Sold
For this tracking values it sold for 12.5 and I had another offer after the deposit was received for 13.
Working full time, going to grad school, and now with two kids I’m finding less and less time to enjoy this car.
You know the story…I’ve put way more money into this car than I’m asking. As far as the sale goes I’m trying to be as transparent as possible. Rather than just say “It drives great” and leave you to figure out it’s flaws I’ll outline everything I know in detail. I’ve spent the year working through kinks and have tons of confidence in it as a daily driver.
Trades: I’m looking to get into a car in the $2-9k range. I’d take a trade plus cash - Stock e30 coupe, e36 M3, WRX, Ford Ranger, Jeep Cherokee, VW van, Subaru Outback, Tacoma. As you can see I’m open to a lot of ideas so feel free to shoot anything else over.
Pre-Purchase Inspection (PPI): I’m happy to take it to Terry Sayther for a PPI at the buyer’s expense. They’ve been working on the car and helped me through a few of the items so they have some familiarity.
Shipping/Delivery: For anyone not local I’m willing to help with the coordination of shipping, including delivering it locally to a shipping place. I’m also willing to drive the car up to 10 hours away if the buyer will pay for my plane ticket back plus driving expenses. I want to be clear that I’m very confident in driving the car across country. I’m of course also happy to pick any buyer up at the airport.
Mileage and condition of the car: This is a daily driver for me so I will continue to put miles on it.
Clean title
Paint and Body: Boy did I luck out. Earlier in the year someone backed into the front end in the grocery parking lot. It was fairly mundane, she reversed about 4 feet into the front of the car but because it was an SUV it totally missed the bumper and crumpled the hood and pushed the front grill in. I went with Sterling Auto Collision in Dripping Springs, TX because they came highly recommended by Terry Sayther. I worked out a deal to pay extra to get the entire car painted on top of the work paid for by the insurance company. All in, the bill was around $10k and the collision work was relatively minor (new hood, pulling out the front radiator support, and small items). The paint job is a 10/10 and during the process I added the “IS” skirts, MTech 2 rear wing, and Racing Dynamics rear valence. I think it matches the performance of the car. Sterling isn’t a shop that just turns out regular fender benders. Their shop is full of Porsche’s, custom BMWs, kit cars, and so forth. They do quality work and stand behind it.
Interior: This has been a work in progress for me. The next step for me was to either dye the current seats (which are in pretty good condition) or recover them because I wanted black.
I’ve sold a few items on R3V but you can also check out my ebay profile for reference. I have a 100% positive feedback rating for certifiedbikeparts: http://www.ebay.com/usr/certifiedbikeparts
Now, on to the car...
For history you can check out Matt’s for sale ad here:
And his build thread here:
Basically, I’ve put ~4,000 miles on the car since I bought it from him. ~1,000 of that from when I drove it home from Charlotte, NC.
The car:
- 1988 325is – 100% rust free southern car
- Cosmetically 9.5/10. Fresh paint job with all the appropriate body work done right.
- Plastic bumper conversion, new euro trim, new roundels, is lip, is side skirts, mtech 2 wing, ,Racing Dynamics rear valence, and shadowline trim.
- 149,xxx on odo, the odo gears went out and were rebuilt at some time during Matt’s ownership but the Carfax seems to track straight through years so the odometer wasn’t broken long. True mileage is likely very close.
Engine:
- OBD-I S52 with approx. 105k on it. This motor came out of Matt's M3 that was totaled and had been under his ownership for 8 years. Motor was gone over before the swap, valve train was immaculate and bottom end looked great too. Replaced all pertinent seals and gaskets (except HG) and rebuilt VANOS as a preventative measure. Oil pump nut red loctited.
- New valve cover and valve cover gasket within the last 2k miles
- New water pump and thermostat at 148,000 miles
- New drive belt, tensioner, and upper idler pulley within last 5,000 miles
- 3.5” intake & MAF
- M50 manifold - new seals within the last 2k miles
- 24# injectors just purchased from Performance Fuel Injection about 100 miles ago)
- Raceland headers
- Brand new custom 2.5” exhaust. I removed the 3” exhaust that Matt had on. This new 2.5 inch sounds awesome, no rasp, just growl, no drone at 70mph, and it looks good with the valence. This was $700 last month.
- TRM tune
- AKG solid motor mounts
- Harness soldered and shrink wrapped
- Mishimoto radiator with 10” and 8” SPAL puller fans wired into a separate switch on the dash.
- New OEM Bosch alternator within the last 5,000 miles
- New O2 sensor
- Raceskids skid plate
- New crank sensor 500 miles ago
- New vacuum hoses, breather hose and breather connector within the last 200 miles
Drivetrain:
- G260 with fresh fluid within the last 5,000 miles (stock trans)
- White325is trans brace – using stock trans mounts
- Completely rebuilt shift linkage within the last 5,000 miles
- UUC Evo3 SSK with DSSR
- UUC weighted shift knob
- Active Autowerke lightweight flywheel (bought used)
- Stage 1 6 puck unsprung clutch (came with flywheel) - this clutch/flywheel combo has an amazing feel and is nowhere near as rough as it sounds like it should be. Not as on/off as most unsprung clutches are.
- New master and slave cylinders within the last 5,000 miles
- New rebuilt driveshaft from Bimmerworld (approx. 6000 miles on it)
- New CSB within the last 5,000 miles
- New guibo within the last 5,000 miles
- 3.73 LSD, rebuilt in 2013 with 40% lockup (bimmerdiffs.com kit)
- Homemade clutch stop
Suspension:
- J-stock springs with matched Bilstein’s (about 6k on the setup) - E90 drop hats
- KMAC race camber plates
- E36 M3 control arms
- Urethane offset CAB’s
- Eibach strut tower brace
- White325is shock tower brace
- Turner rear shock mounts
- IE weld in camber/toe rear subframe adjusters (posi-lock style) - Urethane subframe, trailing arm, and diff bushings
- All 4 wheel bearings replaced within past 8k
- 95 M3 rack
- 21MM cabrio front sway bar, IE adjustable endlinks - 18MM H&R rear sway, adjustable
Interior:
- Clean dash (2 small cracks)
- New aftermarket carpet from Australia. I bought this from another forum member thinking it would only be a temporary fix but it looks awesome. It was a huge pain in the butt to get in but I kept a lot of the original carpet sound deadening so the carpet feels great and has a good look. With the 1M floor mats over it only a BMW guy would know it’s not OEM.
- New BMW 1M floor mats
- Bmwpedals.com pedal set
- E36 leather ebrake handle (used)
- Momo Mod78 steering wheel with 1” spacer
- Alpine deck with iPod hookup in glove box
- Black door panels from a forum member in really really nice condition.
- Tan sport seats: (driver seat 7/10, passenger seat 8/10, rear seat 9/10)
Fuel System:
- New fuel tank in the last 15k miles
- New in-tank pump (low pressure) and sock in the last 15k miles
- New fuel filter in the last 15k miles
- All other soft lines replaced with injector hose, all new hose clamps in the last 15k miles
- Replaced fuel rail (used)
- New FPR
Wheels and brakes:
- Apex Arc-8’s in anthracite with square 235 Dunlop Direzza ZII’s – 50% life left. No road rash but the front driver wheel isn't perfect - drivers side has some paint damage where brake fluid leaked onto the wheel over a few months and messed up the paint. Passenger side front has some pitting from brake dust. Rear wheels are great.
- Rear fenders rolled - no rubbing issues
- Motorsport hardware stud kit with aluminum race nuts
- IX booster (used)
- New 25mm MC
- 2002 remote reservoir with all seals and lines replaced in the last 500 miles
- UUC BBK up front, new Hawk pads in the last 500 miles and Wilwood rotors in last 1500 miles - Rear stock calipers, rebuilt in 2013 with new seals and IE brass bushings
- Brand new UUC front driver side caliper (warranty replacement) within the last 200 miles
- SS brake lines all around
- Alignment by Terry Sayther 2k miles ago
Air Conditioning:
This ended up being far more involved than I expected. In short, I spent ~$1,700 + tons of my time to get the A/C in and running because it required a full redo of the cooling system. If you live in a hot climate please don’t underestimate the work that goes into this. Most swapped cars don’t have A/C for a reason. For a detailed write-up of what was involved check here: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=363777
- All new seals
- Entire system flushed
- New evaporator core
- New dryer and switch
- Custom e30 to e36 lines
- Existing e36 compressor tested before install
- Existing e30 condenser pressure tested before install (I’ve used the stock condenser on both of my r134 converted e30’s and the A/C works great in 100+ degree weather here in Texas)
Miscellaneous/Extras:
- New heater core done within the last 15k miles
- A/C works perfectly with no issues
- OEM spare weave
- Spare filters/oil
- New power steering hoses I never got around to installing (nothing wrong with current hoses, just preventative)
- Dinan tune (pulled in favor of TRM)
- New trunk gasket
- New seals on the rear elephant trunk drains in the trunk
- New battery 4 months ago
Known things that could be addressed:
- Sunroof motor starting to slip on closing (I don’t use it much but opens fine and closes easily with some help)
- The radio doesn’t get AM/FM reception. I haven’t investigated this because I don’t ever listen to the radio. I just use the iPhone hookup or CD.
- Every once in a while the rear brake light warning light comes on but there isn’t any issue with the rear brake lights. Seems to be some sort of ghost warning light thing. Since the rear lights work find I just ignore it.
- Front passenger side wheel is missing one racing stud. This happened on my drive home from Charlotte and it now just has a stock BMW bolt in it’s place. Totally functional just a cosmetic issue.
- Driver seat won’t move backwards - when I put it back in after doing the carpet a piece came unhooked. It’s a 20 minute fix but I just haven’t gotten to it.
- Rock chip/ding on the hood. Ugh....
Obviously the car is a bit different now but to quote Matt’s for sale ad:
"This is a car that can be driven on the street but packs some serious performance. Thanks to the data acquisition system I can tell you that as it sits the car will pull 1.4g+ laterally and 1.2g under braking on the NT01’s. Throw on some Hoosiers and those numbers will be even higher. Have people who drive Vette's, STi's, E46 M3's, etc. ask "what the hell is in that thing?!" has yet to get old."
Price is $12,900. No test drives unless you have cash in hand. Low ballers will be ignored.
Pics:
Video of cold start:
Video of exhaust (sorry the sound on my camera apparently sucks:
For this tracking values it sold for 12.5 and I had another offer after the deposit was received for 13.
Working full time, going to grad school, and now with two kids I’m finding less and less time to enjoy this car.
You know the story…I’ve put way more money into this car than I’m asking. As far as the sale goes I’m trying to be as transparent as possible. Rather than just say “It drives great” and leave you to figure out it’s flaws I’ll outline everything I know in detail. I’ve spent the year working through kinks and have tons of confidence in it as a daily driver.
Trades: I’m looking to get into a car in the $2-9k range. I’d take a trade plus cash - Stock e30 coupe, e36 M3, WRX, Ford Ranger, Jeep Cherokee, VW van, Subaru Outback, Tacoma. As you can see I’m open to a lot of ideas so feel free to shoot anything else over.
Pre-Purchase Inspection (PPI): I’m happy to take it to Terry Sayther for a PPI at the buyer’s expense. They’ve been working on the car and helped me through a few of the items so they have some familiarity.
Shipping/Delivery: For anyone not local I’m willing to help with the coordination of shipping, including delivering it locally to a shipping place. I’m also willing to drive the car up to 10 hours away if the buyer will pay for my plane ticket back plus driving expenses. I want to be clear that I’m very confident in driving the car across country. I’m of course also happy to pick any buyer up at the airport.
Mileage and condition of the car: This is a daily driver for me so I will continue to put miles on it.
Clean title
Paint and Body: Boy did I luck out. Earlier in the year someone backed into the front end in the grocery parking lot. It was fairly mundane, she reversed about 4 feet into the front of the car but because it was an SUV it totally missed the bumper and crumpled the hood and pushed the front grill in. I went with Sterling Auto Collision in Dripping Springs, TX because they came highly recommended by Terry Sayther. I worked out a deal to pay extra to get the entire car painted on top of the work paid for by the insurance company. All in, the bill was around $10k and the collision work was relatively minor (new hood, pulling out the front radiator support, and small items). The paint job is a 10/10 and during the process I added the “IS” skirts, MTech 2 rear wing, and Racing Dynamics rear valence. I think it matches the performance of the car. Sterling isn’t a shop that just turns out regular fender benders. Their shop is full of Porsche’s, custom BMWs, kit cars, and so forth. They do quality work and stand behind it.
Interior: This has been a work in progress for me. The next step for me was to either dye the current seats (which are in pretty good condition) or recover them because I wanted black.
I’ve sold a few items on R3V but you can also check out my ebay profile for reference. I have a 100% positive feedback rating for certifiedbikeparts: http://www.ebay.com/usr/certifiedbikeparts
Now, on to the car...
For history you can check out Matt’s for sale ad here:
And his build thread here:
Basically, I’ve put ~4,000 miles on the car since I bought it from him. ~1,000 of that from when I drove it home from Charlotte, NC.
The car:
- 1988 325is – 100% rust free southern car
- Cosmetically 9.5/10. Fresh paint job with all the appropriate body work done right.
- Plastic bumper conversion, new euro trim, new roundels, is lip, is side skirts, mtech 2 wing, ,Racing Dynamics rear valence, and shadowline trim.
- 149,xxx on odo, the odo gears went out and were rebuilt at some time during Matt’s ownership but the Carfax seems to track straight through years so the odometer wasn’t broken long. True mileage is likely very close.
Engine:
- OBD-I S52 with approx. 105k on it. This motor came out of Matt's M3 that was totaled and had been under his ownership for 8 years. Motor was gone over before the swap, valve train was immaculate and bottom end looked great too. Replaced all pertinent seals and gaskets (except HG) and rebuilt VANOS as a preventative measure. Oil pump nut red loctited.
- New valve cover and valve cover gasket within the last 2k miles
- New water pump and thermostat at 148,000 miles
- New drive belt, tensioner, and upper idler pulley within last 5,000 miles
- 3.5” intake & MAF
- M50 manifold - new seals within the last 2k miles
- 24# injectors just purchased from Performance Fuel Injection about 100 miles ago)
- Raceland headers
- Brand new custom 2.5” exhaust. I removed the 3” exhaust that Matt had on. This new 2.5 inch sounds awesome, no rasp, just growl, no drone at 70mph, and it looks good with the valence. This was $700 last month.
- TRM tune
- AKG solid motor mounts
- Harness soldered and shrink wrapped
- Mishimoto radiator with 10” and 8” SPAL puller fans wired into a separate switch on the dash.
- New OEM Bosch alternator within the last 5,000 miles
- New O2 sensor
- Raceskids skid plate
- New crank sensor 500 miles ago
- New vacuum hoses, breather hose and breather connector within the last 200 miles
Drivetrain:
- G260 with fresh fluid within the last 5,000 miles (stock trans)
- White325is trans brace – using stock trans mounts
- Completely rebuilt shift linkage within the last 5,000 miles
- UUC Evo3 SSK with DSSR
- UUC weighted shift knob
- Active Autowerke lightweight flywheel (bought used)
- Stage 1 6 puck unsprung clutch (came with flywheel) - this clutch/flywheel combo has an amazing feel and is nowhere near as rough as it sounds like it should be. Not as on/off as most unsprung clutches are.
- New master and slave cylinders within the last 5,000 miles
- New rebuilt driveshaft from Bimmerworld (approx. 6000 miles on it)
- New CSB within the last 5,000 miles
- New guibo within the last 5,000 miles
- 3.73 LSD, rebuilt in 2013 with 40% lockup (bimmerdiffs.com kit)
- Homemade clutch stop
Suspension:
- J-stock springs with matched Bilstein’s (about 6k on the setup) - E90 drop hats
- KMAC race camber plates
- E36 M3 control arms
- Urethane offset CAB’s
- Eibach strut tower brace
- White325is shock tower brace
- Turner rear shock mounts
- IE weld in camber/toe rear subframe adjusters (posi-lock style) - Urethane subframe, trailing arm, and diff bushings
- All 4 wheel bearings replaced within past 8k
- 95 M3 rack
- 21MM cabrio front sway bar, IE adjustable endlinks - 18MM H&R rear sway, adjustable
Interior:
- Clean dash (2 small cracks)
- New aftermarket carpet from Australia. I bought this from another forum member thinking it would only be a temporary fix but it looks awesome. It was a huge pain in the butt to get in but I kept a lot of the original carpet sound deadening so the carpet feels great and has a good look. With the 1M floor mats over it only a BMW guy would know it’s not OEM.
- New BMW 1M floor mats
- Bmwpedals.com pedal set
- E36 leather ebrake handle (used)
- Momo Mod78 steering wheel with 1” spacer
- Alpine deck with iPod hookup in glove box
- Black door panels from a forum member in really really nice condition.
- Tan sport seats: (driver seat 7/10, passenger seat 8/10, rear seat 9/10)
Fuel System:
- New fuel tank in the last 15k miles
- New in-tank pump (low pressure) and sock in the last 15k miles
- New fuel filter in the last 15k miles
- All other soft lines replaced with injector hose, all new hose clamps in the last 15k miles
- Replaced fuel rail (used)
- New FPR
Wheels and brakes:
- Apex Arc-8’s in anthracite with square 235 Dunlop Direzza ZII’s – 50% life left. No road rash but the front driver wheel isn't perfect - drivers side has some paint damage where brake fluid leaked onto the wheel over a few months and messed up the paint. Passenger side front has some pitting from brake dust. Rear wheels are great.
- Rear fenders rolled - no rubbing issues
- Motorsport hardware stud kit with aluminum race nuts
- IX booster (used)
- New 25mm MC
- 2002 remote reservoir with all seals and lines replaced in the last 500 miles
- UUC BBK up front, new Hawk pads in the last 500 miles and Wilwood rotors in last 1500 miles - Rear stock calipers, rebuilt in 2013 with new seals and IE brass bushings
- Brand new UUC front driver side caliper (warranty replacement) within the last 200 miles
- SS brake lines all around
- Alignment by Terry Sayther 2k miles ago
Air Conditioning:
This ended up being far more involved than I expected. In short, I spent ~$1,700 + tons of my time to get the A/C in and running because it required a full redo of the cooling system. If you live in a hot climate please don’t underestimate the work that goes into this. Most swapped cars don’t have A/C for a reason. For a detailed write-up of what was involved check here: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=363777
- All new seals
- Entire system flushed
- New evaporator core
- New dryer and switch
- Custom e30 to e36 lines
- Existing e36 compressor tested before install
- Existing e30 condenser pressure tested before install (I’ve used the stock condenser on both of my r134 converted e30’s and the A/C works great in 100+ degree weather here in Texas)
Miscellaneous/Extras:
- New heater core done within the last 15k miles
- A/C works perfectly with no issues
- OEM spare weave
- Spare filters/oil
- New power steering hoses I never got around to installing (nothing wrong with current hoses, just preventative)
- Dinan tune (pulled in favor of TRM)
- New trunk gasket
- New seals on the rear elephant trunk drains in the trunk
- New battery 4 months ago
Known things that could be addressed:
- Sunroof motor starting to slip on closing (I don’t use it much but opens fine and closes easily with some help)
- The radio doesn’t get AM/FM reception. I haven’t investigated this because I don’t ever listen to the radio. I just use the iPhone hookup or CD.
- Every once in a while the rear brake light warning light comes on but there isn’t any issue with the rear brake lights. Seems to be some sort of ghost warning light thing. Since the rear lights work find I just ignore it.
- Front passenger side wheel is missing one racing stud. This happened on my drive home from Charlotte and it now just has a stock BMW bolt in it’s place. Totally functional just a cosmetic issue.
- Driver seat won’t move backwards - when I put it back in after doing the carpet a piece came unhooked. It’s a 20 minute fix but I just haven’t gotten to it.
- Rock chip/ding on the hood. Ugh....
Obviously the car is a bit different now but to quote Matt’s for sale ad:
"This is a car that can be driven on the street but packs some serious performance. Thanks to the data acquisition system I can tell you that as it sits the car will pull 1.4g+ laterally and 1.2g under braking on the NT01’s. Throw on some Hoosiers and those numbers will be even higher. Have people who drive Vette's, STi's, E46 M3's, etc. ask "what the hell is in that thing?!" has yet to get old."
Price is $12,900. No test drives unless you have cash in hand. Low ballers will be ignored.
Pics:
Video of cold start:
Video of exhaust (sorry the sound on my camera apparently sucks:
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