the Aluminum Monster. a 318 with a special 24v

[wazzu70]

Glad to hear its up and running for you!!

[efficient]

I like your seats. Hope the springs I sold you work out for you. Damn your lucky you also have manual Windows.

[ArdaMK2]

Dude finally! Hope to see it at bimmerfest

[2mAn]

Glad to hear its up and running for you!!

thanks! I bitched and moaned about it for so long that I had really high expectations and its exceeded them. Im keeping this car for a little while. zero thoughts of selling it right now (which I constantly had when I was waiting)

I like your seats. Hope the springs I sold you work out for you. Damn your lucky you also have manual Windows.

I definitely needed the springs, the current setup is too soft, I cant wait to put them in. The manual windows were just one of the things I wanted. I was looking for a base model type of car to keep it as light as possible, so I have the comfy Recaros, I have my (just installed today) houndstooth door panels, I have my 12" Lukebox, but the car is still under 2500lbs. I also plan on adding A/C and it should still be under the 2500lbs.

Dude finally! Hope to see it at bimmerfest

you wont catch me at bro-fest. I'll be at Vintage though and various other gtgs

[MR 325]

Love those wheels. Congrats on finally getting it!

I know that feeling of a project going wrong and just wanting to say "fuck it".

[Mlarsen]

What ever happened to the rear valence? Glad you made it back to Cali with no problems, I bet that felt pretty good.

[2mAn]

Love those wheels. Congrats on finally getting it!

I know that feeling of a project going wrong and just wanting to say "fuck it".

thanks, Ive wanted the wheels since they were new and I jumped at the chance to get them on my first E30. These wheels will stay with me. 11# 16x7s ;D and yea the stress was bad, but now that Im driving it, I have no thoughts of selling.

What ever happened to the rear valence? Glad you made it back to Cali with no problems, I bet that felt pretty good.

The valence is in the garage, I plan on welding it on the car pretty soon, but I have a few more important things to do. Its up there, Ive been dying to put that thing on for a minute now. soon. now that Im driving it, its all details

[thatphysicsguy]

Glad the trip went well. can't wait to see it in person after I finish my trip up!

[2mAn]

hit me up when you get finally have your car here. I am going to swap my springs to IE3 race soon. I will give you a great deal on my old springs so you can lower yours too. You'll love the difference it makes once its dropped with wheels.

Snapped a pic earlier while I was doing some other stuff. Love the houndstooth panels. I still have the whole back seat area to do. Tan cloth backseat and Tan vinyl panels all need be converted to black. I have the houndstooth panels for the rear, and I'll be dying the cloth to black so I have a full black cloth interior :) base model status ftw

two_recaros_houndstooth_interior by 2mAn

[Red46]

The houndstooth looks awesome!
I used colorbond on leather with reasonable success. Might work on your cloth backseat

[2mAn]

Almost done with the general interior "upgrades." The big one will be cutting a hole in the rear for the Lukebox and dying the rear seats, but pretty much everything else is done.

almost_all_black by 2mAn

I also got the correct trunk carpet a little while ago, since the 84 is different from other years, the previous trunk carpet didnt fit right. Also cleaned it up a little too even though it was about to get covered.

dirty_naked_trunk by 2mAn

clean_naked_trunk by 2man

carpeted_trunk by 2mAn

Im enjoying this car more and more each day. Still have a lot to do to be "done" with it, but the small changes are all part of the fun

[mazie30]

dang dude this is looking real nice! if your back in the bay we should meet up sometime!

[2mAn]

Small update. Been driving this car everyday with a smile on my face. When I initially got the car back, the electric fan wasnt installed so the long freeway drives were no big deal, but trying to daily drive it in SoCal this was something I needed to get done quickly.

First step was mounting the fan on the front of the radiator. Usually a simple, straight forward process, but the fan proved to be a bit of a challenge. It took longer, but I got it in. Then I looked at where the fan switch was on the radiator and found my next surprise...

radiator_plug by 2mAn

It was plugged. *sadkitten.jpg* Placed an order for a Febi 82*C fan switch from Blunt. The problem was Im an idiot when it comes to wiring. repeated stupid questions flung at the Electric fan DIY got nowhere. luckily e30vert (Bruce, I think) told me he could dumb it down and walk me through it. Perfect! In the mean time, I wired the fan to a switch and would manually turn it on when I felt like it needed to be on.

Step one, figure out what I had to work with...

Stock fan wiring
fan_wiring1 by 2mAn

and stock fan switch wiring
fan_wiring2 by 2mAn

fan_wiring_done by 2mAn


Lovin this car :)

[2mAn]

Next item on the list has been to upgrade the suspension. I never liked that it had mismatched springs and with the new powerplant its obvious the springs are too soft. Recently I picked up some IE3 springs and remembering when I installed the lowtecs up front the front strut bushings were worn out. I didnt get around to doing them back then, so I decided this time I was going to do the front and rear. A call over to TMS and I got the set with the upgraded rear shock mounts.

new_suspension_stuff by 2mAn

Only had time to do the rears tonight, and I figured the rear was going to go up based on how short the old springs were so I removed one of the spring caps. It still went up a little, but I realized theres actually THREE caps in the back. Upper, a lower and a hacked lower. I removed the hacked one, and left the other two to see what it would look like. Still a little high for my taste, but Im going to wait until I do the front and see what happens. I hope to have the front done tomorrow night.

[2mAn]

Still havent gotten around to installing the front springs, but I did pull all of the spring pads out of the rear and I like where its at now. Drove to visit my parents this past weekend and was enjoying myself on the grapevine when suddenly I heard a dragging sound and immediately pulled over. This is what I found:



One busted exhaust hanger and a dragging exhaust system. No idea where/ when the other hanger was, but I had to fix the problem. Luckily I had an event I needed to look nice so I had some clothes on coat hangers. Stole the coat hangers and made it work.



Drove about 300 miles this way with no issues. I didnt want to drive back the same way so on saturday I began a search for some rubber exhaust hangers. Finally got a pair from an exhaust shop and installed those. Kept my coat hangers in the trunk, just in case. And what do you know, less than half way home on Sunday and the same dragging sound. BOTH of the new hangers were busted. Reinstalled the coat hangers and drove the rest of the way with no issues. I didnt want to drive this way so yesterday I found some OEM hangers at a dealership and got the pair installed last night. They were a major pain in the ass to install, but I think that means they will hold up a little better. We'll see. I have a few other things Im working on but I will update this thread when that happens, as for now, a few more pics.

new VS old