My First E30! *Build Log*

[RobTapps88]

Well here it goes for a seccond time..(this is going to be a lot shorter than my original post.) Thanks taptalk for wasting an hour of my time ugh.....

*edit... Omfg nothing is working tonight... Sorry for the massive pics... Don't know how to resize on mobile..*

First.... Hi... I'm Rob, I'm from B.C. Canada and 2 weeks ago I purchased my first E30 325 with an auto trans and 445,000 km's. The previous owners neglected it and it is going to require a ground up rebuild, rotted subframes, broken swaybar mounts, a beyond tired engine and some rust.. (Less rust than I was expecting as the carpets were drenched when I bought the car..) I patched the hole where the clutch would be temporarily until I can afford to get the welding done but with all the other immediate problems the rust can wait until summer.. (Nobody likes wet feet...)













After finding all this out I thought to me self "what a nugget.. A drift nugget!!!" so I will be ordering new bushings, rear trailing arms, and front and rear subframes in the coming months...

Due to funds, parts availability, design and purpose this car will not be utilizing all BMW parts.. You guys can hate me all you want for it but it is what it is.. Hopefully this thread will give some ideas and solutions to problems that will help someone down the road. Thanks for reading and will update soon :)

[RobTapps88]

Just a quick update: Tons of wet slushy snow here... May do a bumper tuck if I can get the drift nugget in the garage.. In between paydays at the moment. Major work will begin as soon as I can get a new front subframe. Taxes should help speed this up a bit.

If you guys have any suggestions for solid parts please feel free to let me know :)

First round of parts to be ordered:

Full suspension bushing kit and braided brake lines from garagistic

IE swaybar brackets w/ back plate

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[z28]

Make the pics smaller.

[RobTapps88]

Make the pics smaller.

I stated in the first post I don't know how to resize them.

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[rturbo 930]

I stated in the first post I don't know how to resize them.

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Here:

put a lower case h before .jpg of all the picture url's. That will resize them to 1024x768

[RobTapps88]

Here:

Tyvm lol

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[rturbo 930]

Due to funds, parts availability, design and purpose this car will not be utilizing all BMW parts.. You guys can hate me all you want for it but it is what it is.

We aren't purists here. Some may be moreso than others, but outside of M3s and special editions, no one really seems to care about non-BMW parts.

[RobTapps88]

We aren't purists here. Some may be moreso than others, but outside of M3s and special editions, no one really seems to care about non-BMW parts.

Wasn't too sure ha, have not seen many threads trying to get non bmw parts on to an e30. Would like non welded struts/ knuckles and such.. Will have to do a bunch of archive digging in sure..

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[rturbo 930]

Well I guess it depends what you mean by non-BMW. Are we talking about aftermarket replacements for stock parts, or grafting on totally different suspension systems, non-BMW engine swap, etc.? If that's what you mean, then it hasn't been done much, at least regarding suspension, because many people here chose the E30 because of how it handles, and of course, completely replacing the suspension with a different design is very difficult to do. BMW engine swaps are common because they're easy to do, and of course, they're BMW parts. Chevy, Ford, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota engine swaps have all been done, just not very often because of the cost/effort. I think there's a kit out now for the LS1 though.

[RobTapps88]

Well I guess it depends what you mean by non-BMW. Are we talking about aftermarket replacements for stock parts, or grafting on totally different suspension systems, non-BMW engine swap, etc.? If that's what you mean, then it hasn't been done much, at least regarding suspension, because many people here chose the E30 because of how it handles, and of course, completely replacing the suspension with a different design is very difficult to do. BMW engine swaps are common because they're easy to do, and of course, they're BMW parts. Chevy, Ford, Honda, Nissan, and Toyota engine swaps have all been done, just not very often because of the cost/effort. I think there's a kit out now for the LS1 though.

Mostly a swap probably going to go with an sr20det because cheap.. Turbo.. DOCH.. I am a tinkerer by nature and the only thing I cant really do is mill things lathe or weld. (Things I don't have at my disposal..) when it comes to problem solving thats the easy part for me :)

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[RobTapps88]

The kid I bought the car off of decided it would be a good idea to "smoke" the tail lights with flat black spray paint.. It looked hideous and you could barely see my brake lights so I decided to clean them up last night using brake cleaner and a shop towel.. The paint came off in seconds.







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[roguetoaster]

In future try to not get brake clean on plastics as it can damage them rather easily.

Props to you for working outside in the mud with snow next to you on a nonessential project. That really embodies the spirit of a younger E30 owner than I am anymore.

[RobTapps88]

In future try to not get brake clean on plastics as it can damage them rather easily.

Props to you for working outside in the mud with snow next to you on a nonessential project. That really embodies the spirit of a younger E30 owner than I am anymore.

I rinsed them immediately after cleaning the paint off as I was worried about it damaging the plastics, it wasn't legal and I can't afford any more tickets.. now on to brakes rotors and a temp swaybar mount until I gather all the parts for the front end rebuild

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[RobTapps88]

Also straightened my steering wheel today.. the brakes are down to metal on metal however so those are getting bumped to first on the list with the swaybar mounts.. then suspension parts and subframes, hope the weather gets better soon so I can start real work on the car.


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[roguetoaster]

You should really make a new thread here: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=148 or ask a mod to move this one.

Also, what in the world are you wearing? To me it looks like you are a very large 6 year old who somehow managed to get their hands on one of my Moms jackets from when I was about 6.