My M30-Swapped Alpine Coupe

[iso_hi]

Really liking the new car! i too have been looking more and more into doing an m30 swap into your old car.

also, your old car drove 14k miles by the end of my trip over the 90 days!! who would have thought it would have survived so i like to think i have proved there is no reason not to take your e30 on any long distance drive. heck, may aswell get rid of that focus now!!

the e30 is getting shipped to me in London in the next couple of weeks!!

also... i have a spare set of euro smileys and some euro grills here if your interested ;D



the thermostat was upside down on your old one too.

Damn man sorry about the thermostat. I feel so dumb haha. I swear the headlight wiring wasn't me though.

I definitely kept up with your thread. Incredible journey. I can't believe the little 325e made it! And now its off to London. I love that I can keep up with my previous rides on here. You should go with the M30 swap for sure it's so much fun. Worth the shit mileage.


And my selector rod broke this morning. The car wouldn't get into reverse then all off a sudden the shifter got incredibly loose. I popped of the boot and you could see the rod dangling off the clip. After work I put the car on stands, removed the rod, got it welded it, and reinstalled in about an hour. Not too bad for my first time touching the shifter assembly.

[jeenyus]

I know that feeling... Glad you liked Cochella. I just got back from Desert Hearts, it was next level.

[benwalsh91]

Really liking the new car! i too have been looking more and more into doing an m30 swap into your old car.

also, your old car drove 14k miles by the end of my trip over the 90 days!! who would have thought it would have survived so i like to think i have proved there is no reason not to take your e30 on any long distance drive. heck, may aswell get rid of that focus now!!

the e30 is getting shipped to me in London in the next couple of weeks!!

also... i have a spare set of euro smileys and some euro grills here if your interested ;D

So my dumbass installed the thermostat backwards. I'm still going to install the new 71c and drill a small hole at the top.

the thermostat was upside down on your old one too.

[iso_hi]

I haven't done anything new to the car. I've been driving it almost every day aside from when I went to Coachella last weekend. I took the Focus because I didn't want to risk breaking down. Coachella was amazing I got to hang out with friends I don't see often, Kid Cudi killed it, and I met a cool girl.

We decided to hang out this past weekend. I had to make the drive from Santa Rosa to Stockton. It's 100 miles so naturally I'd take the Focus. But the battery died somehow and doesn't hold a charge. I didn't have time to deal with it so I said fuck it and took the E30 on it's first long drive since I did the head gasket.



I need to redo the lip it falls off at least once a week.

I left work Friday at 5pm and Maps gave me a 2h30m estimate. With one solid traffic delay of 30 minutes. Nervous is a bit of an understatement. My motivation was Jeremy Clarkson who said donuts impress girls and the Focus can't do donuts.

The E30 performed beautifully the entire way there and back. I was so happy. In the traffic delay I flipped the fan on and the gauge was right at the half. Plus the car has so much torque that it's impossible to stall in traffic. I'm definitely swapping the diff but overall it wasn't as bad as I thought. It's loud for sure but there's also always power when I put my foot down. Mileage was in between 12-15mpg. 6/10 would do again with the 4.10.

She said my car was cute. Here's a pic of her taking a pic with her polaroid.



For the car, I'm working on getting the fender trim and possibly euro trim and grills to get rid of the gloss black. And I need to send my cluster to E30_dad because I'm tired of the tach not working.

[iso_hi]

The E30 has been great so far. I put the Focus away last weekend and have been driving the E30 ever since. The temp gauge stays pretty much in the middle through all driving conditions and there are zero leaks in the engine bay. A few major issues I'll need to take care of; tachometer doesn't work, headlights suck, and new diff/LSD.

For the tachometer I'll be sending my cluster to e30_dad at the end of April. It'll get fully refurbished. The only customization I asked for was a yellow tach needle. Maybe shift lights in place of the service interval lights. We'll see.

Not sure what to do for headlights. I'm thinking depo lights off eBay? Or any good deal I can find on here.

And for the diff I'm going to go with a 3.25/3.46. I let a couple slip away recently because I didn't want to pay $400-500.

Today I realized I should have shelled out the cash for the diff. I woke up at 6am and drove to the Cars and Coffee meet in Novato, about 25 miles from my house. I drove pretty slow on the freeway and I was still at like 3k rpm. Good thing I was cruising at 65mph because there was three cop cars with radars on the way there. Last time I showed up at 7:30 and had to park in a different lot. There was only one other E30 so that's kinda lame but there was a good variety which I like about this meet. My favorite car was a C6 ZR1. I took a few pics.







And a lil bit ago I decided to clean up the trunk since I've been stashing boxes from parts orders there. I consolidated everything I could possibly use into one one box. I have a ton of oil to recycle so theres some of that in here also.



I took this time to install a new chassis ground from Bav. Rest. since the og looked like shit. I was missing the noise suppression strap on the hood so added that as well.



And finally a shot of the engine bay. I got proper hoses for the upper radiator to thermostat housing and expansion tank to thermostat housing. I have to clean up some of the coolant that spilled from the bleeding process and organize the harness a bit better. It's not a show car but I'd like it to look as clean as it can potentially be without spending crazy cash.

[iso_hi]

I got the 80c thermostat in. I've pushed it pretty hard, up to 100mph, and the needle stays a little under the half line with the fan off so I'm happy with that. At a stop I turned the fan on and it wouldn't go any higher than half. Finally.

Moving on from that I removed the yellow headlight film that was starting to come off. I've also been in contact with e30_dad about some cluster work. I'll probably send it off to him in late April.





Bonus with my bro's GF M3

[iso_hi]

Econti, and everyone else probably, was right. Just drove my typical work route, about 10 miles round trip, and the gauge stayed at 1/4 the whole time. I stopped at a drive through and it got up to half.

The car is currently cooling down and I'll be swapping the 80c thermostat back in.

[iso_hi]

Bring the fan on earlier. Should be set a tiny bit higher than the thermostat open temp. If you drive in cold weather it will have no chance to get to temp, and that's bad news

Car doesn't get driven in cold weather. It doesn't have a heater so I don't even try.

And yeah MPGs are not even an issue with this car. It's all for fun.

[george graves]

About the only thing I didn't like about M30 swap was it's crappy MPG and how long the engine is in the engine bay

I can attest to crappy MPG's - and to having to pull the radiator to swap the cap/rotor out. But you still have access to the plugs at least. An m30 isn't about mpg's though. No one puts a m30 into a e30 and thinks "oh nice, I'll get awesome gas mileage!" :)

[econti]

Should have said, in conjunction with a warmer Tstat

[econti]

Bring the fan on earlier. Should be set a tiny bit higher than the thermostat open temp. If you drive in cold weather it will have no chance to get to temp, and that's bad news

[iso_hi]

Ok this is the last thermostat-related update.

I drilled a tiny hole into the new 71c thermostat and installed it properly this time. I can't believe I put it in backwards before.



I borrowed an infrared thermometer from work to get actual data rather than rely on my maybe broken gauge.

These first readings were taken 10 minutes into the engine idling. It's about the moment when the thermostat opens. The in-car gauge was at about 1/4 or so.






And these are at minute 15, in-car gauge was at half. The 16" Spal fan has been off the entire time.







I'd imagine it would be a little warmer when I actually drive it. Overall still a lot better than before. It would have been at the 3/4 line or past by now.


And back to fun stuff.



I bought a fender roller for $80 rather than pay someone $40. My front tires rub when I'm turning on an incline so I had to roll a small area of the fender. The drivers side was already a bit messed up. If anyone in the North Bay wants to borrow it for cheap let me know.

[iso_hi]

I already torqued down the 71c tstat. You guys are probably right about it being too cool. The stock was 80c. I'm going to try it out for a day at least since it's in there. Besides I'm pretty much a pro at draining the coolant without spilling by now.

[econti]

71 will be far too cold, you'll probably find it runs like shit and will fill the intake with carbon.

[rzerob]

I think 71 is too cool. Your stock engine calls for an 89 so why not stick with an 80. Throw it in a boiling pot of water and make sure it opens up and reinstall it.

The temperature of the thermostat doesn't need changed because you are not using a heater. Think about it, the thermostat opens at that specific temperature regardless if there is a heater. A heater is just another part of the cooling system eliminating it has no affect on the operation of the thermostat.

Good luck regardless of your decision.