1987 BMW E30 316, 41,000 Miles, Scotland

[RustyRuss]

Hi Russell, Yeah I would imagine with your car all of the carb's main electronic parts are in good working order, considering the very low mileage of your car and its condition (unlike mine which I know for certain had lots of detrimental tinkering before I owned it). It is actually a really neat little odd piece of equipment overall, being the last carb BMW ever put in a car, and as you discovered an odd hybrid of traditional carb operation (making air/fuel adjustment on pressure differences) and modern computer controlled fuel injection like adjustments to pass emissions requirements.

As an aside, I would have said one of the last carbs ever put into a car but while working over in Switzerland my University owned, as a collective group car, a base model 1992 Renault Clio. From the factory it had a manually operated choke! More of a glorified go-kart than a car.

Even if you haven't driven it that much, if the ride is more or less smooth and it cold starts without a lot of fuss then the main components are almost certainly in good shape.

Yes you did find the right book! The beginning has a really nice overview of traditional carb functionality and design, which I found to be really useful having not had any prior experience myself working on them. The part on the 2BE is also quite detailed. It gives you all the info you need to totally take the carb apart and do a through cleaning and gasket refresh, which I strongly recommending doing at some point if you have a free day and have the desire to do something mechanically adventurous. Following the book the whole process is very straightforward. Giving mine a thorough cleaning really did make a noticeable difference while driving, it really doesn't take much varnish to build up in certain areas to have an impact on the carbs performance.

The nice part is you can still buy new gasket sets. Doing a quick search on eBay I found this listing but with a bit of searching you'll be able to find others up for sale.
http://www.ebay.de/itm/BMW-316-518-P...item2c4eb09985

Hi Johnny, many thanks again for your kind reply. It certainly is a strange hybrid but one that makes it really cool and appealing to me!! Funny you saying that about the Clio, my first car was My Gran's hand me down 1991 1.4 Fiesta Ghia..auto choke albeit but was certainly Carb fed! A friend had a late Peugeot 205 and it too had a manual choke. It was a very lucky find on the book, it arrived today (was a nice surprise getting in to it after work). It looks great, very informative and the Chapter on the 2BE is brilliant. Interesting in that it gives a list of all cars that used the Carbs featured in the book - that 1800CC BMW Unit (in the E30 316 and E28 518) were the sole cars ever to use the setup!! Ill certainly give it a good old clean as you suggest come the summer time!! I really appreciate the link to the gasket set...ill be purchasing one of them!! :-) Hope you are keeping well? Kind Regards, Russell.

[RustyRuss]

Maiden run this morning, to say it drives beautifully is an understatement, nippy, smooth, quiet - delighted with the little thing :-)






Kind Regards

Russell.

[alex230ro]

Wow this car is new!! Very very nice car,i haven't seen one like this in years.