E30 M3 Vert

[968Reckless]

Found the car locally for a great price so i couldn't say no. Needed some minor stuff but for the most part it was complete and I was able to drive it home. This was 2-3 years ago so i've made a lot of progress and have a lot of built up pics.


1988 325i 5-speed


Originally purchased a full fiberglass kit from Latvia but soon realized it was the quality I was looking for. Slowly started collecting OEM parts but the only pieces I couldn't get were the rear quarters (NLA at the time). Surprisingly i sold off most of the fiberglass stuff and didn't lose any money.

OEM Euro front bumper
OEM coupe front fenders
OEM convertible side skirts
Fiberglass rear quarters
OEM U.S. rear bumper (found at a pick n pull)

more pics @martino_motrorsport



Boxes were huge, came USPS




This was a few days after i purchased the car. Missing misc trim pieces, lovely 2 tone interior and diving boards.

[968Reckless]

Started stripping it down.






Top fit like crap, leaked on all sides

[968Reckless]

[968Reckless]

Started to mock up the body pieces, you can see the rear quarters were obviously molded off a coupe. They required a ton of trimming and shaving. Going from this pic to the next pic of the rear quarter a few post down you can see how much was cut off (not to mention they had c pillars right out of the box). I don't even want to count how many hours i have in to cutting these down. So much sanding and tweaking. Once they were close i started to cut the body up before anything was finalized on the fiberglass, couldn't risk cutting too much and waiting another 4 months for new ones from Latvia....




trimmed the brand new coupe front fenders...no one like chopping up brand new OEM m3 parts. Had to weld the m3 bumper bracket on and remove the lower cowl in order to fit the bumper properly.

[968Reckless]

Test fitting rear bumper before custom brackets were made. Same idea as the OEM design and they accept the OEM slides. At this point i had also shaved the third brake light and antenna.







Back welded nuts on after everything was 100%. I built these solely based off pics and trial/error, having a real m3 would have made this a lot easier lol. Overall i'm very happy with how they came out.

[Staszek]

Following this!

[968Reckless]

Motor came out next, this was a milestone because the bay had a lot of work to be done.





In between the strip down i worked on some interior stuff. Rebuilt the cluster with new gears, rings and paint. Polished the lens, matched the miles to the motor and went with a 9k tach centered.

[968Reckless]

I guess i didn't take a lot of pics during the upholstery fun but i can take some later. Went with a red vinyl called "cardinal red" but its nothing close to OEM. I had the skins for the seats made by zoom zoom zooming, quality is a 7/10. This is the second e30 interior I've reupholstered and the first set was much better. Design was thought out more and the fit/finished was on point. These aren't bad but you can tell they're mass produced by someone who isn't familiar with the cars. Steering wheel and boots were made by John at ninestich. I like the way rear headrest look so i grabbed a set of brackets off ebay. Will probably add these in my coupe as well, completes the look of the interior IMO. Some lifting on the seat back in the pic below, ive since re-glued them.

[2mAn]

keep us updated!

[968Reckless]

keep us updated!

Lots to come, car is out of paint and assembly has started. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mike.bmw]

Looking forward to seeing the assembly!

[325isman]

Great job . That's a beautiful car, keep up the great work.

[968Reckless]

Took a few more pics of the interior. Map pockets, interior pulls and door cards were dyed using a custom blended paint. I sent SEM a color sample and in return they made me a code. I took that code to a local shop and had the dye made. This worked out great and I'm happy with the results however I don't think SEM offers this service anymore.








Everything is a little dirty from being in storage. You can see where the seats have some loose material, this is part of the reason I gave them a 7/10...no it couldn't be pulled tight.

[968Reckless]

Carpet was power washer, scrubbed with carpet cleaner and dyed black. I've done this about 5 times now and it works out good. Think I went through around 6 cans of VHT satin black.

[968Reckless]

Right around this time a buddy of mine was parting out a e46 m3 so naturally I bought the motor. Car was running and driving with around 90k on the clock. Picked it up and started to strip it down, it didn't have any service records so I wanted to bulletproof it while it was on the stand. We did the rod bearing (kings from Jim @ Kassel), vanos rebuild, guide replacement and swapped out the solenoid coil pack for a refurbished one. Most of the vanos stuff came from Beisans Systems, I used them for my s52 swap car and liked the product. When we went to pulled the guide out the bottom plastic section decided to fall off and fall down into the motor. I was never able to find it from the top or bottom, we even tilted the motor upside down and hit it with air. Spent a good 4 hours looking for it with no success. At this point the only thing I can think of it to remove the lower timing chain case but that wold require me to torque bolts to 300lb. Not sure I'm interested in doing that and might just run it. A few other hoses and fitting were upgraded, planning on going with he z3m s54 harness and every bolt on Kassel has to offer.













Gotta love these plastic water pumps.