BMW E30 318i "Clubsport" [M52B28]

[MauR]

Hello!

Welcome to my thread, where I will show all the progress of my E30 to turn it into a mix between street and track car, with a look as close as possible to a Clubsport.

First and before I start, my native language is Spanish, from Spain. So I apologize in advance if at some point you can't understand what I try to express, because sometimes I have to use the translator with words or expressions that I don't know.





It all starts in the spring of 2021, after going through a period of medical problems, in which I was forced to sell my BMW E36 for circuit.




Some time later, some friends and I organized a trip to Zandvoort (Nederland). At that time I had a completely stock BMW E82 125i.

I had a great weekend, which I spent a lot of time helping a friend to tune his E30 325i.




After that day I decided to sell the E82 and buy, once again, a BMW, the protagonist of the thread.

I had sold the BMW E82, curiously to a dealer from Galicia (Spain), who had contacted me via Mobile.de, since I was living in Germany (my car was German) and I needed a car to move around. Luckily, from my home to my work/supermarket was not more than 50-100 meters away and I was not too urgent.

I had clear what I was looking for: BMW E30 2 doors as cheap as possible without falling apart. I did not have the opportunity to look for many, because thanks to a friend I found the protagonist of the thread, a BMW E30 318i coupe in Zinnoberrot (Red) of a guy from Madrid (Spain).

I could not drive to Spain at that time, as it was a busy time and the only vacation days I had were already booked to celebrate a friend's birthday in Marbella (Spain) for a weekend. So I asked this same friend and another friend from Bonn (Germany), who was also in Madrid, to pick up the car for me.

On the Saturday of the birthday I got on the plane to Magala (Spain). After two hours we landed and I was ready to call the above mentioned friends to pick me up and go to Marbella for boats and beach. And there was the E30 that they had shown me in photos, wanting to put hand and love in equal parts.

I was speechless when I saw it, the only thing I could say was: Will you let me drive it?






To be continued...

[MauR]

After the weekend I had to go back, obviously by plane, as I didn't have enough time to organize the trip and go up from Marbella to the Nürburgring (at that time I lived 10 minutes away from the circuit). Four weeks later I was able to get organized and go down to Valencia to get it (a friend drove it to Valencia).

The same friend of the birthday also went down to Valencia from Switzerland to go up with me. The trip was simple: Valencia > Basel > Nürburgring. The trip went perfectly until Basel, and continued in the same way until just before I had 70 km to go to get home. And it happened what I had not imagined, I began to hear a very strong rattle in the lower engine area, even getting to notice it on the soles of the feet. I was already fearing the worst, I just wondered if it would last until home or not... but it did not. 53km from home my engine made a weight reduction of the connecting rod and piston number 2.






At that moment I feel broken. I didn't want to do things so fast, I didn't want to have to go against the clock to do what I had planned to do.

Thanks to a work friend, we were able to get the car home with a chain.


To be continued...

[MauR]

Once the engine was broken, I had to speed up the whole process I had planned to do. The first problem: I wanted to do things WELL DONE. Here in Europe I had seen several "adaptation" jobs done very badly. I didn't want to use the M5 engine mounts (for my taste they leave the engine misaligned). I didn't want to use spacers so that the motor doesn't hit the master cilinder brake, and other "adaptations".

Two days later I started to buy everything: engine, gearbox, seals, gaskets, clutch kit, bearings, etc..

Once everything was ordered at home, the friend from Bonn and the Swiss friend organized to go to a private parking to change the engine. A friend also decided to fix his old abandoned E30.

We all took a week of vacation to finish the cars. The plan was: joint help for big things (getting the engine in and out) and then, as we needed help from each other, the third friend would give us a hand.

Let's get started!

I hired a tow truck to take my car to the parking lot and once there I started this little story.








We had the bright idea to record the engine extraction from my friend's car.









To be continued...

[Panici]

Off to a big start!
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