My 325es build thread

[ElijahKnapp]

I've been lurking on this forum for awhile, but never introduced myself. So I'll do just that with a little build thread. I picked up my first e30 about 6 months ago without knowing a thing about them. When I first got it, I was expecting it to just be a fun little car I can drive around. But it turned into a project. I got the car and it was a mess, the paint was terrible, the wiring was all messed up, and the interior was(still is) trashed. But I didn't know much about e30's and 1300$ for a running car didn't seem to bad for me.
How the car looked when I first got it.

I had the car for a little while and after fixing various little things and piecing everything missing back together, I decided it was time for some suspension. Everybody on the forums swears by ground control but I wanted something that would let me go low without much modification. I ended up going with Megan euroStreet with custom 10k/10k spring rates and shortened springs. They ride great IMO
I played around with my ride height for a couple weeks and somehow ended up with this as my daily ride height.

[ElijahKnapp]

Not sure how to post more than one image per post so maybe this will work?
Ride height with my coilovers

[ElijahKnapp]

My next step as a dumb teenager was to, of course, straight pipe my car. I had a dumb side exit coming out from behind my driver side wheel. (Not sure what I was thinking at the time)
After some time I started replacing things that were going wrong, and in the process I figured out my car had a s-eta swap.(the previous owned had told me the engine was replaced but did not know much about it). After reading up online and doing some research this sparked my interest of a stroked build. I started searching for my head swap but got stomped by something else. I go to school for autobody and my teacher offered to let me paint my car. So I hopped all over it. I started bodywork while I was still deciding what colour I would paint it.

[ElijahKnapp]

I started to get irritated with my straight pipe, so I decided it was time to upgrade. I ordered some eBay headers and picked up a 325is dual pipe setup and rigged it all together. Headers to 325is cat and resignator with straight pipes out. Sounds a lot better.

[ElijahKnapp]

I picked up some wheels that i think will look good on the car when it is done. Dayton style 100 spoke's in a 15x8 -50 offset. A little wide but I figured I could make them work.

I started working my fenders and QP's and ended up with this.

[ElijahKnapp]

All I need is smaller tires and I should be set.

[ElijahKnapp]

I won't bore you all with all of my bodywork pictures, but I got it all ready for paint and started with door jams, inside of my hood, my trunk, and the inside of the pop out windows.

[ElijahKnapp]

I got the whole thing painted and IMO it came out pretty good for a first year autobody student. But for less than 600$ you can't beat it.

[ElijahKnapp]

Got all my trim pieces and bumpers back on, I decided to run my new wheels in the back so I could get use out of the tires instead of ordering my smaller ones and just letting perfectly good tires go to waste.

[ElijahKnapp]

I'm now back on stock wheels all around and in the process of getting the right size tires to fit my wheels. But things on the car keep pushing wheels back. My fuel pump had went out so I spent my wheel money doing a single pump Walbro 255lph conversion. Then my starter gave out from all the stress of trying to start with a going bad fuel pump, so after a couple days of push starts I decided to tackle that job. Was not the least bit of fun. Now my guibo is giving me troubles so I will tackle that and my center support bearing this week, then I should be able to get my tires and start piecing together my 325is head swap. And since the previous owner did just an engine swap, I still have to get a late model 1.3 harness and Ecu, Since my s-eta engine is running on the 1.1 at the moment.