Hey Guys,
Figured I would introduce my car, myself, and my work! :)
*Warning: I type too much *
Anyways,
So this is my 1987 BMW 325i Sedan that I was lucky enough to stumble upon in a field and pay a whopping $200CAD for!
Admittedly, I am not a BMW guy. I dont even like BMW, but I was previously dating a girl who was into BMW's and the E30 was one of the few that I did have a soft spot for. I got into building cars when I was 15 (25 now) and all of my previous experience was with GM's, Fbody, C5/6 corvettes, Duramax's, eventually led myself to Mazda's in building a LS6 RX8, then a Procharged LS2 RX8.
Story begins in November 2015, A buddy of mine calls me to say that an older lady he works with is moving from her farm, and there is a bunch of trailer frames laying around that we should take a look at to see if we can make a car trailer. We head out, and stroll around the property, but struggle to find much good. On our way around the back of the lot, we come over a hill, and this E30 is sitting there beside some tree's. She tells me that it has had some parts removed for their other '89 Vert, and it is destined for the scrap yard. NOPE! Offered her $200, she agree'd and the rest is history!
I knew absolutely nothing about E30's in general, and had no history on the car. It was missing the cluster, fuel tank, driveshaft, and a few other parts. The hood wouldnt open, but I didnt care. I was taking it.
Moved it back to my place and sat it aside as a future daily driver project. A buddy of mine, who knows a good bit about the E30 comes over and gets all excited explaining to me how clean it is for a canadian car, with a dash that isnt cracked, and has some good options!
He told me a trick to open the hood, but obviously figured it would be funny for me to learn the hard way that they are a forward tilt hood, and you should NOT shove your face into the front of it as you jam a screw driver into the latch to pop it! After a nice punch to the face from the hood, I got a look at just how much work this car was going to be!
Should have taken pics right away, but I didnt, so this shows after alot of the mouse/animal nesting had been pulled out lol
Disassembly process began with removing the engine...and then promptly leaving it aside for 5 months LOL
So, while this was going on, I was still knee deep in the second phase of my RX8 build, and I wasnt all that focused on the E30.
Then I moved shop's, and took on a customer build that ended up being a 527 hour job, that I lost $2k on.
Finished that up at the end of April 2016, and May 4th, 2016, I started the E30 build. Aimed to complete it in 4 weeks.
The plans for the car, with a $2800CAD budget, included:
Convert to manual trans
-New clutch & hydraulics
-Repair rust spots
-Clean the crap out of it
-Paint everything I can
-Coilover install
-Rebuild all brakes
-Completely reseal the engine
-New timing belt kit w/ water pump
-Fit RX8 Engine oil coolers in the front end (one as PS oil cooler)
-Make custom bump steer ends
-Replace fuel tank
-Fit stancey wheels
Plus some other stuff, but mechanically wanted to make it a new car
First, we rolled it to the end of the shop, and spent 10 hours with degreaser to see how she looked under all the crud, then rolled her in for surgery to begin.
Did a little bit of cleaning of some surface rust on the rockers and re sprayed the rocker guard
Parts started to roll in!
Among all this, my nexus 5's camera seemed to fall apart, so not all pics are of stellar quality. APOLOGIES!
Started work on cleaning up the engine and supporting parts to freshen them all up
looked a little prettier after!
Got the new front end parts of the motor on, and manual trans hooked up to it!
Fit 10AN adapters into the oil cooler to run to the RX8 cooler
And, the engine fell back in!! :D So far I was well on my way to meet my target driving goals!
Then I found out I can get cheap stainless headers on eBay....absolutely horrible decision that I am still paying for. Beyond the brutal fitment, they dont seal worth a damn. Oh well, something to address next winter
Little bit of love from some wrinkle coat, and the rocker cover was looking pretty!
Had a buddy of mine come over to give me some help one of the long work nights!
Unfortunately I only seemed to take snapchat's of the brackets I cut out with the plasma and welded up to fit the RX8 oil coolers into the front of it
Cleaned the injectors, and tried a 2 tone on the intake manifold. Came out okay, the intake manifold on the M20 is hands down the thing I hate very most about this car.
Ignition back in with fresh plugs
Fit the wiring harness back in the car. Still had no idea what had led to this car ending up in a field, so I was being very thorough with it to determine what went wrong. I found some wiring damage in the harness, places vacuum would have leaked and such, so I was still hoping that there wasnt some major gremlin somewhere I was missing out on that was a future headache.
Painted the headlight buckets, few more parts on!
Brought my Canon 40D out for a couple nicer pics
I think I have some gaps in my pics here, but on June 5th, SHE MOVED OUT OF THE GARAGE!
Realized I was going to need wheel spacers to clear the coilovers in the front end
Then, a mere 29 hours after she was finished. Disaster struck :sad:
Combination of 1.5" of toe in, cold wet roads, and bushings that were completely rotted, led me to sliding into the ditch (Sadness)
Thankfully, she wasnt a write off, and I refused to let her die like that.
Damage included:
Bent lower rad support
Dented fender
Dented hood
Blown up headlight bucket
Bent lower control arm
Creases in pass side doors
Ego
I ordered a full Garagistic poly bushing kit, New Lemforder control arms, and pulled some strings with some friends for some parts laying around, and 2 weeks later, she was done AGAIN.
Managed to complete it 2 days before Eurokracy in Montreal!
Started falling in love with it more and more
Got the grilles back into it last week!
And so that is the story so far! Much more to come with this car, I am currently working in making carbon fiber front bumpers for it
Also working on a project to fit a GM E67 based ECU into it, but I wont say much about that until I have testing done. Waiting for some 3D printed parts before I can begin testing, and hoping theory transfers to reality properly to make it work!
Thanks for reading
Figured I would introduce my car, myself, and my work! :)
*Warning: I type too much *
Anyways,
So this is my 1987 BMW 325i Sedan that I was lucky enough to stumble upon in a field and pay a whopping $200CAD for!
Admittedly, I am not a BMW guy. I dont even like BMW, but I was previously dating a girl who was into BMW's and the E30 was one of the few that I did have a soft spot for. I got into building cars when I was 15 (25 now) and all of my previous experience was with GM's, Fbody, C5/6 corvettes, Duramax's, eventually led myself to Mazda's in building a LS6 RX8, then a Procharged LS2 RX8.
Story begins in November 2015, A buddy of mine calls me to say that an older lady he works with is moving from her farm, and there is a bunch of trailer frames laying around that we should take a look at to see if we can make a car trailer. We head out, and stroll around the property, but struggle to find much good. On our way around the back of the lot, we come over a hill, and this E30 is sitting there beside some tree's. She tells me that it has had some parts removed for their other '89 Vert, and it is destined for the scrap yard. NOPE! Offered her $200, she agree'd and the rest is history!
I knew absolutely nothing about E30's in general, and had no history on the car. It was missing the cluster, fuel tank, driveshaft, and a few other parts. The hood wouldnt open, but I didnt care. I was taking it.
Moved it back to my place and sat it aside as a future daily driver project. A buddy of mine, who knows a good bit about the E30 comes over and gets all excited explaining to me how clean it is for a canadian car, with a dash that isnt cracked, and has some good options!
He told me a trick to open the hood, but obviously figured it would be funny for me to learn the hard way that they are a forward tilt hood, and you should NOT shove your face into the front of it as you jam a screw driver into the latch to pop it! After a nice punch to the face from the hood, I got a look at just how much work this car was going to be!
Should have taken pics right away, but I didnt, so this shows after alot of the mouse/animal nesting had been pulled out lol
Disassembly process began with removing the engine...and then promptly leaving it aside for 5 months LOL
So, while this was going on, I was still knee deep in the second phase of my RX8 build, and I wasnt all that focused on the E30.
Then I moved shop's, and took on a customer build that ended up being a 527 hour job, that I lost $2k on.
Finished that up at the end of April 2016, and May 4th, 2016, I started the E30 build. Aimed to complete it in 4 weeks.
The plans for the car, with a $2800CAD budget, included:
Convert to manual trans
-New clutch & hydraulics
-Repair rust spots
-Clean the crap out of it
-Paint everything I can
-Coilover install
-Rebuild all brakes
-Completely reseal the engine
-New timing belt kit w/ water pump
-Fit RX8 Engine oil coolers in the front end (one as PS oil cooler)
-Make custom bump steer ends
-Replace fuel tank
-Fit stancey wheels
Plus some other stuff, but mechanically wanted to make it a new car
First, we rolled it to the end of the shop, and spent 10 hours with degreaser to see how she looked under all the crud, then rolled her in for surgery to begin.
Did a little bit of cleaning of some surface rust on the rockers and re sprayed the rocker guard
Parts started to roll in!
Among all this, my nexus 5's camera seemed to fall apart, so not all pics are of stellar quality. APOLOGIES!
Started work on cleaning up the engine and supporting parts to freshen them all up
looked a little prettier after!
Got the new front end parts of the motor on, and manual trans hooked up to it!
Fit 10AN adapters into the oil cooler to run to the RX8 cooler
And, the engine fell back in!! :D So far I was well on my way to meet my target driving goals!
Then I found out I can get cheap stainless headers on eBay....absolutely horrible decision that I am still paying for. Beyond the brutal fitment, they dont seal worth a damn. Oh well, something to address next winter
Little bit of love from some wrinkle coat, and the rocker cover was looking pretty!
Had a buddy of mine come over to give me some help one of the long work nights!
Unfortunately I only seemed to take snapchat's of the brackets I cut out with the plasma and welded up to fit the RX8 oil coolers into the front of it
Cleaned the injectors, and tried a 2 tone on the intake manifold. Came out okay, the intake manifold on the M20 is hands down the thing I hate very most about this car.
Ignition back in with fresh plugs
Fit the wiring harness back in the car. Still had no idea what had led to this car ending up in a field, so I was being very thorough with it to determine what went wrong. I found some wiring damage in the harness, places vacuum would have leaked and such, so I was still hoping that there wasnt some major gremlin somewhere I was missing out on that was a future headache.
Painted the headlight buckets, few more parts on!
Brought my Canon 40D out for a couple nicer pics
I think I have some gaps in my pics here, but on June 5th, SHE MOVED OUT OF THE GARAGE!
Realized I was going to need wheel spacers to clear the coilovers in the front end
Then, a mere 29 hours after she was finished. Disaster struck :sad:
Combination of 1.5" of toe in, cold wet roads, and bushings that were completely rotted, led me to sliding into the ditch (Sadness)
Thankfully, she wasnt a write off, and I refused to let her die like that.
Damage included:
Bent lower rad support
Dented fender
Dented hood
Blown up headlight bucket
Bent lower control arm
Creases in pass side doors
Ego
I ordered a full Garagistic poly bushing kit, New Lemforder control arms, and pulled some strings with some friends for some parts laying around, and 2 weeks later, she was done AGAIN.
Managed to complete it 2 days before Eurokracy in Montreal!
Started falling in love with it more and more
Got the grilles back into it last week!
And so that is the story so far! Much more to come with this car, I am currently working in making carbon fiber front bumpers for it
Also working on a project to fit a GM E67 based ECU into it, but I wont say much about that until I have testing done. Waiting for some 3D printed parts before I can begin testing, and hoping theory transfers to reality properly to make it work!
Thanks for reading
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