebuilt so might as well throw in a new shifter while I am at it.

[ACVC325ix]

Super clean man, I'll be watching the build!

[Chrisbike]

Why does everyone say put a S54 in it? The gearing is too fucked up and difficult to solve to put that much power into.
The M54 makes way more sense.

Actually your very wrong about the gearing. Euro cars came with 3:64/3:73 diffs. There's a S54 swap coming along here in CO and the plan is a euro 6sp from a e90 and a e53 x5 diff. The biggest hurdle with fitting a s54 is doing the fabcation of the frankin pan. I'd like to know why anyone would go through all that work to fit a m54, and it's not like you have to do any less work to make it fit.

OP: Looks like a very nice 4 door manual iX! Congratulations on your purchase; as far as shifters go there isn't a lot of options. I know you can use a Z3 shifter to tighten things up a little, and (I wouldn't recommend unless you like modifying things to fit) a DSSR from Garagistic.

[BoulderE30]

Actually your very wrong about the gearing. Euro cars came with 3:64/3:73 diffs. There's a S54 swap coming along here in CO and the plan is a euro 6sp from a e90 and a e53 x5 diff. The biggest hurdle with fitting a s54 is doing the fabcation of the frankin pan. I'd like to know why anyone would go through all that work to fit a m54, and it's not like you have to do any less work to make it fit.

OP: Looks like a very nice 4 door manual iX! Congratulations on your purchase; as far as shifters go there isn't a lot of options. I know you can use a Z3 shifter to tighten things up a little, and (I wouldn't recommend unless you like modifying things to fit) a DSSR from Garagistic.

I know someone else doing an S54 swap out here in CO this summer. And I also know someone currently doing a V8 swap into an E30 out here too. Seems like a lot of interesting things are happening with E30s in Colorado right now.

Thanks for the compliments! I've thought about the Z3 shifter, seems like Z4 is also a popular one. My friend was telling me he really likes the e36M shifter. There are just too many choices...

[Chrisbike]

I know someone else doing an S54 swap out here in CO this summer. And I also know someone currently doing a V8 swap into an E30 out here too. Seems like a lot of interesting things are happening with E30s in Colorado right now.

Thanks for the compliments! I've thought about the Z3 shifter, seems like Z4 is also a popular one. My friend was telling me he really likes the e36M shifter. There are just too many choices...

Yeah I believe your talking about Kent Z on the s54 if it's a iX, Jake H is doing a 1UZ swap.. about the shifters, your options are more limited on a iX than you might think. I'm pretty sure a Z4 shifter doesn't work. Z3 1.9 is the only one I'm aware of working.

[BoulderE30]

Yeah I believe your talking about Kent Z on the s54 if it's a iX, Jake H is doing a 1UZ swap.. about the shifters, your options are more limited on a iX than you might think. I'm pretty sure a Z4 shifter doesn't work. Z3 1.9 is the only one I'm aware of working.

I was literally just researching shifters and starting to realize just this... sounds like i'll be ordering the parts next week.

[BoulderE30]

Tinted the crap out of the windows today.