My Son's Vert.....Project

[napabavarian]

Swap in a M10 to keep him outta trouble. Then you just have to pray that he never finds his way into Good & Tight's threads.

Kidding aside, that's a clean vert you got there, I hope your son takes care of it.

How about a 2.93 final drive deformance mod ;)

When I was in high school I remember one girl had an e30 cabrio as her first car...of course it 2 years old at the time I just wish I had the money to overhaul my Cabrio like that right now, if you need a tired engine to slow him down let me know ;)

[bmwpower]

Damn, reminds me of my old car.... :(

http://home.comcast.net/~bmwpower/325ic3.jpg

Looks good!

[e28forlife]

Wow, now thats a nice pops. I suppose if my father was into cars he would do the same thing for me. In fact, he paid for my first car, a black 535is which i inherited from my older brother, and then went on to buy me an Alpine 535iS on my 17th, knowing that I had an eternal love for e28s, being my first car and all.

Its great that you are putting all of this effort into the car for your son, I hope he appreciates it. A lot of kids these days either want a civic, or don't realize what a great car a 20yr old BMW makes. I also own an 325i vert and love it to death. I know a few girls in my highschool enjoyed it too... hopefully he has the same luck.


As far as the car, its really starting to look great. The paint looks excellent in the pictures, but that may just be the pics or the fact that black seems to shine better.

What are you going to do about the interior? You could likely source a decent condition cardinal interior for cheap, seems like you need just the seats. Reupholstering the set is quite expensive, I believe my Uncle paid $1500+ for the front and backs in my vert. If you find a Cardinal interior for sale, try to get the Red carpet as well, I think that looks awesome with black mats, and would solve your carpet hole problem.

[smonkbmw]

everything looks good thus far. i wouldn't recommend the eibachs with that much of a drop for your sons first car for these reasons:

1. the car is going to sit LOW with a 1.9" drop.
2. with any Eibach product, they promise to maintain that "factory" ride while lowering the car. the downside being to get this ride they have to make the spring rate very soft.

so in the end what you MAY get is a bouncy car that may be hard to control for a unexperienced driver and you thought oil pan replacement was fun now? wait till you have to do it again because he wasnt paying attention and went to fast over a speedbump in a parking lot somewhere. cracks the pan, runs the oil out of it and seizes the motor. IM NOT SAYING THIS WILL HAPPEN, just offering my .02 on a possible situation.

my suggestion on this is a set of stock e30 m3 springs OR a set of H&R Sport springs. H&R Race, Ireland Stage 3s, and the Eibach Pro kit (which is what i think you have) are all going to run the car to low for a first time driver.

also i dont see any motor parts in the list, not yet at least im sure.

plugs, wires, cap, rotor, water pump and a timing belt kit should be way up on the list.

my kudos to you though for taking on a project like this, good job dad!

[napabavarian]

I also own an 325i vert and love it to death. I know a few girls in my highschool enjoyed it too.

Girls like convertibles? ;)

[napabavarian]

and you thought oil pan replacement was fun now? wait till you have to do it again because he wasnt paying attention and went to fast over a speedbump

Try burying it in the dirt and spreading filth all over the inside of the engine, spending 2 hours trying to clean as much dirt out as possible :shock::firehop: PO did it :evil:

[euroshark]

Looks clean! I love the Cardinal interior too...

[benge100]

The paint isn't as good as it looks in the pics. It will need a full paint that is why I spent so much time doing. The arches, the paint will be the last thing that is done. I already have a lot of the parts that I need to compete the interior but I will get 0around to that later.

[M42Technik]

I'd say give it a good detail, a cut and polish will bring that paint back.

As for the interior, ask Kevin Chin or "Tricked 323i", he does seat kits and I've heard good things about his work and finish, and you don't have to buy new seats:



He did the seats in this car...

[Dragowl]

I'd say give it a good detail, a cut and polish will bring that paint back.

As for the interior, ask Kevin Chin or "Tricked 323i", he does seat kits and I've heard good things about his work and finish, and you don't have to buy new seats:



He did the seats in this car...

Thats a very nice interior...do you know what that runs?

[delatlanta1281]

Kevin is very reasonable. His work is great!.
Here's mine.


These are prior to the chalk lines being cleaned off and the seat trims re-assembled btw. i have had these in my car for @ 2.5 years with very little wear. Anyone who has sat in my car can vouch for his quality of work and materials.
In the car.

Any wrinkles in the Backseat are gone. he left the material kind of loose in preparation of rear headrests.
OP, I wish I had a father like you when I was 16!

[benge100]

I need a lsd rear for this car. Does anyone in socal have one ? If so call me

[napabavarian]

Better luck here...

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=103

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=140

[benge100]

Update:

I got the suspension back together and sat it back on floor, everything looks pretty good and solid there *** not too low *** I filled up the power steering fluid and ran the car to check that the rack works... oh shit it leaks, sorry it gushes out into the boots. Its fubared. My friend has a spare power rack out of a E36 so I might as well do the conversion on it.

I got it back up on the stands and pulled the rack, threw that leaky thing in the trash and fitted the E36 one following the instructions that I found on here. it bolted up perfectly with the spacers on top (inbetween the rack and the sub-frame.) another job done.

now that the suspension stuff is nearly done I moved to the engine. The motor was basically good and pulled well (when I drove it) so I thought I would start with a good overhaul and see where its at. i ordered.

Spark plugs
Rotor arm
Rotor cap
fuel filter
air filter
fuel filter
valve cover gasket (valve adjustment needed.)
Exhaust clamp gaskets (leaking)

This will get it up and running to see where we are at with the car. I dont want to go too far until I know that the motor is basically gonna last him a while.

I had never adjusted the valves on this car so I searched here and read everything I could find and armed with my bently and the book (101 performance things pelican) I didnt have the "special" tool just a peice of sturdy wire, I actually found this job quite enjoyable and it went really well, you sorta get in a rythem doing this and when it was done I kinda wanted to go back over it. While the nasty cover was off I gave it a quick spray with some heatproof black (didnt polish the BMW yet) and threw it all back together.

Wanna see some pics?

http://

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I know that the engine looks a bit messy here but it is far from finished yet.

Started the car and the valves sounded much better, there is still some ticking which is the injectors. I forgot to add. I took the radiator out as I wanted to drain and flush it plus it made it easier to access the rotor arm and dizzy cap. Car runns well, I left it idleing for 10 or so mins and it sounded good but the check engine light came on. I shut the car down and double checked everything let it cool down and restated it, no check engine ??? left it running for 30 mins .... check engine came on.

I somehow thought it may be the afm, I dont know why just did (it ran well), I called a mate who I know had a spare and he came round we fitted it ran the car ....... NO check engine after 20 mins.

Next day started and warmed it up ..... No check engine..... for now.

[bimmer_E30]

yes pice asap.