My 320 / 325 M50 coupe

[Fusion]

Nothing extraordinary, just another E30 coupe with an M50B25 swap. ;)
Why did I chose this car? Well, a friend of mine had a 320i a few years back, I borrowed it for a couple weeks and just got hooked. I have a '94 C280, which is a great car, but it's mint condition (even though it has 180k miles on the clock) and I don't want to track it. It's really hard to buy a fun Merc that can be tracked, I thought about getting a 190 2.3 or 2.5 with the Cosworth engine, but the prices are high and getting aftermarket parts is a problem. So I've had an itch to buy an E30 for quite a while.
Swaps aren't easy to find and I just don't know these car enough to be able to do the swap myself. So I waited and waited, found an E30 M50, but it was being sold by some young drug dealer, who almost killed me on during the "test drive", so I ran away from that. Also found an E30 335 M30, but it had coolant problems, a hose blew off, though the price was good and it was sold before I got to see it. Then a couple weeks ago I found this one.
I was really glad to see a seller who has about 5 BMWs, lots of experience with swaps and the car was in great condition. He actually had an S50 and 5 lug swap on it, but he decided to swap all of that in his other E30 and sell this car with the M50. I would love the S50, but I know the price would be way higher. There's been a lot of work done on the car, though he never really used it much, and now needed money to finish upgrading his E30 S50.
The engine is in superb condition, has beautiful stainless steel headers and a mean growly sound. Brake rotors are almost new drilled Zimmermann, suspension is also new with a 4cm drop. There's a few spots with tiny rust, which I may fix in the spring (yeah they spread salt here). The interior is also nice, with awesome Recaro seats (expensive and hard to find), black shadow packet lining, rare opening rear windows etc.

Here's a few pics with my brother's 328Ci







The car is currently a daily driver, because its such an addiction, but I plan on tracking the car next year.
Upgrades should include:

- extra guages (working on that right now)
- thinking about coilovers
- polyurethane bushings
- oil cooler (may not be needed, haven't decided)
- wheels of course, thinking light weight 15" or 16"
- LSD diff, 3.23 or close, currently 3.73 open
- short shift
- later maybe "minor" engine tuning or weight loss

Here's info on the track, I live 5 minutes away from it:





It's a track included in the Moto GP world championship

Length: 5 403,19m (in track axis)
Width: 15,00m
Corners: 14 (6 left, 8 right)
Straight sections: 13, min. length 35m, max. length 636,56m
Ascent: max. 7,5% in 917m
Descent: max. 5% in 410m
Difference in elevation: 73,75m
Sea altitude: 450m

Track records
Year Driver/Rider Machine Lap time Conditions

record
2009 M.Gené F1 2008 1:35,974 Dry
2002 D. Coulthard Formula 1 1:36,77 Dry

Grand Tourismo
GT1 class: 2008 Fassler/Deletraz Corvette Z06 1:53.106 Dry
GT2 class: 2008 Collard/Westbrook Porsche 911 GT3 RS 1:58,193 Dry

Touring cars
S2000 class: 2008 F.Porteiro BMW320si 2:10,108 Dry
Div 4: 2009 Mucke DTM 1:48,601

Comments and questions are welcome.

[Fusion]

Oh, and here's the Merc, though probably noone will be too interested in it :D

[TexasTerp]

Great lookin e30! Need moar pics of the interior. welcome to the e30 addiction!!

[hotrodlincoln]

That dog seems to be interested.;)

[theox69]

Nice e30!
Are those OZ's on the Merc?

[Fusion]

Thanks guys.
The dog is my amstaff and he's mainly interested in pissing on all my wheels :D

theox69: yes, very rare OZ Mito II 8.5x18" ET20 front and 10x18" ET19 rear. They are original 5x112 made for the 90's Mercedes SL. I got them almost for free, the guy had them in his shed and didn't know anything about them. I had the lips polished last spring, and there were some paint spots on them, cuz he used them as a stand for painting wood. Otherwise great shape.

[Fusion]

Decided to go more black on the lights today, using Eurolight.
It's hard to see because of the black insides, but it's a tad darker, very nice.
What it does is color the outside of the glass, similar to the black "transparent paint" people color their taillights with, but this stuff affects the light beam by only about 3% and you can't make a thick layer of it. Already have it on two of my cars.
I hope the lights blend in to the mask even more :)

Before





After







It's really hard to take a picture of it, depends on the angle of sight/light.

[Wh33lhop]

Nice pickup. How quick does the car feel with the M50 coming from the C280? Vanos or no?

[Fusion]

NV. The 280 is a very similar motor, great quality as well, feels a bit more sluggish though cuz the C is much heavier and the auto tranny is just not fun. Of course you can floor it and your ass will get smashed in the seat, but that's where the fun ends. I even upgraded/lowered the suspension and now it has great handling, but wish it had a manual. Too bad there's not as many aftermarket parts for the Mercs as Bimmers. Hard to find an LSD to start off with.

[Fusion]

Yay :D

[freeride53]

Wow. You have some very good looking cars. Is the e30 a diamond schwarz?
where do you live?

[Fusion]

Thanks :)
Yea, e30 is d-schwartz, e46 is cosmos and the benzy is blauschwartz.
I love black cars!
Oh and I'm from the Czech Republic, which is a small country right next to Germany, originally from Denver CO though.

[ayemattyyy]

Wow, that's a bit of a jump. What prompted the move from the U.S.? clean e30. Winter vehicle? What's the e46 for? Both are really nice.
Matt

[Fusion]

Update:

MIM wheels



Full fiberglass hood including fiberglass supports. Looks and works exactly like a metal hood, but weighs less than half. Luckily painted in the color of my car. I'll take pics of the other side tomorrow.

[ILoveMPower]

Wheels are going to look amazing... I think getting your track suspension set-up will show you more along the lines of what these cars are really capable of.