Hi there,
been browsing this forum alot lately and today I thought I should share the story of my E30 with you guys. First I'm gonna introduce myself:
My name is Tinni and I come from Iceland.
In the year 2009, 12th of June to be precise, I bought this 1988 BMW E30 325i Coupe at age of 16. It was originally 320i but the guy who owned it before me swapped 2.5 ltr motor into it. Here in Iceland we get our driver's license at 17 so this is my first car. When I bought it it was in slightly bad shape due to lack of maintenance in recent years. This car came from Germany to Iceland in 2005, and I'm the second owner here in Iceland. Here is the first photo that taken of it in a gathering of the biggest car club in Iceland (www.live2cruize.com/spjall) :
So as you can see there were few things I had to do for this car.
Here are some specs about it when I bought it:
BMW E30 325i
Diamantschwarz Metallic
Coupe
M20B25 (Originally M20B20)
Getrag 260
LSD Rear Differential
Ronal LS 15" wheels
Eibach Lowering springs and dampers
Some shitty eyebrows
Sport Seats (Pre-Facelift)
Disc Brakes in the rear (Originally drums)
Hella Dark front lights
Tinted rear windows
It was pretty powerless when I bought it so the first thing I had to do was to get the motor ready. Me and my good friend Aron Jarl (E30 guru in Iceland) opened the motor and there was not a pretty sight, the camshaft and rocker arms were trashed, and the head was broken. After buying 3 heads I finally could puzzle to 1 good head. Bought all new gaskets and stuff for the motor and put the head on. Also changed the rod bearings, oil pump and installed OEM Air Filter Box (Some crappy K&N Filter before). We fired it up and it worked great ! With this job finished I turned to fixing the body. A little bit of rust here and there, in the front iron bumper, rear iron bumper and few other places. The car on a lift:
In the meantime I spotted a few flaws, broken springs, busted oil pan and such, so I fixed all these little things also.
Bought a M-Tech II front "lip"
Painted all of these things and voilá, the car at a Playday in my school:
Took it to the track and had some fun:
After a few visits to the track I had to continue the rebuild of the car. Bought a set of Powerflex Polybushings in both front wishbones and rear subframe, OEM bushings for the trailing arms and Z3 ///M diff bushing and E46 ///M3 Cabrio top mounts in the rear for the dampers. I took the complete rear subframe down from the car and fully restored it.
At the same time I bought a Quaife Helical LSD, and a new oil for the diff.
*Changed all bushings
*Sand beaded the whole thing and painted it black
*Replaced all the brakes in front and rear, along with the E-brake cables
*Installed the Quaife Helical LSD and the new diff oil+oil seals.
*Replaced small things like spark plugs, air filter, oil+oil filter and such
*Had the diff cover glass beaded
And here were the results:
With all the new bushings and stuff it felt like new ! Couldn't been more glad about this car at that time, and of course with my luck, shortly after this refurbish an old man drove in front of me crashing into my front end :sad:
After all the time and money I spent on it (at age of 18 and spent every cent on the car at that time), the feeling at that point was undiscribable.
The insurance company told me I had been driving fast so it was supposed to be my fault (The old man facing a Stop sign) so they offered me a deal, I would buy the spare parts, they would pay the repair. I didn't want to sell the insurance company the car so I bought all the parts needed (It was very hard to find all the parts because Iceland has so small market).
I bought a set of brand new Hella Dark front lights from Schmiedmann in Denmark, along smoked front blinkers. Added a pair of OEM tail lights to the order.
Here in Iceland I bought a complete front end on the car, OEM Battery cable and bracket so I could move the battery to the trunk, installed a M-Tech I steering wheel, removed the carpet from the inside and fixed the one rust hole in the floor + painted the whole floor, and last but not least a set of front fog lights showed up.
Here's the floor after the paint:
Had the front and replaced and painted, and these were the results (Sitting in our garage with his S14 friend)
At the same time I fixed the rust in the tail around the number lights, a little bit of rust there so I had the rear end fully painted:
Received my Hella Dark's and blinkers, BINGO:
Since the car was taking such a great shape I couldn't stop there..
Had my fenders pulled so something big was coming up
A set of BBS RS showed up at my house, specs:
BBS RS
3 piece
16"
8" in front, 9" in rear
195/45 in front, 215/40 in rear (Falken).
Replaced the chrome center caps with Black&Gold one's...
To me they were perfect !
Test fit:
As you can see the car was very high from the ground, so I had to do something about that..
Ordered a KW Variant 1 from the UK:
Had some headers installed:
And this is how it turned up !
:up:
I LOVE E30!
Did some drifting:
Took it to a local Auto Show in Akureyri, second biggest city in Iceland:
Did some more drifting, until....
The front wheel center piece cracked around the lugs on the track, I was a destroyed man :sad: Turned out that these wheels came from a MK2 VW Golf, and the back side of the front wheels had been thinned to adjust the offset.
Once more my luck had changed, so I hooked up with a great man, Hermann Gunz at Felgen-Garage (www.felgen-garage.de) en he found 2 front wheels center pieces in stock, had them cross-drilled and sent to Iceland.
When they arrived I had to paint them so I played a wild card, here is the outcome:
It was a fact, purple wheels ! Couldn't have been more satisfied about the outcome.
Since I was satisfied with the overall look I turned to the heart of the car.
I was tired of the valve-ticking M20, so I upgraded to it's big brother, the M50.
Received my motor+gearbox:
Here are the specs:
*M50B25
*Non-Vanos
*Came from a '91 E34 525i
*ZF gearbox
*Bought the engine loom and ECU from the same car
So the swap began!
Going in..
Aaaand it's here
I'll let a list of things I had to buy and do for the swap:
*Custom motor brackets
*M20 Motor Mounts
*E36 front exhaust manifold, E34 rear exhaust manifold
*M20 Gearbox bracket
*M20 Poly Gearbox Mounts
*Custom driveshaft (Had M20 and M50 shafts welded and balanced together)
*M50 Guibo
*E30 M20 South Africa Radiator
*Custom Steering Fluid bracket
*ATE Brake Booster from a Porsche 944 Turbo (Smaller but more effective, had to shorten the pin to the pedal)
*M50 Clutch Slave Cylinder
*Replaced the rear Crankshaft Oil Seal
*Replaced both Oil Seals on the back of the gearbox+bushing
*Changed the gear shifting system
*M50 ECU
*Re-wired the engine loom to the dashboard loom
*Installed a M20 Water Temperature Sensor
*Custom 2 1/4" Exhaust, double from manifolds, Y-pipe a little further back, to a 2 1/4" Inlet/2x 2 1/4" outlet polished rear muffler
Changed the basic stuff, Thermostat, oil and filter, installed K&N filter og so on, fired it up, and it ticked like a clock !
Drove it around and it felt like heaven, couldn't describe the feeling of driving it again.
So here he is, 3 1/2 years later, my first car, and I'm planning on never selling it!
This was the story of my E30, hope you liked it, I'll keep you updated in the nearest future ;)
Your's sincerely,
Tinni.
been browsing this forum alot lately and today I thought I should share the story of my E30 with you guys. First I'm gonna introduce myself:
My name is Tinni and I come from Iceland.
In the year 2009, 12th of June to be precise, I bought this 1988 BMW E30 325i Coupe at age of 16. It was originally 320i but the guy who owned it before me swapped 2.5 ltr motor into it. Here in Iceland we get our driver's license at 17 so this is my first car. When I bought it it was in slightly bad shape due to lack of maintenance in recent years. This car came from Germany to Iceland in 2005, and I'm the second owner here in Iceland. Here is the first photo that taken of it in a gathering of the biggest car club in Iceland (www.live2cruize.com/spjall) :
So as you can see there were few things I had to do for this car.
Here are some specs about it when I bought it:
BMW E30 325i
Diamantschwarz Metallic
Coupe
M20B25 (Originally M20B20)
Getrag 260
LSD Rear Differential
Ronal LS 15" wheels
Eibach Lowering springs and dampers
Some shitty eyebrows
Sport Seats (Pre-Facelift)
Disc Brakes in the rear (Originally drums)
Hella Dark front lights
Tinted rear windows
It was pretty powerless when I bought it so the first thing I had to do was to get the motor ready. Me and my good friend Aron Jarl (E30 guru in Iceland) opened the motor and there was not a pretty sight, the camshaft and rocker arms were trashed, and the head was broken. After buying 3 heads I finally could puzzle to 1 good head. Bought all new gaskets and stuff for the motor and put the head on. Also changed the rod bearings, oil pump and installed OEM Air Filter Box (Some crappy K&N Filter before). We fired it up and it worked great ! With this job finished I turned to fixing the body. A little bit of rust here and there, in the front iron bumper, rear iron bumper and few other places. The car on a lift:
In the meantime I spotted a few flaws, broken springs, busted oil pan and such, so I fixed all these little things also.
Bought a M-Tech II front "lip"
Painted all of these things and voilá, the car at a Playday in my school:
Took it to the track and had some fun:
After a few visits to the track I had to continue the rebuild of the car. Bought a set of Powerflex Polybushings in both front wishbones and rear subframe, OEM bushings for the trailing arms and Z3 ///M diff bushing and E46 ///M3 Cabrio top mounts in the rear for the dampers. I took the complete rear subframe down from the car and fully restored it.
At the same time I bought a Quaife Helical LSD, and a new oil for the diff.
*Changed all bushings
*Sand beaded the whole thing and painted it black
*Replaced all the brakes in front and rear, along with the E-brake cables
*Installed the Quaife Helical LSD and the new diff oil+oil seals.
*Replaced small things like spark plugs, air filter, oil+oil filter and such
*Had the diff cover glass beaded
And here were the results:
With all the new bushings and stuff it felt like new ! Couldn't been more glad about this car at that time, and of course with my luck, shortly after this refurbish an old man drove in front of me crashing into my front end :sad:
After all the time and money I spent on it (at age of 18 and spent every cent on the car at that time), the feeling at that point was undiscribable.
The insurance company told me I had been driving fast so it was supposed to be my fault (The old man facing a Stop sign) so they offered me a deal, I would buy the spare parts, they would pay the repair. I didn't want to sell the insurance company the car so I bought all the parts needed (It was very hard to find all the parts because Iceland has so small market).
I bought a set of brand new Hella Dark front lights from Schmiedmann in Denmark, along smoked front blinkers. Added a pair of OEM tail lights to the order.
Here in Iceland I bought a complete front end on the car, OEM Battery cable and bracket so I could move the battery to the trunk, installed a M-Tech I steering wheel, removed the carpet from the inside and fixed the one rust hole in the floor + painted the whole floor, and last but not least a set of front fog lights showed up.
Here's the floor after the paint:
Had the front and replaced and painted, and these were the results (Sitting in our garage with his S14 friend)
At the same time I fixed the rust in the tail around the number lights, a little bit of rust there so I had the rear end fully painted:
Received my Hella Dark's and blinkers, BINGO:
Since the car was taking such a great shape I couldn't stop there..
Had my fenders pulled so something big was coming up
A set of BBS RS showed up at my house, specs:
BBS RS
3 piece
16"
8" in front, 9" in rear
195/45 in front, 215/40 in rear (Falken).
Replaced the chrome center caps with Black&Gold one's...
To me they were perfect !
Test fit:
As you can see the car was very high from the ground, so I had to do something about that..
Ordered a KW Variant 1 from the UK:
Had some headers installed:
And this is how it turned up !
:up:
I LOVE E30!
Did some drifting:
Took it to a local Auto Show in Akureyri, second biggest city in Iceland:
Did some more drifting, until....
The front wheel center piece cracked around the lugs on the track, I was a destroyed man :sad: Turned out that these wheels came from a MK2 VW Golf, and the back side of the front wheels had been thinned to adjust the offset.
Once more my luck had changed, so I hooked up with a great man, Hermann Gunz at Felgen-Garage (www.felgen-garage.de) en he found 2 front wheels center pieces in stock, had them cross-drilled and sent to Iceland.
When they arrived I had to paint them so I played a wild card, here is the outcome:
It was a fact, purple wheels ! Couldn't have been more satisfied about the outcome.
Since I was satisfied with the overall look I turned to the heart of the car.
I was tired of the valve-ticking M20, so I upgraded to it's big brother, the M50.
Received my motor+gearbox:
Here are the specs:
*M50B25
*Non-Vanos
*Came from a '91 E34 525i
*ZF gearbox
*Bought the engine loom and ECU from the same car
So the swap began!
Going in..
Aaaand it's here
I'll let a list of things I had to buy and do for the swap:
*Custom motor brackets
*M20 Motor Mounts
*E36 front exhaust manifold, E34 rear exhaust manifold
*M20 Gearbox bracket
*M20 Poly Gearbox Mounts
*Custom driveshaft (Had M20 and M50 shafts welded and balanced together)
*M50 Guibo
*E30 M20 South Africa Radiator
*Custom Steering Fluid bracket
*ATE Brake Booster from a Porsche 944 Turbo (Smaller but more effective, had to shorten the pin to the pedal)
*M50 Clutch Slave Cylinder
*Replaced the rear Crankshaft Oil Seal
*Replaced both Oil Seals on the back of the gearbox+bushing
*Changed the gear shifting system
*M50 ECU
*Re-wired the engine loom to the dashboard loom
*Installed a M20 Water Temperature Sensor
*Custom 2 1/4" Exhaust, double from manifolds, Y-pipe a little further back, to a 2 1/4" Inlet/2x 2 1/4" outlet polished rear muffler
Changed the basic stuff, Thermostat, oil and filter, installed K&N filter og so on, fired it up, and it ticked like a clock !
Drove it around and it felt like heaven, couldn't describe the feeling of driving it again.
So here he is, 3 1/2 years later, my first car, and I'm planning on never selling it!
This was the story of my E30, hope you liked it, I'll keep you updated in the nearest future ;)
Your's sincerely,
Tinni.
Comment