Diamantschwarz Forever: An E30 Love Story. Re-shell & Restomod

[freeride53]

Beautiful steering wheel! I am jealous.

Also, this explains why Jordan @ Stitched never replied to my recent emails.

LOL and thank you. I think there’s someone back east doing a similar service now, and I might check him out to do my e-brake handle.

Oh man, Jerry gotta be sick of fixing cooling issues in our M42s by now

I’m equally as bummed that I didn’t get to see your 318 before moving. It looks so good! I’ll be at Bimmerfest in 2020, so we’ll have to meet up while I’m on the west coast.

Hahaha yeah I think a lot of buddies are sick of the M42 by now

And sounds good! Let’s see if I can’t beat you to that and drag my ass to VT before that :D

[2mAn]

... Persian salesman was an added plus as my dad went full Persian haggler on him...

Watched my Dad do this when he bought his E92 Convertible a few years back. Its quite the show, especially when he haggled & haggled and then pulled out $$$$$ in cash that I didnt even know he had on him :rofl:

[freeride53]

Haven't posted here in a little while so here are some updates. Did a lot of maintenance back in May.

Started with my cruddy old fuel filter and old lines:



Replaced and on car (not pictured, replaced line on other end)



Also not pictured: new OEM MAF boot and air filter from FCP (both free lifetime replacements, woo!)

Replaced the old rubber exhaust hangers (only front one pictured)



Installed Garagistic 80A Poly front CABs



Julien took a funny photo of my aggression on the CABs.



A little spring cleaning...



Dirt/grime cleaned out, corrosion sanded off, neutralized and piece repainted



She's been serving as my weekend bike mobile all spring.



Installed Garagistic adjustable clutch stop (old stop & keys pictured for scale)



And on its own



Garagistic fire extinguisher bracket installed with Kidde extinguisher. Safety first :-)



Got some lower profile hardware and Velcro straps from the local hardware store. Zero rattles.



Nice and snuggle



And then Julien driving my car down the twisties in the Berkeley & Oakland hills as I chased in his Abarth 500



Replaced an old cooked o2 sensor with fresh Bosch unit from FCP.



Needed to get rid of the horrible understeer I had since installing my front 25mm IE adjustable front sway bar (with e30 m3 end links). To counter, got a 19mm IE adjustable rear sway bar. Twas' a long day and Julien lend a friendly hand.



Billet mounts installed



And through the trunk floor



Also, managed to get my driver side rear window to work after ~5 years of being non-op. PO mentioned it hadn't been working for 2 years or so and I bought the car 3 years ago. The regulator was getting power and faintly clicking. Banged the regulator a few times and must have freed up one of the cogs because it works beautifully now.



Then went to the exhaust shop yesterday to get my Stromung catback installed. Upon dropping the old exhaust, had a look at my destroyed original cat. Yuck. Can't help but think it's plugging and restricting things up. Still need to get a new one, hopefully next week.



Cat-back installed with standard 3.5" straight exit tip. Wasn't really a fan.



Scott at Stromung luckily gave me a spare slanted OE-style 3" polished tip. So I had the awesome guys at Scott's muffler in Dublin whip together a custom angled/slanted exit.



Here's a terrible pic - but they also kindly welded on the gussets that IE gave me to reinforce my rear trailing arm sway bar tabs. Painted it black right after. Will get a better pic later.



Really happy with the final look of the exhaust tip.



From underneath



And up close.



Big thanks again to Mike on here for organizing the group-buy and Scott at Stromung for accommodating my special request.

[mike.bmw]

You've been busy! Nice work.

Big thanks again to Mike on here for organizing the group-buy and Scott at Stromung for accommodating my special request.

No problem! Sorry to hear it took so long to get the exhaust. Your custom tip looks great. Hope you like the sound and tone!

[freeride53]

You've been busy! Nice work.

No problem! Sorry to hear it took so long to get the exhaust. Your custom tip looks great. Hope you like the sound and tone!

It's amazing how much it's actually quieted down my car. I'm having the sister-shop of the guys who did my install yesterday get on my new cat in a couple of hours. Will report back - but I strongly suspect it will open up the exhaust a bit more (given it's so plugged up right now in the cat).

[jpod999]

Glad you were treated well at Minute Muffler!

[mike.bmw]

It's amazing how much it's actually quieted down my car. I'm having the sister-shop of the guys who did my install yesterday get on my new cat in a couple of hours. Will report back - but I strongly suspect it will open up the exhaust a bit more (given it's so plugged up right now in the cat).

Did you end up getting a universal weld-in replacement or a stock replacement? Curious how the sound changes. Based on how my cat section looked when I installed my Stromung, I'll need to replace it sooner than later.

[freeride53]

Did you end up getting a universal weld-in replacement or a stock replacement? Curious how the sound changes. Based on how my cat section looked when I installed my Stromung, I'll need to replace it sooner than later.

I opted for a universal CA compliant cat (OE is super NLA). It looks pretty similar. Had it installed on Wednesday, and have driven it ~350 miles up from SF into Yosemite and the Eastern Sierras (10,000 feet elevation), to where I am now. Car sounds different than it did on day 1 (Strömung installed with old busted cat).

Car’s been running smooth and hasn’t given my any trouble. Since you’re outside of CA, I’d look into some performance cat’s since you don’t have to deal with emissions.

[freeride53]

Had a new universal (same shape/size) cat installed on Wednesday. Then took the E30 on a little road-trip last Thursday the Fourth from the Bay Area up to the Sierras. Hit up Yosemite Valley on my way to bachelor party in Mammoth Lakes. Car ran phenomenally (for a little 1.8L M42) under load at high altitude (~10,000 feet).



Encountering some white stuff on the Fourth of July



Getting waves from every German tourist in sight



Tioga Pass, Tenaya Lake.



Stopping at the Pass.



And a reminder that I need to get this thing painted already.

[benwalsh91]

just read this from start to finish!!

crazy story and impressed with all the work.

making me miss America so bad with all your roadtrips.

[mike.bmw]

Hi. What's new?

[D.Martijn]

Put my personal M-Tech 2 Wheel on, with an added spacer mod to bring it closer to me

Hey man,

I've went through you build thread again and noticed this.
Could you elaborate a bit more on this mod? I swapped an Mtech 2 in my Touring for a while now, but would like some more knee/hand room.

Thanks!

[freeride53]

Hey guys and gals - been a little while :) Life and work got a little busy over the last 9 months, but finding the time to catch up on different things in light of recent events... My quarantine thus far has literally only been WFH around the clock, getting my cycling miles in on Strava, and catching up on my favorite car sites (that's you guys right here)! So here's a semi-chronological update.

Shortly after my last post here (last summer), I started getting back to work on my Peugeot. First took it to the local RadWood NorCal / Bay Area show with our very own Julien ...



Where I also saw some cool other E30's (mine was at home).



And this Diamantschwarz Touring - that was actually imported by my old friend/neighbor from when I lived in San Diego, Konstantin.



Then we took the Peugeot to Monterey car week. Well actually only Saturday - for Concours de Lemons and Rolex Historics. Was epic.



Here we are at Laguna Seca.



Then, a month later went on a trip to Europe (Holland, Germany, Belgium, and France) with my family. But not without issue. A week before my departure, my 4Runner was broken into, and my briefcase along with my passport were stolen. Went to the local US passport office in San Francisco on a SATURDAY and they mailed me a new passport by Monday. God bless America. Anyhow, onto the E30's spotted. First, here's one in the German town of Krefeld (where my relatives live, and where my original E30 used to live).



Another one spotted in downtown Dusseldorf, by the Konigsallee



Relaxing by the Rhine. This was also right about when my man bun started coming in. :)




Another E30 in Krefeld..




And WOOT! Enthusiast owned 318is (M42) on the autobahn leaving Krefeld...





Yet ANOTHER clean E30 in Krefeld....



Back in Holland... a nice early model...



Another in one Amsterdam...



Also in Amsterdam, an immaculate Calypso Vert with MT1 rear wing, MT2 steering wheel. Context: it was right outside of the office building of a very nice man who paid EUR 50 for me to get out of a local parking garage when they wouldn't accept my Visa credit card. I went and found him his cash, and returned it to him. This belonged to one of his employees.





Moments later, I saw this gorgeous mint Peugeot 404. As well as mint Volvo 245 ...




I spotted about a million cool old Volvo 240's so I'll just post another one that I spotted in Koln / Cologne.



And the holy grail of classic Peugeots... a 504 Cabriolet in our Amsterdam hotel parking garage.



Got back to the states.... and flew down to LA. Picked up my E30 from a buddy who had installed my Purple Tag E46 steering rack, poly rear subrame bushings and rear trailing arm bushings while I was back in SF.

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So I drove it back to SF, after a quick pit-stop at the Socal Vintage BMW 2019 meet. Steering rack is awesome. But I recently bought brand new OEM rubber rear subframe bushings and trailing arm bushings which will be going back onto the car, as the poly bushings squeak and creak like there's no tomorrow.





Fast forward a few months to Thanksgiving 2019. Did my first real track day.. in the pouring (at some times) rain ... but at Laguna Seca.



Met another first timer at the track - with his E30 M3.



Had some fun.



Pictured to my right is my late neighbor, who lost his long battle with cancer over the holidays. Will cherish the memory of doing this track day with him. Fuck cancer.




A month or so later, I met up with Nate (Wh33lhop). Picked up his old 10" luke box. Here it is after I had it re-carpeted and installed my own sub.




And installed in the trunk. BOY was it a tight fit. Barely fit over the bolts for my IE 22mm rear sway bar (which I also installed at some point since the last post... )



Then going to fast forward a few more months to RIGHT before the COVID outbreak and the Governor's stay at home order. Me and a buddy did a quick 2,700 mile 5-day mountain biking road trip to Phoenix, Tucson, and Sedona, Arizona.



Was beautiful to say the least...




So very glad we took the E30 and not the 4Runner.



And that brings us to the current quarantine... Right before the local DMV closed its doors, got the Volvo 240 running and registered in my nmae. Background: this was the very first car I ever rode in (my parents brought me home from the hospital as newborn in it).



Showed it some love recently with some new 17" wheels, and Conti DWS extreme contact rubber, among other little things...



Then Julien and I decided to go on a little social distancing date.



Our manual Volvo wagons in all their glory



Hiding out in the Berkeley hills...



And there you have it. Plans are to move into a new apartment soon during/after when the pandemic hopefully chills out. Will be likely taking the Volvo with me to street park and leaving the E30 at home to tinker with.

[benwalsh91]

most of the photos in the recent post hasn't worked :(

[freeride53]

most of the photos in the recent post hasn't worked :(

Just went through and hopefully fixed ... let me know if you're seeing em' now.