skinny-ing the e30

[Farbin Kaiber]

25,161st post, rather old member, not new to bmw, thanks.

ok my eighth e30 its an 1986 325e not even fully bought yet. this is a project and will be built taking my time & sourcing parts.

so that said, i want to skinny-ify the car, not just with e21 fenders or arches, shrink the car to 56" ish ( the width of the OG Mini Cooper ) a stock coup is 65.4", that's 9.4" under stock & 4.7" on either side of the trans tunnel, ( i have read not to cut into the tunnel, i will research this further ) that is cut out material most unlikely from a donar...

had a question about suspension geometry, for folks who could be helpfull in this area an i going to through off the current geometry, can camber caster adjustment help, engine is TBD.

thanks again,

[IRON-E]

Lol, carry on.

[RUFFLZ]

hahahahaha at first I was like wut, but then I read the other thread.
I lol'd immensely

[Andy.B]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_akwHYMdbsM

Might not take off a full 9.4 inches, but it's a step in the right direction.

[ak-]

You realize this is way more than just skinny-ing the car body, right?. You will also have to skinny the front and rear subframes, get skinny tie rods, skinny half shafts, deal with the fuel tank mount, skinny the hood, trunk, &grill, skinny the bumpers, get a custom made skinny windshield, rear glass and seals, do something with the dash, skinny the HVAC system, get custom made skinny parking brake cables, modify the wiper mechanism to be skinny, and skinnify the wiring that runs across the car.

The transmission tunnel should be untouched, as the skinny transmission support, CSB, and the rear cross member depend on that skinny dimension. If you skinny those you could splice in the width along the skinny tunnel. Other wise you'd have to skinny-splice a piece in on each side of the skinny tunnel

That seems to me to be an awful lot of skinny-ing, and especially to do well. I think it would be easier and yield better results to make a skinny tube frame chassis and graft modified skinny body panels on.

Neither approach is likely to yield a satisfactory skinny street car.

[chadthestampede]

bravo, gentlemen. bravo.

[ttrousdell]

Ha you're a tool

[hooken m]

why? so much work...

[dashboardmonkey]

Buy a mini if you want a car as skinny as a mini.


Hey, that rhymes.

[ButtJuice]

haha.

[Todd Black 88]

Seriously though, you can do this quite simply.
Place car is car crusher, sqeeeeeeeeeeeze it just enough to suit requirements, and there you have it. Please, stay in the car while this is happening.:)