Calypsorat 325is(orta), manual everything, Spain->AZ->SoCal

[Rouvld]

Great thread man. Glad you got her in a better state than she was. Sub'd

[bradnic]

SUB'D as well. Glad you stuck with it. You've got a solid base to work from now. Seats are just right too.

[Vincent Brick]

Seats look good, but the drivers seat is really fucked up, I have a lot of time into them and still need to tear the drivers seat apart once again to see if I can figure out why it rocks so severely. Or if I could find a nicer set I would just buy them, but it took me months to find these.

Honestly I am likely selling it soon, trying to commute 75+ miles a day in it kinda isn't working, I don't have the time to devote to keeping up on all the little things that always need attention. It would be different if I could still have a garage and second car and just have my E30 as a project.

Thanks though, really glad you guys appreciate it, though personally I don't really think its that worth showing off. Everybody else seems to like it more than I do. :)

[Vincent Brick]

A couple randoms:














My right side power mirror had never worked, and when I installed my tweeter pods I discovered that for some inexplicable reason the power mirror harness plug had been cut out of the car.


A junkyard pigtail mixed with some solder and heatshink and full power mirror function has been restored.

[Vincent Brick]

I have 3mm spacers up front for thr E21 Alpina wheels to clear the E30 calipers, so I thought some 10mm spacers would help flushen-up the rear. Not only are my fenders not quite rolled enough....


...the centers broke right out of them!



I still might need a spacer back there, but still trying to achieve close to 0 camber in rear, which is a whole other story we are about to get to.

[Vincent Brick]

My shadowline beltline trim had been getting particularly gnarly, the stainless or whatever they are made out of brightly shining through the scratches in the black.




I needed something to do one day after work while I waited for traffic to die down, my boss has a plotter for stickers so I grabbed some scraps and decided to make my first attempt at vinyl wrapping. It was actually pretty easy and didn't come out too bad, too much gloss but still a big improvement, and better than I think I could have done with a rattle can.


If I ever have the car painted, all the window trim will be replaced and/or powdercoated.

[Vincent Brick]

Only another handful of posts and we might be caught up with the present. :)

[Vincent Brick]

Tomorrow is my car's 25th birthday, so I figured i would update this a little....




In September parts started showing up...






...we made some room in the shop...




...and parts started coming off






These couldn't come off soon enough.




Old and new




New control arms, outer tie rods and rack boots




Struts assembled with new gland nuts




Well that's not right...




After some trouble I finally got the right swaybar hardware and bushings




Front almost back together, for now...



Now onto the rear.......

[Vincent Brick]

Dropping the whole ass end as a unit onto a heavy table










Subframe removed and Garagistic camber/toe adjusters test fitted




My buddy Nick welding it up, he did some swaybar reinforcements and other stuff too.





Painted, mounted, and ready to go back in




Rear back together




And after a month of wrong parts, broken shit and various fuckups we're finally back on the ground.




But there's a problem. Do you see the problem?



Hate to leave you with a cliffhanger which is sure to be anticlimactic, but the image host I'm using right now doesn't want to let me upload these two photos, so we'll try again tomorrow.....

[efficient]

Your paint is fading?

[Kershaw]

No rear springs?

[CRBR30]

Just read the whole thing, good job on not calling the quits on her! Haha

[Vincent Brick]

Your paint is fading?

The horizontal portions yes, and clear coat badly peeling.

No rear springs?

Huh?

It has some sort of mis-matched, unidentified lowering springs on it.

Just read the whole thing, good job on not calling the quits on her! Haha

I still have a few things to update since my last post, but for the most part I have just been driving it. I commute 300+ miles a week and its only given me the most minor of problems since the whole unplanned complete mechanical restoration. lol



I recently discovered posts on e30tech (which I cannot get an account for?) which provided a framework of the car's early history and initial purchase in Spain, I updated the first post with that info plus the 1991 production breakdown indicating the car to be one of 10 made in this transmission and color combination.

[Vincent Brick]

But there's a problem. Do you see the problem?

I didn't notice until the next day in the daylight, but son of a bitch if the front end wasn't a good inch higher than it was before I started all this. Turns out these big rubber block upper strut mounts compress rather significantly over time.



E90 drop hats to the rescue!




Fortunately I have an account with a large Euro parts distributor up the street, and within a couple hours they were delivered for some insanely low price.




Ahhh... Much better. Still higher than before though



It was still maybe 1/4" higher than before, but some of that settled out of it within a month or so, there is hardly a perceivable difference in front ride height.

There was another issue still to be rectified: Despite claiming to have done several before, my fabricator buddy (who I worked with at a BMW race shop - he should have known this) installed my rear camber correction kit wrong, so in the coming weeks I have to order part of the kit again so we can pull the subframe back out, he can cut the adjusters off and weld another set back on in the proper location. He ended up welding them centered with the existing hole, not with the existing hole at full negative, thus I can not get my desired 0 camber in the rear until the fix is made.

[Vincent Brick]

In January the car turned 25 years old, so to celebrate, I took the car up into some close by mountains on its birthday for some fun twisties and a few quick photos.













Currently trying to decide on long-term plans. I would REALLY like to do a BAR-legal S52 swap, but I'm way too busy for such a project, would need to buy a 2nd car to drive for the duration of the swap, and I know in the end I will never get that money back out of it. Then also, I work for a turbocharger accessories manufacturer, so my coworkers are always trying to talk me into boosting the M20. My boss even went so far as to tell me I could drive his S2000 for a month while we install the turbo stuff. I would rather continue to daily the car though which for me rules out a turbo. I also am tempted to just keep driving this as is, and maybe in a year sell it for a 135i since I would kind of like something a little more newer/reliable/road trip-worthy. I actually really want an S2000, but only having a small roadster is a bit impractical for me right now.

Time will tell, until then I'll keep beating on this stock M20. Will keep this updated.