My first e30, finally. Latest Update: The Restoration Begins

[Click]

Radio started not working right. When I used my cassette deck adapter, it started switching back and forth between sides. It hardly did it all when I first got the car and within the past few weeks all it does is switch back and forth between sides. And there are few more annoying things in the world than you trying to jam to good beats and your music keeps switching on and off. So I took it out.



And we have this guy to put in....



It sticks out a bit but I will mill it down with an end mill eventually.



Those tabs are going to have to go.



Old temperature sender for my old Audi gauges and the new temp sender for my new VDO gauges.



Then I broke the audi sender whilst putting it in....



So it had to come out.



And I put the new one in, I guess I'm going to have to rock the new style gauges for now until blunt gets me my new sender...

When I used these gauges on my previous car, a Jetta, the gauges would act up sometimes, I figured out that the senders were getting a poor ground just being screwed into the adapter so I put connectors under senders and "externally" ground it.



Had a little extra wire so I circled it through the motor mount.



Here's the old audi gauges I won't be using for the time being...



And we'll start working on a harness for the new gauges..









Done and ready to go into the car.



Before they can go into the car I had to take care of those tabs...





Dremel + Cutoff wheel did an excellent job





I routed the sender wires to the compressor then used the A/C line as a shield from the exhaust heat.





I should really cut the excess off those zip ties, don't know how I missed that. It almost looks factory where it goes in though...



I didn't get to take any photos of doing the wiring inside. It was like 10 at night and I was working by the light of a flashlight. I wanted to get it done.

Here's the final product though, for now atleast before I put the old gauges in. I need to get some blank panels to replace the speaker switch and car alarm light....



For those of you who are curious for the numbers...

Cold idle.


Warm idle (I do run 20W50 if you were wondering about the ~17 psi of pressure).



Warm cruising.



It doesn't warm up past a hair over 200 unless you.re on it pretty good. Pretty much stays there in either stop and go or highway. I did a 4th gear pull to 120 the other day and it got a little past halfway between 200 and the first tick mark. I would be interesting to see how the temps are when its raced. I noticed that the oil cooler is never really that hot, even after a extended drive. Feels like it might be 120 maybe. Nowhere near as hot as the oil itself. As far as the voltmeter is concerned, the voltage varies from 12.5-14V. Seems to me its higher in the mornings for whatever reason...

[bmwandhonda]

Very nice mate, looks like you are doing a lot of work to this thing. All the finer things that most people overlook :)

[Click]

i wish i had the money to redo everything on my e30 like you hah all in good time. on the other hand i love your progress. good work man!

I keep an excel file keeping track of all the parts and stuff I buy and I've spent almost 5 thousand dollars since I got it last may, (4,719.96 to be exact), im not sure where it all went despite it being outlined in front of my face. The big stuff is easy 1700 or so for the wheels and tires, 350 or so for the winters incl mounting, Ive spent 600 bucks or so with blunt, have 490 bucks tied up in M30 stuff so far. All the small stuff adds up I guess. All I know is that there is still a lot of money to spend yet lol.

I love your sheepskin seat covers. Did the car come with those or did you find them online?

Came with the car, they're old bit still decent, I would guess they're at least a decade or so old. Cloth comforts are mint underneath.

nice!
looking forward to more updates

There will be more going on now that I graduated and have a real job with almost as much overtime as I want. Once i get all the parts I ordered from blunt Ill be putting the EVO3 and dssr in. Here's what's trickled in so far. Ignore the NOS Bosch coil and Ate master cyls, I just keep those around. Same with the fag boxes, they were too cool to toss when I put my wheel bearings in this past winter.

nice wheels! MOUR LOW

I know but NO haha. 90% sure im going to take it to a rallycross in september and 4x4 stance is required. I almost got a set of gcs but those will have to wait after I get the m30 in and paint on.

[dougie30]

nice wheels! MOUR LOW

[Dsun]

nice!
looking forward to more updates

[Nairb]

I love your sheepskin seat covers. Did the car come with those or did you find them online?

[RoyaLife]

i wish i had the money to redo everything on my e30 like you hah all in good time. on the other hand i love your progress. good work man!

[Click]

Finally time for an update. Been mad busy since graduating and getting a job and stuff. Things are finally starting to settle down..

Get a set of arc8s in anthracite and had them wrapped in Toyo R1Rs.


Stopped at the stealership on the way home from the tire place and picked some OE locks up.





I read that you need to roll your fenders in the rear to clear 235s so i didn't mount the wheels right away. I ordered a fender roller from Jegs since eastwood was sold out and here Jegs was sold out as well, even though they said on their website that it would ship in so and so days. It turns out there was a global shortage of fender rollers and Jegs didn't get any in until Eastwood got their shipment in from china or whatever, so I ended up waiting a month for a fender roller. Well I couldn't wait that long so I mounted them a couple weeks later.

Official meat stance.


But they grip pretty damn good. This is my first set of summer tires. Always had all seasons before. I've gotten many comments from my racing brethren on how freaking big my tires are. But boy, do they rub...





I never actually took any photos of the car after I put them on, but here's some instagram shots.



4x4 status lol


The fender roller came so then we rolled fenders! It was actually pretty damn hard to roll my fenders, the metal on our old e30s is pretty beefy. We rolled the fenders on my friends bugeye WRX and those lips rolled in like tin foil in comparison.



Contrary to popular belief, fender rolling wont fix your rubbing problems with arc8s and 235 section tires. You get rubbing all over the place besides the lip.





It even rubs in the inner fenderwell!



My friend has coilovers and had trouble getting the roller in his fender lol.



He's on his skinny winters to pass inspection...



Wanted a louder exhaust, but no way am I going to pay $500+ for a Stromung like I want. Bought a spare rear section, did some cutting, made a bracket for the front muffler mount welded it on and had an exhaust shop do the bends and slotting. Cost about $70 all in all.



It's actually not as loud through the powerband as I had hoped haha. Its quiet to 5k besides this weird trumpety type resonance around 2500 that is fairly loud. After 5k though its just raw straight six loudness. I would bet its somewhere around 120 db or so. It's absurd.

Pulled the factory alarm out, it was just taking up too much space in the glove box. There was an inline fue for mine, pull the fuse out for anyone else reading this. Just that much less live unused wire in your car. Then I took it apart for the lolz. Maybe george might get excited from these pics haha.













Next thing I fixed was my booster fittings that go into the throttle body. They have long worn out and sometimes wiggle themselves out creating a nasty vacuum leak.

Make sure to clean out the ports good.




As well as the fittings.



Then I put some JB weld on them.



And put them in and let it cure overnight.



Had my A/C recharged and the bum valve replaced when I had my car inspected. The one schrader valve by the shock tower developed a slow leak. I posted a pic earlier of it. My system is a stock system converted to R134a. Here is how good it does. It does warm up 10-15 degrees if your sitting still however. I have not done the fan mod yet as there are very few times I sit for longer than a red light.





Drove over to my dad's one day, which always entails getting a little slideways and getting my car dirty...



lsds ftw. Now back to work. My ebrake as always grabbed on one side more than the other so I took my brakes apart to find the root of the problem. It was as I suspected, worn out shoes on the side that wasn't grabbing. The other side looked fine.





I was quite overdue for an oil change as well. Got that out of the way.





I reset the oil light, but only 3 green leds come on now. I guess the other ones are burned out...



Went for a cruise to pick up parts for the slowly coming together m30b35 swap...

Looking like a tool..





Picked up the parts.



Here it turned out to be a very nice independent BMW shop. There were several cool cars there, a couple e30s, and e28 or two, and a E39 M5 to name a few. There was a white E30 M3 that the owners wife drives too.
Last but not least there was a black 6MT E60 M5, one day, I will own one of these.



Got these goodies waiting to go in. Currently waiting on some parts from blunt before I put them in (trans seals, guibo, csb etc).



I've been since ousted from the garage since my parents just got a new prius. I noticed this after getting in my car after it rained pretty hard.



I noticed it was dripping from this foam insulation.



I tested my sunroof drains a little while ago and the rear worked fine and the front drained out the pass side fender instead of the elephant trunk. I guess I need to take that fender off and take a closer look.

Speaking of fenders my drivers side has reached mission level critical in the past week or so.



Going to need fenders for sure when I get it painted. Which is probably going to be next summer. My friend with the suburu comes from a car family and has a garage set up for painting.

And a couple other instagram shots to wrap it up.

[Click]

Graduating in a week. Parents asked what I wanted as a grad gift. I said wheels and tires. They asked how much. I told them. How about just the wheels they said. Sounds good I said.


Soon.

[cmonti]

before i read that you made a gif with that pic i thought my computer was fucked lol but car looks good and once the m30 is in, its gonna be bitchin

[Click]

Got tired of the silver headlight rings. Brofore







Dirty



Clean. Abrasive of choice today was steel wool.



Rings and screws ready to be painted.



Brahfter







I know one or two of the rings weren't fully seated when I took those pics. I realized it afterwards.

In other news I got the m30 on the engine stand. I know, such an accomplishment worth documenting.



When struggling to get it on the stand it tilted to the left and oil poured out of the valve cover since it wasn't bolted down. The only bad thing besides the mess was that some clear liquid came out with the oil, I believe it was water. Not 100% sure though. It will be more thoroughly investigated next time I'm home.



Driver side window switch was acting up when rolling it back up sometimes.



So contacts were cleaned.

















Cleaned. Abrasive of the day was 180 grit sandpaper iirc.





Its better now but still not perfect. I suspect it might be due to the pitting. Maybe one day I'll put some solder in them and file it flat and try that.

Then I was cleaning it the other day and decided to test out the sunroof drains. The rear worked perfectly and the front ran out the pass fender instead of the elephant trunk. Then I was looking how toasted the bottoms of my front fenders are. Got some serious bodywork to do this summer.

This is driver's side, the worst side. Pass is bad but not quite as bad as the drivers side. Black portion of the drivers is all crunchy. You can see the paint bubbling.



Jack pad isn't so hot either.



Then I made this gif. I thought it made the m30 look kinda 3D.

[Click]

Loving this build!

Could you turn the odometer forward or back by hand?

Yes you can. It would take a considerable amount of time to turn any significant amount of mileage by hand though. I am sure with a little ghetto rigging it could be down with a drill.

Your E30 must be happy you found him.

It's a she haha.


The odometer worked for about 96 miles and quit. I took everything apart and the the gears were all in place, looked fine, and turned freely. I pulled them out and blew everything out again and put them back in and its working again. Instructions say how critical it is to blow everything out thoroughly and all I have up here at school is canned air. So I'm keeping my finger crossed there was some sort of junk that was blocking it up.

Drove back from school today and the bulb behind the speedo is out. :hitler:

[M3Philipp]

Your E30 must be happy you found him.

[SimplyDope]

Nice! Love all the attention to detail. Excellent pictures and documentation!

[BoostinEuros]

Loving this build!

Could you turn the odometer forward or back by hand?