A bit of backstory: On 4/12/2012 I found a 1997 BMW M3 on craigslist with 200k miles and both rear shock towers rotted through for $2000. And thus began the idea for this thread. Being more familiar with e36's than e30s I snatched the car up immediately knowing that the engine/trans alone were worth the asking price of the car. I purchased the car intending to do a swap into my daily e36 however events conspired and that never happened.
I wound up selling off everything from the m3 and turned a tidy profit. Just after I had finished parting out the m3 I picked up my first e30. I'd always been intrigued by the idea of m3 power in a lighter, better looking (IMO) chassis. After seeing how easily an m3 could be parted out I decided to again start hunting for a cheap m3. A couple months later I found one.
a 1995 S50 atx m3 which I scored for $2200!
however I had done what this emoticon said
and sold my e30. I decided that didn't matter, I'd part out the m3 saving the drivetrain and parts I knew I'd need for the swap while parting out the rest of the car and looking for the perfect e30 chassis. As fate would have it I got nearly to the end of parting out the m3 and was contacted by a forum member asking if I'd consider trading the m3 shell (what was left of it) for his e30 roller. The e30 was already gutted, had been 24v swapped previously and so would come with the needed harness adapter, oil pan etc. and sat on GC coilovers. I agreed without much consideration and a few days later this left my driveway:
and was replaced by this:
Since the S50 motor was smoking a little on start up and e36 engines are known for their cooling issues it seemed that a headgasket check was going to be needed. as a bonus it'd let me replace all needed bits and start with a fresh engine. a bit of dis-assembly and this was what I discovered:
since school was starting back up and winter was fast approaching it became evident that the car wasn't going to be running before snow flew as I intended, I found some temporary rollers and shoved the car out of the way to work on as time allowed over the school year.
Along the way (as most long term projects seem to go) I got a bit distracted, got engaged in the mountains, bought a miata, and went to SoWo.
SoWo made me realize how much I missed being in a German car, the friends, the culture and the events, so with a renewed vigor I decided to throw some parts at the e30.
at this point I now had everything to make a running car.........except for a re-assembled and ready to run motor. While contemplating how to finish the S50 motor in the best balance of economical and performancical I stumbled across a seemingly better donor m3 for another screaming deal of a price, except this one didnt smoke when cold and showed great compression across all 6 cylinders, best of all it was a newer OBD2 S52 car with the bigger 3.2l motor!
win/win, and I'd had such great success parting out the last 2 m3's that I felt comfortable picking up another, on the way home from picking it up is the 1997 BMW m3 S52:
and the most important (to me) part
I wound up selling off everything from the m3 and turned a tidy profit. Just after I had finished parting out the m3 I picked up my first e30. I'd always been intrigued by the idea of m3 power in a lighter, better looking (IMO) chassis. After seeing how easily an m3 could be parted out I decided to again start hunting for a cheap m3. A couple months later I found one.
a 1995 S50 atx m3 which I scored for $2200!
however I had done what this emoticon said
and sold my e30. I decided that didn't matter, I'd part out the m3 saving the drivetrain and parts I knew I'd need for the swap while parting out the rest of the car and looking for the perfect e30 chassis. As fate would have it I got nearly to the end of parting out the m3 and was contacted by a forum member asking if I'd consider trading the m3 shell (what was left of it) for his e30 roller. The e30 was already gutted, had been 24v swapped previously and so would come with the needed harness adapter, oil pan etc. and sat on GC coilovers. I agreed without much consideration and a few days later this left my driveway:and was replaced by this:
Since the S50 motor was smoking a little on start up and e36 engines are known for their cooling issues it seemed that a headgasket check was going to be needed. as a bonus it'd let me replace all needed bits and start with a fresh engine. a bit of dis-assembly and this was what I discovered:
since school was starting back up and winter was fast approaching it became evident that the car wasn't going to be running before snow flew as I intended, I found some temporary rollers and shoved the car out of the way to work on as time allowed over the school year.
Along the way (as most long term projects seem to go) I got a bit distracted, got engaged in the mountains, bought a miata, and went to SoWo.
SoWo made me realize how much I missed being in a German car, the friends, the culture and the events, so with a renewed vigor I decided to throw some parts at the e30.
at this point I now had everything to make a running car.........except for a re-assembled and ready to run motor. While contemplating how to finish the S50 motor in the best balance of economical and performancical I stumbled across a seemingly better donor m3 for another screaming deal of a price, except this one didnt smoke when cold and showed great compression across all 6 cylinders, best of all it was a newer OBD2 S52 car with the bigger 3.2l motor!
win/win, and I'd had such great success parting out the last 2 m3's that I felt comfortable picking up another, on the way home from picking it up is the 1997 BMW m3 S52:
and the most important (to me) part
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