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

[bradnic]

Turns out both my 91 E30s came without rear floor vents under the front seats.



I went ahead and retrofitted them to the vert which was super easy to do.

Interesting that BMW went to the trouble to delete the vents and add foam back to the carpet where they sit.


They also capped the heater box on each side.


Accordion piece that connects the duct to the heater box


Rear seat installed
[url=https://flic.kr/p/W9suGb

Detail on the stitching and fabric

[bradnic]

just waiting on the husco armrest, door pulls/armrests and map pockets. all covered in the same leather.

justin's gotten busy with some other customers and can't get the rest of this stuff done for a while. I had planned to do the rear quarters too, but after cleaning them up with a magic eraser and seeing everything installed I'm pretty pleased as is.

The arm rests also cleaned up beautifully, so at this stage I may just move forward with covering just the husco only and finding some natur paint for the map pockets.

I did find this thread on bfc where someone used Duplicolor Medium Beige Vinyl and Fabric spray on some houndstooth rear door trim.
This pic of his shows him trying the medium beige and a lighter beige (more like pearl) on an old natur door card


Bought a couple of cans and tried it on some pearl beige floor mats. Came out too dark, but like his pic above the color is a pretty decent match to the interior color palette.

I assume I can get the paint from SEM, but if anyone knows about a vinyl+fabric paint that matches E30 Natur...

[bradnic]

Before


After (just about the same spot 1 year later. euro exterior bits are in, but not the hardtop or new interior). profile is soooo much cleaner

[bradnic]

Anyone ever retrofitted the euro rear fog setup with K9 relay?

Found a full rear fog writeup on m42club, link here

definitely a bit involved. full setup requires a 2 position fog light switch, cluster mods, relay in the K9 position and preferably a driver's side euro rear taillight back cover. Will save this for a future project, but it's definitely happening.

[jeffnhiscars]

I am we'll in to refurb ing my pearl beige interior and would suggest you contact George At Leatherique for some Natur dye. My vinyl has turned out very nice

[bradnic]

Thanks Jeff - been meaning to give him a call. Just hadn't associated Leatherique with carpets... plenty of examples of people dyeing interiors with his stuff..

can't wait to see yours - send me a pm with a pic..

[jeffnhiscars]

Thanks Jeff - been meaning to give him a call. Just hadn't associated Leatherique with carpets... plenty of examples of people dyeing interiors with his stuff..

can't wait to see yours - send me a pm with a pic..

sneak peak sent...shhhh !!

[bradnic]

sneak peak sent...shhhh !!

received... lots of GOOD work there man! it definitely shows. and yeah to each his own on contrast :hitler::yawn::crazy: :up:

if you love it that's what matters!

[bradnic]

btw Jeff definitely headed to that NC Vintage next May. Callie here will be our ride.

[jeffnhiscars]

btw Jeff definitely headed to that NC Vintage next May. Callie here will be our ride.

Then we will definitely connect...as long as the aliens return me to earth in time

[bradnic]

driver's door card assembled and installed with new clips. never liked the mismatched color fading between the card, map pocket and door pull. Haven't heard back from George at Leatherique so I placed an order with Bavauto for "Colorbond BMW Natural Tan #254". We'll see how that goes.
[

Also got the odo gears done, plus new cluster bulbs and some trim ring bling. didn't do the SI board yet as I haven't had any gauge issues.

Still have the rewiring and rewrapping of some of the dash and console harnesses.

[Thizzelle]

there's no rear vents in any vert I've been in, because fuck backseat

[Cabriolet]

there's no rear vents in any vert I've been in, because fuck backseat

my mteach2 vert had rear vents.

[bradnic]

my mteach2 vert had rear vents.

Glad to hear that! pretty sure my 771 had them too but I don't remember now. I got to try the new rear vents out yesterday morning - they definitely provide enough warmth to the back to be useful. glad I installed them.

The front end seems to have settled lower (still running OEM rear springs). It's about 1-1.5" lower than I want. anyone know if H&R sports are higher than eibachs? Do E90 drophats lower the car more?


I swore I'd never do it, but my original slider radio has 3 fried channels and none of the replacements I bought work right either. Neither was the premium amp (lots of cross-talk between channels, and some distortion too). So I ended up keeping the Jensen VM9215BT head unit and bypassing the amp in the rear. The HU is not bad in the car appearance wise. It matches the lighting color pretty well and has BT phone, music, ipod, aux in, usb etc. - even DVD and rear camera support.


Man I HATED cutting those wires back there for the amp bypass though. Good news and bad on that front:

bad - 14W per channel from a HU is not enough in a vert. period. can't hear the damn thing with the top down and the strömung pumping.

good - picked up a clarion class D HU amp which will go behind the dash and give me 50Wx4 into 4 ohms. it's about 7"x3" and no additional wiring mods are needed. It's not your typical class A/B car amp, but it should be good enough to make the sound system usable.


not so bad - I cut the amp harness in the rear seat area rather than in the trunk, so the harness can be repaired. if I ever get my preferred OEM+ setup to work properly I'll restore it back:
-- stock radio+amp harness
-- custom amp harness adapter (use connector from old oem amp)
-- aftermarket amp
-- stock CM5908 slider HU with aux-in, line outs and BT music

Finally regarding the power antenna, I wired in a fog light switch above the radio for it like others here. Pretty easy to wire up. Just trace the 2 white radio wires in the dash back to a clear connector in the stock harness. The one for the antenna has a female connector that you can pull from the clear connector. The other one is for the premium amp. You want both wired to your radio antenna on wire (blue/white for aftermarket radios), but you want the white antenna wire to go through the fog light switch first. As long as the head unit is on you can use the switch to raise and lower your power antenna. When the head unit is off it will retract as usual.

[bradnic]

New interior pics

Some shots of the finished interior. Hopefully I'll shoot some more with a better camera tomorrow. The door cards are custom made 2 piece, just like my old 771 mtech car. more pics earlier in the thread. Note that I haven't painted the carpet, map pockets or door pulls yet. Will save that for next year (plus a paint job and install the new top too).




If you look closely you'll notice the door weatherstrip outers have not been swapped. After all the weatherstrip research I did (see earlier in the thread), I ordered the wrong ones! all the other door and quarter window weatherstrips have been swapped out.

Front seats are completely rebuilt, frames repainted, new shocks and heated seat elements installed. I could not be more pleased with Justin's work. Here's a closeup of the leather he used. The german houndstooth cloth is equally high quality, very thick and heavy. It feels wonderful.