A little pic-heavy, but here goes:
I think this car finally deserves a proper post. It's by no means a showroom model, got almost 300k on the body, boasting a little rust, but it's been an insane adventure. For a few years i've been dreaming of taking a giant cross-continent road-trip, visit National Parks, and truly see the country I call home. And so began the saga of finding the right car. This is more of a car story/trip log than a build thread, but whatever, i'll include a little of everything - here goes:
I bought my e30 in mid-2013 as a DD for work/internship - an '89 325iA
When i picked it up:
It served me perfectly well for about two weeks until the auto transmission decided only first gear was necessary.
And so began the saga of my manual swap on the side of the road in downtown Toronto...in late October. This was the first major work i'd done on the car, and kind of set the theme for what was to come.
I did the timing belt, minor cosmetics, cleaned it up, and generally enjoyed it with stable reliability for a year!
Last summer though, all hell broke loose and the car killed itself spectacularly on a drive out camping with some friends.
Blown headgasket and three rocker arms snapped in the span of 5 minutes. F*ck. I parked the car, incredibly angry, and let it sit for almost 2 months before dumping it in a garage. Extremely frustrated, I almost parted it out, until I got my head screwed on back right and realized I'd never be able to drive this thing coast to coast like I'd always wanted.
As it sat covered in my mid-move junk in a rented garage in the city:
I started by assessing the damage and decided the motor just needed to go. The head was corroded, the bottom end filthy, and it wasn't worth the trouble.
I found a $300 M50NV with 158,000 km on craigslist, and had it delivered to my place. It was an impulse buy, and I had no idea what i'd be getting myself into. Engine swap it is, i guess!
Over the winter I researched, and basically learned from scratch how to swap the engine. In a very cold, unheated garage over the course of the winter I picked away at the swap, figuring it out as I went, until spring finally had it complete. A few pics of the process - didn't take many, but here they are:
Starting to dig in...
New engine!
A little blurry, but it was pretty damn clean inside!
It even looks cold in there...
Coming together now, just as i started fighting with the wiring for a few weeks.
So as it stands now, I'm running:
M50B25 (non-vanos) from a '92 e36
Getrag 260 with new clutch, pp, etc. on a 'shaved' M20 flywheel
E30 driveshaft and a 4.10 LSD
Exhaust is ebay headers mated to stock E30 piping (I regret this hugely. Ebay headers suck and don't fit the car properly - ended up doing a bit of a hack job to get everything to fit)
E30 late model rad and E30 fan clutch + fan (cools muuuuch better - didn't ever cause a problem in the desert)
Wheels: MSW/ITALA Alpina Reps, 15x6 ET12 with 10mm spacers (came from an E21)
After a giant debacle sorting out the electronics - (GIANT thread in the M5x swap subforum), I got it running right about two days before my lease expired and I had to move out.
So, after a thorough test drive of 50 feet up the alleyway and back into the garage, I got a good night's sleep and drove 500km back home the next day without incident!
I left on some travels, then early-july I got back to Canada and prepped for this road trip - one I'd been dreaming about for years. Packed all my camping stuff, jack, tools, zip ties, spare parts and duct tape into the car and hit the road.
As it turned out, I did just about 12,000 Miles from home in Ottawa, across North America's national parks from here, down through the U.S. rockies, the desert southwest, into SoCal, up the entire Pacific Coast back into British Columbia, up into the interior, throughout Alberta and all the way across the TransCanada back home, over roughly 65 days, camping 50 of those and couchsurfing the rest!
The car didn't complain, didn't overheat (not even in the insane august Mojave heat!), didn't break down, and never left me stranded (apart from an extremely inconvenient flat in the utah desert)!
Anyways, here's some pictures of the car, my finally reliable tub (and a couple from the trip). A dream-catcher for sure.
First stop? Detroit.
Although it may not look it, this was the first of many extremely sketchy campgrounds through the midwest. At times I'd drive onto the grass and pitch a tent behind those truck weigh stations because it seemed safer
Welcome to Nebraksa!
More Nebraska! I picked up the current wheels at the start of my swap - came off an E21 (15x6), so i'm running 10mm spacers to get them to sit nicely - they look fantastic!
Reached Colorado - here in the foothills near Rocky Mountain National Park - the first NP stop!
A huuuuuuge thank you to a fellow r3v hyperE30 member for fighting a ball joint replacement for a case of beer in Denver. Noticed after 2400km that i was eating my left front tire like butter, and last minute he just pulled through and offered up his shop and some company. Thank you!:
Here's a couple trip photos too - Colorado turned out incredible, and has some of the most gorgeous landscapes I've ever seen:
Great Sand Dunes National Park, SoCo
Token photo of the first oil change - Moab, Utah - School parking lot...I got yelled at
Skipping ahead past about a month of hiking through Utah and most of Arizona, here's one somewhere along Historic 66
Same place - this was some sort of bizarre gas station/monument to Americana - super cool, and plus they had a mint (and running, according to the clerk) 2nd gen corvette from the 50s! I also started placing stickers on the rear right window from places I especially liked or had an incredible experience in.
I slept on the ground in Big Sur - caught the meteor shower too
After making my way through Vegas and up the California coast, I cut into the Sierras towards Tahoe, Mono and Yosemite. Damn, are there some incredible roads here - and EMPTY ;D
Some BLM camping high in the mountains on route to Mono Lake. I also stopped by the ghost town of Bodie, which was both incredibly cool to explore and destructive on my car thanks to the pitted gravel track for 16km
Bodie
The Redwoods, followed by camping through some pretty gnarly forest-firey areas up the north of California into Oregon
Just a couple neat shots along the Oregon coast - Oregon blew me away - I was expecting incredible things and it went above and beyond. I need to get back to see the interior and maybe even Idaho
Tunnel Falls, OR
I kept heading north through Washington, then back through canada (interior BC, alberta, then through the prairies) over a few weeks. The road out of Maligne Lake, Alberta - absolutely stunning:
Finally, northern Ontario is entirely comprised of bugs. This was the front of my car after every day. I gave up after a while:
Bugs by Illiterate Graduate, on Flickr
And there you have it - I'm flabbergasted. I guess the hard work paid off!
Next steps? Fix my damn hilbilly exhaust, rebuild the driveshaft, and finally maybe touch on some cosmetics!
I think this car finally deserves a proper post. It's by no means a showroom model, got almost 300k on the body, boasting a little rust, but it's been an insane adventure. For a few years i've been dreaming of taking a giant cross-continent road-trip, visit National Parks, and truly see the country I call home. And so began the saga of finding the right car. This is more of a car story/trip log than a build thread, but whatever, i'll include a little of everything - here goes:
I bought my e30 in mid-2013 as a DD for work/internship - an '89 325iA
When i picked it up:
It served me perfectly well for about two weeks until the auto transmission decided only first gear was necessary.
And so began the saga of my manual swap on the side of the road in downtown Toronto...in late October. This was the first major work i'd done on the car, and kind of set the theme for what was to come.
I did the timing belt, minor cosmetics, cleaned it up, and generally enjoyed it with stable reliability for a year!
Last summer though, all hell broke loose and the car killed itself spectacularly on a drive out camping with some friends.
Blown headgasket and three rocker arms snapped in the span of 5 minutes. F*ck. I parked the car, incredibly angry, and let it sit for almost 2 months before dumping it in a garage. Extremely frustrated, I almost parted it out, until I got my head screwed on back right and realized I'd never be able to drive this thing coast to coast like I'd always wanted.
As it sat covered in my mid-move junk in a rented garage in the city:
I started by assessing the damage and decided the motor just needed to go. The head was corroded, the bottom end filthy, and it wasn't worth the trouble.
I found a $300 M50NV with 158,000 km on craigslist, and had it delivered to my place. It was an impulse buy, and I had no idea what i'd be getting myself into. Engine swap it is, i guess!
Over the winter I researched, and basically learned from scratch how to swap the engine. In a very cold, unheated garage over the course of the winter I picked away at the swap, figuring it out as I went, until spring finally had it complete. A few pics of the process - didn't take many, but here they are:
Starting to dig in...
New engine!
A little blurry, but it was pretty damn clean inside!
It even looks cold in there...
Coming together now, just as i started fighting with the wiring for a few weeks.
So as it stands now, I'm running:
M50B25 (non-vanos) from a '92 e36
Getrag 260 with new clutch, pp, etc. on a 'shaved' M20 flywheel
E30 driveshaft and a 4.10 LSD
Exhaust is ebay headers mated to stock E30 piping (I regret this hugely. Ebay headers suck and don't fit the car properly - ended up doing a bit of a hack job to get everything to fit)
E30 late model rad and E30 fan clutch + fan (cools muuuuch better - didn't ever cause a problem in the desert)
Wheels: MSW/ITALA Alpina Reps, 15x6 ET12 with 10mm spacers (came from an E21)
After a giant debacle sorting out the electronics - (GIANT thread in the M5x swap subforum), I got it running right about two days before my lease expired and I had to move out.
So, after a thorough test drive of 50 feet up the alleyway and back into the garage, I got a good night's sleep and drove 500km back home the next day without incident!
I left on some travels, then early-july I got back to Canada and prepped for this road trip - one I'd been dreaming about for years. Packed all my camping stuff, jack, tools, zip ties, spare parts and duct tape into the car and hit the road.
As it turned out, I did just about 12,000 Miles from home in Ottawa, across North America's national parks from here, down through the U.S. rockies, the desert southwest, into SoCal, up the entire Pacific Coast back into British Columbia, up into the interior, throughout Alberta and all the way across the TransCanada back home, over roughly 65 days, camping 50 of those and couchsurfing the rest!
The car didn't complain, didn't overheat (not even in the insane august Mojave heat!), didn't break down, and never left me stranded (apart from an extremely inconvenient flat in the utah desert)!
Anyways, here's some pictures of the car, my finally reliable tub (and a couple from the trip). A dream-catcher for sure.
First stop? Detroit.
Although it may not look it, this was the first of many extremely sketchy campgrounds through the midwest. At times I'd drive onto the grass and pitch a tent behind those truck weigh stations because it seemed safer
Welcome to Nebraksa!
More Nebraska! I picked up the current wheels at the start of my swap - came off an E21 (15x6), so i'm running 10mm spacers to get them to sit nicely - they look fantastic!
Reached Colorado - here in the foothills near Rocky Mountain National Park - the first NP stop!
A huuuuuuge thank you to a fellow r3v hyperE30 member for fighting a ball joint replacement for a case of beer in Denver. Noticed after 2400km that i was eating my left front tire like butter, and last minute he just pulled through and offered up his shop and some company. Thank you!:
Here's a couple trip photos too - Colorado turned out incredible, and has some of the most gorgeous landscapes I've ever seen:
Great Sand Dunes National Park, SoCo
Token photo of the first oil change - Moab, Utah - School parking lot...I got yelled at
Skipping ahead past about a month of hiking through Utah and most of Arizona, here's one somewhere along Historic 66
Same place - this was some sort of bizarre gas station/monument to Americana - super cool, and plus they had a mint (and running, according to the clerk) 2nd gen corvette from the 50s! I also started placing stickers on the rear right window from places I especially liked or had an incredible experience in.
I slept on the ground in Big Sur - caught the meteor shower too
After making my way through Vegas and up the California coast, I cut into the Sierras towards Tahoe, Mono and Yosemite. Damn, are there some incredible roads here - and EMPTY ;D
Some BLM camping high in the mountains on route to Mono Lake. I also stopped by the ghost town of Bodie, which was both incredibly cool to explore and destructive on my car thanks to the pitted gravel track for 16km
Bodie
The Redwoods, followed by camping through some pretty gnarly forest-firey areas up the north of California into Oregon
Just a couple neat shots along the Oregon coast - Oregon blew me away - I was expecting incredible things and it went above and beyond. I need to get back to see the interior and maybe even Idaho
Tunnel Falls, OR
I kept heading north through Washington, then back through canada (interior BC, alberta, then through the prairies) over a few weeks. The road out of Maligne Lake, Alberta - absolutely stunning:
Finally, northern Ontario is entirely comprised of bugs. This was the front of my car after every day. I gave up after a while:
Bugs by Illiterate Graduate, on FlickrAnd there you have it - I'm flabbergasted. I guess the hard work paid off!
Next steps? Fix my damn hilbilly exhaust, rebuild the driveshaft, and finally maybe touch on some cosmetics!
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