Will people ever stop molesting E30s en masse?

[ZeKahr]

did someone say molest e30s??? mhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhmmmmmmmmm




you must have never felt the pleasure of taking a nice rust free and pure example with a complete maintenance history as thick as a book and getting your grimey hands all over it and just f****ing its whole reality up. Its the cleanest, best pleasure. ABS? for pussies who want to remove skill from racing. brake booster? lol I can lock up my brakes just find with my scrawny legs thankyou very much. power steering? HAH! next thing you know a stick shift will be too much too handle.

if I want to see pure I go to the bmw museum in Munich, but dang! turns out BMW had andy Warhol molest quite a few BMWs with god knows what kind of paint. it sure aint automotive. WHY MUST PEOPLE DO THINGS I DONT LIKE TO CARS I LOVE?!?!

In all seriousness; IMO stock cars are with few exceptions I don't want to say boring but lacking is probably appropriate. OEMS build cars for the masses, not for die hard car enthusiasts much less yourself. Exhaust is usually quiet and lame af, car usually is too high and the wheels too deep into the wheel wells. that's usually the tip of the iceberg. my 135i had some stupid valve in the clutch line to smooth clutch use because like I said they build cars for the masses. the last thing I want to do is keep a stupid valve in my clutch line that was put there for people who don't know how to drive. staying stock is for grannies.

On the spectrum between mass market consumer and enthusiast, I'm somewhere in the middle, with leanings towards mass market consumer. The reason I went with an E30 is because

• newer cars have shitty visibility and are large as fuck (which makes it a pain in the ass to keep them in lane and to park), lack any character in their engines and driving characteristics (this is one of the reasons I prefer my M20 over any 24-valve garbage), and they look terrible compared to the E30
• I love old-school BMW driving characteristics like the heavy steering/gas/brake pedal and taut ride (don't care about high revving engines though) and the E30 was the smallest BMW I could get in the USA with a standard engine that's decently torquey for street use (I define "decently torquey" as 170 ft-lb at 3250 RPM, and yes I have a calculator shoved up my ass about this stuff)
• The E30 represents the ideal point in car complexity to me. You have all of the essential creature comforts (AC, heat, power steering, torquey engine able to work an auto tranny). The fuel injection system and associated electronics aren't too complicated to repair. My M20B27 also makes a crap ton of low end torque and doesn't resort to any stupid shit like VANOS and DISA to do it; just super long intake runners and that's it.

Don't get me wrong, I like some exhaust noise, but the shit I've listened to on my friend's E30 with a Magnaflow muffler (I think that's what it was) is obnoxious (which is what I figure most E30s with aftermarket exhausts sound like). Hell, even my friend himself said he gets annoyed with the noise sometimes. I think it's better to just let the stock muffler rot out a little bit over time; I've listened to worn 20 year old mufflers and each of them produce a nice deep bassy tone that's not super loud. In the case of the E30, I do agree that the car is a little too high with the stock non-sport suspension. A small drop (0.5"-1.0") actually does make it look better. Any more and you run into problems with inner tire wear from what I've heard. As for the wheels being too deep into the wells, never noticed it. I'm not a total purist, more like a 80-90% purist.

First one must define car molestation. Is tasteful modification molestation?

I define molestation as the following:

• Cosmetically modifying the car in a way that doesn't look factory. Examples include the piss yellow headlights, putting on aftermarket wheels (esp ones bigger than 15"), poke, halo headlights, bodykits, painting the intake manifold/valve color/body weird colors (i.e. all the "artsy" stuff, most race/drift cars fall into this category, this shit makes my eyeballs throw up). Some of these are easy to undo, others a PITA
• Swapping in a motor that didn't come from the factory, especially if it's a non-BMW motor; this requires so much custom fabrication and I'm pretty sure certain maintenance tasks will be a PITA since there is no official documentation on this kind of stuff. If I were to ever buy a swapped E30, I'd be spending $$$$ reverting it back a the factory engine (don't have a garage, will need a mechanic to do it).
• "Performance" mods that make the car obnoxious to daily and appear to be done more for looks/attention as opposed to actually improving the car. Thankfully most of these are easy to take off and I can recuperate some of the cost involved in removal by selling these.

Might be missing some stuff, but that's off the top of my head.

[hkv]

To stop this we should create an E30 molester registry or something.

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sguncategorized/shameless-e30-molesters

way ahead of you.

theres purists in every community. I dealt with them so much in the HK community, funny enough I usually knew much more about the guns they obsessed over the tinyest detail over than they did. usually I ignore them but sometimes I cant help but rub my abuse in their face.

[hkv]

did someone say molest e30s??? mhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmhhhmmmmmmmmm




you must have never felt the pleasure of taking a nice rust free and pure example with a complete maintenance history as thick as a book and getting your grimey hands all over it and just f****ing its whole reality up. Its the cleanest, best pleasure. ABS? for pussies who want to remove skill from racing. brake booster? lol I can lock up my brakes just find with my scrawny legs thankyou very much. power steering? HAH! next thing you know a stick shift will be too much too handle.

if I want to see pure I go to the bmw museum in Munich, but dang! turns out BMW had andy Warhol molest quite a few BMWs with god knows what kind of paint. it sure aint automotive. WHY MUST PEOPLE DO THINGS I DONT LIKE TO CARS I LOVE?!?!

In all seriousness; IMO stock cars are with few exceptions I don't want to say boring but lacking is probably appropriate. OEMS build cars for the masses, not for die hard car enthusiasts much less yourself. Exhaust is usually quiet and lame af, car usually is too high and the wheels too deep into the wheel wells. that's usually the tip of the iceberg. my 135i had some stupid valve in the clutch line to smooth clutch use because like I said they build cars for the masses. the last thing I want to do is keep a stupid valve in my clutch line that was put there for people who don't know how to drive. staying stock is for grannies.

[Andrew325is]

It doesnt its just not subject to the S14 tax.

Yep, exactly. You can build a beautiful high power M42/M44 for less than a worn out S14.

The S42 made over 300hp in super tourer spec (basically an M42 taken to its limits by BMW Motorsport). Still - the dyno chart in the video, that M42 is making almost exactly what my stock M30 makes in my e30 except at double the revs. Impressive for an 80's 2.0L but a swap will get you further - if you really want a 4 cylinder any of the popular Japanese swaps would get you there in stock form (eg. Toyota 3S-GE BEAMS, Honda K series etc.).

The only reason I could see for doing it would be to race in a specific class that doesn't allow for engine swaps, otherwise molest away

Yeah, the S42 is an amazing engine. The replacement for the S14. It would have been nice if they made a production version. The M30 weighs a lot more though, so the HP difference is smaller if you equalize them for power-to-weight ratio. Plus to get the same handling you'd have to add even more weight to the rear of the car which makes the difference even smaller. The PWR for the M30b35 is 0.692 hp/lb. For the M42 it's 0.636 hp/lb. So you'd only have to make the M42 produce 152 hp to match the M30. The PWR for an iron M50b25 or M52b28 is about 0.617 hp/lb, so one of those would not be an upgrade over an M42 in terms of HP, and not exactly an upgrade in terms of torque either. The M50 has a torque to weight ratio of 0.588 and the M42 is 0.586.

That's cool if someone wants to put a Japanese engine in their E30. The difficulty of doing that though makes one of those swaps unrealistic for most people. I think the range of BMW engines is enough to satisfy the needs and wants of most people.

[325e '87]

I'm on the "hope it never stops" train. If you want to see what it's like when people stop driving 'em like they're supposed to be driven, join the S14.net Facebook group. It's painful to watch those guys "speculate" on their "investments" and talk about the latest in "NLA parts."

Man/woman, I can imagine. Our cars are getting pretty old and it is easy to construct a false sense of significance. I got myself an e46 recently and while I have freshened it up a LOT, its not an e30 and it never will be, but I tried. the 30 is special, but it is not a status symbol for people to creat a false sense of superiority with. it is a fantastic car that the general public just does not value because of marketing. back in the day these cars were exceptional and also not much different in terms of size and capability. now? they are tiny, and I do not know why, but yo, my car makes people laugh and they say “jeez, that thing is a mini!”.

there are so many current contradictions that apply to the refinement and crudeness of the e30 as compared to today’s standards, it really is a tough nut to crack. still, with the 12 airbags that will protect me in the 46 I just got a few months ago, I drive the 30 every dry day. The rain doesnt bother me much, just want my 30 to last as long as possible.

[Digitalwave]

I'm on the "hope it never stops" train. If you want to see what it's like when people stop driving 'em like they're supposed to be driven, join the S14.net Facebook group. It's painful to watch those guys "speculate" on their "investments" and talk about the latest in "NLA parts."

[digger]

this m42 has been molested prettty heavily

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE0Y5tFnt2c&feature=emb_logo

[cory58]

I need a car to match my nose ring, tunnels and tats. bro!

[roguetoaster]

I've long appreciated the M42 for it's general reliability, formerly low cost of maintenance, and adquately satisfying power output/performance. But realistically, there were everyday Alfas that were more power dense 25 years earlier on carbs.

Let's remember, the engine isn't that special, but it's installed in a special chassis, which is why people love it.

[cheffy30]

It has a lot of potential if you throw BAGS of money at it

insert crying sounds sent from hell using tapatalk

[amcp]

It doesnt its just not subject to the S14 tax.

[digger]

Race teams love building up M42s as an alternative to the S14. Here’s one that makes 163 hp at the rear wheels (~210 hp flywheel). Of course some people enjoy them in stock form, but I have to point out the little 4 pot has a lot of potential.

https://youtu.be/HxQ6M10eZjQ

in what was does it have more potential than any other 4V/cyl 4 pot though?

[lukeADE335i]

The S42 made over 300hp in super tourer spec (basically an M42 taken to its limits by BMW Motorsport). Still - the dyno chart in the video, that M42 is making almost exactly what my stock M30 makes in my e30 except at double the revs. Impressive for an 80's 2.0L but a swap will get you further - if you really want a 4 cylinder any of the popular Japanese swaps would get you there in stock form (eg. Toyota 3S-GE BEAMS, Honda K series etc.).

The only reason I could see for doing it would be to race in a specific class that doesn't allow for engine swaps, otherwise molest away

[MrBurgundy]

Race teams love building up M42s as an alternative to the S14. Here’s one that makes 163 hp at the rear wheels (~210 hp flywheel). Of course some people enjoy them in stock form, but I have to point out the little 4 pot has a lot of potential.

https://youtu.be/HxQ6M10eZjQ

It has a lot of potential if you throw BAGS of money at it

[Melon]