e30 318i touring with M52 swap

[zoona]

New here, but thought I would introduce my new car.

I looked for a while for an e30 Touring. I live in the US and while there are a few here, they are either tatty or crazy money.
So I found somebody in Europe who could look for one for me.

I've owned plenty of cars in the past, but only two BMWs. An e46 330i in the UK for a short time - bit of a basket case and a bad choice. Then I had an M135i in Switzerland, which i absolutely loved but treated as a get-in-and-drive daily, not something to tinker with as you are not allowed to modify cars in Switzerland.

I currenlty have an R55 mini clubman JCW which this will replace as my daily - so while I want to work on it, it has to be fairly reliable.

My original plan was find something with a tidy body and then swap the engine to something else. I have a miata track car that I have completely rebuilt (including the engine) so thoguht it would make a nice project.
First plan was an N54/55 or an LS of some kind , but as I started looking at it and learning more about BMWs I relised that the N54/55 would be hard. I also learned that there are other BMW engines that as not as much work as the N54/55.

So the M52 (or other variants) seemed most sensible.

I also noticed that there were lots already converted in Europe for not a lot of money. Now buying somebody's converted car is always a risk... but I took the plunge and bought this:

It is still on a boat at the moment, and I've never seen it in the metal. So it could still be a complete disaster - but we will have to wait and see.

It is a bit stancy for me, so there will be some changes.

• Roll cage removed - done
• Bucket seats and terrible steering wheel out - done
• Sports interior put in - done
• Mtech 2 steering wheel - done
• remove horrible sats on rear window - first job when it arrvies...

There are a few standard things I need to put back in that were taken out when the engine conversion was done, and some other changes I know I will want to make:

• Fit rear wiper/washer
• Fit front washers (christ knows how it passed the TuV without that)
• I want to put AC into it, and have most of the parts.
• I will change the wheels to somethign a bit more stealth, and importantly with a bit more sidewall. The roads here will destroy those in minutes...
• I also plan to retrim the interior. I purposely bought an interior that was a bit tatty so I could do that. Not sure what to go for at the moment, but have practised on my track car and done an OK job.
• It has some really nasty cheap ta technics suspension that will have to go as well - possibly a 5 lug conversion, but I woudl rahter not unless i have to e.g. for better brakes
• re-cover the mtech 2 wheel and possibly fit an mtech 1 wheel that I have already re-covered. Will see which I like the most.
• some more power...

I am sure there will be lots of other things as well, but I'm not sure what yet...

[Panici]

Following!
How was your process to import the car? Or is that still to be done once it's landed?

[2mAn]

If the M52 is totally stock, I suggest an OBD1 intake manifold, some cams (S50/S52 are fine) and a proper tune. Thats a good start and likely to be enough power for a DD.

Post more pics.

[zoona]

Following!
How was your process to import the car? Or is that still to be done once it's landed?

Still in progress, but I imported my mazda myself, and apart from the NJ MVC being slower than the sloth in Zootopia it worked fine.
Because this has an engine swap already, so I am letting somebody else do all the paperwork for me. I am sure it is a lot cheaper to do it myself, but don;t want to get tripped up. As a non-native there are lots of things I could do wrong...

If the M52 is totally stock, I suggest an OBD1 intake manifold, some cams (S50/S52 are fine) and a proper tune. Thats a good start and likely to be enough power for a DD.

Post more pics.

I 'think' it is stock... I have a really good BMW race shop near me, and will get them to do engine work. If this were a complete project/toy I'd have a go myself, but I sold this as my daily friver to my wife. So it has to be somewhat realiable...
I plan to keep the mini around until any big work is done to this. I will be sad to see it go.


Some more pics. The first two pics are older, so it's not as clean and tidy now.

[iansane]

Good looking car! What kind of louvers are those? Interested in selling them?

[zoona]

Good looking car! What kind of louvers are those? Interested in selling them?

No idea... and yes. I'll let you know when it gets here and i take them off.

[E30Kills]

I love seeing engine bays that are that cleaned up! Anyone know what that process it like? Essentially just deleting and rerouting/mounting everything?

Great looking car OP, I hope everything goes smoothly.

[zoona]

I have the car! It was delivered last week and I have been trying to get a few jobs on my miata finihsed before getting this up in the air.

There are are quite a few small things wrong with it that I was half expecting - but hoping were OK.

Small jobs

• WIng mirror motors are dead (ebay items ordered)
• There is no interior dome light (ebay items ordered - also got one form an e46 to see if i can make that work)
• Rear boot li lock is knackered (i knew this but thought i could just buy a lock rebuild kit. It seems the rear ona touring is sealed)
• No front washer bittle (I knew this and will be getting one from chase bays)
• No rear wiper (i knew this and had pre-ordered motor etc but the bastard has sent me an e36 compact motor and is refusing to respond to my messages)
• No rear washer - fortuntetly it looks like all th wiring and tank is still there, so shouldn;t be too hard to get it working
• My quick jacks are too small.. i bought them for my mmiata and they are not long enough, so i means jacking the bloody thing up by hand. unless I can work somethig else out with them
• Fit new steering wheel (mtech 1) and then re-cover the mtech 2
• Fit some bits of carpet that were missing or cut up for the old roll bar
• SIde sun visor - my mini has a small sunvisor above the driver's door and it is bloody brilliant. So i have one of those to try to fit
• Take a look at the sun roof. It sits quite low and I'm not completely convinced it is water tight... Ideally I'd get rid of it completley. But that is a lot of work and expensive - could move to the 'bigger jobs' list...
• Take a look at some of the electrics. I've had a pea at headlight wring and there is more elctrical tape being used than I woudl like to see. Not sure how far to delve into that though
• New gear knob and remove that stupid dildo thing that's on it now.
• I like a blacked out car (my mini for example) but this is a bit too much on a car of this age. I think i need to ge a chrome grill.

Bigger jobs

• Front suspension

I've been able to have a good look at the front suspension, and it's not quite as good as I had hoped.
It has some cheap and nasty TA Technics coilovers on it, which I knew about. But i was hoping I could just swap them out for somethig else - but I think they way they have been welded in (super low yo) will make it difficult.
So i am throwing money at it...

E36 knuckles, calipers, HSD coilovers (e36 kit with e30 top mounts), SRS mounting things all ordered

I've basically copied SPANNER RASH and his guide which has been super useful.

• Rear suspension

As above really... will follow spanner rash's guide to convert to 5 lug. Not ordered yet...

• Wheels

I want to try to keep it a bit stealth. So ideally some style 5 16" wheels. But not sure at the moment. I do love gold wheels on a red car. But that's not really very stealth.
I remember when BMW wheels were dirt cheap alternatives to BBS mx5 wheels. They were for sale everyhwere... seem to have gone up in price a bit recently.

• AC

It is hot here. and humid. I am not built for this weather, so I am going to be putting AC into it. I know... it's going to be hard work. I have ordered one of these and will then just fill in the parts that I am missing. I already have a new heater box, the loom and the switch. I think there are a few other parts I need, but going to wait until the kit turns up and i can work it out. I have bought too many things before getting the car which have been a mistake.

• Steering rack

I am pretty sure I will want to swap to a purple tag or z3 rack. But I want to leave that until after the suspension changes. Then see what I think. Again i have to rememer it's not a track car and just need to be comfortable and a bit of fun on the roads.

• Power

Plan to get a local BMW place to look at this aspect for me and advise... Not really sure what I can expect. I also want to drive it first as it may well be enought for me as a daily

• Interior re-cover

I had the nasty bucket seats and roll bar taken out and a tired sports interior put in instead. I plan to re-cover this with something, but not thought about what yet. Something from Relicate who sell some amazing old fabrics.
I re-covered my miata seats as a bit of a trial run, and they came out pretty well

Time for some pictures I guess...

My miata seats after re-covering them in a porsche fabric:

I also just found my old M135i that I had in Switzerland. Pig ugly, but i absolutely loved it for bombing around (but obviously obeying speed limits so as not to attract any massive swiss fines)

[QuiqueUy]

touring looks amazing! cant wait till you upload the upgrades !

[zoona]

well, i've just spent a lot of moeny on stuff for the AC and the 5 lug swaps... so i'm looking forward to it as well!

[twright]

Did you have any trouble with Customs?

Technically, you can Import a swapped car. But, it does appear as though there is no enforcement of that rule.

[zoona]

I got the importer to deal with the paperwork for me for that reason... they said they do it all the time.
I haven;t had the docs back from th MVC yet - so we will have to see!

[zoona]

I have started the 5 lug swap - following Spanner rash's videos. E36 front knuckle/brakes, SRS lollipop thing, e30 trailing arms, e90 hub, e46 brakes.

Have spent a small fortune, but i now have a table that looks like this:

I still have things on their way as I have obviously forgotten loads of things, and also fround some things that I didn;t like e.g. Really cheap bushings, random nuts on the drive shaft and some bits that were just on their way out - e.g. brake shields on the rear.

But I am getting there. Everything is off now, and all the parts I have fitted up seem to be right.

I took the opporutnity to clean up the rear end, fit new (standard rubber) bushings and por15 everything:

SO now I am just waiting on stuff to turn up before I can put it all back together...

And I need to buy some new wheels...

[zoona]

Almost done on the 5lug swap.

front done successfully - I think…

however in the rear, I think I made a mistake and have knackered the bearings. I think I broke them when pressing the hub in, by not supporting the correct part of the bearing.
I spent all of yesterday wrestling to get the rear subframe back in by myself. Nearly killed me. Only to find the hub wobbles around like a bastard.

so I’ve either got to pull it apart again to use the press, or buy more tools to press them out/in in place.

I also need to work out what to do about front anti toll bar. The drop links are now at an odd angle, so I am thinking I should be using the e36 position which is a bracket on the coil over. But not sure of the e30 arb will work with that. Need to take a proper look.

I’m not a very tidy worker…






I’ve got my new wheels… style 5 16” from 7 series. but really struggling to find tyres in the right size (215/45r16). Can find lots in Europe… but here I can only see ditch finders, or track oriented tyres.

[twright]

I have a set of 225/45 X 16" tires for sale here. Almost the same width:

https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forum/e30-classified-forums/for-sale-wanted/wheels-tires-for-sale-wanted/10101866-225-45-x-16-tires