the 86 325 that took a beating

[1fastm50]

well ive never really introdueced myself here, just kinda been lurking aroung the forums for a while now. Since i might be getting rid of her soon i thought id start a thread that ive been wanting to start since i got her. I apoligize in advance as i dont have many pictures. My brother bought this 86 325es for $200 a while back. didnt start. no keys. no wheels. faded paint. We got it started 6 injectors later and put some 15x7 mille miglia wheels. I bought it from him later and this is how she sat.

I drove it for a few months and i loved it. but just like anything else you kind of get used to the power and you start poking around. so i saved up and scored an i head and rebuilt it. installed it over the weekend.


felt great compared to the stock eta. I had to move to another town and i had to bring the e30 with me. I was on my way to school one day rather early for some wierd reason and some guy decided he was going to not slow down for a red light and tap the ass of e30!!!!

I wanted to kill the guy i swear. thankfully my friend had a bottle jack and a 2x4 piece of wood. a hammer and a dolly.

[1fastm50]

nothing that couldnt be fixed of course. so after some motivation a carefully placed bottle jack and some banging it looked like this...



spray bombed it for the mean time because i was a broke college kid. a few weeks after and i woke up to go to work and i found my e30 like this.

damn people i swear! picked up a set of sealed beams from the yard for cheap and fixed that.

checking everything lined up right.



needs moar low

[oscarsi]

oh man, im sorry for what happened to your e30 ):
insurance didnt fix it?
I have a Eta also, I was wondering if the power gains from the I head is worth it? Im thinking about doing it.

[1fastm50]

nope they didnt. the swap was defenitly worth the money i spent. felt amazing the first time i drove it compared to stock. not as torquey as before but it picked up speed a lot quicker. one thing i would recomend is to swap out your diff if you have a 2.93 its great for long drives since your around 2k rpms at around 60mph but i would defenitly try to put a 3.73 or a 4.10

[archie]

Love the es!

[oscarsi]

nice! thanks man.
Around how much did it cost you for the swap?

[1fastm50]

i think i spent about 800 on everything. search around sometimes you can come across some really good deals on here. i sold all the parts needed to do the swap except for the exhaust to someone for 300. cylinder head had been redone and all he needed was to buy gaskets and head bolts.

[1fastm50]

I got a chance to go back home and i worked my ass off to make $$$ so i could paint it...decided to get rid of what caused the puddles of water in my trunk.


and the ones inside the car.


i picked up a front valance from the yard and my brother donated the plastic bumpers. Bodywork was started. thanks to 1fasteta and my brother we got all the body work done in about two days and it was ready for primer








all sanded and gettin washed so its clean for paint


pulled it back inside and started the masking

[1fastm50]

and then the spraying started. black again. nothing fancy just wanted something simple.








let it see the sun the next day and started to put it back together






meanwhile that was outside we put the rest of the parts inside to get those sprayed.


















thats how i drove it for a while. then i had two blow outs in one week. first tire


borrowed some basketweaves from a good friend of mine because i was broke and i didnt want to spend the money of the mille wheels. so i opted for a better solution. got some style 5's redrilled.

[reelizmpro]

Nice rescue. Looks like it's coming along well.

Edit: whoa...hold your horses on the redrill. Did you do that yourself too? Looks like it. That's pretty much broken into the center hub area. From my understanding, to avoid this people use tuner studs/nuts/inserts so the holes can be narrower and not protrude into the hub. They didn't fill the existing holes either.

[oscarsi]

holy shit man, just noticed that you got those fat dents out! NICE JOB!

[efficient]

Looks good!

[1fastETA]

Damn.... I remember when this went down. It's far away from that now....

[1fastm50]

Nice rescue. Looks like it's coming along well.

Edit: whoa...hold your horses on the redrill. Did you do that yourself too? Looks like it. That's pretty much broken into the center hub area. From my understanding, to avoid this people use tuner studs/nuts/inserts so the holes can be narrower and not protrude into the hub. They didn't fill the existing holes either.

when they were redrilled. the bit that was used did not protrude into the centerbore area. but then they drilled once again with a bigger drill bit because they put stainless steel inserts where the lug would sit and thats what protuded into the center bore. ran them like that for more than a yr never had a problem. would i do some again probably not as i would try to get them filled.

scored a set of hubcentric rings from the junkyard for a dollar. and mounted the wheels.





was going great up until i walked out of work and someone had smashed my rear quarter panel again. WTF PEOPLE. luckily insurance paid for this one.

and i bought this e36 with that cash


someone was selling this close by around and i wanted it. so i drove overnight to pick it up knowing i had to work early next morning. all stuffed in the e30...






Worth it? thinks so. front seats are heated. also found a nardi woodgrain steering wheel at the junkyard. did i mention it was only $15? it was faded but after some polishing it looked like new.



moved back home and installed it but i never took pictures of it installed.

[Butler]

Cool thread. You're car has come a long way but man you need to get some trim ices in those bumpers!