Full Build Thread - Twin Turbo e30 m3

[TTe30m3]

Although there is a lot of progress here, this was all done within the past 15 days...


Here is a picture of the car from the eBay ad. A few people may recognize it-




And the car on the trailer at 4:30am in Napa Valley, CA. On to the 10 hr drive home!



And one more pic from the drive home. A gas station in Reno, NV.



Here is the full interior swap I did on Sunday after I got home. The front seats are temporary... don't worry. The red is gone though



After the interior swap, the next thing I did was suspension. IE3 Springs with Koni Yellow's (waiting to be installed)




Suspension is done for now. On to the motor. Out with the old...
(help from the roommates)




Prepped engine bay for paint (single stage)
Masked off and cleaned/scrubbed

(Before)


(After)


Now for the intercooler. Its mounted very simple. Just a straight steel bar on top, and a support on the bottom.




Here it is behind my bumper cutout. I wouldn't have done this, but the bumper wasn't *that* nice.



Next I had to cut out some extra metal for my charge pipes.

(Before)

(After)



Ok, so now on to the motor. I bought the motor, trans, turbo setup, and standalone from the same guy. It is out of a local race car. The setup dyno'd 422rwhp @ 15psi. I am shooting for around 300 @ 10.

Here are a couple pics of the motor. I cleaned everything up as well as I could and painted the block.




All piping test fit-
A few people have asked for specs on the turbos. They are stock supra turbos. They spool very quick. I love them so far.
As far as the manifolds, they are the stock manifolds flipped upside down with extensions/adapters welded onto them for placement.




Engine coming together- ARP studs and .140 MLS



Ready to go in. My dad came to help...




In with the new!



I'm doing some wiring and my girlfriend is pretending to help...



Piping test fit-




I was able to keep my ABS, which I'm really happy about.



All charge pipes connected, cooling system in



Pic of the turbos with the heat shields on. Oil/coolant lines hooked up



Here is a cool pic of the garage



Those are all the pics I have for now! The car is running though. I'll get some more tomorrow.

[Justin B]

That thing is going to be a beast, looks good so far!

[TTe30m3]

Justin- do you know this car? It's from Petaluma....

[Hick]

Nice build, should be a blast!

The pic of an M3 with comfort seats made me LOL

[uofom3]

awesome... only thing I don't like is the bumper mod... I might get flamed by some OG guys for saying this.

[E30trash]

wow great looking build :up:

Keep up the good work

[backtrail69]

Looks great. Hope to see it at the picnic this coming year.

[Justin B]

Not in particular but I wont say that I haven't seen it around. However unlikely, did it happen to come from a guy named Sean Casey? He has a bunch of BMW stuff and runs Casey Motorsports. He's got some really nice cars including a CSL and 2002 turbo.

It'd be great if you can make it out to the pnw picnic in 08.

[ANDRÜ]

Christ. What engine are you using? M or S5X?

[uofom3]

^
looks like an s5x to me

[M42Technik]

Dayum. I pretty much have subscribed to almost all of the project threads.

[Wishno87]

^
looks like an s5x to me

im going to guess M50

[smonkbmw]

wow, all this in under a month!! so the turbos are the stock singles from the mk3 supra? im assuming since they are not connected. i had aspirations to fit the TT sequentials off a supra on something. good work! i want to hear it though! what exhaust?

[TTe30m3]

A few of you guys guessed it. It's an M52 block and s52 cams. To my knowledge, it is the only non-m engine in an m car. Has anyone else seen one?

Smonkbmw- They are mk4. They were just taken off that stock manifold, and are non sequential now.

[eyagel]

sick looking buidl, cant wait to see what that thing does...clean engine bay, alot of TT setups either 1. you cant see the turbos (nissan 300zx) or 2. there is a clusterfuck of piping everywhere, good job man.