Project finished - 'MY22' 318is - bare metal, nut and bolt restoration

[burkey001]

Hi, checking in with tedious minutiae of post-project car life….

Went to German Auto Day, which was way bigger than I expected and an absolutely cracking day of weather. Getting to know a few people locally so good to go say ‘hi’.

The local BMW Car Club had a show and shine, and while I think the judges may have been a little optimistic, the orange car scored a clean 240/240 points

Couple of pics by others, gloss levels looking good








Took it to a 24hr mountain bike race and its good to remember the boot in the E30 is big and carries a HEAP of stuff…






4950 km travelled.

Cya 😊

[2mAn]

Can't wait until I also get some pictures

[burkey001]

2mAn your pics are coming. took last night ... thanks tolocal BMW car club member John Havelock

sample.. apologies it took almost forever...

[AusScare]

Love this, looking great, still!

Also, thoughts on your brakes setup? Where did you source it and would you recommend it?

[burkey001]

Love this, looking great, still!

Also, thoughts on your brakes setup? Where did you source it and would you recommend it?

hey thanks, its been nice to get around in it. 5100km now.

the brakes on this one are from Massive Brakes. They are the 300x32mm rotor kit with Wilwood SL6R and SL4R calipers. I am running BP20 compound pads. I put big brakes on all these kind of cars and I like them. there are three main negatives to a race caliper like this;
1) pad rattle. Because the pads are big and heavy and only loosely retained from movement by some edge contact springs you can hear the pads rattling around a little bit on rough roads in certain circumstances. It's not loud and your passengers probably dont hear it. But once you know, you know.
2) no street pad compound. BP20 is a bit noisy / squealy and its a horrible compound in far as what it does to your rims. very etchy. my recollection of cold PFC08s was equal to these, so thats probably what i will change to in the year 2056 when these pads wear out (due to how much i drive each year)
3) your spare tire isnt going to fit. so you need to buy 5x of whatever custom wheel you get made to fit over them.

i do think this setup is a little over-braked on the rear, when they get hot the back gets slightly grabby compared to front.

positives, great pedal feel. great stopping power.

[AusScare]

Good review/info. Keeping this in the bag for when my brakes become insufficient to handle my motor swap. Any compliance/insurance issues with the calipers not having rubber boots, or have you had them engineered?

The fact that custom wheels are basically required is less than ideal. Price to pay for modifying at this level I guess.

[Staszek]

So beautiful! What an outcome to this project. NIce work!

[DEV0 E30]

Gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. I love all of your choices honestly. Color, wheels, just superb.

[!RocknE30!]

Well I can confidently say I likely wont see a cleaner E30 in my lifetime. That is a work of art! I had a background image of a similar orange colored E30 rally car drifting at full lock in the snow (I believe) wayyyy long ago and I've loved that color on E30s ever since. Amazing work.

[burkey001]

thanks team, good to be out using it :)

[AmosCake]

Some progress at last. 4 of the 5 wheels I ordered arrived and I had some Pilot Sport 4 fitted in 215/40/17.
NTM forgot to make the 5^th, but they assure me it’s underway soon.

They’re a square setup but I have 3 fronts and 2 rears. The rears have more lip to make them look wider.

Quality of the NTM seems pretty good, I have no complaints. They look on-par with the BBS LM or Forgeline wheels I have.

The fit is conservative, but that’s to be expected because this is intended to be a no-fuss driver. Could have gone another +10mm on offset, but I don’t want the guard grabbing potential pain that comes with that.


Have dropped the car off to Auto Attention and Maxwell Wang for a week and a bit of final love. AA are doing a final paint correction and flatten over _everything_ Then Maxwell is wrapping the whole car up to the A pillars and then the rest up the rubbing strip along the side. Then AA will ceramic coat the whole lot.

Picked these two vendors because they both appear to be absolutely on top of their game.


Really looking forward to installing the black strips in the bumpers.









Test look




These pics are before the final paint correction. SO the paint looks good here, but it’s not finished. Every remaining surface, curve and edge will be flattened. It should glow when done 😊


I might drop it a little bit more, but I think the height is pretty every day usable, so it wont be much more.







So close, I actually smiled when I looked at it. I am really happy with these wheels. For me, it’s a great look.

What are your wheel specs if you dont mind me asking? Looking to get the same wheels but in 16s

[Northern]

hey thanks, its been nice to get around in it. 5100km now.

the brakes on this one are from Massive Brakes. They are the 300x32mm rotor kit with Wilwood SL6R and SL4R calipers. I am running BP20 compound pads. I

Quick question, I think you said this was with a 25mm E32 master cyl, right? stock booster and rear prop valve as well?

[burkey001]

Quick question, I think you said this was with a 25mm E32 master cyl, right? stock booster and rear prop valve as well?

Heya, yes you are correct.
It IS over braked on the rear, when the pads are hot - like 25 minute track session hot - the rears lock before the fronts. which is obviously not ideal.

The other thing that is not ideal is the amount of rattle from the brake pads. They're big, heavy 25mm thick pads and they rattle around on coarse chip roads. granted you just have to open the window and the noise is drowned out....


and to the wheel guy question 17x7.5 ET20 is your answer :)





=========General update =======
1) I believe it will be in the July issue of Total BMW which is kinda cool.
2) Changes made since completion
- Change to front camber plates from Vorshlag to Ground Control Sport. Vorshlag is a better product IMO, but I am chasing a bit of NVH reduction and the solid pillow ball mounts had to go.
- Add Garagistic strut brace and underbody brace. Passable quality. I can pick holes inthe under body brace all day long. Why didnt they weld it? Why are all stresses converged on 2 single folds of 3mm metal? WHY does it come with grade 5 imperial hardware?. Still, combined with the bar tightens the front end up a bit
- Dropped spring rate. Dropping from 6KG/MM front to 5KG/MM. Rear from 10KG/MM to 8KG/MM. Getting old.

and, honestly, thinking about going back to stock brakes. I spent all that effort getting calipers rebuilt and coated in Dorken MKS like new OEM... Pedal feel is awesome on big brakes but with the 35hp that an M42 makes is a little overkill :)

[AmosCake]

Heya, yes you are correct.
It IS over braked on the rear, when the pads are hot - like 25 minute track session hot - the rears lock before the fronts. which is obviously not ideal.

The other thing that is not ideal is the amount of rattle from the brake pads. They're big, heavy 25mm thick pads and they rattle around on coarse chip roads. granted you just have to open the window and the noise is drowned out....


and to the wheel guy question 17x7.5 ET20 is your answer :)





=========General update =======
1) I believe it will be in the July issue of Total BMW which is kinda cool.
2) Changes made since completion
- Change to front camber plates from Vorshlag to Ground Control Sport. Vorshlag is a better product IMO, but I am chasing a bit of NVH reduction and the solid pillow ball mounts had to go.
- Add Garagistic strut brace and underbody brace. Passable quality. I can pick holes inthe under body brace all day long. Why didnt they weld it? Why are all stresses converged on 2 single folds of 3mm metal? WHY does it come with grade 5 imperial hardware?. Still, combined with the bar tightens the front end up a bit
- Dropped spring rate. Dropping from 6KG/MM front to 5KG/MM. Rear from 10KG/MM to 8KG/MM. Getting old.

and, honestly, thinking about going back to stock brakes. I spent all that effort getting calipers rebuilt and coated in Dorken MKS like new OEM... Pedal feel is awesome on big brakes but with the 35hp that an M42 makes is a little overkill :)

Thank you! Did NTM know the backpad width to clear the front calipers or did you have to give them that number?

[bangn]

beautiful, you've done an awesome job of this. Love the styling of the interior, it bet it smells glorious