my German import touring project : S52 / z3M coupe 5 lug + full rust repair

[e30m3s54turbo]

Great work!

[ethirtydavid]

I spent a significant bit longer to get all the final touches done / resetting the interior / resetting the ... everything.
However yesterday it drove out of the garage by itself and I drove it about 20 miles. I drove it... like I god damn stole it .......

It's incredibly satisfying to be back into an e30. This project was bigger collectively than anything I've done before. The dash stayed in, glass stayed in but most the doors came off for rust repair access, every panel was removed from the body - fuel system and all lines plus all everything from the belly / motor bay / suspension and interior was removed and a ton of work went into putting new pieces back in.

I am super stoked. Got a lot of help on threads here on r3v - online on social media places, had some help with a local welder for a portion - a good friend helped me get the motor in - tons of me asking questions to some of you about wiring / adapting parts and to all ..... Thank you again so much.

[moatilliatta]

Good to see you stuck around. They're never finished.

Looks great, looking forward to your E30 activities.

We missed a lot of details? Do a mono wipe?

[2mAn]

Look forward to some more shots of the car in it completed state.

Same here. ;)

[ethirtydavid]

Good to see you stuck around. They're never finished.

Looks great, looking forward to your E30 activities.

We missed a lot of details? Do a mono wipe?

yeah I felt a little weird writing 'finished' but in terms of all systems working and car driving down the road it felt somewhat appropriate. I swear there are about 10 things not discussed in this thread for every one thing that is. It's been kinda quiet around here and I mostly wanted to document the build in only a general way.

The wiper linkage is cut by 24mm (I believe, can confirm later) and rewelded to get a full sweep of the windshield.

[ethirtydavid]

I have now put about 250 miles on the car since my last post.

Everything seems to be working well.

One thing to do is to raise the rear coilovers up a little bit / may fine tune the front as well, but it's sitting pretty good as it is and I do not have rubbing when making tight turns.

Another is I still have not wired the relay / temp switch for the pusher fan and likely will have that done this next week or so.

Also, need to bring the car to a referred exhaust fabricator to make an effort towards getting this whole thing sucked up as high as possible to the belly of the car. Date is set and looking forward to this.

It's been really nice putting miles, or kilometers, on this car though and I'm excited to keep working at it and fine tuning everything.

[DEV0 E30]

Amazing work!

[ethirtydavid]

It's been 600 miles since I finished the project in Feb 22' and so far everything has been operating great. Of course this really this will be an ongoing project for me though and the car will likely continue to adapt new parts and features moving forward. I was super grateful to be featured on March 22' car of the month - couple photos here:









Car only needs a few things which should be done by the picnic.

• Need to wire up electric spal pusher fan.
• Need to cut / rework the exhaust to get it all tucked higher up to the belly. The routing is good but it's lowest point is currently just too low at about 2" from the ground.
• Need to add lower 10" to front pass and driver side fenders / paint match.
• Hood insulation replacement

I recently did final adjustments on the suspension and rolled the fenders - here is an alignment report after having everything dialed in.

Front z3m with ground control coilovers and ground control camber plates.
Rear z3m with ground control coilovers IE adjustable camber/toe.

[DEV0 E30]

Just checking in with you David, still thoroughly enjoying this thing?

[ethirtydavid]

Just checking in with you David, still thoroughly enjoying this thing?

Hey thank you. Yeah everything is still working great. I ended up changing out the super low hanging exhaust which I first installed and am now running a Y pipe from headers to a 2.5" > Cat > Resonator > pinched tight up at rear subframe > muffler and out. finally also added that electric Spal wiring relay and system works great- temps on point.



only issue is the exhaust shop surprised me and added a 'nice' tip on the end which I think is horrendous. Going to either shop that and weld on raw pipe, or find some era appropriate tip to replace it with. ;)


Spal relay tucked behind fuse box, wires all hidden.



Also finally got this hood insulation swapped out and added quick release hood pins for easy no adjustment on/off during maintenance sessions. Helps get that light everywhere, opens space etc.


Here is a photo parked downtown. still looking for pass side fender and then going to fix the two front lower 10" on each side to wrap up rust repair.

[ethirtydavid]

Well I certainly waited long enough but a while ago I finally added back power steering and that made a huge improvement.
The no PS works OK with the z3 or e36M racks but man it was way too stiff on the 330ci.

[ethirtydavid]

Ok I just realized I owe it to others to contribute and help explain fitment because I poked around plenty and was still confused at the end. (obviously)

so we have 4 main variables:

1. there is the body of the e30.
2. there is factory e30 suspension.
3. there is the body of the e36 z3m.
4. and there is the z3m suspension.
5. oh, and in my case there are the z3 wheels

e30	front track ~55.6"	rear track ~56.3"	ET20–ET25
z3	front track ~55.9"	rear track~56.1"	Front ET46
z3m	front track ~57.4"	rear track~60.0"	Front ET42, Rear ET8–ET10 (!)

so if you have an e30 and are rolling with z3m suspension, you are borrowing the z3m’s wider geometry, especially in the rear trailing arms
front is wider too, but not as extreme as the rear
the e30body is narrower than the z3m body — so now you have:

• Wider suspension
• Narrower body

so you need to push the wheels out (lower the offset) to make them flush

• so in my case i am running z3 wheels( ET46 ), which means they tuck way too far in on an e30
• z3m suspension moves everything ~20mm out, but i was still tucked inside
• adding 20mm spacers brings the effective offset from:
  • ET46 → ET26 with a 20mm spacer. this works perfect for the front. with minimal rolling- really just folding the lip over.
  • ET46 → ET36 with a 10mm spacer for the back. This was with heat gun and extensive rolling. still a little rubbing which I may find a way to resolve.

front:

• 225/45R16 or 225/40R17 is a sweet spot
• 235/40R17 is possible with:
  • ET20–22 final offset
  • rolled fenders
  • slight camber (~-2°)

rear:

• 225/45R16 is np with:
  • rolled fenders
• 245/40R17 is doable with:
  • rolled fenders
  • camber helps