E30 Adventures

R3V-

This weekend I went on a fairly epic e30 adventure and thought it'd be fun to share with you all. You know, like old forum days.

I recently caught wind of a 6-pack of e30s down in Mississippi, along with a gaggle of good parts. The feller's name was Vinny. Real salt of the earth type of guy. Vinny and his son shared the hobby of E30s together. For many years, Vinny daily drove different E30s back and forth from his home outside of Tupelo to his work up in Memphis. Vinny also spent time in Germany, during which he raided junkyards and got some cool euro bits he stashed in his storage container.

Vinny's son passed away, six years ago. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. His son was into drifting E30s. His son blew up his first creation, and sought to improve upon it. The first experiment was a roller-painted blurple '87 325iS with a turbo M20, fence piping caged, gutted and tuned with a FPR adding fuel with boost pressure, and wideband he watched. The turbo kit was an OEM M21 twin scroll manifold and an HX35. Downpipe was all flexpipe, etc. When this car went kaboom, he started building the next creation, which was a bronzit '89 325i coupe. This consisted of a super ETA bottom end, 885 head, quality manifold, nicer turbo, nice cage, quality suspension bits, etc etc. Sadly, the car was never finished.

Vinny let the cars sit for some time after his son's passing to process, and finally saw it fit to pass them on to a good home. I spent quite a bit of time chatting with him about his experience with E30s, his son's builds, etc etc. We struck an agreement, and the plan was in motion.

I called my buddy Zach, who is a hard working dude always down for an adventure, as well as JakeB and Tim (ClassicDaily) who are experts at their craft, and also always down for a good time.

Now that the team was assembled, I set out to get everything else in place. Jake rented a new 2500 Cummins from enterprise, and had access to a 32' car hauler. I rented a 16' box truck with dolly, and an additional dolly for my Xterra.

There were 6 cars in total. We hoped to bring 3 cars back on Jake's trailer and two behind the dollies, expecting to part out one car down in MS.

Day one, Zach and I got down there around dinner time on Wednesday. We extracted the parts from all over the property in an attempt to see what we had. I started to get nervous, as one does when taking on an adventure like this, due to some parts that were less than ideal. Vinny pointed us to the corner of his shop, where I found what ended up being a pivotal pile of parts his son had purchased for his build but hadn't yet used. There were turbo manifolds, multiple drift suspension setups, new swaybars, wheels, new in box Garrett turbo, handbrakes, etc etc.

Jake and Tim drove down from Michigan on Thursday and got in around 10pm. Meanwhile, that day Zach started organizing the boxes while I set out to part out the blurple retired '87 iS I mentioned above, knowing that at least one car would have to be parted, as not all 6 could be brought home. I had the car fully parted by dinner time, and Zach had all of the loose parts organized and boxed into Lowes moving boxes.

Friday was the big day, as the whole crew was now on site. Jake measured the trailer vs cars while I picked up the uhaul dolly, and around noon after some chattin' we discovered that 3 cars were not going to fit on the 32' hauler. So, it was now game time. Tim and Zach began loading the box truck. I picked the next best part out candidate, a t-boned '87 325eS, and Jake and I went to town, but had a deadline, as both shells had to be scrapped by 3:30pm that day due to scrap yard hours. Tim and Zach finished the truck quickly and came to help with the part out.

By some miracle, we got the second car fully parted down to a bare shell, not leaving any meat on the bone, and rolled into the scrap yard at 3:28pm. Vinny was hanging out with us most of the time, and invited us to stay and hang for steaks and beer, which was the perfect way to end the day.

By Saturday we were focused on getting everything loaded/secured for the drive back on Sunday. Several of the cars had drivetrains removed already, so there were at least 4 loose M20s that needed to be loaded onto the 32' trailer, after the two cars it would hold. A 99K mile SETA coupe and an '87 325iS were designated as the ideal dolly cars, so the '89 coupe and another '87 iS were loaded onto the trailer, behind which we loaded two m20/g260 combos, an m20 shortblock, and another m20 longblock.

We got everything set to go, and were up and at 'em super early Sunday, as we not only had to get back to my warehouse in Indy to unload, but Jake and Tim had to get back to Michigan, and Zach had to get back to Bloomington, on Sunday night.

By another miracle, we made it back to the warehouse, unscathed, after a grueling day of traffic and spending what felt like a life savings on fuel for all of the vehicles. We unloaded the goods, and had a celebratory Mexican meal before the crew headed back to their respective homes.

It was a beautiful thing....... getting to connect with Vinny and not only do business, but make a lasting memory/connection...... it just goes to show that this stuff isn't surface level. There is so much more to these cars that we all love, modify, invest into. There is community.

Anyway, thought it would be fun to share this with the 14 people left on here. The time is now. Go out and do the things you want in life, that will leave you feeling fulfilled.

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Onto some photos-

Upon arrival:

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
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Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

Parts cars

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
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Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

Safe and sound!

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

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