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.
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.
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