The Journey of Linda and Friends - the M20b31 Lives

[mjweimer]

The thread title stayed true to itself in that it has certainly been a journey every step of the way. Since I bought Linda I have:

-Parted out '88 325e track car
-Parted out '86 325e driftorito
-Parted out '88, '89, '90 iXes
-Light Resto on '88 iX and '89 iX
-Flipped E36 328 Sedan
-Bought E30M3
-Built this car involving three major direction changes

Pros:

-funded car projects at cost of my time
-learning from mistakes on time commitment/management

Cons: sanity


I'm sure it's pretty terrible to read as a build thread, but ultimately I'd say it's a win overall despite it's challenges.

I think you left one out...


Pros:


- Met a lot of interesting people




One can never own too many cars or have too many projects! I would go insane with nothing to do...






MJ

[AWDBOB]

I think you left one out...

Pros: Met a lot of interesting people

One can never own too many cars or have too many projects! I would go insane with nothing to do...
MJ

I most certainly did leave one out- I value many of the relationships built out of this hobby (cough cough, finish rolling wreck so we can cruise)!

I used to think that- by overloading myself I certainly found the limit of my passion (only due to being pulled heavily in other areas in life). Thankfully I'm able to scale back and resist going down this road again. I'm certain that once at least one of the cars is finished and cruising my desire for other vehicles will greatly diminish.

[AWDBOB]

Update! I had time today to work on Linda.

I installed my ceramic coated stock manifolds, iX downpipe, and eBay (IE) catback! Once the exhaust was on I fired the car up, and now that I could hear the engine, I noticed that the head sounded like something was terribly wrong.

Pulled the valve cover to check it out, and there was no oil getting to the cylinder head. I quickly noticed that the asshat (nice guy, good work just old and I'm assuming forgetful) didn't put the rocker shaft "stay" piece in, so the shafts had rotated, cutting the oil feed off to the head. Thankfully nothing was damaged, I had a spare, threw it in, and found a huge vacuum leak in the process.

After all that, this thing runs like a million bucks. It pulls hard, revs great, and is just a riot to drive. So, for the first time, I took her for a two hour cruise down some country roads. Feels so good to have this done.

My electric fan is working great using the aux fan switch, the car feels incredible with these tires, the Z3 rack, ground controls, sways, etc. I'm ecstatic right now, because when you work on a car for so long it almost feels like it'll never be done. Now all I want to do is cruise and enjoy the hard work!

Exhaust sounds stock and opens up just right when you're on it. The head is still loud so I'll have to readjust the valves here soon.



IMG_2503 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

IMG_2499 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2502 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2500 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2527 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2561 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2563 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2577 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2567 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2513 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

IMG_2556 by Bobbie Morrone, on FlickrIMG_2549 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[AWDBOB]

Double Post

[Vic]

Congrats Bob! Kudos to you and all the hard work you put in, not only building the car, but also doing an excellent job in documenting the process. Very inspiring! I can't wait to see this thing in person tomorrow.

[AWDBOB]

Congrats Bob! Kudos to you and all the hard work you put in, not only building the car, but also doing an excellent job in documenting the process. Very inspiring! I can't wait to see this thing in person tomorrow.

Thanks man! It was great to see the 24v car out today. I can't wait until we can head down south for a cruise.

Linda attended her first cars and coffee today! Photos were taken after all of the tacky buff car bros drove away in their challengers with bro hydro dipping on any removable part of the interior.

IMG_2596 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2592 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
IMG_2593 by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[e30austin]

Looks great, Bobbie! I just sold my twin to this car last week. Surprisingly enough, I went down pretty much the same path you did, and ultimately, ended up with almost the same result. Glad you got it on the road!

[wworm]

Woohooo! This is great to see. Have you driven a car with a zhp (gold tag e46) rack? I have that right now waiting to go into the next e30 but I'm debating getting a z3 rack instead.

[AWDBOB]

Looks great, Bobbie! I just sold my twin to this car last week. Surprisingly enough, I went down pretty much the same path you did, and ultimately, ended up with almost the same result. Glad you got it on the road!

Thanks, Austin! That's so funny, I hoped you were going to hold onto the red S50 car for a while- it seemed like they were very similar in function, just 24v. Paint good enough to show well in pictures but imperfect enough to drive the hell out of and enjoy.

I'm sure driving your MCoupe is a rewarding experience. I am curious to see how I will feel about keeping this car when the M3 is on the road. I hope it's in the stable for the long haul!

Woohooo! This is great to see. Have you driven a car with a zhp (gold tag e46) rack? I have that right now waiting to go into the next e30 but I'm debating getting a z3 rack instead.

Thanks man! It sure is rewarding- I have not driven a ZHP rack car.

The Z3 rack is fantastic, but I am sure that the E46 rack will feel great too. The Z3 rack is so tight of a ratio (and linear) it was actually a bit difficult to drive at first. In a long sweeping turn it almost feels a bit unstable. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but the steering inputs are so quick and articulated it's hard to keep the car steady when you're not used to it.

If there is one thing I've learned, I did not build this suspension to be forgiving, so it is exactly as I had hoped. The car is all there, it's just waiting for me to catch up to meet it's potential, and that makes every drive an exciting one.

The wheels have no vibrations (was worried with hubcentric adapters and fill/drill), dampening is comfortable yet crisp, NHV is negligible aside from rear diff bushing which I was expecting, swaybar set (adjustable Eibach tuned by Vorschlag) is balanced but stiff- this is the best handling street car I've ever driven.

My Evo with Öhlins and the works definitely had some notable differences over this car, but I can't point to that and say it was better......just different.

[e30austin]

Thanks, Austin! That's so funny, I hoped you were going to hold onto the red S50 car for a while- it seemed like they were very similar in function, just 24v. Paint good enough to show well in pictures but imperfect enough to drive the hell out of and enjoy.

I'm sure driving your MCoupe is a rewarding experience. I am curious to see how I will feel about keeping this car when the M3 is on the road. I hope it's in the stable for the long haul!

Well, my red S50 sedan will be with me til the day I go down. I also had a brilliant red over natur 1990 325is, that I had been trying to decide its fate for a long time. Ended up going through and fixing the whole interior, did 5 speed conversion, H&R and Bilsteins, etc. Wanted to keep it long term, but I just have too many and something had to give.

The M coupe is unlike anything else I've ever owned. Don't regret selling the silver e30 for it in the slightest. Funnest car I've owned to date. Please don't sell either of yours!!!

[Vic]

Woohooo! This is great to see. Have you driven a car with a zhp (gold tag e46) rack? I have that right now waiting to go into the next e30 but I'm debating getting a z3 rack instead.

I have the zhp rack in my '87, and the z3 in my '89 (delphin sedan pictured above) I prefer the zhp rack. in my opinion feels a bit more stable in the long sweeping curves than the z3 rack. Both are awesome but I prefer the zhp.

[AWDBOB]

Well, my red S50 sedan will be with me til the day I go down. I also had a brilliant red over natur 1990 325is, that I had been trying to decide its fate for a long time. Ended up going through and fixing the whole interior, did 5 speed conversion, H&R and Bilsteins, etc. Wanted to keep it long term, but I just have too many and something had to give.

The M coupe is unlike anything else I've ever owned. Don't regret selling the silver e30 for it in the slightest. Funnest car I've owned to date. Please don't sell either of yours!!!

Thank goodness- I got a bit sad thinking you sold it! The S50 sedan seems like a similar car in function to this one- I didn't realize you had Linda's true twin, though! This car was even auto when I got it, too.

The car has been searching for it's purpose since the beginning, and ultimately I'm quite happy with how it ended up. Ironically enough, it ended up almost exactly how I originally intended it, with two years of abandoning big projects to land me back to square one (the way it was meant to be).

Now that I have the chassis the way I want it I'd love to LS1 or S54 swap this car, but finally came to my senses after all of this mayhem, realizing that I just don't care enough to see it through at this point in the game (for example, my list of abandoned projects: M3 suspension, BBK, M20 stroker, M30, M52 stroker, stock M52 etc etc).

The MCoupe is a car that was right next to the E30M3 in "things I want to own someday". I don't think I ever will, though, so I'll have to continue living vicariously through others :) The iS and the M3 are enough for me, and I think they're going to make great stablemates for years to come.

However, if they made an awd Mcoupe I could replace my Forester DD with one, so that'd be a whole different story......

I have the zhp rack in my '87, and the z3 in my '89 (delphin sedan pictured above) I prefer the zhp rack. in my opinion feels a bit more stable in the long sweeping curves than the z3 rack. Both are awesome but I prefer the zhp.

Good to know- that makes sense after driving this a bit. I believe the E46 rack is progressive which likely explains a large part of the stability differences.

[AWDBOB]

Nice white iX is almost done, one manual iX parts car sold today, and Linda took me to get a new 20v recip saw so I could do this:

[AWDBOB]

Had an unexpected day off today so I used some of it to sort out a few things on the iS.

1) The valvetrain was very loud, so I pulled the VC again to re lash the valves. I found eccentrics on two rockers that worked themselves loose. Readjusted all of them and tightened them back up. The car fees a lot stronger and the noise is gone.

2) I had some fun with clusters. The iS needed (VDO) odometer gears, and I have two good Motometer clusters that needed gears, along with a bunch of spares. I tried to swap a spare VDO tach in my car (my econo gauge has a broken needle) and the tach was 1000rpms off. Tried different coding plugs, nothing fixed it. Removed the broken needle and will thankfully never have to watch myself get 0mpgs again.

3) I sold my IE shift knob, and still need a shift boot, but the Z3 lever has a thicker section so a stock style boot will not allow a proper push on knob to seat all of the way. Looking for a solution there.

Car is still running great and is a blast to drive.

[AWDBOB]

Some "after driving it as much as I can" thoughts:

-I fall in love with this car more every time I drive it. It's the first E30 I've put any miles on aside from my ratchet red iX (first E30), and it's the first car I've built that I know I will never sell every time I get behind the wheel. Keeping the exterior and interior a 6/10 in terms of paint chips and seat rips will continue to allow me to hop in this thing with a smile any time I want.

-I am amazed at how quick this car is- I've never driven an E30 that has even come close to the agility, quickness in revs, low rpm torque, and top end power band. Shows what a healthy M20 can do (Matt, you were right about this M20). Having a low mile DOT G260 is a dream come true. It completes the driving experience.

-The balance is perfect. Once you complete a step in a journey like this (changing my mind on setup 100 times), I think the car really tells you what it wants. And I really don't think I'll ever take an M20 out of this car. It wants Megasquirt and ITBs and someday a stroker bottom end, but she's in no rush to get there. Suspension-wise, I'm not changing a thing.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr