Picked up a set of MiM 1900s from a friend for a good price. Lowered the car to the ground for the first time in 5 months or so and backed it out of the garage. Pretty surreal feeling to have gotten this far all on my own. Unfortunately I realized the passenger rear wheel had some excessive camber. You can see it in the photo next to my white e30. So I had to source another trailing arm, have it sand blasted, powder coated, and finally reinstalled. That set me back almost 3 weeks. I had the car aligned at a shop and it was fully drivable. Many steps missed in-between just because there's too much to post. Lots of wiring bugs and various fixes that had to be done along the way.
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Replaced the euro bumpers - previous owner had banged them up pretty bad, filled them with bondo and painted them black. They were also completely rusted out on the inside. Installed fogs, new turn signal housings, and smileys. At this point I no longer had my shop space in Brooklyn so all work was delegated to my parents driveway on weekends when I had time.
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Sourced some replica startecs that I thought would fit the build well. With the Mtech kit I thought it would be best to stick to period correct mods. Also got a trunk, hood and sunroof which I was waiting to have installed during paint.
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Over the summer I just did some small projects that weren't too expensive while I saved up for the paint work. Replaced the vapor barriers with some thick clear shower curtain and windshield sealant. Installed the anodized door handles from Leogrande racing and mtech doorsills. Also replaced the throttle cable.
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Coming up on a year of ownership now and the car had really come a long way. I'm really proud of how much work I put in. I had always been interested in working on a car like this but I found it to be really intimidating. Once I started though, I realized it wasn't impossible. It sure cost a lot of time and money though. I had put in too much effort for it to look bad, so I decided that paint was best left to a professional.
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I ultimately decided to go with smaragdgrün metallic. This was a euro market exclusive, one year only - 1987 color. Being an 87 mtech I thought it was a perfect match. Plus I had never seen an e30 in this color. Pulling up to the paint shop and seeing it outside looking like this was just unbelievable. Every weekend and every bit of spare time I could muster for the past year was spent working on this project and it all led up to this. I brought it to a cars & coffee the next day and loaded up my ol reliable Pentax 6x7 with Ektar 100 to get some nice golden hour shots.
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Over the winter I had access to my in-laws garage so I had some small projects lined up for free weekends. Replaced the dash and overhauled the audio system. Went with one of ivari's BT radios and made my own Lukebox. I also reupholstered the wheel myself, it came out decent but not amazing. I'll probably have it redone by a pro in the future.
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Enjoyed the car as is for most of 2024. Brought it to a few events (Wheels of NYC, Classics up da Hudson) and met up with my doppelganger @brokenbronzit. Crazy we had such similar builds getting painted at the exact same time. It was great to meet him and see all the small differences between our setups. It really feels good seeing people's reactions checking out the car, taking photos, etc. Nice to have some validation after all the effort.
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Moved out of the city and finally have my own workspace. Picked up a K24 that was previously installed in an E30. It included most of the components needed for the swap. I had been researching this project for a long time and when this local deal popped up, it was time to dive in. First up I removed all the accessories and painted the block.
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Man oh man! WOW!Simon
Current Cars:
-1999 996.1 911 4/98 3.8L 6-Speed, 21st Century Beetle
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Originally posted by 2mAn View Post
Hung my hood on the wall, help came by and we pulled the M20. This K24 swap is going to be in 2 phases. The first phase being mostly a mockup and test fit. Hopefully can get a few test drives in too. Then it's going to come out so I can do a wire tuck, shave the bay and have it painted to match the exterior.
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Eventually I'll have a custom cluster made with some digital displays for water temp and such, but for now I just replaced the tach face for a 9k redline and swapped the coding plug to a 4cyl. I also painted the needles orange. Also used some cool parts to adapt the bmw fuel lines to -6AN. Now that I was able to stand in the engine bay, I found some more rust beneath a shoddy patch panel that was held in with what looks like silicone.. yikes. I'll sort this out when it comes time to do the shave. I found more than a dozen acorns in there.
Last edited by grandeswag; 12-11-2024, 11:50 AM.Comment
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Fitted up the coolant gauge sensor, unfortunately this rear water neck isn't really meant to fit it, so I had to do some scuffed adapter setup. I'll change this when the motor comes back out. Got the USDM water pump housing installed and thermostat with rwd swivel neck. Also installed the NC miata power steering kit from Kpower. This would be the first of many Kpower part woes.
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Next up I bolted in the TF Works transmission adapter plate. Little tricky to then hold up the g260 and see where it has to be modified to fit the Honda starter. I marked it with a sharpie, then cut slits with an angle grinder to get most of the material out. Then I used a flap disc to smooth out the edges. With that complete, I installed the clutch and pressure plate.
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Installed my fancy valve cover and got the whole shebang installed with the help of a friend. Clearance at the firewall wasn't good. I had to use a prybar on the back of the head to bend the firewall a bit. This will need some more 'gentle massaging' when I take the engine out. Pretty sweet how far back the motor sits. Oil plan clearance is also great.
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