Finally doing something on my E30

[HennaE30]

Went out cruising with my buddy today. Grabbed some lunch then went out in the country in search some of the twisties. Got yelled at by some hillbilly with the worst set of teeth I've ever seen... Deep South problems..













Sorry for potato pics.

Well it wasn't without incident... As I was downshifting into 3rd there was a popping noise and then I couldn't get it into second.. So I pulled into a neighborhood and try to figure out what was wrong.. Smoke was pouring out from under the car, smoking from the O2 bung area (not sure why, I think they were unrelated) but then it decided it was gonna work and then I had no shifter problems...

From there, it was ok till towards the end... The car got really hot, when I was sitting at the light, smoke was pouring out from under it.... This is due to the 4.10LSD, which meant at 80mpg my eta was spinning at 4k, causing it to get really hot. When I got home I checked the coolant reservoir and it was almost empty.

[HennaE30]

So a little update

My car had been leaking oil from every little orifice it seemed, and I managed to track part of it down to a bad oil pan gasket. So over the break I got my car on jack stands, and started pulling her apart.



I decided since it was gonna be there at the time, I might as well replace the motor and trans mounts, so I picked up a set of IE Motorsports solid Urethane bushings.




So with a block on a jack, an impact gun, and a lot of cursing, we managed to get the motor high enough to get the mounts out. And we discovered that both the motor mounts were broken. This is the passenger side one.



So now that we had the motor up, we have to come up with a way to keep the motor up so we cut small blocks of 2x4 screwed together.




So from there I got the oil pan off and scraped off the oil pan gasket, cleaned the pan and started to prep the new gasket. Put a little bit of gasket adhesive and stuck it back up there.




That oil pan was black when I pulled it off, I scrubbed it for the better part of an hour, the top of the oil level sensor was what the entire pan looked like.


So after this, I swapped in the the new motor and trans mounts. (I forgot to take pictures of the new motor mounts




Once I finished that, everything was pretty quiet till this weekend.. Thursday, my dad got back from a business trip in Houston, with the black sport seats I bought the week before.



This weekend I got a new diff cover gasket, new fill and drain plugs and new seals for those. I resealed the 4.10LSD I've had since August, and filled it with Royal Purple 75w-90 (I wanted to put Redline or Motul, but couldn't find any anywhere) and swapped out my 2.93 open.





For the record, this diff is ridiculous.. It's fun to mess around with, but your mileage is horrible and you'll max out around 80mph, in an eta atleast.

I also have a set of Bimmerworld stainless steel brake lines that I have yet to swap in, and that will be done here in the near future. Along with a brake and clutch bleed.


That's pretty much all for now and the near future.. All time and parts will be focused on getting the SpecE30 finished and ready for the club race at COTA at the end of March. I may still do a couple things like a short shifter and DSSR.

[HennaE30]

Not much has happened lately, been trying to finish up school and am currently out of town on a hunting trip.

Good news though, a big box from Pelican came in the other, and I was told not to open it. So it seems like my E30 is gonna have a good Christmas. I also picked up a spare Alpina wheel cover for the one that I lost, which I was told I can't have yet because it's getting wrapped too.

I'm starting to build a spreadsheet for all my car parts so I can plan out what I'm going to do with the car term. Decided to go with a cleaned up lightly modded M20.

That's pretty much all for right now, I guess it's a mini update. Will mostly likely have more stuff after the first of the year, as I get my Christmas parts together lol.

I hope you guys have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a Happy Holidays to those who don't celebrate Christmas.

[dsicle]

Aw man, that sucks. I did that once in my Tacoma and thankfully bounced off the wheel flare...been paranoid about doing it in my E30 ever since.

Sidenote: I went out to Spec Motorsports a couple weeks ago, nice guys, they gave me a full tour of the shop, etc. Impressive operation. I'm definitely having them do anything major on my car that I can't do myself.

[HennaE30]

I did that once to a truck I had, I got so mad...... Glad you are getting it fixed.

Lol I did it into our Super Duty. I was devastated. It just rained today... So I may just get another fender so I'm not dealing with rust.

[rcsoundn1]

I did that once to a truck I had, I got so mad...... Glad you are getting it fixed.

[HennaE30]

Finally doing something on my E30

Heres the link to the higher res pictures...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/129743...7649171071048/

Well I was a dumbass this morning, wasnt paying attention, and my E30 paid the price. Was backing out of my driveway on my way to class and misjudged the gap. :(



So I'm going to pop out the dent and try to find some Henna paint in aerosol form (or Rustoleum) to cover the bare metal until I get it painted in the spring.

[HennaE30]

Finally doing something on my E30

Pics no worky?

Fixed. Had to resize them because they were huge. So sorry for the horrible definition, especially on the last 3. :hitler:

I have the correct size photos on my flickr, which I will link for those that wanna see the high def shots, each pic was like 31mb

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Pics no worky?

[HennaE30]

Haven't posted in awhile, been waiting on some parts and stuff.

Mainly boring posts until October/November. So just scroll past if your interested in just the mods.

So in August, we got a line on a good trans. So we started piling up the parts, good trans, new clutch, Bimmerworld SS clutch line, and master and slave cylinder. So we took everything up to Spec Motorsport (Great guys, Greats work). So they had it for a little over a week, and they swapped everything out without much trouble. I let my dad drive it for a couple days to break in the clutch, and i got the chance to drive it for the first time, and I'm hooked. So the cars running like a top, but still no AC. Well one day I'm looking through the nightmare of knotted wires under the steering wheel when I see an unplugged connector, plug it in and poof AC works, all the interior lights work now.

Then school started so working on the car took a back burner, but atleast she was running well. The next month or so went by without a hitch, besides the water pump/alternator belt failing on my way to lunch, causing it to overheat, fortunately it didnt cook the head gasket or warp the head. So we got another and everything went well.

October comes around, and on a Saturday I'm going to walmart to get some stuff for breakfast. Come out of the store and get in and start it up, and start driving out. As I'm going down the isle, it loses all power and stalls. I thought it was a fuel pump, changed it, nothing. Did some troubleshooting, thought it was the CPS, got a new one, nothing. Finally we gave up and took it back up to Spec Motorsport, after getting it started, it stranding them, then taking another week and a half trying to figure out the issue, they finally managed to track it down to a loose CPS ground. :hitler::hitler:

NOW ONTO THE COOL STUFF!

While the car was out with the no start issue, i picked up a set of Alpina Kopis 17x7.5 wrapped with brand new Kumho Ecstas 215/40R17. The guy also threw in a set of Alpina valvestem caps.








This month I bought a set of Euro grilles from a forum member, and after a quite humorous headache (which is still being sorted out), in which he mixed up the grilles and sent me 2 passenger sides, which he fixed as quickly as he could and was very communicable, I was able to paint them and get them on the car, and they look great. Here is a couple of pictures of the car and how it sits now.





I have more pictures from this shoot, im still pulling them off my camera.


Here is one from when it was on its way to Spec the second time.



Thats pretty much all the updates for now.

The next things on the list are:
- Complete suspension overhaul with Powerflex bushings, Koni Yellows, and GC coilovers.
- New pads and rotors.
- iS seats (Or some old school Recaros)
- Smoked/Smiley Ellips
- Mtech 1 wheel or Reupholstering the spare Momo I have

Long term goals are:
Euro bumpers/valence with Jimmy Hill lip
Fresh paint
A motor swap (still undetermined)

Let me know what your opinions are on what I've done so far and where you think i should go from here.