Euro 316i and unknown BMW history!

[pipeuy]

At first I thought you got Thor's hammer.


Then I realized what it was....very nice! I really like that pan. Is it stock capacity or larger? It looks very low profile which is good.

Haha I can see the resemblance. It's 9.5 quartz in capacity, so a bit larger than the E34 one and it gains about 1 inch of ground clearance which was the reason I got it. Roads are pretty bad over here and my car is lowered so I wanted as much ground clearance as possible.

[reelizmpro]

At first I thought you got Thor's hammer.


Then I realized what it was....very nice! I really like that pan. Is it stock capacity or larger? It looks very low profile which is good.

[pipeuy]

Finally managed to make some progress.

Received the Harper Fab oil pan




Cool baffles


And proceeded to take the original oil pan off to replace rod bearings and safety wire the oil pump nut



Crankshaft is like new with zero scoring


Rod bearings weren't terrible



Did a pretty terrible job with the safety wire but it should be good enough, this engine won't live at 7k rpm



Then replaced all the exhaust studs with the torx head ones



Test fitted the eBay headers which aren't great, the flanges touch but oh well that will be a problem for the guy who makes the rest of the exhaust



And then installed them with new gaskets and nuts



The reseal is almost done now, I will remove the cams to replace the valve stem seals soon, replace the valve cover and gasket and do the rear main seal once I get the engine off the stand.

[pipeuy]

Man that is an UPDATE!! The E30 with the M54 is going to be a BLAST!

I noticed the E30 doesnt have some r3vlimited stickers... nows the time!

Haha thanks Simon!! You need to send me some r3v stickers... I can't find the ones you gave me a million years ago

[2mAn]

Man that is an UPDATE!! The E30 with the M54 is going to be a BLAST!

I noticed the E30 doesnt have some r3vlimited stickers... nows the time!

[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.

[ElRico_e30]

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

[2mAn]

amazing pics, car looks fantastic Felipe!

[pipeuy]

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

[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]

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.

[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]

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.

[mike.bmw]

The ride height is spot on!

[2mAn]

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