It had been about 10 years since I last drove an e30, the last of which was my first car, this 1986 325e:
I admit, it was a tad boy-racerish, but I loved that car. My father and late uncle basically rebuilt that car with me beginning when I was about 14, and man, it was a blast! Not only do I have great memories of the time I spent with my dad and uncle while working on that car, but the car was just simply a ton of fun and had a tendency to attract more attention than I would have expected. Although slow, we were able to get the car looking pretty good, and I pretty much fell in love with BMWs from that point on.
Regrettably, I lost the car only a few short years later. I had joined the Army shortly after graduating high school, and the car sat with unreliable care for over 6 months while I went through various training schools. By the time I was able to get back to it, the car had taken on quite a bit of water due to leaks. I was able to clean the mess up for the most part, but something still managed to cause some electrical issues, amongst others. After successfully driving the car from Houston all the way to Fort Bragg, NC, the car began to basically spaz out intermittently and ultimately ended up leaving me stranded on a highway near Washington DC. I was getting ready to deploy, short on money and resources, and really just out of options, so I basically gave the car away. In hindsight, I could've done more and kept the car, but I was young and dumb... You live and you learn...
Anywho, 10 years later, I'm married, happily civilian, edumicated, have a career and a garage, and my wife is cool enough to let me waste a little money on something I definitely don't 'need'. So, I began lurking the forums again about 2-3 years ago to relearn everything I used to know about e30s, and obviously began planning my epic build and agonizing over every "for sale" post that I couldn't yet do anything about.
Finally, a few weeks ago we met a financial goal that would free up a little money for me to begin my project. Almost simultaneously I came across what looked like a pretty good deal on craigslist for a 1990 325i. I went to check it out and learned that the original owner was apparently a bit of an enthusiast and had done a few things to the car, as well as kept pretty decent notes in his Bentley manual. The car had been pretty well kept considering its age, ran well, and just needed some TLC to get things to where I would be comfortable and enjoy driving it. I was able to make a deal with the owner and picked her up the day before Hurrican Harvey hit us! Here are some pics of the car in my garage in the middle of the downpour, and some of the flooding that surrounded us on 3 sides:
About two days before picking the car up, I got antsy and took a trip to the Pick Your Part to look for some seats to replace the ones that the car came with. The car came with e30 sport seats, but they were non-matching grey cloth under some pretty undesirable covers. I also found them generally uncomfortable. I'm fairly short in height and just felt like I was sitting in a hole. Fortunately, after searching literally every 3-series BMW in the yard, I scored some really nice powered leather seats out of a 2006 e46. the seats were almost like new. Just 2 little slits in the passenger seat that look like somebody poked it with a pocket knife, and about 2 inches of busted stitching on the driver seat. I intend to fix both of those imperfections but haven't yet.
With the hurricane bearing down on us, I had plenty of time to get to work on the car. My first priority was to get the car as comfortable and functional as possible. With the suspension and engine in pretty good order, I decided to focus on the interior first, beginning with the seats. I took a trip to home depot to pick up supplies to fabricate some brackets for the e46 seats. I picked up some 3'' wide 1/8" thick steel and various bolts, washers, and nuts, as well as a metal cutting/grinding wheel for the angle grinder. It took a couple of hours to measure, cut, and check fitment for the first set of seat brackets, but the second set was quick and easy, as I could use the first set as a template. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the fabrication process, but I'll be happy to take some pictures of the brackets and hardware when I get around to pulling the seats and carpet to lay down some new sound dampening material.
Long story short, I got the seats mounted and wired all in about a day and without much fuss. I was able to pound the seatbelt anchor rod instead of cutting and welding. It works, so whatever ... The seats definitely rub against the console when moving forward and backward, but they still work perfectly, are super comfortable, and they look great in my opinion (memory function apparently only works with e46 computer). I really don't care about the weight and all that other bs, I just want the car to be nice, comfortable, and functional. With what I have planned performance-wise, the 20-30 lbs from the seats aren't a big concern. Fortunately, the rear seats were in pretty much perfect condition, which was a nice surprise.
Sport seats:
With the seats completed, I turned my attention to little things like the SI board batteries to fix the tachometer, new LED bulbs for the instrument cluster, a new ZCP shift knob that I found for a great deal all the way out in Charlotte, NC that just happened to post right around the same time I was going to visit my in-laws there. Next in line for the interior will be some new window tint, and the interior will be temporarily done.
The exterior definitely needs some love, too. First, I have some rust issues that need to be taken care of on the sunroof and rear quarter below the battery box:
I still need to put the car up on stands to inspect everything else underneath, but all else looks good from what I can see so far, and I don't suspect I'll find anything too surprising. My long term plans for the exterior are new wheels, Mtech II or AC Schnitzer aero (currently leaning Mtech II, but likely to change 5-6 more times), and re-spray. I'm undecided on wheel options, but I'm currently partial to BBS style 5, 42, LM, or anything along those lines. I'm thinking I'll go with 17s, 8-9" wide.
As for paint, the car is still with its original Schwarz. My preference would be something along the lines of a deeper red, between Brilliantrot and Imola Red, but I've always liked the different blacks and grays. Considering the difficulty of re-spraying from black to red, or any other color, I've decided that I'll likely stick to some shade of black. I'm leaning toward Diamantschwarz Metallic, but I'm a big fan of Delphin and I'm open to sticking with Schwarz as well. Opinions are welcome on the matter.
In the meantime, I went ahead and freshened the old, tired paint up as much as I could with a good clean, polish, and wax. I was surprised at how much of a difference each step made. The paint was REALLY tired!!
I also went ahead and painted the tails all red/clear, simply because it was cheap and I had nothing better to do:
I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I did this job in just a few hours with perfect painting/curing weather post-storm. I used VHT Nightshades Red and Duplicolor clear coat. I used about 3 coats of each, scuffing with steel wool between the paint and clear coat application, and a light scuff after the clear coat, followed by polishing. I still need to polish them some more to get a better gloss finish.
The car also came with CAI and a Turner Motorsports performance chip that was uninstalled. I went ahead and replaced the intake filter, ran the car a good bit and topped with 93 octane fuel, and then installed the chip. The car currently runs pretty well and I'm enjoying what power it does have. My long term plans for the engine: 3.1 stroker, KAMotors turbo, and Megasquirt. Since the engine seems pretty strong at the moment, I'm thinking I'll do the turbo, ARP studs, Megasquirt, and maybe some head work/cam first, then stroke when its time to rebuild. I'll have to assess the engine's condition, as well as save some $$$ before I do any of that, though. My target for power is ~400hp and very reliable. I can't imagine needing more power than that for such a small car, but I guess we'll see.
The original owner previously installed Dinan Stage II suspension, including front and rear sway bars, as well as an Ireland Engineering strut brace. Considering the bottle caps and goofy tires, the car handles pretty well and sits at a nice, lowered stance. I originally planned to go with coil-overs at some point, but I think I'll keep the suspension as-is for now, as I'm pretty happy with it. However, I will be replacing all bushing with some street-able
polys, as well as reinforcing the chassis as much as necessary for my power goals.
This is going to be a somewhat slow project, as I'm not made of money and my wife and kids like to see me, but I intend to be very thorough and end up with a really nice, fun, and fast car. Hopefully, I can also contribute some valuable information to the community in the meantime.
"I wanna go fast." - Ricky Bobby
I admit, it was a tad boy-racerish, but I loved that car. My father and late uncle basically rebuilt that car with me beginning when I was about 14, and man, it was a blast! Not only do I have great memories of the time I spent with my dad and uncle while working on that car, but the car was just simply a ton of fun and had a tendency to attract more attention than I would have expected. Although slow, we were able to get the car looking pretty good, and I pretty much fell in love with BMWs from that point on.
Regrettably, I lost the car only a few short years later. I had joined the Army shortly after graduating high school, and the car sat with unreliable care for over 6 months while I went through various training schools. By the time I was able to get back to it, the car had taken on quite a bit of water due to leaks. I was able to clean the mess up for the most part, but something still managed to cause some electrical issues, amongst others. After successfully driving the car from Houston all the way to Fort Bragg, NC, the car began to basically spaz out intermittently and ultimately ended up leaving me stranded on a highway near Washington DC. I was getting ready to deploy, short on money and resources, and really just out of options, so I basically gave the car away. In hindsight, I could've done more and kept the car, but I was young and dumb... You live and you learn...
Anywho, 10 years later, I'm married, happily civilian, edumicated, have a career and a garage, and my wife is cool enough to let me waste a little money on something I definitely don't 'need'. So, I began lurking the forums again about 2-3 years ago to relearn everything I used to know about e30s, and obviously began planning my epic build and agonizing over every "for sale" post that I couldn't yet do anything about.
Finally, a few weeks ago we met a financial goal that would free up a little money for me to begin my project. Almost simultaneously I came across what looked like a pretty good deal on craigslist for a 1990 325i. I went to check it out and learned that the original owner was apparently a bit of an enthusiast and had done a few things to the car, as well as kept pretty decent notes in his Bentley manual. The car had been pretty well kept considering its age, ran well, and just needed some TLC to get things to where I would be comfortable and enjoy driving it. I was able to make a deal with the owner and picked her up the day before Hurrican Harvey hit us! Here are some pics of the car in my garage in the middle of the downpour, and some of the flooding that surrounded us on 3 sides:
About two days before picking the car up, I got antsy and took a trip to the Pick Your Part to look for some seats to replace the ones that the car came with. The car came with e30 sport seats, but they were non-matching grey cloth under some pretty undesirable covers. I also found them generally uncomfortable. I'm fairly short in height and just felt like I was sitting in a hole. Fortunately, after searching literally every 3-series BMW in the yard, I scored some really nice powered leather seats out of a 2006 e46. the seats were almost like new. Just 2 little slits in the passenger seat that look like somebody poked it with a pocket knife, and about 2 inches of busted stitching on the driver seat. I intend to fix both of those imperfections but haven't yet.
With the hurricane bearing down on us, I had plenty of time to get to work on the car. My first priority was to get the car as comfortable and functional as possible. With the suspension and engine in pretty good order, I decided to focus on the interior first, beginning with the seats. I took a trip to home depot to pick up supplies to fabricate some brackets for the e46 seats. I picked up some 3'' wide 1/8" thick steel and various bolts, washers, and nuts, as well as a metal cutting/grinding wheel for the angle grinder. It took a couple of hours to measure, cut, and check fitment for the first set of seat brackets, but the second set was quick and easy, as I could use the first set as a template. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the fabrication process, but I'll be happy to take some pictures of the brackets and hardware when I get around to pulling the seats and carpet to lay down some new sound dampening material.
Long story short, I got the seats mounted and wired all in about a day and without much fuss. I was able to pound the seatbelt anchor rod instead of cutting and welding. It works, so whatever ... The seats definitely rub against the console when moving forward and backward, but they still work perfectly, are super comfortable, and they look great in my opinion (memory function apparently only works with e46 computer). I really don't care about the weight and all that other bs, I just want the car to be nice, comfortable, and functional. With what I have planned performance-wise, the 20-30 lbs from the seats aren't a big concern. Fortunately, the rear seats were in pretty much perfect condition, which was a nice surprise.
Sport seats:
With the seats completed, I turned my attention to little things like the SI board batteries to fix the tachometer, new LED bulbs for the instrument cluster, a new ZCP shift knob that I found for a great deal all the way out in Charlotte, NC that just happened to post right around the same time I was going to visit my in-laws there. Next in line for the interior will be some new window tint, and the interior will be temporarily done.
The exterior definitely needs some love, too. First, I have some rust issues that need to be taken care of on the sunroof and rear quarter below the battery box:
I still need to put the car up on stands to inspect everything else underneath, but all else looks good from what I can see so far, and I don't suspect I'll find anything too surprising. My long term plans for the exterior are new wheels, Mtech II or AC Schnitzer aero (currently leaning Mtech II, but likely to change 5-6 more times), and re-spray. I'm undecided on wheel options, but I'm currently partial to BBS style 5, 42, LM, or anything along those lines. I'm thinking I'll go with 17s, 8-9" wide.
As for paint, the car is still with its original Schwarz. My preference would be something along the lines of a deeper red, between Brilliantrot and Imola Red, but I've always liked the different blacks and grays. Considering the difficulty of re-spraying from black to red, or any other color, I've decided that I'll likely stick to some shade of black. I'm leaning toward Diamantschwarz Metallic, but I'm a big fan of Delphin and I'm open to sticking with Schwarz as well. Opinions are welcome on the matter.
In the meantime, I went ahead and freshened the old, tired paint up as much as I could with a good clean, polish, and wax. I was surprised at how much of a difference each step made. The paint was REALLY tired!!
I also went ahead and painted the tails all red/clear, simply because it was cheap and I had nothing better to do:
I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I did this job in just a few hours with perfect painting/curing weather post-storm. I used VHT Nightshades Red and Duplicolor clear coat. I used about 3 coats of each, scuffing with steel wool between the paint and clear coat application, and a light scuff after the clear coat, followed by polishing. I still need to polish them some more to get a better gloss finish.
The car also came with CAI and a Turner Motorsports performance chip that was uninstalled. I went ahead and replaced the intake filter, ran the car a good bit and topped with 93 octane fuel, and then installed the chip. The car currently runs pretty well and I'm enjoying what power it does have. My long term plans for the engine: 3.1 stroker, KAMotors turbo, and Megasquirt. Since the engine seems pretty strong at the moment, I'm thinking I'll do the turbo, ARP studs, Megasquirt, and maybe some head work/cam first, then stroke when its time to rebuild. I'll have to assess the engine's condition, as well as save some $$$ before I do any of that, though. My target for power is ~400hp and very reliable. I can't imagine needing more power than that for such a small car, but I guess we'll see.
The original owner previously installed Dinan Stage II suspension, including front and rear sway bars, as well as an Ireland Engineering strut brace. Considering the bottle caps and goofy tires, the car handles pretty well and sits at a nice, lowered stance. I originally planned to go with coil-overs at some point, but I think I'll keep the suspension as-is for now, as I'm pretty happy with it. However, I will be replacing all bushing with some street-able
polys, as well as reinforcing the chassis as much as necessary for my power goals.
This is going to be a somewhat slow project, as I'm not made of money and my wife and kids like to see me, but I intend to be very thorough and end up with a really nice, fun, and fast car. Hopefully, I can also contribute some valuable information to the community in the meantime.
"I wanna go fast." - Ricky Bobby
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