I tried to leave it alone

[JasonWilson48]

Need more people doing decade long follow ups. This is rad. Also, your paint and bodywork is nicer than 99% of E30s still on the road. And you track it... Keep ripping it , man

[Il Duce]

Love it! Absolutely love M Systems on e30s.

Agreed. Awesome car!

[Panici]

10 year bump, nice!
Glad to see the E30 still rockin'

[mtech325]

I'll see if I have any other cool pics, but I guess here are my notes/commentary on the car from the last several years:

- S52 (or 24V in general) has made the car fairly easy to live with on a daily basis. The M42 and M20 are fun and have their charm but can't argue with the M/S5x era motors for good balance of power and fuel economy--plus no v-belts or valve adustements.

-5-lug swap is not really worth it performance-wise. Was a project I wanted to do for a long time and it's cool buying misc. cheap wheels, but I had trouble finding performance brake pad options that didn't cost a fortune. Still miss my Ronal LS wheels, and for most driving the 4-lug stuff with good pads works pretty good. If that's not enough, 4-lug BBKs exist. Really my only gripe with the 4-lug is that you have to pop ball joints to pull the strut housing, whereas the 5-lug does have the tie rod plate that separates which is nice and allows for easy install of bump steer spacers for larger wheels. The 5-lug added about 25lbs to the car however if anyone cares.

- The 6-speed I was on the fence about, but was definitely worth the trouble. When I had the 5-speed ZF, 5th gear on the highway was at least 3700RPM with my 3.25 ratio diff. The 6th gear drops it down to 3100 and the car feels noticeably more relaxed, especially since it's a 318 with less sound deadening than a 325. I'd argue a 6 speed even in a stock engine e30 would be quite a bit of fun since you can have the close ratios plus the cruising gear, and nowadays replacement 5-speed parts aren't exactly cheap or as plentiful.

- After all these years, the stock e30 sport seats are quite good. Comfortable enough for normal driving, and bolstered enough for the occasional track day. My e36 stock seats were mehh, and my e46 seats were horribly uncomfortable, I guess the e30 seat recipe works for me. My driver seat however is due for new foam, and need to figure out who sells the covers for the 318is specific stippled vinyl.

I did a handful of track days in NorCal with the car at Sonoma, Laguna, and Thunderhill, and was pleasantly surprised with how it performed. Granted it's not stock, but goes to show that the old e30 can still hang with some modern hardware at the HPDE's. Next on the list is adding A/C back into the car. Fortunately there are off-the-shelf kits these days.

[Panici]

Good notes. Like the point about the seats, I also find them pretty comfortable, although it's on my list to add a little more foam for lumbar support.

Yeah E30's are pretty capable even after all these years. There's a reason why the E30 M3 won so many different types of motorsport back in the day.
And even if the chassis isn't outright faster then more modern designs, the tendency to oversteer certainly makes it more fun! :)