Meet Helga: 1987 BMW 325i

[spiDmang]

awesome looking car! Favorite color, and i love the Racing Dynamics Valance!

[TURBOX]

can you post a picture of the custom exhaust setup, a sound clip would be awesome.

Nice Car,

[squidmaster]

Beautiful shots!

[Nader393]

Cool car. You named it Helga?

[MrBurgundy]

Read through everything, great find. Don't ever sell that car. Everyday it's harder and harder to find an e30 that hasn't been owned by at least 3 dumbasses


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[captainslow]

beeeeeautiful !
Did you rake all the leaves around the car for the pic ? jk.

HA! I just drove up onto a nice pile of leaves!

very nice e30! I think you've got some great plans in store for this thing to keep the original look while adding some nice modifications. Im very interested to see how it looks with OEM mudflaps, I think they would look great on this car. Also, what wheels are those? they look awesome on this car

Thanks! I actually ended up going with some generic rally armor mudflaps for winter 2015, which was the last winter it saw. I ended up deploying for winter 2016 so I never bothered putting them back on. I didn't love the mudflap look so I don't think i'm going to do it again this winter.

Wheels are 15" Azev Type A

Gorgeous cars :)

Thank you! My M Coupe is now sold and has been replaced with something much more boring.

Very nice! I just picked up an e30 325i 4-door yesterday. I think I'll be trying to follow your example and hope to get the car as clean as yours.

A gig in the USAF and moving to Ohio... does that mean Wright-Patt? I'm in Columbus, so not far.

Thanks! Yep, Wright Patt indeed. Here for another year. Can't believe it's almost been two years since I moved. PM me if you'd ever like to meet up

I wouldn't feel envious of late models at all. You've got an 87' 6-cylinder car in a good color - that's arguably the most desirable E30 made. Besides, you've got the cooler tail lights.

You may want to consider leaving the Euro bumpers chrome if you get some. It contrasts nicely with the dark gray.

I'm considering color options. I have a complete MT1 kit in my garage waiting on funds to prep, paint and install but I have a million other priorities unfortunately.

awesome looking car! Favorite color, and i love the Racing Dynamics Valance!

Thanks! I believe I will keep both setups after my MT1 install so I can switch back if I'm feeling like having a picnic on my bumpers

Beautiful shots!

Thanks! I'm long overdue for another shoot and the car is not as clean as it was in these shots. She needs a detail in and out!

Cool car. You named it Helga?

Sure did! She's got tons of personality

Read through everything, great find. Don't ever sell that car. Everyday it's harder and harder to find an e30 that hasn't been owned by at least 3 dumbasses


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Only 1 dumbass owner on this car, me! The previous owner was an amazing guy.

[captainslow]

Funny, I haven't spent much time on r3v in the last year and I decided to do some car-foruming on this Saturday night. I stumbled across my own thread with a ton of new comments, thanks guys! Since I last updated you, LOTs has changed.

I sold the M coupe in April 2015 to a nice man from Chicago. As I came out of Winter in early 2015 at my new place in Dayton, OH I realized I had two cars that I considered to be very special to me, neither of which I wanted to *have* to drive through winter. One had to go. Since my fiancee at the time (now my wife) HATED dakar yellow, and for a few other reasons, I saw fit to part with my M coupe. In the end, the E30 was (and is) more special to me. My first memory in a car was in my dad's delphin e30 back in the 80s.

I was due to be married in May 2015, and was in the market for an E46 M3 to replace my M coupe. I knew better than to buy a car for myself mere moments before my wedding (because no matter how much I wanted to replace the M coupe, I wanted to get married more!) so I bought my wife one instead. She had been driving an overpriced, horrible to maintain B5 A4 avant we found at a local dealer and she needed something more reliable. This was her wedding gift.

It is a 2015 Golf SportWagen TDI (yes, now a part of Dieselgate, and yes we're keeping it) and she loves it!

I took 2 weeks off to drive back to CO, get married and bring my wife back to OH with me before she started her basic training course (she commissioned into the US Army Veterinary Corps the day before our wedding, the day she graduated from Veterinary School). The day we got back from our 2 week wedding extravaganza, my boss came to my door (on memorial day) and told me I would be deploying for 6 months to Afghanistan in October. Yay!

So there I was, in absolutely no position to buy another car and with deployment orders. I decided to stick it out with Helga and continue to drive her until it was time to deploy. I spent a bit of coin last summer getting her as reliable as I could. A few of the projects I ended up tackling:

-4.10 LSD replaced with a 3.73 LSD (still have the 4.10 and intend to keep it)
-Installed a fully rebuilt driveshaft/CSB
-Rebuilt entire shifter mechanism, replaced loose Kormann shifter with Z3 1.9 shifter
-Replaced electric fan (found a rodent family in the old one!)
-Replaced worn strut bushings
-Replaced springs with H&R Sports (DINAN spring broke!)
-Installed 19# injectors
-Replaced LCAs & LCABs with Poly offset bushings
-Replaced RSFBs with Poly along with poly adjustable RTABs
-Replaced motor mounts with IE Poly mounts
-Replaced trans mounts with OEM

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but it was a blast to have that as my only car for about 6 months. I even took it to the track with my good friend's J-stock M3!
The old BMWs at Mid-Ohio by Colby Gregory, on Flickr

This was a few weeks before pre-deployment training, so really the last hurrah. Then I went and did this for a few (6) months:
patience is a virtue by Colby Gregory, on Flickr

Deploying allowed me to save a LOT of pennies on top of the cash I had gotten for the M coupe. Enough so that when I got back, this was waiting for me, all paid for in war cash
Untitled by Colby Gregory, on Flickr

The M235i is a phenomenal car. I love how refined it is, it's a perfect match for the E30. I get bored with the "newness" of my F22, hop in the E30 and fall in love all over again. I long for something quick, easy and carefree and hop back into the F22. YES!

I picked up the M235i back in May so I haven't put much time into the E30. I've only driven it about 1,000 miles since I've been back and it's only been washed 2 or 3 times. Now that I'm well-used to the M235i (which still doesn't have a name), Helga is getting more love. I had driven her to the airport a few months back and when I came back, the cluster had an aneurysm so I pulled it and it's currently getting some love at Bavarian Restoration. I also happened upon a set of period correct Recaro SE seats located not a mile from my house, so those will be going in here in the next week or two as well. Once I have everything back together I'll do another shoot. Delphin & Mineral Grey are a fantastic pair!

More to follow, folks. Thanks for reading my novel.

[3ics]

Beautiful sedan! Love your M235i!

Thank you for your service and congrats on the wedding!

[Savagefurai]

Awesome cars.
Really digging the racing dynamics valance.

[captainslow]

Update: The aforementioned Recaro SE seats ready to go in:
Recaro SE by Colby Gregory, on Flickr

I purchased a set of Massive adaptors to fit them to OEM sliders and they bolt right in! Car is stuck in its current position until the cluster is back from BavRest, so I have only done the driver's seat. I absolutely love these seats so far!
Recaro SE by Colby Gregory, on Flickr

[frshmaestro]

Man really clean car! I'm not the biggest fan of early models, but yours is an exception. The steering wheel and seats are going to be an excellent combination.

Also, very nice work with the photos. Do you use a 50mm 1.8?

[c0rbin9]

How tight are the Recaros compared to the Sport seats? I have trouble finding seats that hold me in tightly.