Hello everyone.
I am originaly from Lithuania, but residing now in Denmark where i have my sweet little car detailing shop and well i have just recently become a BMW fan :firehop:
Now a bit of Prologue:
So i have been searching for a bmw e30 for 2 weeks. Surprisingly it become a sort of a challenge to even buy one, as here in Denmark every1 started to sweep them like crazy. Somebody puts one for sale, you call a man in the morning and it is allready sold. And that repeated at least 10 times during 2 weeks. Crazy isn't?
So somehow a friend of mine stumbled upon a very nice e30 which was a coupe and that's how i ended up owning my first proper car (i had some old Opel astra hatch before which was horrible :( ). Funny thing is the advertisment was added in the "4 door" section :D So obviously noboy were looking for those ads who were interested in 2 doors. Lucky me :D
So here i am with a BMW e30, original 170k on a clock. 6 cylinder, 320i, M20 engine. Nice exterior (except few surface rusts here and there) with nice undercarriage, engine compartment and just a little bit of rust in the trunk.
I got the car from the guy in his 40's who obviously did not give a damn a car pretty much... We found out later that the car was running on 5 cylinders for a while, as there was a spark shortage in one of the distribution wires which go towards the spark plug. Car had multiple torn vacuum hoses which basically were worn out due to age. We cleaned the Throttle body and fixed all the vacuums and staff.
So there you go, a nicely working car with oil changed, spark plugs replaced, vacuums fixed and i am continuing to fall in love in it.
I had problems switching gears. Had guesses that it was a gearbox issue, but my friend said that it would be most probably the gear shifting rails (rubbers worn out) so off to the mechanic, and it comes out that we put a very nice used gearbox instead with long ratios. There we go do some drifting (attempts) and burning tires (comoon it's first rear wheel drive car i have :D ) and after a bit i can not hit into the 2nd and 3rd gears...
So new gearbox and new all rubbers and neccesary parts to fix the shifting problem.
After driving a bit, from one of the post you might or not have seen i started to get the cooling problem. Car overheats and sh1ts.... Damn :/ And it was immpossible to diagnose what is the cause. So after few of you helping me out with diognosing the issue my car now is at the friend mechanic/tuning specialist who took apart the engine and got blow away.
He said in 30n years of experience he has never seen a more well taken care engine (internals as he said) with respect to the years. So good news, cylinder head is not warped, nor cracked. All cylinders are allmost like brand new, all rings are fine. The problem was with the worn Camshaft which was caused as he explained by the poor oil lubrication where oil pump distributes poorly oil down to back cylinders.
He as well said that if you heat up engine for couple of minutes everytime you are about to drive, if it is in a great condition and is maintenained properly, you will never have a problem with gaskets as hard as you will push the card (ofc not keeping on a rev limiter for hours).
So then he says: we have to modify it a bit and put a camshaft with bigger angle and port (if i get it right) the headers (cut the corners for the better flow. right?).
So now i am getting Schrick kit with 288degree Camshaft, new valves, new stronger valve springs, new seals for the valves, new pretty much all the new top head :)))) new thermostat, new waterpump, gaskets, and other small bits which i am sure you all know. Aha i get to put at the same time a new "Sebring" banana manifold as well.
So he estimates 40hp increase in power at least. And i can not wait to get my hands on it as i imagine that will be quite a fun to drive especially when it will hit 4k rpms :)
My plans are big to what i will get my car to look like, so there is still a long way to go, but hopefully i will achieve it. Some of the mods i want to get done in closest due:
1. Small cosmetical rust tackled to not make get through the winter as i will be painting car in spring hopefully.
2. All around polyurethane bushings.
3. Remotec A R16 wheels with proper tires.
And some pics of how i got the car to look (Polished what has been polishABLE and cleaned. As the previous guy did not wash it since he purchased it... will show pics later.
Some pictures taken by a friend photographer www.1000looks.net
Comments and mock ups are welcome :D
I am originaly from Lithuania, but residing now in Denmark where i have my sweet little car detailing shop and well i have just recently become a BMW fan :firehop:
Now a bit of Prologue:
So i have been searching for a bmw e30 for 2 weeks. Surprisingly it become a sort of a challenge to even buy one, as here in Denmark every1 started to sweep them like crazy. Somebody puts one for sale, you call a man in the morning and it is allready sold. And that repeated at least 10 times during 2 weeks. Crazy isn't?
So somehow a friend of mine stumbled upon a very nice e30 which was a coupe and that's how i ended up owning my first proper car (i had some old Opel astra hatch before which was horrible :( ). Funny thing is the advertisment was added in the "4 door" section :D So obviously noboy were looking for those ads who were interested in 2 doors. Lucky me :D
So here i am with a BMW e30, original 170k on a clock. 6 cylinder, 320i, M20 engine. Nice exterior (except few surface rusts here and there) with nice undercarriage, engine compartment and just a little bit of rust in the trunk.
I got the car from the guy in his 40's who obviously did not give a damn a car pretty much... We found out later that the car was running on 5 cylinders for a while, as there was a spark shortage in one of the distribution wires which go towards the spark plug. Car had multiple torn vacuum hoses which basically were worn out due to age. We cleaned the Throttle body and fixed all the vacuums and staff.
So there you go, a nicely working car with oil changed, spark plugs replaced, vacuums fixed and i am continuing to fall in love in it.
I had problems switching gears. Had guesses that it was a gearbox issue, but my friend said that it would be most probably the gear shifting rails (rubbers worn out) so off to the mechanic, and it comes out that we put a very nice used gearbox instead with long ratios. There we go do some drifting (attempts) and burning tires (comoon it's first rear wheel drive car i have :D ) and after a bit i can not hit into the 2nd and 3rd gears...
So new gearbox and new all rubbers and neccesary parts to fix the shifting problem.
After driving a bit, from one of the post you might or not have seen i started to get the cooling problem. Car overheats and sh1ts.... Damn :/ And it was immpossible to diagnose what is the cause. So after few of you helping me out with diognosing the issue my car now is at the friend mechanic/tuning specialist who took apart the engine and got blow away.
He said in 30n years of experience he has never seen a more well taken care engine (internals as he said) with respect to the years. So good news, cylinder head is not warped, nor cracked. All cylinders are allmost like brand new, all rings are fine. The problem was with the worn Camshaft which was caused as he explained by the poor oil lubrication where oil pump distributes poorly oil down to back cylinders.
He as well said that if you heat up engine for couple of minutes everytime you are about to drive, if it is in a great condition and is maintenained properly, you will never have a problem with gaskets as hard as you will push the card (ofc not keeping on a rev limiter for hours).
So then he says: we have to modify it a bit and put a camshaft with bigger angle and port (if i get it right) the headers (cut the corners for the better flow. right?).
So now i am getting Schrick kit with 288degree Camshaft, new valves, new stronger valve springs, new seals for the valves, new pretty much all the new top head :)))) new thermostat, new waterpump, gaskets, and other small bits which i am sure you all know. Aha i get to put at the same time a new "Sebring" banana manifold as well.
So he estimates 40hp increase in power at least. And i can not wait to get my hands on it as i imagine that will be quite a fun to drive especially when it will hit 4k rpms :)
My plans are big to what i will get my car to look like, so there is still a long way to go, but hopefully i will achieve it. Some of the mods i want to get done in closest due:
1. Small cosmetical rust tackled to not make get through the winter as i will be painting car in spring hopefully.
2. All around polyurethane bushings.
3. Remotec A R16 wheels with proper tires.
And some pics of how i got the car to look (Polished what has been polishABLE and cleaned. As the previous guy did not wash it since he purchased it... will show pics later.
Some pictures taken by a friend photographer www.1000looks.net
Comments and mock ups are welcome :D