Panici's '87 325is E30 - Boosted In Bronze

[Panici]

Put in my VDO Water temp gauge today. It's not the cleanest install, but when I add my oil pressure & temperature gauges, I'll be redoing the wiring.

I ran the sender wire along with the factory harness, and under the intake manifold, with the factory coolant sensor wiring.


I also pulled out most of the aftermarket radio wiring, and the original radio fader.

[Panici]

Got some solid work done on the E30 today.

• Installed original alternator, with new brushes on voltage regulator. Cost me $28. Finally car is no longer battery powered!
• Cleaned oil out of:
  • ICV
  • Throttle body
  • Part of intake manifold
  • AFM and boot
• New air filter
• Removed spare wheel (-35.2lbs)
  • It's never even been mounted!
• Removed trunk tar
  • I expected this to be a PITA, but it just pealed up with a screwdriver! (-52lbs)
• Took tools and stuff out of trunk

I can definitely feel a difference. I think cleaning the oil out of the intake has helped throttle response, and I sure can feel a difference when starting from a stop. Car idles a bit better as well.











EDIT:
Did a little photoshop just for fun.

BEFORE:



AFTER:

[Panici]

It was really nice outside today, so I decided to work on the car for a while.

• Used Simple Green Max on the engine bay, trying to clean it up a little. It did help on the (few) areas not coated in cosmolene.
• Scraped the battery tray, part of the strut towers, and part of the fenders with an old credit card to take off the cosmolene.
  • It worked, but I'm going to need to find a better method to tackle the rest of the bay.
• Replaced a fuel hose (attached to the back of the fuel rail)
  • The old one was in pretty rough shape!
  • Used a fuel line from my parts car.
• Cut out and modified part of a spare rear bumper strip for the front plate location.
  • The cuts aren't straight, and the cut ends are sticking out a little, but it looks better then it did before!
  • I have another one and a half rear bumper strips, plus the ones on my parts car, for my next (and subsequent) attempt(s).
• Washed the whole car, with special attention paid to the wheels.
  • I managed to get some of the OLD brake dust off of the wheels, but I think I need a stronger degreaser and a powerball to get it all off.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/DSNhaW]

[2mAn]

Nice man! Much better than the first car!!! Its looking great

[Panici]

Nice man! Much better than the first car!!! Its looking great

Thanks!


Update:

I've been really busy with school, so nothing new with the E30.

I did however get some parts today when my friend made a USA run.

• 173 ECU (an upgrade from my 153)
  • Picked it up for $40!
  • Should help with the rough idle.
  • As a bonus, it's chipped! (Dinan, but better then nothing!)
• Set of 42 Draft designs extended lugs for my 15mm spacers
• Redline SAE 75w-140 diff oil
• New antenna grommet
• VDO Oil temperature gauge and sender

And just for fun:

[Luke Girard]

Dude I love it! It looks so clean

You should relocate your turn signals behind the grill and do this with the front bumper. It think it looks fantastic!

[Panici]

Dude I love it! It looks so clean

You should relocate your turn signals behind the grill and do this with the front bumper. It think it looks fantastic!

Thanks! :)

I've seen that car before. Initially I liked the look, now I'm not sure.
I'll wait until I get the iS airdam painted and installed, and then see if I want to delete/relocate the signals.

[Luke Girard]

Thanks! :)

I've seen that car before. Initially I liked the look, now I'm not sure.
I'll wait until I get the iS airdam painted and installed, and then see if I want to delete/relocate the signals.

I want to do that look on a plastic bumper. When I get another e30 it's happening.

[Panici]

Updates:
Rolled over 100k Miles (160k KM) last night.

• Put my 15mm spacers on front and rear.
  • Used some 45mm lugs from 42 draft designs
    • 3mm makes a difference.
    • These were TOO LONG, the lugs I needed were 42mm, which they don't carry.
    • Fronts fit with some clearancing of the brake dust shields.
    • Rears needed to be ground down shorter to not interfere with the ebrake parts.
  • Rear looks good, might look perfect with 20mm spacers.
  • Front has a little too much poke for my taste. 10mm spacers would look better.
  • I'll wait until I get the drop hats and thinner spring pads on in the springtime, to pass final judgement.
• 153 to 173 ECU conversion
  • Upgrade to Motronic 1.3
  • Came with a Dinan 91 octane chip!
    • Raised rev limit, and pulls noticeably harder on WOT.
  • Idle is improved.
  • I also noticed torque converter lockup for the autotragic is slightly different.
  • I believe the 173 ECU also monitors the oil pressure sensor and throws a check panel light for oil if the sensor is unplugged.
  • I now also have the "stomp check" for ECU codes.

Noticed my VDO water temp gauge was sitting a little higher then normal at idle. (of course, stock gauge didn't show anything amiss)
Sure enough, I got home and saw a little smoke coming out of the hood.

After a quick inspection, it looks like one of the rad hoses may be leaking at the water pump. I'll have to investigate further later today.

[Panici]

Did a few small things today. Next weekend the car is probably going away for the winter.

• Installed new antenna grommet.
• Knocked out the rust (I had been avoiding), in the lower driver's side of the trunk, behind the rear wheel.
  • I'll get this fixed at the same time as the passenger rocker panel.
  • Leaving that side of the carpet out, to prevent trapping water there and doing more damage.
• Cleaned some of the grime behind my fuel door.
  • Put a "91 octane only" label on my filler cap. Just in case someone else is filling it up.
• Fixed the small coolant leak I had.
  • There was a small hole in the upper rad hose.
  • Cleaned up the one from my parts car and swapped it on!
• Friend made another USA parts run. He picked up:
  • Driver's side LCA
  • E90 drop hats
  • Thinner spring pads for front and rear
  • Lightweight battery
  • Rear swaybar endlinks and bushings

[url=https://flic.kr/p/21XUg53]

[url=https://flic.kr/p/21XUeGd]

[Panici]

The E30 is parked for the winter. Brought it to my parent's house on the weekend.

Filled up the tank with Shell 91 (no ethanol) and Stabil.

Next weekend I'm going to swap on some other wheels with junk tires on them, so I don't flatspot my new set of rubber on the 14" weaves.

Also going to pull the battery, and block intake/exhaust from critters.


Potentially will be building some sort of enclosure to keep the snow off over the winter.


Now to get some better rubber for my Jeep TJ and address some of the Death Wobble! Although I miss the E30 already, it feels good to be driving stick again!

[Panici]

Not much to update. Car has been sitting since late October.

I was planning to swap my 15" iX weaves on there, but three of the four tires don't hold air.

It's too much of a PITA to get the bottlecaps off of my parts car, so I'm just going to hope that my new tires on the 14" weaves don't flatspot over the winter. Maybe I can push the car back in the driveway so they're not sitting on the exact same spot.

I'm done my exams this week, I'm going to pull the battery out and store it in the basement.


I got a few more bits for the car.
Fuse box sticker, proper gauge cutouts for radio delete, tstat bleed screw.

I may have a line on an e28 535is spoiler that is local. It needs some work, but I think I can bring it up to snuff.


Some musings on the color, Lachssilber. I really don't like silver cars, and when I bought my E30 the color was the last thing I was worried about. I was hoping it would grow on me, but it really hasn't.

I'm going to try adding some black accents, like a 535is spoiler, rear plate filler.

If the color still doesn't do it for me, I'm going to first fix all the rusty areas, protect and repaint them. Then I may explore plastidip or vinyl wrap, but that's pretty far down the list at this point.



I've also decided that I'm going to learn to weld so I can patch the rust spots myself. I realize that in order to have it done right, I'm going to have to do it myself. I want a high quality repair that looks as close to original as possible. To pay a shop to do the job properly is going to be prohibitively expensive.


I wonder how much time I'll have this summer to work on the car. The big things that I want to get done are:

• Attempt to strip undercoating. (At least in the areas that I need to work) It's such a PITA to work on the car with undercoating everywhere. Also remove Cosmoline from engine bay.
• Continue front end refresh. New LCAs, e90 drop hats, bushings etc.
• Getrag 260 5-speed swap! (Really looking forward to ditching the Autotragic!)
• New (rebuilt) calipers and lines all around
• Drop rear subframe and repaint/refresh. New bushings, hard lines etc.
• Replace rear trailing arms with the better condition set I have.
• Repair rusted through areas.
• Repair all rust on bodywork.
• Paint and mount iS airdam.

Anyways, I'll leave you with a few pictures from the last time I was at my parents house. Back to studying for me!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/21XUddm]

[Reichart12]

As a fellow lachssilber member, I can say adding the plate filler to the back makes a huge difference. There just isn't anything to break up the silver without it and the black of the platefiller does the job. The rear could look even better with a black 5er spoiler (mtech right?) to go along.

[animal]

one of the first things I do when I pickup an e30 with dirty or crusty rockers -is tape off at the paint line right where the rocker turns to that black coating - and spray the rocker flat black again - would def clean up the look of that area. And it makes it look original and clean like it once was. After seeing pics of your rockers, you would def clean up the overall appearance with very minimal effort and time!

for example, on one of my verts (verts having even bigger rockers so its even more noticeable) - when I got it the rockers were super faded, and grimy and had some gouges etc. Simple tape off to protect the paint and plastic strip right above the rocker - clean it good and just spray. Now - they look super clean. They would never look this good and drive me crazy if I left it the way it was:


this was after a big rain storm so there is some leaves and stuff behind the front wheel but still..

another shot:

[Panici]

As a fellow lachssilber member, I can say adding the plate filler to the back makes a huge difference. There just isn't anything to break up the silver without it and the black of the platefiller does the job. The rear could look even better with a black 5er spoiler (mtech right?) to go along.

Good stuff, I'll have to keep my eyes open for an early model rear plate filler. I've got a line on a 5er spoiler here locally, although it will need some work to bring it back to usable.

one of the first things I do when I pickup an e30 with dirty or crusty rockers -is tape off at the paint line right where the rocker turns to that black coating - and spray the rocker flat black again - would def clean up the look of that area. And it makes it look original and clean like it once was. After seeing pics of your rockers, you would def clean up the overall appearance with very minimal effort and time!

Thanks for the suggestion! After I address the rust in those areas, I'm going to clean up all of the undercoating on the rockers, and then see what the paint is like underneath. I may use Por15 or something similar to prevent any future problems.

As it was, I barely got it on the road for Sept and Oct. There's still a few areas of mechanical concern I need to address in the springtime before I start worrying about appearance. :)