E30 335i - The new track (drift) project

[evil_twin]

Sick!

[kid325e]

dope. good luck erick.

[Erick]

D-DAY MINUS 5: There's still hope

First good news! THERE"S PHOTOS!!! Took them with my iPhone, but hey... it's something.

So I just found out that select Ford dealerships rent out their vehicles. I picked myself up a nice Ford F250, and I get 100 miles/day to drive around free.

Ter-Tech let me pick up their trailer to use, so I got away with a freebie on trailer rental.

So today I took everything down and started loading up the truck. We picked up the new shell and took it to Festival Motorsports, where we began to swap out the subframe. By the way, thanks to Hayden for showing up and helping out!!

The front and rear subframes are off the old car, and now only a rear sway bar and the front stereo speakers are what hold it back from it's end.

Now, new car: car is on the lift already and we started taking suspension stuff apart to start installing the new suspension there. I cleaned up the interior today to start putting it back together as well as it sits without a dash right now. It is an automatic, so before putting the dash back in, I am going to take a moment to swap the pedal boxes, do the clutch master, etc etc while it's still very very easy and accessible.

So tomorrow morning I head back down to the shop, hopefully finish the subframe swap by early afternoon. Late afternoon I am taking the car to Drift Sessions. They have all the vynil cut and ready to be put on the car. The body kit is already painted (although not the best job, but it's shiny, which gets the job done for now).

After that it's back home... and Monday morning the car goes to Ter-Tech for the M30 swap. They are going to fabricate the motor mounts from scratch given the short time frame, but luckly, with the millions of M30s they have laying around, missing parts (if any) won't be an issue.

The only thing right now is the ECU that I still have not received... but hopefully on Monday.

Anywho, I'm beyond dead.

Pics:

HIDs installed:






Just put the stuff sitting there to see how it sits. Nothing is even mounted or lined up yet.


The poor thing. I gotta say, my soft spot is hurting to see it like this:


And that's all I got. With some luck, the BMW gods blessing, it might just all work out.

- Erick

[Jesse30]

come on dude, you can pull this off. theres always some stupid shit before a deadline like that..

:D

[ghonarea318i]

order the mounts from e30.de and have them overnighted. just know which position is best for your motor so you don't order the wrong ones. oh don't know what that guy was charging you but from that site they are from 179.99- 249.99 priced in euro. if this helps any i did that swap as a novice by myself in two days with some guidance from the local e30 guru. hope all goes well for ya

[etxxz]

you suck. i wanna see the m30 running.

[evil_twin]

Full circles like drifting circles? lol Good luck with the build and good luck at the 1st appearance. I need to get suspension still for my e30, and my girlfriend and i picked up a 4door for her that doesn't start.

[Erick]

Nope. Back to something identical to my first drift car.... a black coupe 325i. I must say it feels like I've come full circle on this.

- Erick

[evil_twin]

Erick, so you're not drifting the panda anymore?

[240zs30]

Wow, what a mission. I'm tired from just reading the stuff your going thru. Don't give up. It will be an awesome accomplishment when your sitting in the drivers seat. GL

[Erick]

Here's a picture.... preview of the vynil work. The size was off on this one, so the vynil guy gave it to me instead of trashing it.

I just slapped it on the daily. Hmmmm black on chrome. Blinding bitches!



- Erick

[alpinaclone]

I really miss my m30e30. Persevere, it will be worth it.

I don't think that you will have the least of problems drifting with the "big block". That is all my old car wanted to do. Snot loads of torque at any rpm and it would rev to the moon. It will be a riot.

Just keep a sharp eye on engine temps and do not trust the stock coolant gauge. They do not tolerate overheating at all.

[Erick]

Alright... so I came home earlier today.... I need a break.

D-DAY MINUS 6 (I think)

Still no pictures, which makes this thread shitty beyond all hell.

But besides that. Let's start with the GOOD news:

- The parts I bought have arrived! I just got my gaskets, accessory belts, oil filter, B35 crank wheel + coolant block off for the back, and I believe the chipped ECU gets here tomorrow.

If I'm not mistaken, I now have all of the ingredients for a sweet M30 E30.

- More good news... the vynil work is on schedule. I don't know how we're going to get it put on, but at least the new vynil designs are partially done and some printed.

Here's where it all goes south though.

On Monday I get a call from the shop early in the morning (I was out picking up parts locally). It turns out that the warehouse he was borrowing right next door to store cars, well.... that was rented out. So he had to go from storing capacity of 8 cars.... to 4.

Monday was just spent moving stuff around, trying to make space for motors, etc etc at the shop. Since he's basically letting me do my work there for some beer, then I really felt obliged to help out when he needed it.

But come Tuesday, you can tell that I can't go forward there. I need to swap my subframes from my old track car to the new black e30 shell. And even with the e28 long trashed (after pulling the M30 and all other parts), it's still something that there's no where to even think of putting my car.

On Wednesday we just sit down and talk and I just tell him I'll get the cars out. He thanked me and I started moving parts/etc out of there. Later that evening, I get the call from Pat, who was making my motor mounts. He got the mounts from a late model B35, which I believe is different than the earlier models (was news to me at the time, but Frank seemed to know that when I spoke to him over the phone).

Therefore I'm sitting with no motor mount brackets, and nowhere to do this swap.

So I called Ter-Tech, which hosts drift events and they are notorious for drifting their e34, to help me out. Harri said they would be happy to get me going, but they have their e34 and their drift school car (a 240sx) to prepare for the same IRL event I'm trying to participate. Harri can do fabrication and he has about 5 m30s pulled apart (where I picked up most of my parts locally, like the T-Stat housing, the oil pan, and pump + pick up)

But, since they have quite a bit on their hands, they say that the earliest they'll start to work on my car is Monday.... which assuming I can get the car there very early in the morning, that'll give us about 2 and 1/2 days to fabricate the mounts and pull off this motor swap.

Fun.

So right now I started pulling the black car apart where it sits. I started moving as much as I could with my 318iS from the shop to the new chassis. Half of the roll cage is already in the car, and today I took the entire dash out and pulled out the heater core (by the way, I don't know why I have never done that with my last car.... jesus what a PITA that thing is).

I started taking everything I could out of the engine bay to make pulling that M20 out as easy as possible.... even though knowing Ter-Tech (and I'm all for it), we'll be taking that motor out with a sawzall.

So Ter-Tech will take care of the motor swap. My biggest job now is to find a way to swap subframes before taking the car to Ter-Tech (so all we worry there is the motor swap) and transport the M30 from the shop I started my work on to Ter-Tech.

Yesterday I was really beat down, and with so much frustration and crap getting in the way, I haven't even bothered to update this thread. But today I got slapped in the back of the head by a good friend saying "dude, it's the INDY RACING LEAGUE."

And in that split second, I remembered why it is that I'm going through all hell to begin with. It'd be nice if everything I tried to do actually worked (hell.... just 1 out of 3 attempts being successful would be nice right about now), but we're managing.

Priority #1 - Find truck + rent u-haul trailer. That way I can move the big stuff.

Priority #2 - Swap subframes.

Accomplshing this by Sunday, I'll still have a chance.

As for now..... excuse me while I go grab a few beers and some food.... and do something that has absolutely NOTHING to do with cars. :p

- Erick

[RickSloan]

m30's will fight you tooth and nail it seems from start to finish, but the end result is so worth it. it really just all comes together in the final hours!

dont give up man!

[Erick]

Everything went from bad to worse guys.... As if little progress was bad enough now we're going backwards. I had to pull my car out of the shop I was at.... My motor mount brackets that were ordered are not going to be made on time.

I'm on my last legs here but there still is a reeeeeaaaaaally small chance of making it. So we'll see what's up.

Better update if I ever get to a computer.