I’m starting this today and I am going to try to keep this updated as I drive and work on the car. I’m also going to reserve a bunch of the replies for the thread and for future updates. I just like threads where to information isn’t spread through the thread. Ive had this car since April 2011 so I’ll start this thread with a little history of the car since I’ve had it and begin the “build” and repairs posting from when I actually started modifying the car. So I bought my 1987 325is in April of 2011, healthy motor with a healthy automatic transmission. Here’s a pic from the day I bought it. 
Car was stock aside from e36 m3 mirrors, lowering springs and a radio. This car was never my daily but I drove it often. Plans were huge when I bought the car but they all continued to take a back seat to everything else for YEARS. At one point I bought a cheap running e36 so I could m50 swap my e30. I ended up selling the e36 a couple months later. After that I just wanted it to be a 5 speed, so I bought a 5 speed swap that I never put in and sold it about a few months later for what I paid. Then I wanted to 5.0 swap it, and it never happened. This all happened within the first year or so of ownership. I can’t pinpoint exactly when but sometime In 2014 I just kind of stopped driving it. I don’t even know why, thinking back there wasn’t really a reason, I think I just enjoyed driving my e46 more. Maybe it was because it was an auto, I don’t know and it really doesn’t matter much. BUT in 2014 I did try to sell the car for about a month. I had 3 people come look at it and test drive it. All 3 times the car had issues which were all funny to me especially since I had never had issues with the car before I tried to sell it. 1 - I met someone at night (buddy I used to hang with) and the headlights were cutting in and out. 2 - second guy none of the automatic windows would work in the car. 3 - third car just refused to start, like literally nothing. The car had a push to start button installed by the PO so I popped it and jumped the wires. Needless to say no one wanted it and I took it as a sign that I should keep it forever. So after trying to sell it and then deciding to keep the car I just parked it in my garage in 2014. So at this point I know I’m keeping the car and I want to revitalize my love for it. I decided that I was going to m50 swap it along with a manual trans. The intention was to make a car I could drift and enjoy driving. This is when I got serious about my plans for the car but since I was going to have the car forever I took my time with it. In 2015 I bought another running, clapped out, e36 for like $600 with an m50b25nv. I drove it home and parked it. 
In 2016 we decided to sell our house and buy another that was a bit bigger. One we could stay in for a long time and start a family. When we moved was the first time I had driven the e30 in almost 2 years. Our new house had an amazing shop and I parked and covered my e30 in the back where it was destined to stay parked for a couple more years. Here’s a picture of the shop, I even put a 2 post in it after about a year! 
After getting the house and shop situated it was time to start the swap process. I started to part the e36 with the intention of starting my swap very soon. I started the part out process in December of 2016. Looking back at pictures and remembering the timeline now it’s kinda funny. I posted in December 2016 “should be pulling the motor next week”. 
Man, who knew next week was actually 6 months later lol 
In September 2017 We found out we were going to be having a kid! Man we were so excited and once again, the project takes a back seat. To be continued…
Car was stock aside from e36 m3 mirrors, lowering springs and a radio. This car was never my daily but I drove it often. Plans were huge when I bought the car but they all continued to take a back seat to everything else for YEARS. At one point I bought a cheap running e36 so I could m50 swap my e30. I ended up selling the e36 a couple months later. After that I just wanted it to be a 5 speed, so I bought a 5 speed swap that I never put in and sold it about a few months later for what I paid. Then I wanted to 5.0 swap it, and it never happened. This all happened within the first year or so of ownership. I can’t pinpoint exactly when but sometime In 2014 I just kind of stopped driving it. I don’t even know why, thinking back there wasn’t really a reason, I think I just enjoyed driving my e46 more. Maybe it was because it was an auto, I don’t know and it really doesn’t matter much. BUT in 2014 I did try to sell the car for about a month. I had 3 people come look at it and test drive it. All 3 times the car had issues which were all funny to me especially since I had never had issues with the car before I tried to sell it. 1 - I met someone at night (buddy I used to hang with) and the headlights were cutting in and out. 2 - second guy none of the automatic windows would work in the car. 3 - third car just refused to start, like literally nothing. The car had a push to start button installed by the PO so I popped it and jumped the wires. Needless to say no one wanted it and I took it as a sign that I should keep it forever. So after trying to sell it and then deciding to keep the car I just parked it in my garage in 2014. So at this point I know I’m keeping the car and I want to revitalize my love for it. I decided that I was going to m50 swap it along with a manual trans. The intention was to make a car I could drift and enjoy driving. This is when I got serious about my plans for the car but since I was going to have the car forever I took my time with it. In 2015 I bought another running, clapped out, e36 for like $600 with an m50b25nv. I drove it home and parked it. In 2016 we decided to sell our house and buy another that was a bit bigger. One we could stay in for a long time and start a family. When we moved was the first time I had driven the e30 in almost 2 years. Our new house had an amazing shop and I parked and covered my e30 in the back where it was destined to stay parked for a couple more years. Here’s a picture of the shop, I even put a 2 post in it after about a year! After getting the house and shop situated it was time to start the swap process. I started to part the e36 with the intention of starting my swap very soon. I started the part out process in December of 2016. Looking back at pictures and remembering the timeline now it’s kinda funny. I posted in December 2016 “should be pulling the motor next week”. Man, who knew next week was actually 6 months later lol In September 2017 We found out we were going to be having a kid! Man we were so excited and once again, the project takes a back seat. To be continued…
April 17 2019 we pulled the e30 motor and trans 
April 20 2019 m50 fitted and bolted in 
Almost everything fitted by may 20 2019 
I had my first start may 24 2019 and wrapped up the swap on June 9 2019. Here’s a pic of me and my daughter the day I wrapped it up 
I was proud that I was able to get this swap done in a little over 2 months but now it was time to put the car back on the back burner and get back to life. We listed our house for sale about a week after I finished the swap and we moved out on July 3. While we were cleaning out the house and shop I sold all my spare parts for my e30 and finished parting the e36. I also bought some coil overs for pretty cheap to install later with some of the money I had made. I do miss the shop but selling was the best decision we have made. Our new house will be paid off soon and my wife only works 1 day a week. The main goal of the move was to have a place to live that we could afford if only I was working in the case that our daughters health took a downturn. Around this time our daughters seizures nearly stopped! Maybe 1-2 a day. I’m December 2019 she had her last seizure that we have seen to date (current date as of this post august 2021). She was learning and devolving great too! In august 2019 I found time and installed the coils 
This is how the car was for awhile. In the mean time I was just installing parts I had on the car, like LCAB and other maintenance stuff I needed to do that I already had the parts for. Here’s a shift knob I made 
So at this point in the story my e30 is ready to go to it’s first event, my daughter is doing amazing, and we are saving money for the first time in almost a year. I hold off on all things e30 to build our bank up. In March 2020 I bought some new wheels and signed up for my first drift event that was to take place in April 2020 (lol). 
To be continued…
After this event I started selling A lot of my stuff to make room for a new baby in august. I made a little over $3000 from selling my drums and vintage video game collection. Since we were 100% back on track financially my wife let me do whatever with the cash. I saved about half of it and with the other half I bought an SLR ultra kit. I already bought some KAmotors flares and installed the fronts too. Here’s the kit installed, man, what a difference 
Next event was in October 2020. The SLR kit helped a ton and everything clicked for me during the second session and I was linking the entire track ALL DAY. Pic from second event 
Here’s a cell phone video from that day too 
Here’s another cell video from the event 
Got them put on this afternoon and tomorrow I’ll be tackling the master/slave, fuel leak, rest of the exhaust, bolt check and changing the diff fluid No pics today because I was busy wrenching but on the way to work on my car the slave totally failed and I drove it about 10 miles with no Clutch. So today I replaced the slave, bled the system m, got all the exhaust back on and found the fuel leak. The fuel leak was coming from a small tank (called fuel expansion tank) near the filler neck. I found about a 5” long crack, cleaned it and jb welded it up. Hopefully it holds well. As of right now my car is ready for the November event. I’ll post up after. 11/6/21. I’m getting super stoked on this three day event coming up. Got the car dialed and ready to go! Fresh transmission, diff fluid and a big ass stack of tires. I’ll be back with an update after the event!
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