My wife and I were hanging out at dinner yesterday talking about the e30 and what work still needs to be done. She couldn't get over how many laughs we were having talking about how much of a role this car has played in our lives. Since the car is about to go under the knife and be down for a while, I thought it would be fitting to put together a little collage of our 5 years together...
In the beginning. Big fancy drug rep's company goes belly up, freezes paychecks and takes away company car. I had about $2K to my name and knew I was going to be out of a job for a while. Thanks to Craigslist, $400 later I drove my new car home.
It leaked several quarts of oil on the drive home due to nearly every seal in the motor being neglected and old. Scrubbed it down, resealed the motor, drove the hell out of it.
Life changed, we ended up moving from MD to NC. The car still needed a ton of work to be socially acceptable. Luckily, there were junkyards everywhere with rust-free cars for me to start scavenging. A few months later I had done a plastic bumper swap, pieced together some coilovers from old race car parts, got all of the correct lights on and the wrong lights off. My focus was always maintenance and reliability, with the exception of the suspension parts. Oh, I threw on my old Maserati Biturbo wheels since the tires on my caps were shot and these were in good nick.
We hit a few local BMW/e30 specific events after realizing that most of our friends were met through the e30 community. I saw a cardinal interior in person for the first time...and got a set for myself. The wife also dig some digging on c-list and bought me a husco armrest since I was logging a lot of miles each year as an outside sales rep. By now I had working AC too.
A good friend of mine sent me a random text one day about some euro bumpers for sale cheap in the boonies. So guess what I did?
So my girl had been pretty damn supportive of the e30 throughout our relationship, and decided we needed to drive off from our wedding in it...and have some professional pictures taken with it. Pretty neat of her.
She bought me the euro tag as part of a pre-wedding present. It's an inside joke between the two of us about my sales abilities. Next up, she made me (no joke, made me) buy a different set of wheels. She didn't like the Biturbo wheels. Found a set of RZ473s in a junkyard for $100. They were trashed, we cleaned them up. I just got the caps two weeks ago and will eventually clean them up and put them on.
The car started looking a little less half-assed. Especially after my wife and Blunt spent a ton of time getting me the right parts for the correct OEM foglights.
I was pretty happy with the looks of the car overall. However, we started talking about how a 400K+ mile motor was going to eventually give up the ghost and we should do something about it. So I found a thread on here just a few hours away, a low mileage M50 out of an e34 that was in really nice shape.
However, the kid lied through his teeth. I picked this thing up at night, in my company box truck, with a very short time table to get it home. Upon arrival it was an e36 m50tu, not the advertised e34. I knew I was in trouble the second I met the kid selling it. I wasn't sure how bad it was going to be but I figured I'd spent enough time and money to pick this thing up so what the hell. I got it home...opened it up...and sure enough:
I knew before I bought it that I was going to build a 0 mileage M50 before I dropped it in, so I already bought all the necessary parts to rebuild it. I tore it down, took head to the machine shop to have it straightened, and the bottem end cleaned up. New valves, guides, seals, cams, bearings rings and gaskets later...and we have the world's most expensive M50:
While that was at the shop, I took on two other projects. I always thought my car would look better with a spoiler-less trunklid. So I bought one from a yard to clean up. It needed a ton of work but I had to rush it on since an in law closed the garage door on my trunklid. I have no pictures...on that.
I had also decided that the cardinal red had grown old. I liked the monochrome look of the exterior and thought I would try to carry it through the entire car. So I put a WTB up, and in an hour had purchased a silber interior out of an '89 coupe. Before picking it up I called leatheriqe to get a re-dye kit. In addition, I grabbed a newer grey carpet out of a coupe and steam cleaned it. The wife got me some new floor mats for my birthday too. At this point I installed the Bavauto lighted shift knob that I get off Clist cheap a while back. I always wanted a lighted shift knob but didn't want any M badging anywhere on a non-M car. Swapped the Mtech 1 wheel for a MOMO Monte Carlo while I was at it.
Didn't have much time to clean it up before Vintage at the Vineyards came along, so we headed out for the fun of it.
I am pretty sure I wasn't picking my nose...
The great thing about Vintage this year is they had an autox. I hadn't been out racing in 4 years and was thrilled to see how the e30 would do. Ended up having a great time and won my class (e30 modified). Boo to all you eta haters. I had plans previously to swap over to air-ride but that's right out after the autocross. I know an M50 swap would put me in SM territory, but I just don't think I want to give up autocross all together just yet.
So that brings us up to now, leaving out a few things like engine fires, getting rear-ended and other mishaps along the way. The thing that gets me on all this, is that everything on this car was done by me with hand tools in my garage. (aside from KMOSES helping out on a subframe bushing job and a a couple of no-start issues) Prior to this, I always had my dad helping, or my friends helping, who eventually got fed up and took over...so I learned next to nothing. When we moved to NC, that was all over and I am lucky to have had a relatively easy platform to work on.
Future plans:
-M50 swap with a cleaned up bay (keeping AC and ABS, but running body harness through fender, etc.) and a ZF trans using my already installed 3.25S diff.
-Put in a late-model rear parcel shelf with integrated 3rd brake light (I hate that the early models stick up so high over the shelf)
-Go wider with the wheels, likely 16x8/9 (not to be all stancy, but to fit some more tire under the car and fulfill my love for deep dish wheels - likely a 3 piece Schmidt ML)
- Repaint in factory Schwarz
- Rechrome or buy new euro bumpers
- Drive the piss out of it until this motor goes
- Wash, rinse, repeat
Thanks for taking the time to look. Q&C welcomed.
In the beginning. Big fancy drug rep's company goes belly up, freezes paychecks and takes away company car. I had about $2K to my name and knew I was going to be out of a job for a while. Thanks to Craigslist, $400 later I drove my new car home.
It leaked several quarts of oil on the drive home due to nearly every seal in the motor being neglected and old. Scrubbed it down, resealed the motor, drove the hell out of it.
Life changed, we ended up moving from MD to NC. The car still needed a ton of work to be socially acceptable. Luckily, there were junkyards everywhere with rust-free cars for me to start scavenging. A few months later I had done a plastic bumper swap, pieced together some coilovers from old race car parts, got all of the correct lights on and the wrong lights off. My focus was always maintenance and reliability, with the exception of the suspension parts. Oh, I threw on my old Maserati Biturbo wheels since the tires on my caps were shot and these were in good nick.
We hit a few local BMW/e30 specific events after realizing that most of our friends were met through the e30 community. I saw a cardinal interior in person for the first time...and got a set for myself. The wife also dig some digging on c-list and bought me a husco armrest since I was logging a lot of miles each year as an outside sales rep. By now I had working AC too.
A good friend of mine sent me a random text one day about some euro bumpers for sale cheap in the boonies. So guess what I did?
So my girl had been pretty damn supportive of the e30 throughout our relationship, and decided we needed to drive off from our wedding in it...and have some professional pictures taken with it. Pretty neat of her.
She bought me the euro tag as part of a pre-wedding present. It's an inside joke between the two of us about my sales abilities. Next up, she made me (no joke, made me) buy a different set of wheels. She didn't like the Biturbo wheels. Found a set of RZ473s in a junkyard for $100. They were trashed, we cleaned them up. I just got the caps two weeks ago and will eventually clean them up and put them on.
The car started looking a little less half-assed. Especially after my wife and Blunt spent a ton of time getting me the right parts for the correct OEM foglights.
I was pretty happy with the looks of the car overall. However, we started talking about how a 400K+ mile motor was going to eventually give up the ghost and we should do something about it. So I found a thread on here just a few hours away, a low mileage M50 out of an e34 that was in really nice shape.
However, the kid lied through his teeth. I picked this thing up at night, in my company box truck, with a very short time table to get it home. Upon arrival it was an e36 m50tu, not the advertised e34. I knew I was in trouble the second I met the kid selling it. I wasn't sure how bad it was going to be but I figured I'd spent enough time and money to pick this thing up so what the hell. I got it home...opened it up...and sure enough:
I knew before I bought it that I was going to build a 0 mileage M50 before I dropped it in, so I already bought all the necessary parts to rebuild it. I tore it down, took head to the machine shop to have it straightened, and the bottem end cleaned up. New valves, guides, seals, cams, bearings rings and gaskets later...and we have the world's most expensive M50:
While that was at the shop, I took on two other projects. I always thought my car would look better with a spoiler-less trunklid. So I bought one from a yard to clean up. It needed a ton of work but I had to rush it on since an in law closed the garage door on my trunklid. I have no pictures...on that.
I had also decided that the cardinal red had grown old. I liked the monochrome look of the exterior and thought I would try to carry it through the entire car. So I put a WTB up, and in an hour had purchased a silber interior out of an '89 coupe. Before picking it up I called leatheriqe to get a re-dye kit. In addition, I grabbed a newer grey carpet out of a coupe and steam cleaned it. The wife got me some new floor mats for my birthday too. At this point I installed the Bavauto lighted shift knob that I get off Clist cheap a while back. I always wanted a lighted shift knob but didn't want any M badging anywhere on a non-M car. Swapped the Mtech 1 wheel for a MOMO Monte Carlo while I was at it.
Didn't have much time to clean it up before Vintage at the Vineyards came along, so we headed out for the fun of it.
I am pretty sure I wasn't picking my nose...
The great thing about Vintage this year is they had an autox. I hadn't been out racing in 4 years and was thrilled to see how the e30 would do. Ended up having a great time and won my class (e30 modified). Boo to all you eta haters. I had plans previously to swap over to air-ride but that's right out after the autocross. I know an M50 swap would put me in SM territory, but I just don't think I want to give up autocross all together just yet.
So that brings us up to now, leaving out a few things like engine fires, getting rear-ended and other mishaps along the way. The thing that gets me on all this, is that everything on this car was done by me with hand tools in my garage. (aside from KMOSES helping out on a subframe bushing job and a a couple of no-start issues) Prior to this, I always had my dad helping, or my friends helping, who eventually got fed up and took over...so I learned next to nothing. When we moved to NC, that was all over and I am lucky to have had a relatively easy platform to work on.
Future plans:
-M50 swap with a cleaned up bay (keeping AC and ABS, but running body harness through fender, etc.) and a ZF trans using my already installed 3.25S diff.
-Put in a late-model rear parcel shelf with integrated 3rd brake light (I hate that the early models stick up so high over the shelf)
-Go wider with the wheels, likely 16x8/9 (not to be all stancy, but to fit some more tire under the car and fulfill my love for deep dish wheels - likely a 3 piece Schmidt ML)
- Repaint in factory Schwarz
- Rechrome or buy new euro bumpers
- Drive the piss out of it until this motor goes
- Wash, rinse, repeat
Thanks for taking the time to look. Q&C welcomed.
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