325ic Calypso Euro Conversion - Houndstooth & dbilas now, MT1 & MM 3.2 stroker coming

[bradnic]

pretty low key actually.. so sorry gents I know this update is lame.

engine's been perfect, butter smooth but definitely lower on torque. looks and sounds great though.

lots of parts on hand, but I haven't pulled the trigger on M20 stroking and MT1 yet. Been working the wife's allroad, emissions, turbo boost leak and a leaky arnott air bag. so a little distracted.

here are the parts waiting for install
-- RD long tube headers
-- full MT1 body kit ready for prep and paint
-- brand new front and rear console, top front trim and weatherstrip
-- new chrome for doors and rear quarters (original chrome pitted)
-- electric top frame and new tension straps in hand. still need to get an electric top cover though. hoping to swap a new manual top for one.
-- thinking about upgraded brakes but haven't pulled the trigger on anything.

lots of little gremlins have been creeping up.
-- broke my alpina wheel key, fortunately found 2 replacements via eBay australia.
-- my 2nd rack doctor E36 rack is leaking. super ticked about that. will probably end up buying a new one this time.
-- pass rear window motor died. found a replacement on ebay and swapped the motor portion of the mechanism out (kept the original gear box). replacement motor is from an 88 and I wanted to keep the original gear housing since it was molded slightly differently and has a date stamp on it.
-- pass rear wheel bearing replaced. car was completely quite for a couple of weeks but now I have a small squeak in the rear again. will probably bite the bullet and replace the other 3 bearings. will do the rear pads too.
-- my class C power amp seems to have failed.. when I pull the center stack apart I'll probably swap out the OBC with the euro clock i bought. missing the connector though so not too keen on hacking wiring.
-- windshield washer system is wacking. not getting fluid on the windows now. headlamp washers working fine though. had to disconnect the wire I added because it was temporarily shorting the entire car out. bizarre - wire never got hot or anything, but the car would go completely dead.
-- one of the euro headlights was intermittently flaking out. no problems lately. I assume it's related to the washer wiring issue.
-- also still need to deal with the hardtop headliner.

[doorman]

How's the bike??

[bradnic]

Fast as my Ducati was :devil:
And comfortable as hell - wife and I ride it regularly

[bradnic]

inspiration via rav320uk and e30zone.
RHD ITBs are da bomb now. if/when they have an airbox they will be the go to ITB solution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr1Ej21rR7o

EDIT: this *may* be the same car (same color, appears to be right hand drive). has the new RHD plenum installed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgRDnFVX5FE

EDIT Looks iike fporro went the same route May 2016 3.1 RHDs, plus RD bundle of snakes headers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKOc7ITGoMk

[bradnic]

Didn't know there was a Hartge H27SP with ITB setup.. engine was 10.2:1 CR, 2.7L, 220HP... nice pics show much longer runner length then dbilas, plenum details.. Also if you look closely at the engine compartment it looks like the brake booster is in the stock location.


pics from e30zone Hartge page

e30m3s54turbo's pic of an H27SP (probably from a catalog)


cool ad over on this rtsauto page of the same car. Here's the English text:



So they tuned a Motronic to support these... wow. I assume it was a Hartge specific ECU.

Found this on a French website - the car was for sale @ 8900 EUR


Someone actually just sold one of these on ebay.de.

UPDATE: guess who bought it? Mr Hartge, e30m3s54turbo.. check out his H35 replica build :-)

Wrote about the H27SP a while back... Mas Ipen just posted this on fb

drool worthy

[Mixedbyjairo]

Confused about the rear bumper caps.. posted this in the appearance thread too.

I know the end caps on early model chrome euro bumpers are different between the coupes and verts.. any luck getting the vert end caps to work though? they seem mount to the chrome side bumper pieces differently.

I'm seeing these part numbers in realoem, comparing an early model euro 323i coupe and an 85 euro 325ic:

bumper rear left and right (chrome)
51121922161 coupe and vert left
51121922162 coupe and vert right
51121888276 coupe and vert center

left end cap (not mtechnic)
coupe 51121888287
vert 51121937413

right end cap (not mtechnic)
coupe 51121888288
vert 51121937414

Pics of the caps front and back. note how they mount differently to the chrome bumper side piece



the front and back of the driver's side bumper (original part, sand blasted and rechromed - not happy with the result but that's another story)



Here's the coupe cap mounted on the chrome side piece. everything fits


The vert cap piece has a different mounting design



Not sure what to do about this. Could use some advice.

did you ever find more info

[bradnic]

did you ever find more info

Hi - just read further on and you'll see that the end caps on rear euro bumpers are different in convertibles - they just slip over the euro bumpers side pieces but are not bolted to them. once the rear bumper is on the convertible end caps are screwed to the quarter panel.

the coupe and sedan rear euro bumper end caps are not attached this way - they are fastened to the bumper side pieces, not the quarter panel.

HTH

[Poorhouse]

Just read the whole thing. Beautiful car and amazing build.

[bradnic]

Chris Janssens in the Netherlands posted these incredible pics of his all original 320i Mtech1 convertible. I'm so sold on the body color bumpers now! Glad I have the original set I can prep and paint.

Now just need to get motivated to prep the parts. I have a body/paint guy so set there. Still planning to get things ready in time for The Vintage.

[e30m3s54turbo]

I like how you motivate your self... Keep the goodies coming!

[bradnic]

Warmest Chicago February in 128 years..

went from this in 2011


to this yesterday - 72 degrees, motorcycle and convertible rides, car work.



Should have late spring weather all week next week.

Most of the shadow line trim has arrived..


Final shipment is just waiting on A-pillar replacement trim. Once everything's here I'll have an almost complete new set of bright trim stored so I can revert back later if I want to. Plan is to SEM satin black my original a pillar trim, refurb some shadow line door trim I had from another E30 and replace rest of the window and deck lid bits with new shadow line bits. Shadowline decklid trim was less expensive than the bright stuff. go figure.

also bought a 2nd new set of quarter window from molding rubber - $145 now for the pair! stuff is getting very expensive. I had replaced these before, but the new rubber tore at the base of the quarter window on both sides of the car! need to figure out what's causing that before I waste the new ones too.



mtech1 body panels still haven't gone to the body shop yet. I bought some SEM urethane paint stripper which seems to preserve the original paint coat but get rid of everything else. Not sure on the prep process yet.

Right now I'm busy getting the interior and electricals back up to snuff.


On the interior side it's mostly cleaning, door disassembly to refurbish the pass window mechanism. replace the belt moldings for shadow line versions on both doors. mechanical maintenance on the front seats, pulling the trigger on carpet dye. Every time I pull the console it reminds me how badiy faded the original Natur is.. I've had Leatherique carpet dye sitting on a basement shelf but just haven't pulled the trigger. Same fade story for the hard plastic trim and door pulls as well. NO those parts are not supposed to look like different shades of tan.

I've also had some nagging interior electrical gremlins including the heated seat and power amp wiring. So I'm pulling all that apart and checking everything throroughly.

3 more minor electrical issues

- right turn signal turns on a check panel light. I assume it's related to the bumper swap and needing a resistor to replace the disconnected side marker light. What I don't get is why the right blinked only.

- is something intermittent with the headlight and fog wiring. I've had a couple of occurrences in the couple of years where the car goes COMPLETELY dead when I turn on the headlights. It's only happened twice in two years, but I don't want ANY issues. If the engine's running it shuts off completely, and then the car acts as if there's no battery installed - everything completely dead. Pulling the battery cable and reconnecting resets everything as if there's nothing wrong at all. I'm thinking it's an unloader relay issue, given that the entire car goes dead. What's throwing me off is why the engine cuts off - you don't need a battery when the alternator's running.. alternator is refurbed.

- occasional rear brake light check panel light even though all the rear lights are working fine. I'm pulling the trunk wart anyway so I'll deal with it once I pull the trigger on that.

Still can't believe I'm doing this stuff in Feb.

[bradnic]

radio/amp fix was easy - aftermarket fuse holder for the amps had failed.. there was clearly some arcing as the housing was slightly melted. Fuse wasn't blown but the blades were heavily corroded.

started taking the driver door apart. The door cards are just beautifully built by Justin Merkhofer of Euro Interiors in NY.




The paint mismatch between the natur leather, map pocket and arm rest were driving me nuts though. I had tried Duplicolor Paint & Vinyl Medium Beige before and it matched almost perfectly. So did some test sprays on the parts and then went for it.

This natur coin holder came out of a 5 series. I cleaned it with a magic eraser but that's it. So it's a good reference and closely matches the natur leather.

Check out the overall color mismatch between all the parts. Not sure how well the pics show it, but the tints are quite different. The map pocket has an orange tinge to it, the arm rests washed out with a hint of green. You can clearly see how much the arm rest is faded - check the color on the hole where the mirror switch fits. This part has already been thoroughly cleaned with a magic eraser (they work wonders... try them out if you haven't)


EVERY natur E30 I see looks like this. It's NOT the way it came from the factory, and just inspecting parts of the car the weren't sun exposed will prove it.

so enough on the mismatch. I had to apply two coats to the arm rest. map pocket got by with a single coat.
here's after 1 arm rest coat - still too light

and after the 2nd coat - success!



final result


next up coloring the pass side bits, kick panels and deck lid vinyl. That arm rest really stands out doesn't it? The rear quarter trim and deck lid vinyl are also a bit lighter than the natur leather. Eventually we'll get the rears leather covered to match the door cards and seats.


The spot on the rear quarter is from the OEM windscreen.. have to get that sorted out before doing leather covering. Unfortunately it probably means swapping out the rear speakers as they are aftermarket Polks with larger magnets and coaxial dome tweeters that end up pushing the rear trim panels inward (and popping out the speaker grilles a bit). That's why the windscreen rubs on the sides and has cut the vinyl a bit.

[bradnic]

Also worked on the shadow line trim for the driver's door. I have new bright trim for both doors and quarters, so I decided to just rough sand
the existing trim and experiment with some SEM black trim paint.

original trim


rough sanded with 500 grit paper, then applied the trim paint. It was too glossy but some light sanding with 1200 grit took care of that. also took 1200 grit to the existing shadow line belt line door trim I had. It matched the gloss and color of the new quarter panel shadowline trim perfectly after sanding.

here's a quick trial fit. still a lot to do but we like it, and if we get tired of it I have a new set of bright trim waiting for the car.


next steps:
-- finish door assembly
-- paint/dye carpet, paint rear quarters and top deck lid vinyl bits
-- shadowline on other door and deck lid
-- repair pass door window regulator (slips down and makes noise when at top position).

[e30rapidic]

bloody hell, that looks good!

I'm thinking about stripping/painting my chrome bumpers to body color soon. Let me know how it goes.

[bradnic]

it's a bold step Andre.. I'm just glad I have the OEM euro bumper bits with the crappy chrome job. Otherwise I don't think I'd have the courage :-)

Definitely getting them painted for The Vintage. I may not mount the mtech1 fascias though since my Strömung is straight tipped and the rear fascia has the angled slots.. No way I'm modding that cat back, and no way I'm taking it off the car lol.