1985 euro 323i ->327i (exhaust woes)

[e30onBBSs]

1985 euro 323i (mid head swap)

The harness works, but the car is way too loud for my taste. It runs at operating temp, everything seems good besides the exhaust which is awesome. From when I first got the car I've been fighting exhaust leaks on the front end of the exhaust. The cat back remus is awesome but the front pipes gotta go. I found a NOS exhaust, seemed like a fair price at $200 shipped on ebay so I copped it.

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/5E8AAMXQqExRnQ~W/s-l1600.jpg

I got my exhaust off and the manifolds are frozen to the pipes, luckily I have two old manifolds from the 1989. The studs in those are frozen but hopefully a stud remover can get them out and new studs and nuts will be installed. I cut my exhaust right in front of the cat and am still not sure how I'm going to connect the two halves (HF welder?) but it's in the works and once this is done it will be leak free and should be a great car with some nice tone.


Another leak ^ say bye bye rusty hoes

https://vimeo.com/161136883

Can't tell through the video but it's loud as hell on the engine side and the leaks make it have poor throttle response and what not. Revving pasr 4500 is amazing though, having an m20 that can'r rev sucked ass

[e30onBBSs]

1985 euro 323i (mid head swap)

Did a power balance test by pulling plug wires and discovered why it was running like trash, only half the injectors were getting power! 2,4,6 did not change how the engine ran when I pulled the wire so that was a good find because it was real bad. Used a red butt crimp but it needed blue and didn't make a connection. I am making a better harness connector that's in the works with extended wires for easy access and different size butt crimps that lead to snap connectors so I will be able to disconnect the harness as I please. Still needs shrinkwrap/ electrical tape but will do that once it's all in the car and it's running like it should

[e30onBBSs]

1985 euro 323i (mid head swap)

and she starts! Some major vaccum leaks because not everything is perfectly tidy and the valve cover is barely on but damn it feels awesome. The car is ready except for the dif and one wheel leaks air. Waiting for a couple parts to wrap the whole project up but then it's ready..

https://vimeo.com/160051806

The bitch plug was corroded to death, so it was ready but had no power to the injectors. I crimped them together for now and will probably go snap connectors sometime. I got a deutsche connector and I'm pretty patient but for me I almost went insane when the connectors wouldnt go through the rubber gasket thing and would pull off the wire!!

Tightened the valve cover and what not and it idled. Took it for a short drive and it was baaaad. Then discovered the wiring problem, hopefully that's all it is

[e30onBBSs]

1985 Euro 323i turned eta

Was 70 something here yesterday and I had an entire day off. Safe to say my friend Sam and I went hard! Head is off the eta, everything is disconnected and the harness is out.

GC coilover kit arrived

Brand new Yokohama s drives arrived 205/50/15

head gasket and water pump and gaskets and what not arrived as well, my garage is full of parts and tools, and the swap is coming along. Just finished rebuilding my first head, which is the head off of my old e30 which is pretty cool. Replaced the valve stem seals, and made sure none of the valves leaked with some paint thinner and the head upside down. Definitely a cool trick!

Suspension will be in soon, need to pick up some dremel wheels tomorrow to remove this weird piece on the front shocks that is too wide in diameter for the threaded sleeves on the coils to slip over the shock. One side is done, but ran out of dremel wheels :devil:

BBS's are almost done, have to polish one lip, torque two, and seal 3. :D

Interior is mid swap, going from red to black. Got a Kamotors intake for christmas and a ///m knob out of an e46.

Probably going to dif swap but going to drive the 2.7i to see how the 3.46 is and throw probably throw in the 4.10LSD because why not ;D

Somehow the o2 sensor came out first try, was amazing. And I just soldered the new o2 to the 89 harness because I had to cut it out of the old car. For some reason the solder would not stick to the wires, it was like solderphobic. Enough stuck though and I forgot to put the shrink wrap on before hand, so I'm going to get some of that perforated piping stuff and zip tie it at the ends, in case the electrical tape isn't sufficient to seal it from the elements.

The coolant was brown, bout time to replace that ish. Took old studs out of the exhaust side of the head and 11 came out easy with PB, a few hits with a hammer, and vice grips. One and only one took me and my teacher like 3 hours, then my teacher at auto taught me how to deal with studs. He's mad old and about to retire and said it was the hardest stud he's ever had to remove. I was torching it PBing it, vice gripping it. Finally a friend in class and I got it to move, but that was just the stud bending above the hole, and it broke. So my teacher showed me how to punch it, then drill it starting with a small bit, then tapping it. Awesome stuff.

Shoutout to my secret santa! The french yellow high's look mint!!!

[e30onBBSs]

1985 Euro 323i turned eta

Pulled the second head apart- it's basically mint! Very happy about that.
Went through the obligatory exhaust manifold removal bitch bolts, found a new dremel technique for them.
Only bad things are one little scratch around one of the main cam journals and the same thing in the head- but nothing compared to the other head.

Since I ain't got time for a machine shop to clean my head I measured it and got a big container from Walmart.

dish soap bitches!!! Came out better than I expected. Used HF brushes. Got the $16 engine brush kit and it helped me get most of those hard to reach spots.

Is that ^ a head bolt hole?? Yes it is! She's a ten ik



Exhaust ports were hard, did the best I could.


Intake side was cheese



Spark plug holes came out a lot better than before, still kinda gunky. The threads are uhh though

Can't forget about the valve seat side

Parts are done processing, hopefully will be here tomorrow if not, then monday and I can rebuild this and then start getting into the swap

Don't forget to oil your machined parts!!!

[e30onBBSs]

1985 Euro 323i turned eta



wish me luck with the head dissassembly tomorrow!

And check out the wheel thread because they started out bad bad

[e30onBBSs]

UPDATE: Preparing for 2.7i. Ordered a boat load of parts and GC coilover kit all the way around. Tore apart one of my cylinder heads which looked mint, but it was not so mint. Cam journals are trash and some of the lobes are pitting. The "bearing" surfaces in the head if you will are very rough and they all have these two lines scratched into them. It appears like someone was running it with low oil pressure or not enough oil or something. So now I'm going to take apart my 2nd head from my old e30, and hope the cam journals and bearing parts in the head are straight! Everything besides the cam was good on the first head, so hopefully I can make one head with all these parts and not have to search for another head

I started labeling lines and what not in the engine bay, made sure the c101 was fully swapped by PO (it is;D) and threw it up on stands. Pulled both front struts, it was super easy. First job to not have a catch

LOL yea right we are talking about e30's, so after getting everything out, the shocks are corroded/rusted to the strut . Game plan; ride them until they blow then get "new use struts" and get billy's when the time comes.

I made a thread about my wheel choice in the project forum but I got my hands on some real 3 piece BBS RS032 wheels. I'm about 70% done just need to paint 2 faces, sand one face, and sand 2 lips, then torque the last two. I cannot wait to put them on the car!! I'm going to go 205 50 15 with some decent brand new tires.

Also picked up a set of mint black coupe door cards and a 4.10lsd. Got a ///m e46 weighted knob and a kamotors intake.

I have most of the parts assembled for the swap, just waiting for gaskets o2 sensor and what not from FCP, and of course getting a working head together :weak: which could turn out to be the biggest bitch of the project! I don't have a lot of time to work on the car and driving to get a head will really suck if it comes down to it but gotta do what I gotta do. Going to post pics from my phone

[e30onBBSs]

Was bored and decided to install the bilstein struts that came with the car on the rear. It was an absolute breeze. It feels a bit smoother on the rear.

[e30onBBSs]

Thanksgiving update =)




I picked up a 4.10 LSD and basically this is going to be a rip around town car. I have the mini for everything else so I'm going to make this a fun sunday/weekend car that will suck balls on the highway. I forgot I had to order a gasket for it and the lube because I was so stoked on the $50 set of drilled and slotted rotors all around!

I also found why the exhaust was such an ugly sound. There were two nice holes in the post manifold pipes pre cat, filled those with exhaust paste and that pushed the exhaust to the last hole which was about 15 inches from the beginning of the muffler. The paste wouldn't do the job for that so I hose clamped around it then pasted around the hose clamp and it's perfect.

In the meantime I finally sold the 89 is shell to some kids and now my driveway is much bigger and my parent's aren't butthurt anymore. Sold it for $20 and gave the kids a lot of random big parts for the cheap cheap. I hope it's a nice intro to the car world. It's going to take a shiiiit load of work to make that car run again well especially if they want to do an m50 swap like they said but props to them!

I was driving around a few times with the XXR's and it's mint because it's on ebay coils basically, so I raised it a few threads and it no longer rubs but the steering is so heavy. I bought my old BBS wheels back off my friend and just threw those on. It's low, it looks mint imo, and it feels light and nimble like it did with the caps! I love it, might just paint them for the sleeper old school feel. I really dig the black though so I'm not sure what's going to happen.


I finished up the exhaust manifold gaskets/studs, replaced the air filter, and tie rod ends. Fuck tie rod ends, I'm just gonna leave it at that. They pissed me off more than any project I have ever done on any car.

Then yesterday I put the drilled and slotted rotors on with ceramic pads. The brakes feel normal now which is pleasant compared to the shitty warped rotor life it was experiencing previously, and feels like a more modern car. I think it needs a brake flush because the pedal has a bit of spongy travel before they bite.

So the head swap is going to be a spring project and I cannot wait to tear into this thing. I'm pissed winter is coming but that's part of the NE life! This thing is going to be sleepy and faster than shit off the line! I'm super stoked and am slowly making a parts list I need for hardware. It definitely needs and alignment too lol even though it drives straight I think it's messed up a bit. I am going to place an order for more ebay coils because the rear doesn't have the adjustable part it just has the spring and then the adjustable threads are broken. Once those come I am going to throw in the used bilsteins and it's gonna be sweet.

exhaust tip photo cred to Sophie le gf

[rturbo 930]

Probably 10 out of 12 of my exhaust studs came out when I did mine.

[e30onBBSs]

1985 Euro 323i turned eta

Went to put in new exhaust manifold gaskets/heat shields and all the studs were coming out? Weird! Anyways I have a lot of maintanence parts and just ordered new studs. Tie rod ends, air filter, fuel filter, sway bar links etc. Gonna be good!

[e30onBBSs]

1985 Euro 323i turned eta

The car phone is soooooo cool. I really want tog et one for my car, but I don't know why, lol.

*Beautiful car btw

Thanks Stonea! It's fun dude it's like whoa wtf?! Why is there a phone in this car how freakin old is it?

Little update- I cut the lip off the fenders and it's completely perfect on 3/4 of the car besides the driver side front. I think it's out of alignment because it legit sticks out farther than the right side.

new parts coming in the mail
fuel filter
oil filter
exhaust manifold gaskets+ heat shields
copper manifold nuts
and 2 tie rod ends.

The exhaust is still a bit too loud for my liking and it comes from the manifold gaskets so once the new ones are in I hope it will sound and run even better than before. Once I do the tie rods and everything I'm going to get it aligned and hopefully the 16x8's will be perfect all around! I am looking for 16x7 or something smaller for for the front because the friction is pretty rough up front with 16x8 and no power steering, but if they fit right then I will stay square. Right now it's on caps up front, and the steering feel is amazing but it looks meh. If anyone on here wants to trade 2 wheels I'm down! I have 2 16x8 XXR 4x100's with 10/32 tread

The parts car has been sitting for a while and I'm going to get as far as I can on the trans tomorrow/driveshaft/dif.

Definitely going to do the head swap after the winter or work on it slowly throughout the winter. If I can get the parts car gone then I just might be able to swap it before the winter which would be pretty exciting. Once it's stroked then I am going to save $ for boost. I will have the funds after the winter but am just going to enjoy the 2.7i for a while until I want choochoo sounds!


Randomly there was en e36 btwn me and my friend's e46!
https://vimeo.com/143860834 sounds nice but should have better throttle response and it's a bit obnoxious when having to actually get up to speed. I feel like if I drive by a cop full throttle in 1st 2nd or 3rd that's game set match for a fix it ticket lol!

[stonea]

The car phone is soooooo cool. I really want tog et one for my car, but I don't know why, lol.

*Beautiful car btw

[e30onBBSs]

Sealed up the flanges, it's quiter. Suspension is nice, wheels need to be a bit thinner on the front but here she is!

[e30onBBSs]

Drove it this morning, sketchiest shit. It was still rubbing unless the road was real nice but not as bad as before. None the less, problems started on the way back to my home. It was rubbing horribly on the driver side, way worse than before. I take a side street and look back, and the tire is wobbling. ?! Get out, one of the PO's studs came out! The rubbing definitely didn't help. Anyways I am cutting the fender lip that is the culprit of the rubbing, and it looks great so far. I need more dremel cutters, getting them at work tonight to do the other side.

PSA: walmart sells dremel brand dremel parts dirt cheap. Went to sears to get more cutting wheels, it was $8.99 for 5 craftsman brand wheels. At my store it's a tad over $5 for 5 dremel brand wheels. They are the same exact product or I would bet the dremel brand is better.