*** Editors Note: This is another COTM that should come as no surprise. Theres build threads and then theres BUILD threads. Eric has admittedly poured way too much into it, but can you blame him when his goal was to "do it right." Eric is young, but very much has the grumpy old man syndrome, so maybe this will put a smile on his face. Congrats Eric!
Factory options:
Full IS kit - spoiler, lip, skirts, map light mirror, 13 button OBC, 3.73 LSD. M3 front seats, arm rest rear seat, mtech2 steering wheel, complete tool kit, euroweave spare, leather e-brake boot and handle, premium audio and Moonroof.
Color:
Avusblau Metallic 276
Interior color:
Gucci Black
Engine modifications:
Refreshed top to bottom, ARP studs, M50 injectors and MarkD chip.
Exhaust:
Stock except for the Strömung cat back.
Transmission:
Low miles G260
Differential:
3.73 LSD
Suspension:
Partial Ground-Control coilovers, full height sport konis, rubber tophats and GC rear shock mounts. Full new rubber bushings throughout the car. M3 offset CABs. Wilwood BBK.
Wheels:
16x7.5 Borbet B’s
Exterior modifications:
I stripped the car down to bare steel. Nothing was left on the car before paint. The fenders, valance, IS lip, IS skirts, all rubber trim and euro trim, euro grills and kidneys are all new from BMW and were painted off the car at the time of restore. The windows are tinted with M3 gray 70% (legal here). The Valance and lip were 3M clear bra’d. The first lip met its end on the freeway. The tail lights are the real smoked color MHWs. I do have a glass moon-roof and slider as well.
Interior modifications:
The car came bare of interior. So everything has been replaced except the carpet, I’m still hunting for a 318is carpet to replace mine with. The M3 front seats were donated by Oliver.R and rebuilt by me and recovered using a Gucci and leather kit I had Kevin Chinn sew for me. The rear seat was acquired from a friend and has the armrest. The headliner is black alcantara and was installed by myself after paint, it’s not perfect but it was so hard to do, I’m not going deal with it. I won the pedals at Archiefest and they are from BMWPedals. The SSK+DSSR is from UUC and I have a ZHP shift knob. For the audio I have the 10” lukebox with a JL 3W3 powered by a 500W Alpine monoblock amp and the 4 speakers inside are the pioneer d class speakers powered by the headunit. The rest of the interior has just been replaced with factory stuff that is in clean working condition.
Story behind the car:
This car was destined for the scrap yard; every lock is broken including the ignition, engine blown, shot tires and worse paint.
But at the low price of $400 she's mine and my wife's future designer ride.
So keep in mind when you hear the plans.
I do these jobs pretty quickly so I hope everyone will enjoy it as much as I will.
**link to build thread here ***
Details:
12/88 (89)325I/A 4 door bronzit.
250K miles. Red ebay coilovers. Gutted interior. Stereo missing. Battery stolen. Gutted trunk not even spare. 2 leather sports seats, mount in the wrong place :/ but in a decent condition (more pics to come)
Goals:
New engine. full body paint engine, door seals, etc. Avus Blue "IS" exterior. Black shadow trim. Pink and black gucci interior (like an mtech2 car in styling). My 16" OZ rims. Luke box. H&R sport w/ billies. All my old stereo components.
What was supposed to be a quick 4 month $5000 fix turned into a two year complete restore costing every penny I made for 2 years. The three of us worked every weekend, every holiday and every day I could spare off of work to get this car done.
New lines, seal, steering wheel and all kinds of fun stuff showed up from BMW every week. Meanwhile my checking account went to 0 24 hours after I got paid.
Here you can see I am no joking about how much time was spent stripping down this hunk of junk.
After media blasting it took a short trip to Oliver’s Maaco for body and paint.
Most of the dents had been addressed, later more were added by me but they are small.
Daniel, Oliver’s cousin painted it with many many layers of PPG paint.
After about a month or two it was ready for the last inspection and trip home
IMG_0190
After the car came home to my dad’s garage we started on the engine
Then I spent about 3 hours Dynamating the inside of the doors and floor of the car. We wanted a quiet ride.
Re-installing the wire harness took about 3 days. There still might be things not connect right. It was very hard to pull 30 feel of harness though that 4 inch hole and then snake it through the car correctly.
After filling up my sister’s old room with all of my car parts I then commandeered my dad’s living room for 3 months with all the random parts that made their way onto the car. There were many hostile words used when I would show up and the stuff wouldn’t leave the main room. But it’s ok, it’s gone now.
At this point I released the info on how much this had cost to my wife. “20k and you still have more to buy?” I was in trouble and the funds were cut while we paid off our max out credit cards. So she sat for nearly 6 months until I sold my mtech2 vert and the funds were there to spend on this car.
The deadline I had set was to have the car running and drive it up to the 2014 E30 Picnic. With just weeks to spare I got the engine, car smogged and it was barely together but done enough to drive the 2000+ mile round trip. With less than 50 miles on the car Stefan and I drove to Washington and with only one small clutch line popping loose there was no issues.
It’s now been two years and while I have changed and added a few things, the car just runs and drives well. No leaks, no oil burn, no problems.
YL7A2557 by Eric Berger, on Flickr
YL7A9519 by Eric Berger, on Flickr
YL7A8686 by Eric Berger, on Flickr
YL7A2319 by Eric Berger, on Flickr
E30 Gucci Interior by Eric Berger, on Flickr
YL7A2357 by Eric Berger, on Flickr
Factory options:
Full IS kit - spoiler, lip, skirts, map light mirror, 13 button OBC, 3.73 LSD. M3 front seats, arm rest rear seat, mtech2 steering wheel, complete tool kit, euroweave spare, leather e-brake boot and handle, premium audio and Moonroof.
Color:
Avusblau Metallic 276
Interior color:
Gucci Black
Engine modifications:
Refreshed top to bottom, ARP studs, M50 injectors and MarkD chip.
Exhaust:
Stock except for the Strömung cat back.
Transmission:
Low miles G260
Differential:
3.73 LSD
Suspension:
Partial Ground-Control coilovers, full height sport konis, rubber tophats and GC rear shock mounts. Full new rubber bushings throughout the car. M3 offset CABs. Wilwood BBK.
Wheels:
16x7.5 Borbet B’s
Exterior modifications:
I stripped the car down to bare steel. Nothing was left on the car before paint. The fenders, valance, IS lip, IS skirts, all rubber trim and euro trim, euro grills and kidneys are all new from BMW and were painted off the car at the time of restore. The windows are tinted with M3 gray 70% (legal here). The Valance and lip were 3M clear bra’d. The first lip met its end on the freeway. The tail lights are the real smoked color MHWs. I do have a glass moon-roof and slider as well.
Interior modifications:
The car came bare of interior. So everything has been replaced except the carpet, I’m still hunting for a 318is carpet to replace mine with. The M3 front seats were donated by Oliver.R and rebuilt by me and recovered using a Gucci and leather kit I had Kevin Chinn sew for me. The rear seat was acquired from a friend and has the armrest. The headliner is black alcantara and was installed by myself after paint, it’s not perfect but it was so hard to do, I’m not going deal with it. I won the pedals at Archiefest and they are from BMWPedals. The SSK+DSSR is from UUC and I have a ZHP shift knob. For the audio I have the 10” lukebox with a JL 3W3 powered by a 500W Alpine monoblock amp and the 4 speakers inside are the pioneer d class speakers powered by the headunit. The rest of the interior has just been replaced with factory stuff that is in clean working condition.
Story behind the car:
This car was destined for the scrap yard; every lock is broken including the ignition, engine blown, shot tires and worse paint.
But at the low price of $400 she's mine and my wife's future designer ride.
So keep in mind when you hear the plans.
I do these jobs pretty quickly so I hope everyone will enjoy it as much as I will.
**link to build thread here ***
Details:
12/88 (89)325I/A 4 door bronzit.
250K miles. Red ebay coilovers. Gutted interior. Stereo missing. Battery stolen. Gutted trunk not even spare. 2 leather sports seats, mount in the wrong place :/ but in a decent condition (more pics to come)
Goals:
New engine. full body paint engine, door seals, etc. Avus Blue "IS" exterior. Black shadow trim. Pink and black gucci interior (like an mtech2 car in styling). My 16" OZ rims. Luke box. H&R sport w/ billies. All my old stereo components.
What was supposed to be a quick 4 month $5000 fix turned into a two year complete restore costing every penny I made for 2 years. The three of us worked every weekend, every holiday and every day I could spare off of work to get this car done.
New lines, seal, steering wheel and all kinds of fun stuff showed up from BMW every week. Meanwhile my checking account went to 0 24 hours after I got paid.
Here you can see I am no joking about how much time was spent stripping down this hunk of junk.
After media blasting it took a short trip to Oliver’s Maaco for body and paint.
Most of the dents had been addressed, later more were added by me but they are small.
Daniel, Oliver’s cousin painted it with many many layers of PPG paint.
After about a month or two it was ready for the last inspection and trip home
IMG_0190
After the car came home to my dad’s garage we started on the engine
Then I spent about 3 hours Dynamating the inside of the doors and floor of the car. We wanted a quiet ride.
Re-installing the wire harness took about 3 days. There still might be things not connect right. It was very hard to pull 30 feel of harness though that 4 inch hole and then snake it through the car correctly.
After filling up my sister’s old room with all of my car parts I then commandeered my dad’s living room for 3 months with all the random parts that made their way onto the car. There were many hostile words used when I would show up and the stuff wouldn’t leave the main room. But it’s ok, it’s gone now.
At this point I released the info on how much this had cost to my wife. “20k and you still have more to buy?” I was in trouble and the funds were cut while we paid off our max out credit cards. So she sat for nearly 6 months until I sold my mtech2 vert and the funds were there to spend on this car.
The deadline I had set was to have the car running and drive it up to the 2014 E30 Picnic. With just weeks to spare I got the engine, car smogged and it was barely together but done enough to drive the 2000+ mile round trip. With less than 50 miles on the car Stefan and I drove to Washington and with only one small clutch line popping loose there was no issues.
It’s now been two years and while I have changed and added a few things, the car just runs and drives well. No leaks, no oil burn, no problems.
YL7A2557 by Eric Berger, on FlickrYL7A9519 by Eric Berger, on FlickrYL7A8686 by Eric Berger, on FlickrYL7A2319 by Eric Berger, on FlickrE30 Gucci Interior by Eric Berger, on FlickrYL7A2357 by Eric Berger, on Flickr
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