If you were in my shoes...

[808BMW]

You can easily dump that into suspension. $400 for GC's is a joke, you can easily spend double that on good shocks.
Turbo will add up, parts, custom pieces, management, clutch, cooling, tuning. It's a long expensive path.

I say try to do some maintenance/upgrading on your suspension, with some nice seats.

EDIT: Just noticed you have a 3 month old. fck yo car, thats a rainy day fund :P

[deathtomine]

You can easily dump that into suspension. $400 for GC's is a joke, you can easily spend double that on good shocks.
Turbo will add up, parts, custom pieces, management, clutch, cooling, tuning. It's a long expensive path.

I say try to do some maintenance/upgrading on your suspension, with some nice seats.

EDIT: Just noticed you have a 3 month old. fck yo car, thats a rainy day fund :P

I understand where you are coming from, But I am coming into a lot of money and I am doing the right thing with the the rest of it going to school, setting up an account for the kid. . . i thought with the amount receiving around $2,000 would be OK to spend on my car.
that's good that you said that. thank you.

[StereoInstaller1]

OK, so you wanna make your car look good and feel better for minimal dough, here is my ideas for what to do.

Springs: $200 should get you B+G new, or several choices used. R3V and E30tech should get several choices in short order.

Struts/shocks: KYB, used, $100, new about $200, or just hunt for a good deal on Billys or Koni. People will talk trash about KYBs, but they have been on my car for over 30,000 miles and still feel good. Not as good as Billys, but 1/3rd the price.

Expect to need to replace several other parts while in there: strut bearings, control arm bushings, possibly control arms, expect another $200.

Urethane control arm bushings make a HUGE difference in braking, plus just feel more "solid". Best $50 mod you could ever do on an E30.

Paint your hood black. Nice, clean gloss black. If downtime is gonna kill you, buy a fresh hood from someone in Van/PDX and paint it. I bet a quick phone call or three could get it painted a decent base/clear black for under $150

While you are at it, pull off EVERY single piece of trim on your car and paint it with good quality bumper paint..cost would be about $20.

Tuck your bumpers, replace the shrouds with later metal bumper shrouds, maybe add an "is/es" valence. Hard to find, but can look really good, IMO.

Do the valence in black, too. Different and fucking stout, IMO. You would also need to do the little trim part between the grilles and the bumper trim, too.

You should be able to find a decent detailer to properly buff your car for about $125. Think about the fact that it would be lots easier to get in all the nooks and crannies if all of the trim were removed...lights, bumper trim, antenna, all of it. Detailers are always in need of cash...got a Russian buddy? Do you speak Russian? It should not take more than 15 minutes to find a top notch detailer to come to your house and buff your car!

So if you follow my plan, you should be able to do all of the stuff I laid out to make your car look and feel 100X better, and still have enough money left over for a set of wheels and tires.

Did you see the wheels for sale for $850? http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=123239 they are gonna need new tires come springtime, but WTF, those are hot!

Everyone on here seems to feel that spending giant piles of cash on absolute top notch stuff is the only way to fly. Bullshit. Yeah, its fun and all, but these are 20 year old cars. If this is your daily driver, have fun with it, learn some shit and enjoy what all you can do for less than most people spend on interest on their car.

GL!
Luke

[deathtomine]

good advice thank you Luke.
I think I am going to do most of those things stated.

[LivingLegend06]

So if you have $2000 to spend on your car and, you can't do a motor swap what would you do? Keeping in mind, I am rollin a '85 318i zinnobarrot and, it looks like someone lit a m80 on the hood.
Also if your girlfriend is always bitching that it is a pile. And you are kicking around the idea of making it a sleeper.
what would you do?

$2000 would buy my parts car with a good m42, med case 4.10lsd, ground controls with koni adjustables, sport interior, turner chip, basketweaves with caps and brand new ziex512s and all the other misc stuff you could ever want.

I'm local too.

[deathtomine]

PMed.

[LivingLegend06]

replied

[george graves]

Everyone on here seems to feel that spending giant piles of cash on absolute top notch stuff is the only way to fly. Bullshit. Yeah, its fun and all, but these are 20 year old cars. If this is your daily driver, have fun with it, learn some shit and enjoy

OMG!!! Luke, you had me at "hello"....

[PhillyG]

I would opt for an M42 swap, even though you ruled out the idea of a swap. They're relatively cheap and it will be a significant power bump.

Given its low compression, an M10 will likely respond well to a turbo, but I'd bypass all of that and do the aforementioned M42 swap personally.

lol, swap a m42 into a car. That made my morning.

[DarkWing6]

Pics of the car in its current state?

I would say bushings, suspension, and wheels. If you shop smart you could do all of those well with $2K. Buy quality, do the work yourself, and be patient.

[rThor432]

My friend Jesse is doing 265 whp with his M10 318i. He's got a 2002 2.0 based bottom end with custom pistons and lightened rods.

That thing moves.

Turbo your motor.

[blunttech]

lol, swap a m42 into a car. That made my morning.

yeah and when youre done go look in the mirror and ask yourself what the fuck you wasted all that time and money for

[TDE30]

lol, swap a m42 into a car. That made my morning.

For his budget, an M42 swap seems like a pretty good idea actually. I suppose you have a better recommendation that will yield better performance and not break the budget?

[Aptyp]

Danny and Trey going at each others throats?

Both of you are post whores.

There's is a huge difference between the two: Danny at least has fun with his car. Trey spends all his time online judging others. I'd rather live panda style and drive the piss out of e30, than be an opinionated douche with the computer (no offense Trey).



Now to m10. Here in NC, Jesse at Powerplant boosted his 318i m10. On stock internals he was producing 350rwhp for a little bit over a year, until his manifold cracked. I'd call Powerplant and talk to Henry, he loves doing crazy shit, and he's a very nice and helpful guy (may even have some turbo parts laying around).

[TDE30]

Danny and Trey going at each others throats?

Both of you are post whores.

There's is a huge difference between the two: Danny at least has fun with his car. Trey spends all his time online judging others. I'd rather live panda style and drive the piss out of e30, than be an opinionated douche with the computer (no offense Trey).



Now to m10. Here in NC, Jesse at Powerplant boosted his 318i m10. On stock internals he was producing 350rwhp for a little bit over a year, until his manifold cracked. I'd call Powerplant and talk to Henry, he loves doing crazy shit, and he's a very nice and helpful guy (may even have some turbo parts laying around).

Wait, when did you join the site? Exactly.

I have plenty of fun with my car, but for some odd reason I don't dork it up with different color body panels and replica wheels. What the fuck is wrong with me?

I'm aware of Jesse's 318i, how much did he spend on the whole setup? Exactly.

Henry's a good guy.

Thanks for playing.