1985 325e | M60b40 | Fifty Shades of Bronzit

[ArtFoodBMW]

Great build so far man, I love seeing people give the old 325e's some loving. Did you paint the intake and valve cover yourself or did you send it out?

Painted them myself, and almost killed everyone in my house in the process... The parts were baked in the oven after every coat of paint to cure it.

[IzzY_325is]

Looking great, keep up the good work on it and keep us informed on the build.

[6A LDY]

Great build so far man, I love seeing people give the old 325e's some loving. Did you paint the intake and valve cover yourself or did you send it out?

[ArtFoodBMW]

Well, I grew tired of the chrome accents on my e30. So pictures! I used plasti-dip on the door trim, and vinyl wrap from BavAuto on the window trim.

And the final result

And I finally got a few days off work to get my z3 rack in the e30! The rack came from a 2000 z3, with around 40k miles. $150 later it arrived at my door. The rack is almost a direct fit, it did require a bit of persuasion to get there though. In the process of putting it back together, part of my steering knuckle got unconnected from itself which led to some manditory modification to the knuckle. We used 14 washers and bolt/nut to hold the knuckle together like the swap guide said to do.
My thoughts on the rack: BMW should've put this tight of a rack into our cars in the first place. It handles like a dream, and I am very content with the swap. My turning radius has improved by about 2 feet. People were saying it would be twitchy at high speeds, but it doesn't feel unnatural, and I like it.
That being said, I highly recommend this swap to anybody who is considering it.

z3 ready to go in
The old one was quite dirty.

And it's in

The persuasion I mentioned? I created a tourniquet to pull the rack closer to the bolt holes. No subframes were harmed in the making

[ArtFoodBMW]

What's it tuned with?

Not tuned with anything yet

You have the square C101 connector (for the body harness), and Motronic 1.3 uses a circle C101. You need to make an adapter, usually using spare plug parts. Use the diagram you already posted to match each pin from one plug to the matching pin on the other.

Haha That's exactly what we did

The idle is still pretty rough, but I ve been daily driving it for about a month now. And within the last couple of days, some new problems have risen... Odo Gears went out, and the steering rack went as well. Z3 rack here I come!

Also when I rev out the car as much as it can (I was testing 0-60 times) The engine will just stop at 5K rpm's in second gear. Any ideas why it still thinks it's an eta? And just so you know, I can get it above 5k rpms, just when I'm going "cautiously"

[ANDRÜ]

You have the square C101 connector (for the body harness), and Motronic 1.3 uses a circle C101. You need to make an adapter, usually using spare plug parts. Use the diagram you already posted to match each pin from one plug to the matching pin on the other.

[Cronopoulos]

What's it tuned with?

[ArtFoodBMW]

Well it's running now, but it's rough. My brother installed a new O2 sensor and I think that's helped it stay a bit more steady whilst driving. It does not like to run at idle when cold, and we can't exactly figure out why. In spite of that we raised the idle up to 1000rpm.

Anybody have ideas of what's wrong?

[ArtFoodBMW]

So the stroker build began on friday night. Its monday now and its still not fully completed. We put it all back together properly as far as we know, but we ran into some wiring difficulties. I'm not exactly sure what the two parts are called, but the new wiring harness has a different connection than that of my fuse box, so I think my brother is going back to nampa's Jalopy jungle while i'm in class to get some wire parts to make it all work.
But here are the pictures I took in the process of swapping on the 325i head, 87 wiring harness, intake manifold, and so on.
The before, everything put together

New head, new intake manifold, injectors, engine bay cleaned in the hard to reach places.

All put back together

It looks great in my opinion, but it doesn't turn over.

Just need to swap over the instrument cluster and clean up the plastic lens.

We have to connect the circle c101 to the square early connector.

[ArtFoodBMW]

Where is the update on build? Sorry I couldn't make it yesterday. I was helping a mate with his jeep and it was a pain in the ass. Spent all day on that dumb hunk of junk.

Don't worry about it, it's still not done yet, but the update is on its way. I'll show it to you when it's all done. We ran into some wiring issues

[ST1G]

Where is the update on build? Sorry I couldn't make it yesterday. I was helping a mate with his jeep and it was a pain in the ass. Spent all day on that dumb hunk of junk.

[ArtFoodBMW]

What kind of paint did you use?

VHT Engine Enamel, Old ford blue

[ST1G]

What kind of paint did you use?

[ArtFoodBMW]

Lines scraped!

Now I'm just waiting on parts so I can put it all together!

[ArtFoodBMW]

BLUE
From this

to this

!!!!!!!!!
The lines will be scraped/sanded off tomorrow