1991 BMW 325i Coupe - Build Thread - The end is in sight!

[MaksV]

I picked up a 3.73LSD today. as well as an extra aluminum cover for the best price ever.



$50. I love it. Can someone provide me some more information on the extra cover, the guy said it was off a M coupe - or that the bushing was from a M coupe - it is super light, and has more fins than the stock one.

and Pasha wanted more pictures - here are more pictures.






Now I need some help on my wheel delema. I want 15x8 and I want to run 225 width tires. I have more or less made up my mind on the TR motorsports C1 in either hyper silver or gunmetal. but I am having trouble finding sticky tires for that size that are not R comps. a little help here guys? please post a good vendor? and yes I have checked TireRack, and no they do not carry what I need. Also any other suggestions on wheels? I want to keep it as light as possible.

[MaksV]

Who are you? cause when I went there were several people running e30s at autocrosses at least with the CCA.

[Gnarles]

i didnt really need any maintenance for the street - drives fine and passes inspection but for HPDE and autocross (should be 20+ sessions next year) it needs a higher level of maintenance.

That's great to hear! It will be nice to have another E30 at auto-x events in DFW. There is only one other besides me that shows up on a regular basis.

[Sean]

Is that the cork oil-pan gasket? I'd recommend getting the paper one. That cork one is shit. :)

Nice job. Should be a fun car!

[MaksV]

i like how you said the car doesnt need any maintenance and then proceeded to do more maintenance on it than most people on r3v do to their e30s.

i didnt really need any maintenance for the street - drives fine and passes inspection but for HPDE and autocross (should be 20+ sessions next year) it needs a higher level of maintenance.

[TrentW]

i like how you said the car doesnt need any maintenance and then proceeded to do more maintenance on it than most people on r3v do to their e30s.

Indeed.

[Kershaw]

i like how you said the car doesnt need any maintenance and then proceeded to do more maintenance on it than most people on r3v do to their e30s.

[MaksV]

and more parts - this basically brings all the big stuff to conclusion - now I just have some specialty performance parts to buy

again, I cant say this enough Big thank you to Steve at BluntTech.

Just a small plug - Guys when you need parts made by Meyle, Lemforder - stock parts that are not really special please, please, please go through guys like Anthony at BimmerBrakes or Steve at BluntTech. They are small indipendant guys that will provide customer service a world and above the big boys. so next time you are on Pelican, Turner, autohausAZ, bimmerworld, FCP groton, or BavAuto, stop for a minute and drop one of these two guys a line and see what they have to say - they all pull from the same source, but this keeps little guys in the community going and able to produce specialty products the rest of us enjoy (headers, turbo manifolds, brakes ect).

so just a thought.


Anyway the stuff:



Valve Spring Compression tool


New stock cam and PS belt


GC coilover kit -525F/750R

[MaksV]

and more boxes....

thanks AKG - diff mount - RTABS - RTAB tool



and MR. INJECTOR - on ebay - excellent customer service - my rebuild kit got here before my injectors have - I got 19# ford injectors

[MaksV]

Today was a beautiful day, so I was like fvck studying lets go work on the car. Also I have been pretty stressed out lately and this helps. Tonight I am gonna watch the Stars play and write lap reports :facepalm: anyway enough of me time for the car


First we started with mechanicals - the only thing keeping the car off the road was that it was dumping a reserviour full of brake fluid an hour after it was refiled. time to find out why.....

turns out it was he grommets that connect the reserviour to the master cylinder. Also the tank was so filthy and full of crap it took me a good 30 minutes to clean it out....



and a closer look



they felt so nasty - no form to them completely desintegrated.



there were a bunch of pieces of them in teh whole so i took the time to clean the master cylinder.

then I cleaned the tank - when i started here was a layer of black sediment everywhere - just nasty inside and out, and now clean




new grommets installed - Thanks Steve at BluntTech



and all back together with clean fresh fluid




I then decided it was time to take a look at the brakes - take the wheels off one at a time. I also had some Wheel studs from bimmerworld that I wanted to install but I decided I want new rotors and pads first, The previous owner must have torqued the wheels to about 120lbs. I got to use my new 25" harbor freight breaker bar that I got for $6 on sale - totally worth it.

all rusty with splooshed pads and grooved rotors - obviously have been remachined once or twice. took some sand paper to the rust.



sanded and wheel studs installed for test fitting



I have to make a note here: these things are so nicely made - very high quality and a set of studs and lugs will only set you back $85 - totally worth it as well. Howeve you need a deep socket 17 to install the lugs unless you are running a spacer.

and with the wheel on




All in all I decided to wait and get new brakes - these are nasty and will not work for track duty - I am going to stay stock but get better pads - maybe Hawk? - so I saved the studs in their box for later and for now put the bolts back in. However I put some grease on them and the hub before I put them in to hold off the rust and such. I also took time to find out if I magically had an LSD - I do not. so I need one - 4.10 please for 200 bucks ? anyone?


Now again we must change our focus to the interior. First task was to finish with this phone holder thing. I gave up on the cupholder ideas since no matter how I set it up I didnt like it. So some cutting and vinyl wrapping later







and the finished product - while not perfect it holds the phone perfectly and charges it at the same time - perfect GPS all in all it will work for now.






Last bit for today is hardwiring the radar detector - in my e46 I totally did it using a resistor a switch and +ACC and ground - the same thing would not work in the e30 for reasons I dont understand. SO i finally gave it and very gently dissassembled the power cord that came with it and hard wire it that way.

BTW purple/white is ACC +12V. and brown is ground for both the e30 and e46

I just wired it into the harness for the self check.



Thats all for now, stay tuned.

[MaksV]

BimmerWorld Stud kit, and vinyl wrap for the cupholder came in today.

[MaksV]

thanks.

[freeride53]

your car is sick! i love the color.

[MaksV]

whats a PB?

[moe30]

Dang all kinds of parts lol, wish I had a PB