Project '88 S-ETA

[88BlackS-ETA]

I have owned this 1988 325 2.7L since August 2010. It was/is my first car. I got it for $2950 out the door. It had 88,251 documented (backed by carfax) orifinal miles. First thing to do was have a shop replace the timing belt, tensioner, water pump, ect.

When I got the car it didn't have the front lip or euro plate. It was bone stock and still had original bulbs, spark plugs, spark plug wires, ect. It sat for a few years after one of the PO's wrecked it, as far as I can tell the valance needed replaced (bent) and the fender got some shitty repair work done to it. Before I got it the dme went out in 2007 and a local BMW shop went through the entire electrical system and replaced the dme with a used one. They also did a shitty buff and detail on it, although they did a great job in the engine bay.

Looks:
IE Stage 3 springs(half coil cut off) with Bilstein sport shocks with E90 top hats
The Retorfit Sorce H1 Profile Peak LED's for lowers
Retro solution 35W 3k HID kit for fogs
Black & charcoal sport seats
35% tint
LED tag lights
LED gauge cluster lights with orange caps removed
Smoked crosshairs with Euro smiley
Ellipsode fog lights
Euro grills
Custom tinted taillights, side markers, and front turns.
'IS' Lip
Racing Dynamics rear spoiler
Front strut bar
Polished bumpers & trim

Rollers/Stoppers:
16x8 JNC 010 all around with copper chrome vinyl
205/50/16 Nitto NT NeoGen VR tires
R1 Concepts Premium rotors all around with black E-Coating
Duralast Gold brake pads
44mm rear stud conversion from kalib0y
57mm front stud conversion
12mm front spacers
Open end lug nuts from kalib0y
IE stainless steel braded brake lines

Audio:
Custom sub box upholstered by yellow2000s/r
10" Kicker CompVR subwoofer
5.25" Kicker KS5250 speakers all way around
Pioneer BT6200 headunit
Rockford Fosgate 500-1 sub amp

327i build parts:
885 head off a 325i with ~115k miles to do a port cleanup
325i intake mani with throttle body
AFM delete
272 billet cam
IE HD rockers
New BMW rocker shafts
New double valve springs
MegaSquirt PnP 2
New stainless steel intake and exhaust valves
IAT sensor kit(sensor, bung, sensor plug, wire)
New Intake and exhaust studs and nuts
Long tube headers
2.5" exhaust through high flow cat, vibrant resonator and vibrant muffler





First thing I did was put in a system.





Sub has been upgraded to a 10".

Then my brother smoked my tails, turn signals and side markers.




After selling the sport interior I bought from a junkyard for $20, my brother reupholstered a set of sport seats.

Junkyard seats ($20 TOTAL)




Reupholstered seats.






I got a set of Miro STP-1 16x7.5 up front and 16x9 rear rims and had those for a while until I couldn't find tires that would fit the rear. So I sold the rims and got MRR FF3 16x8 all around. I also polished the front bumper. Also installed euro grilles, smoked euro smileys and painted the headlight rings silver and a Ryan G splitter.

First set of rims





Second set of rims

[88BlackS-ETA]

I decided to get my valve cover powder coated. And also get my diff cover done the same way (almost a year later). I had the same shop that did the timing belt adjust my valves and told them to put the valve cover on when done.



Fast forward 1.5 years and the car sitting for a few months now. I had my differential cover powder coated the same and just got it back.



I replaced the control arms, CABs with IE solid rubber, trailing arm/diff mount/subframe with revshift street bushings, all 4 wheel bearings, brakes, rotors, e-brake, stainless steel braided brake lines, motor/trans mounts, ect...





While I was doing the brakes I decided to delete the ABS since it never worked and I don't like ABS.

Then came time for paint. Its been a long process but its almost done. We stripped the car to metal and began on the body work then put down some primer. We filled in the antenna whole and deleted the body molding (like the E30 M3 is)




Stripped to bare metal

Chromate free wash primer

Primer


And then came the Black Sapphire Metallic.

[rzerob]

What side skirts are these?

[88BlackS-ETA]

What side skirts are these?

They are off of a Ford Taurus.

[88BlackS-ETA]

Since my car is not drivable because the paint isn't done, I installed some ebay headers and my brother welded up the exhaust. He made a custom merge collector and welded up the 2.5" exhaust with a wideband O2, flex pipe, high flow cat, back to a vibrant muffler. Its all stainless steel, except for the welds, we put high temp silver paint on those after cleaning them up.

[unloadedak]

More pics of door molding shaving? I'm gonna have to do it on my m3 widebody project.

[88BlackS-ETA]

More pics of door molding shaving? I'm gonna have to do it on my m3 widebody project.

[AwakenNoMore]

Looking so good!

[adjmcloon]

Awesome! She looks great

[88BlackS-ETA]

So I had a crack free dash for 2 years and one morning ~1.5 years ago I came out to my car and the dash had a crack down the middle.



So I finally decided to take the first step....Doing what any insane person would do that loves E30's way to much, I bought a new one from the dealership and just got it today...Dont know when I'll put it in.

New dash...Just cleaned it up and treated it...



And while I was there, I checked on a driver fender and they had one, new, OEM, BMW made fender, soooo I got that for a great price also.

FYI The new dash comes with NOTHING, the marks for the holes are there but they are not drilled out. I knew this when I purchased it but some might not know.

[MPLFoster]

nice.

i like this.

[Wschnitz]

How did you get the paint that nice, you need to spill the beans. Ill be having mine repainted sometime this 2015 year and want it to look that nice.

[efficient]

Damn that paint job looks real good.

[Court M3]

Nice paint, glad to see this one coming along

[iceman44]

You guys should do this fulltime i will bring my car to you guys