Euro 316i and unknown BMW history!

[mike.bmw]

What an amazing transformation! Also very cool that you had a R3V E30 meetup while members were in town.

[ElRico_e30]

twins

Hi Pipeuy,
I've been lurking r3v for some time, reading your thread inspired me to join and post. I also have a (mighty) M40B16-powered 316i coupe down here in NZ. Mine's more 'poverty spec', being a slick-top with wind-up windows, no aircon, and steelies/hubcaps. 1989 build, sold new in my city in 1990.

While the M40B16 is never going to do well in the traffic light grand prix, they're certainly a hoot to drive.

I'll be watching your thread with interest. I'll get to putting one up of my own, soon.

Regards from down under.

[Jean]

Very cool and clean example man! Nice job!

[pipeuy]

I like it a lot!


Drive Tastefully!

Thanks!

What an amazing transformation! Also very cool that you had a R3V E30 meetup while members were in town.

Thanks! It was really cool to meet Simon and Mike36, we had a great time.

Hi Pipeuy,
I've been lurking r3v for some time, reading your thread inspired me to join and post. I also have a (mighty) M40B16-powered 316i coupe down here in NZ. Mine's more 'poverty spec', being a slick-top with wind-up windows, no aircon, and steelies/hubcaps. 1989 build, sold new in my city in 1990.

While the M40B16 is never going to do well in the traffic light grand prix, they're certainly a hoot to drive.

I'll be watching your thread with interest. I'll get to putting one up of my own, soon.

Regards from down under.

Nice! I actually like those "poverty spec" cars, to be honest I'd love mine to be a slick-top car.

I do agree the M40B16 is really slow but it's also very fun to drive, you know driving a slow car fast is much more interesting that driving a fast car slow.

I'll be waiting for your thread!

Very cool and clean example man! Nice job!

Thanks!

[pipeuy]

Finally some updates!

Managed to buy an euro cluster but it didn't work as expected so I actually took parts from 3 different clusters to build a good one. I can now see the mighty M40's revs! ;D










This arrived a couple of days ago, purple tag E46 rack with E36 outer tie rods. Now I have most of the parts to retrofit power steering and to refresh the front end, the parts I still need should arrive in a couple of weeks.

And some random pics my girlfriend took testing her new camera.





Should I lower it more?

[2mAn]

I think it sits perfectly, I am hoping to get some more Euro parts soon too

[mike.bmw]

The ride height is spot on!

[pipeuy]

I think it sits perfectly, I am hoping to get some more Euro parts soon too

You do! Bumpers and that M tech 1 kit 8-)

The ride height is spot on!

I think I'll keep the ride height just as is.


Some small and probably useless stuff happened.







New OEM hardware for the turn signal lenses.



Clips were missing for the trim piece in the trunk behind the seats so ordered some. It doesn't look too good but it's the original one and barely ever gets seen.





Mounting clip for the wheel nuts wrench was missing so one was ordered.







And finally, really small touch but ordered the OEM hardware for the license plate and the little caps for the screws.

Hopefully this weekend I'll get to install the E46 rack and retrofit the power steering components.

[Albie325]

That's awesome that Rack Doctor ships overseas, nice choice with the rack upgrade. You'll love it, makes the car handling so much more responsive. Car is looking great too, super clean. Keep it coming!

[pipeuy]

That's awesome that Rack Doctor ships overseas, nice choice with the rack upgrade. You'll love it, makes the car handling so much more responsive. Car is looking great too, super clean. Keep it coming!

I actually had it sent to Miami and then used a local company to have it shipped to Uruguay. Yeah I actually had one on my last E30 so I knew it was a must.
Thank you very much, getting the whole car ready before tackling the engine swap.

[pipeuy]

Progress has been slow on this part of the build but finally installed the purple tag rack and retrofitted the power steering stuff. Everything is new except the power steering pump since it will be changed once the swap is done.

New control arms, bushings, tie rods and sway bar end links along with the KW coilovers completely changed how the car handles and makes me want to upgrade the engine even more. I didn't do new sway bar bushings since I'll be upgrading to convertible ones.

Finally, the Turner alignment tool was a really nice buy and made having the car aligned a breeze.









Future plans include doing the same to the rear end of the car (converting the rear brakes to discs too) and probably getting 280mm massive bbk.

[pipeuy]

So last weekend some friends and I got to meet some really cool photographers and here are the pictures.

[2mAn]

amazing pics, car looks fantastic Felipe!

[ElRico_e30]

pipeuy how's your mighty M40B16 coming along? Any changes/updates to report?

[pipeuy]

Wow over 6 years since my last post, a lot has happened so here's a small summary.

While doing my daily sweep of the car selling webpages on July 2019 I found something that caught my eye, an E46 M3. Here in Uruguay there were only 7 E46 M3 at that time so seeing one for sale was a rare sight. I got in contact with the owner and we actually managed to come to an agreement on a price, which luckily for me was a very good price at the moment, and a few weeks later I was the owner of a 2001 E46 M3 in Carbon Black.

Here’s the first picture I got from the car





And here’s with the E30






And after a polish




Unfortunately getting the E46 ment I had to sell the E30 in order to afford the M3. Luckily I met a person who was very interested in getting a 4 cylinder E30 for his son’s 18 birthday. After his mechanic looked over the car and found absolutely no issues, we struck a deal and that was it for the E30… or so I thought.


Fast forward to 2024, the guy who bought the E30 from me told me his son was no longer enjoying having the E30 and he was thinking about selling it, and asked me if I was interested in getting it back. After thinking about it for a few weeks the answer was yes, I wanted to finish the project I originally had planned for the E30.


So here it is again, it’s not as mint as it was over 6 years ago but still it’s in really good shape.




















And also this happened, I managed to find a complete M54B30 out of a totaled car. I will be using the M40 gearbox until it blows up, then I’ll probably import a 6 speed out of a later E46/E39.






Currently I’m in the process of cleaning and replacing stuff on the M54 while I gather all the pieces that I need to swap it in.








That brings us to present day, I’m really glad I managed to get the car again. Probably in the next few months I'll have all the parts I need for the swap and it will happen along with a discs rear end.