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Stroked & Blown: A Love Story

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    Stroked & Blown: A Love Story

    My E30 obsession started pretty humble-- About 1 year ago, I was in rough shape... I was out of work and my beloved, but beaten only vehicle, a 2000 Jeep Wrangler had seen better days and needed a successor.



    So, with the help of family, I gathered together a enough cash to grab a beater off of craigslist and, joy of all joys, I found a rust-free 1987 325 for cheap. It was a 4-door, 2.7L automatic but it ran, it drove, and it was a friggin' E30. At the time I bought it, a blizzard was rolling into Buffalo and I decided not to bother to even wipe the snow off of it and see what I was getting. I got lucky. I did take it for a very short spin up the road and it was really tight, but I was told it had been sitting since being replaced by an E46 so I figured it would loosen up after some driving. Besides- there was a big storm about to shut down the thruway so I handed the kid the money and headed back home to Rochester. The light of day revealed just how lucky I was...




    Once the snow melted, she had a little bit of shine to her..


    Alas... all was not well. While I was loving the car, there was an elephant in the room that needed to be addressed.. The automatic transmission. It needed to go, and going it was. The torque converter was letting go and I had no intentions of replacing it. So I began looking around for a donor car so I could convert to the one true religion... Der Getrag.
    Here's what I found:


    An '86 eta that got into a fight with a Silverado. It had a rebuilt engine with about 15k on it from what I was told and it came with the blown engine that came out of it too. The damage was pretty bad on the body but the engine was fine. The only damage on it was a crack distributor cover.



    I decided to take the car off of the front subframe and slap the whole thing under the good car.





    And just when I thought everything was going great during the tear down, some old guy in a saturn decided to pull out in front of me and stop broadside in the middle of the road. Pissed doesn't quite say it...




    The passenger side bumper shock housing was crumpled, the bumper was warped and the passenger headlights went crosseyed... and for all its front end maladies, the donor car still had a good headlight assembly and a slightly straighter bumper... bent the hood and the fender back out and I've been driving it that way since this happened because why replace body parts when you can ignore them and play with other things?



    Yeah, I know. This was my first time ever welding so I fully recognize I am a grinder and not a welder but it's functional and nobody will ever see it so yeah...


    So with a band-aid on the car, we finished the tear down of the donor car...
    RIP ol' girl, and thank you.


    Now putting it all into the good car... A little creative solution here and there, of course.



    Good riddance :finger:



    We finally wrapped things up, after tweaking out some electrical gremlins I took one of the sweetest drives ever. I was riding the high of completing this swap for weeks if not longer...


    The car now has a total hackjob spraycan paintjob but I kind of like the ratty murdered out look... At least for now it works for me. I have bigger things on my mind for her.
    Last edited by Meta; 04-29-2016, 03:18 PM.

    #2
    So the 5 speed has been a blast but despite removing a/c, p/s, and the rear seats... the eta is still a slug. So I started planning out an engine build. I looked at all the options and decided I didn't care much for doing what everybody else is doing so I thought I'd stick with the M20 instead of swapping an M30, M5X, S5X or going turbo or LS or 5.0 or anything. I chose to make good use of the abundance of eta parts I had amassed and make an 85x81mm 2.8L M90 supercharged M20. I know it's less power than other things, I know it's more expensive than other things and I know it's more difficult than other things... But if natural aspiration wasn't going to give me what I wanted from the M20, I was damn sure going to keep the linear powerband.

    So that is where I've gotten with the car so far and now I'm collecting parts. I picked up this 325ix donor so I can do all the e2i stuff as well as steal the 135mm rods.




    I haven't done a whole lot with this donor car as it's getting cold and I have no heat or power in my garage so I figured maybe if I start a build thread, I might get peer pressured into picking up a wrench again.


    I also picked up the M90 from an '02 Bonneville SSei. That's about everything I've done so far and now I need to stack some cash for custom pistons, ms2 and a bunch of odds and ends...



    So... I decided to take up a local club member on a M54B30 rotating assembly which means we're now looking at a 3.0l supercharged M20 build :)

    The weather has warmed up too...
    Time to get busy!
    Last edited by Meta; 04-29-2016, 03:17 PM.

    Comment


      #3
      :coolphoto:
      Simon
      Current Cars:
      -1999 996.1 911 4/98 3.8L 6-Speed, 21st Century Beetle

      Make R3V Great Again -2020

      Comment


        #4
        I have no heat or power in my garage
        Well do you have a parka and an extension cord? Get after it bro!
        Originally posted by Andy.B
        Whenever I am about to make a particularly questionable decision regarding a worryingly cheap diy solution, I just ask myself, "What would Ether-D do?"
        1987 325iS m30b34 Muscle car (Engine electrical phase)
        ~~~~~~~~~~
        I was born on 3/25…
        ~~~~~~~~~~

        Comment


          #5
          Congrats on your thread title.
          Hank Ahrens
          1984 Alpine Coupe
          1978 911sc

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by ahrensNW View Post
            Congrats on your thread title.
            lol
            sigpic
            Gigitty Gigitty!!!!

            88 cabrio becoming alpina b6 3.5s transplanted s62
            92 Mtech 2 cabrio alpinweiss 770 code
            88 325ix coupe manual lachsilber/cardinal
            88 325ix coupe manual diamondschwartz/natur
            87 e30 m3 for parts lachsilber/cardinal(serial number 7)
            12 135i M sport cabrio grey/black

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by Ether-D View Post
              Get after it bro!
              I will be shortly Mr. D, a buddy is coming over with a hoist to pick the motor out of the ix for me. I bought him pizza so now I own him.

              Originally posted by ahrensNW View Post
              Congrats on your thread title.
              Thank you! It will be even better when I have a stroked and blown engine to show off. I'm shooting for a spring time install, stay tuned!

              Comment


                #8
                [QUOTE=Meta;4539401]I will be shortly Mr. D, a buddy is coming over with a hoist to pick the motor out of the ix for me. I bought him pizza so now I own him.


                AHHHHH I see what you did there. I'll come over at some point.
                WNY e30 Group on FB, feel free to join if you're from the area!

                @mriterphoto on instagram

                "Being airborne in an e30 is one of the worst ideas that I've done more than a couple dozen times"

                me-"I've got one of those rare 7cyl low-comp S62's"
                MattAvino- "Those aren't rare"

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by brainfood View Post
                  AHHHHH I see what you did there. I'll come over at some point.
                  There's no huge rush man. I still have a few major parts to pick up before I can go much further.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Meta View Post
                    Hahahahaha.

                    We 'lifted' the car up like this so I could get to the exhaust easily.

                    I didn't realize Dan took this picture.

                    I certainly didn't expect to see it here.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Sounds like a sweet project, but I'll honestly say I just came to look because of the title

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Treachery

                        So projects being projects and because I'm a total scumbag and sold my soul, I mean my supercharger... Plans have changed and thus my thread title is total clickbait now. :weak:

                        That said, the new build is kind of okay too.

                        I found an E30 engine stand in my driveway...


                        So I took the engine out,


                        then I put the engine in.


                        ...and for a little extra chooch, I got some smaller throttle bodies.


                        Now to make it steer a bit quicker, a non-M rack goes in and I'll probably be hooking p/s back up 'cuz I'm rapidly olding.


                        So seeing as how I had pretty much the entire front end parts I needed, I decided to make more work and do the 5 lug swap but something is fishy with the sway links...


                        And I guess I could throw in some poly subframe/diff bushings


                        So I just have to hook up the engine harness, install the ITB's, plumb all the plumbing that needs to be plumbed, install rear brakes, figure out why my sway bar hates me, take a stab at flashing the ecu, and see how many things explode when I turn the key...

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Meta View Post
                          I will be shortly Mr. D, a buddy is coming over with a hoist to pick the motor out of the ix for me. I bought him pizza so now I own him.
                          You keeping this IX?

                          Comment

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