The complete repair, rebuild, repaint, and v8 swap of my early model sedan

[JGood]

Looks like you're making good progress! Never guess who I ran into today... Jason Hower, lol! Talked with him many times on the forums, never met, until today. He said all you guys were friends long before you all got into BMW's... pretty cool. Nice to finally met him, too... Keep up the good work, it'll be done in no time!

Garey

Yeah, he said he ran into you, small world! We've got a pretty good size local BMW crew, it's a lot of fun when we do cruises or go to meets.

Excellent work, you are a true psycho.

Thank you for the psycho compliment sir :)

I'm pretty sure I might be the only person to replace an entire strut tower housing on an early model sedan chassis in the past couple years. I actually haven't found it documented anywhere on any forum where anyone replaced a strut housing on ANY e30. I'm assuming it was more common for accident repair back when these cars were worth well over the $5k or so a body shop would charge to do this work, but not so much anymore, insurance companies just total them, if people even have collision coverage.

[bmwmech1]

Yeah, he said he ran into you, small world! We've got a pretty good size local BMW crew, it's a lot of fun when we do cruises or go to meets.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this spring... the car will be done and I can get out to some meets, instead of running somewhere collecting parts, lol!

Garey

[JGood]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this spring... the car will be done and I can get out to some meets, instead of running somewhere collecting parts, lol!

Garey

Hopefully I'll be done too...

What's better then the sound of a V8 e30? Two V8 e30's

Get that thing fired up so I have some motivation!

[drutt23]

Hopefully I'll be done too...

What's better then the sound of a V8 e30? Two V8 e30's

Get that thing fired up so I have some motivation!

You haz V8 plans????!!! :o
You sir, are so full of win. I dig it!!!
Keep it going, cuz I'm sub'd mang!!

[JGood]

Shit just got real!

[bmwmech1]

Shit just got real!

Woot!!!:D:D:D

Garey

[Wh33lhop]

Yesssss! Dude you're nuts. And this is awesome.

Oh how I wish I could weld.

[bmwmech1]

Hey, did you get a harness yet? I may have an extra 530i 5 speed harness, if you're interested. LMK...

Garey

[dirty30]

Cool more V8 swaps! I'm glad to see you aren't wasting your time with a 24v!

Sub'd.

[Jean]

Soon we'll need to have an e30v8 gtg lol :) good work man!

[JGood]

Oh how I wish I could weld.

Dude, get out in the garage and do it. I literally didn't know how to weld when I started the project. Pick up some scrap metal, watch a few basic tutorials online so you get the basic idea, and just start welding.

Soon we'll need to have an e30v8 gtg lol good work man!

Hell yeah!

Cool more V8 swaps! I'm glad to see you aren't wasting your time with a 24v!

Sub'd.

Ehh, guilty as charged. Spent the past 4 years with an m50b25TU. Even did s50 cams. Dyno time. Blah blah blah. Barely pulled on my buddies stock m20, and was still in the 14's in the 1/4 mile, so out it came!

Hey, did you get a harness yet? I may have an extra 530i 5 speed harness, if you're interested. LMK...

Garey

You have PM!

[cmybimmer]

Good shit! I was so close to picking up an m60, but wimped out because I didn't have the equipment or time to follow through with it :(.

Sub'd

[JGood]

Jean and Garey,

How critical is it to do the chains and guides? I'm going to pull the timing covers off to clean them and replace the gaskets, and am going to inspect things then, but the engine only has 130k. This isn't a new-expense spared project, but I don't want it to blow up in 6 months either. I priced out all new chains, guides, and tensioners, and it started adding up quick!

The m62 in my X5 has 150k and I just did the timing cover and valve cover gaskets a few months ago without even looking at the guides, because I was too much of a noob to V8's to know better. Am I on borrowed time with that as well?

[Jean]

Look at my threads when I did the m62tu and now doing the m60...the tu guides at 130k miles showed more wear than my m60 at 150k. The OCV is probably on it's last legs, if you touch it it will most likely crumble to pieces and so will the u guide on the 62tu.

I would deff. do it, since the motor is on the stand...the ones for the m60 are 50-60 a pop x4. the u one for the 62tu is the most expensive one, i think it was 150ish iirc.

[twism]

Everything in this thread is awesome! I'll make sure to keep an eye on it, and good luck to you sir!