Project rust-bucket...

[jeenyus]

Great project! looking forward to updates.

[haaken675]

Roll bar installed and test fit


And the final color! Definitely not for everyone, but I love it.


And finally starting to take shape engine wise


Of course I had to test fit the seat brackets I made, totally not pretending at all...


Setrab oil cooler paired with the Z3M radiator to hopefully keep this thing cool in the Florida heat


And this is why the wife wants to kill me...It started as little pieces here and there, and now literally there isn't a room in my house that doesn't\ have some form of car part in it...


And because I am a complete glutton for punishment, yet another project...This time the wife was the one that wanted it thought at least


Subframe bushings were a complete pain in the ass. The aluminum sleeve was so fused to the body that we couldn't get the subframe out no matter what we did. We had to cut the bushings leaving the remaining aluminum sleeve in the body for me to drill out...that was a nightmare...


The neighbors having a garage sale loved me...


And that's pretty much it since the last time. lots of little stuff getting done, and hopefully the subframe going back in with new Delrin bushings this weekend.

Things needing wrapping up in order to drive it finally:
1. finish making sense of the megasquirt wire harness with my m52 harness...
2. reinstall rear subframe
3. New ST sways needing installed
3. Fortune auto coilovers!
3. KA motors fender flares need to go on still, although without having a set of bumpers for reference during install is going to be hard
4. learn to tune?

[haaken675]

Long time since any updated. Because i'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to go turbo as well





Biggest intercooler possible!


Ended up with another project, but I passed that torch to my little brother.


Killer roll bar built locally by a guy building a sick s54 swapped e30


Doggo for good measure



one of my custom panels, working on the full HVAC delete now

[haaken675]

Finally an update. M20 is out!




The motor did not come out as easily as I was thinking it was going to. That is most likely due to the crappy quality harbor freight load leveler I bought for the project. Oh well, live and learn. Now that I finally have some momentum going, getting more and more excited to keep working on the car again. Should be making the harness adapter soon, installing the modified brake booster, new clutch, etc. soon. Shouldn't be long now that the m52 goes in.

[Stanley Rockafella]

Oh I understand that advantage, plus the very slight improvement in handling you get from removing mass from the roof of the car, but I question why everyone with a sunroof issue needs to immediately proceed to removing it when it's such a nice thing to have on a daily driver, especially in a climate like Florida. Most of these cars see an honest handful of track days in their lifetime, and they're then typically sold at a loss as their appeal to the general market has been removed along with most of the interior.

There's something to be said for a weekend car with a nice interior, especially if you're interested in having passengers with you.

LOL I see your point, but honestly, different strokes for different folks.


Also, the more people who cut up their "track cars" from a nice daily, are only increasing the value of those that were restored/properly kept up. I see no problem with OP doing this on his ride.

[haaken675]

Oh I understand that advantage, plus the very slight improvement in handling you get from removing mass from the roof of the car, but I question why everyone with a sunroof issue needs to immediately proceed to removing it when it's such a nice thing to have on a daily driver, especially in a climate like Florida. Most of these cars see an honest handful of track days in their lifetime, and they're then typically sold at a loss as their appeal to the general market has been removed along with most of the interior.

There's something to be said for a weekend car with a nice interior, especially if you're interested in having passengers with you.

How about because there was rust/rot trapped between the sunroof cassette and the roof skin itself. There is no way in hell I can handle that kind of repair myself, and I'm certainly not going to pay to have that fixed. This isn't an m3...Might as well go full tack/weekend fun car build...That and I always have wanted to build a stripped out car led me down this path. If I wanted to do a restoration, I would have looked for a nice old Porsche.

I would love to have the sunroof, but when the repair is going to cost 2x more then what I paid for the car, its most definitely NOT worth it.

[Shock(/\)ave]

Removing the sunroof contraption gains you more headroom which is more comfortable when wearing a helmet. Last HPDE I did my head was rubbing the roof the whole time which got annoying, but I don't have this problem in my slicktop. Looks like his car needs a whole new roof anyway.

Oh I understand that advantage, plus the very slight improvement in handling you get from removing mass from the roof of the car, but I question why everyone with a sunroof issue needs to immediately proceed to removing it when it's such a nice thing to have on a daily driver, especially in a climate like Florida. Most of these cars see an honest handful of track days in their lifetime, and they're then typically sold at a loss as their appeal to the general market has been removed along with most of the interior.

There's something to be said for a weekend car with a nice interior, especially if you're interested in having passengers with you.

[E30 Wagen]

Why don't you take the sunroof delete panel not working out as a sign that you should replace the sunroof with a good one and restore the car properly? I don't get the appeal of removing a sunroof for any car that isn't a dedicated street car.

Removing the sunroof contraption gains you more headroom which is more comfortable when wearing a helmet. Last HPDE I did my head was rubbing the roof the whole time which got annoying, but I don't have this problem in my slicktop. Looks like his car needs a whole new roof anyway.

[Shock(/\)ave]

I was really looking forward to the sunroof initially, lol.

Why don't you take the sunroof delete panel not working out as a sign that you should replace the sunroof with a good one and restore the car properly? I don't get the appeal of removing a sunroof for any car that isn't a dedicated street car.

[RobTapps88]

its mostly the roof. I was really looking forward to the sunroof initially, lol. Being in the south we don't get as many rusty cars thank goodness :)

Yea I'm on the west coast here... Salt in winter and wet in fall spring.. I have a metric ton of patching to do.. guess I get to learn to weld ha

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[haaken675]

its mostly the roof. I was really looking forward to the sunroof initially, lol. Being in the south we don't get as many rusty cars thank goodness :)

[RobTapps88]

You call that a rust bucket?? That things mint compared to mine.. in the words of Nepolian Dynamite "ughhhhhhhh luuuckyyyyyyy"

Good luck on the build man :)

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[haaken675]

Hey everyone. Finally have an opportunity to put together an actual build thread. I have had bimmers off and on over the years, and this is my second e30. Mostly had several of them when I was younger and could only afford to go so far with a build I have big plans for this car, and I can hopefully fulfill somewhere between 75-85% of all the ideas I have for it so far.

The day I picked it up:


'87 325is. Bought it from a guy that clearly needed the money. Pretty sure he lost his house, etc. Had two cars, this and an '86 lapis blue car that he would take less for but needed even more work then the one I bought.

Drove it home, motor runs pretty decent, knew there was a little rust here and there. No big deal so I thought...

Notice the wind deflector on the roof...Turns out it was hiding more rust then I thought.


Started grinding away until I realized it was in and under the sunroof tray and that I really needed that to go away completely.



Managed to get that out all on my own. That certainly wasn't easy and I hope to never have to do it again. I ended up with a slight ripple in the roof I need to fix now due to a weld not being fully cut through, but oh well. too late.

It was at that point that I decided the car was going to get gutted and turned into more of a weekend car/track toy. Little did my fiancé know as when she left the car had a headliner and interior, and by the time she came back from work I had already gutted as much as I could and cut out the sunroof cassette.

Bought an S2R sunroof delete panel to fill in the now vacant hole.


Quality and fitment are good. But I can't really figure out a good way to mount it now as I think it was really designed to fit on the sunroof cassette. Oh well, an expensive mistake. Up for sale if anyone wants it. I have decided I'm going to use a large piece of 20-22 gauge sheet steel and create a new panel to cover the sunroof hole. Its a race car now anyways, right?

Finally bought a house of my own, so more space to work on projects (I have lots of them)


and finally, I decided to do a 24v swap.


I got a good deal on a motor semi locally. Hopefully it will actually run. Everything looks to be ok inside, but you never really know. Kid I bought it from wasn't really up and aware of everything...Ironically enough I decided to do the 24v swap because I didn't want to spend all the money on good turbo parts and an ecu, and in all reality I am spending nearly that much anyways. Oh well, it should be a better track toy with the m52b28 in it anyways.

The plan is to pull the m20 this weekend, clean up the engine bay, and hopefully install the new motor potentially this sunday or maybe at some point during the week. We shall see. Ironically enough in the process of taking more things apart the other day I discovered even more rust, hence why this car shall be forever known as project rust bucket...





So there she is in all her rusty glory... Plans after the swap include:

fender flares
roll bar or welded in half cage
good set of wide wheels and tires
aftermarket steering wheel
customer center exit exhaust
custom rear diffuser
plastic bumper swap retaining the IS front valence and creating a custom splitter
RFID push to start needs to get wired in
Sparco or Corbeau seats
and so much more...