Folks, read the following keeping in mind that I'm OLD - teenage kids, married forever, my back hurts, weekends spent driving to soccer practice etc. Also an E30 noob.
After doing the brakes, TB, water pump, fuel pump & some other stuff on my '89 cabrio, it became obvious that it would be a lot cheaper and easier to buy a cabrio modded like I wanted rather than mod what I already had.
So I flew in to Sacramento Friday and picked up a '92 cabrio with an S50, 5-lug, body kit (I know absolutely nothing about it - PO says it's an MTech but I'm sure the guys here will let me know yay or nay), spankin' new canvas top (edit: AND WORKING AIR CONDITIONING) for $7K:
My brother took the train up from Fresno and I picked him up. We drove down through the Mark Twain gold rush country along state highway 49 through a lot of twisties and I stayed at his house.
This morning, I drove through the Sierra foothills (more twisties) down into Visalia, where I noticed a nasty bubble on the sidewall of a rear tire. Since I-15 back to Las Vegas is a graveyard of vehicles and shredded/exploded tires, I wasn't about to limp it home.
Late Saturday afternoon, the Visalia WalMart tire guy informed me that:
1. WalMart doesn't carry any tires lower profile than 50.
2. They don't install non-stock sizes for the car.
3. They don't do tires on BMW's.
So 3 strikes & I'm out.
Luckily, I spotted a Mad Rimzzzz shop for gang bangers rollin' on 28's and they hooked me up with some nice Kumhos in the 225-45-17 that the car came with. The guys at the shop all liked the cabrio. I shmoozed up the manager and he didn't charge me anything for mount & balance - hey, every little bit helps.
About 10 minutes out of the tire shop, I'm testing out the new shoes on a cloverleaf. I'm at 90% of maximum adhesion and there's a BANG from the trunk then the car gets really unstable approaching the apex. From reading the forum, I'm guessing that's a blown rear shock mount, right? The whole rear end was floating around the rest of the drive home.
After roughly 800 miles in 2 days, I really like the car, and I'm satisfied with the price/quality. It has a few rough edges:
-The suspension needs to come up at least an inch.
-Needs rear toe & camber tabs.
-The air filter was torn, so it's been sucking dirt into the engine for who knows how long. I fixed this for $25 at the first Kragen I came across. Unbelievable the PO spent all that time and money on the swap and left the air filter half torn off.
-Clutch rattles like hell, at idle and at speed. Supposedly a new clutch per the PO, so what's that? My brother, who's a vintage musclecar guy, says it sounds like the throw-out bearing.
-No fan shroud. However it didn't overheat at 107F outside with the A/C on, so not a panic.
-Rear shock mounts F'ed up. Haven't looked yet.
-Idiotic huge speaker in the trunk using up all the suitcase space.
-No spare tire.
-Smoked tail lights. I hope I can trade one of you 19-year-old punks for a set of stock ones.
-Missing headlight. BIIIIIIG performance boost from the cold air, no doubt.
-Nasty sound on launch that I presume is the short shifter rubbing on the driveshaft damper. (Edit: More likely the rear tires when the suspension squats on launch - 225-45-17 is NOT "mystikal approved" in the official tire fitment thread; too tall.)
-3.25 diff not tall enough for me. I want the sucker to IDLE on the freeway. I have a 2.93LSD I'll try out to see how it works.
-Nasty road rash on the ugly wheels. I'll probably just try to sand/polish out the worst of it. (Edit: I don't hate the wheels as much now and they fit well, so they will probably stay for a while.)
-The console gets hotter than hell when the top's down. I think the PO deleted the seal around the shifter that separates the cabin from the down unders. Also the carpet is torn up in that area, so there may be some missing heat shielding. With the top up, no heat at all. I think it has to do with the positive or negative pressure in the cabin compared with pressure under the floorpan.
Now I'm going to need to spend the next year reading all the old threads in the 24V swap and 5-lug forums to try to figure out just what I bought and how to keep it running. There's no way I would have bought such a car if this forum wasn't here to explain it all.
PS I had a very nice long talk with an 80+ year old lady in a parking lot. She struck up a conversation because she liked the rumbly idle. So maybe that's the E30 chick magnet effect I keep hearing about...
PSS Mrs. Funcrew was busting my balls about having two E30 cabrios now. I told her that just 2 doesn't even get any respect from the guys on the forum, they still consider that amateur status!
After doing the brakes, TB, water pump, fuel pump & some other stuff on my '89 cabrio, it became obvious that it would be a lot cheaper and easier to buy a cabrio modded like I wanted rather than mod what I already had.
So I flew in to Sacramento Friday and picked up a '92 cabrio with an S50, 5-lug, body kit (I know absolutely nothing about it - PO says it's an MTech but I'm sure the guys here will let me know yay or nay), spankin' new canvas top (edit: AND WORKING AIR CONDITIONING) for $7K:
My brother took the train up from Fresno and I picked him up. We drove down through the Mark Twain gold rush country along state highway 49 through a lot of twisties and I stayed at his house.
This morning, I drove through the Sierra foothills (more twisties) down into Visalia, where I noticed a nasty bubble on the sidewall of a rear tire. Since I-15 back to Las Vegas is a graveyard of vehicles and shredded/exploded tires, I wasn't about to limp it home.
Late Saturday afternoon, the Visalia WalMart tire guy informed me that:
1. WalMart doesn't carry any tires lower profile than 50.
2. They don't install non-stock sizes for the car.
3. They don't do tires on BMW's.
So 3 strikes & I'm out.
Luckily, I spotted a Mad Rimzzzz shop for gang bangers rollin' on 28's and they hooked me up with some nice Kumhos in the 225-45-17 that the car came with. The guys at the shop all liked the cabrio. I shmoozed up the manager and he didn't charge me anything for mount & balance - hey, every little bit helps.
About 10 minutes out of the tire shop, I'm testing out the new shoes on a cloverleaf. I'm at 90% of maximum adhesion and there's a BANG from the trunk then the car gets really unstable approaching the apex. From reading the forum, I'm guessing that's a blown rear shock mount, right? The whole rear end was floating around the rest of the drive home.
After roughly 800 miles in 2 days, I really like the car, and I'm satisfied with the price/quality. It has a few rough edges:
-The suspension needs to come up at least an inch.
-Needs rear toe & camber tabs.
-The air filter was torn, so it's been sucking dirt into the engine for who knows how long. I fixed this for $25 at the first Kragen I came across. Unbelievable the PO spent all that time and money on the swap and left the air filter half torn off.
-Clutch rattles like hell, at idle and at speed. Supposedly a new clutch per the PO, so what's that? My brother, who's a vintage musclecar guy, says it sounds like the throw-out bearing.
-No fan shroud. However it didn't overheat at 107F outside with the A/C on, so not a panic.
-Rear shock mounts F'ed up. Haven't looked yet.
-Idiotic huge speaker in the trunk using up all the suitcase space.
-No spare tire.
-Smoked tail lights. I hope I can trade one of you 19-year-old punks for a set of stock ones.
-Missing headlight. BIIIIIIG performance boost from the cold air, no doubt.
-Nasty sound on launch that I presume is the short shifter rubbing on the driveshaft damper. (Edit: More likely the rear tires when the suspension squats on launch - 225-45-17 is NOT "mystikal approved" in the official tire fitment thread; too tall.)
-3.25 diff not tall enough for me. I want the sucker to IDLE on the freeway. I have a 2.93LSD I'll try out to see how it works.
-Nasty road rash on the ugly wheels. I'll probably just try to sand/polish out the worst of it. (Edit: I don't hate the wheels as much now and they fit well, so they will probably stay for a while.)
-The console gets hotter than hell when the top's down. I think the PO deleted the seal around the shifter that separates the cabin from the down unders. Also the carpet is torn up in that area, so there may be some missing heat shielding. With the top up, no heat at all. I think it has to do with the positive or negative pressure in the cabin compared with pressure under the floorpan.
Now I'm going to need to spend the next year reading all the old threads in the 24V swap and 5-lug forums to try to figure out just what I bought and how to keep it running. There's no way I would have bought such a car if this forum wasn't here to explain it all.
PS I had a very nice long talk with an 80+ year old lady in a parking lot. She struck up a conversation because she liked the rumbly idle. So maybe that's the E30 chick magnet effect I keep hearing about...
PSS Mrs. Funcrew was busting my balls about having two E30 cabrios now. I told her that just 2 doesn't even get any respect from the guys on the forum, they still consider that amateur status!
ok your right.
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