My First Project: an '86 Arktisblau Metallic 325e

[rudy]

After almost two months of time and literally only two days worth of work, the m50 is out of the e36! I had stripped everything necessary to pull engine in one day shortly after getting the car, but I barely pulled the engine yesterday since I finally got an engine hoist last week. It was a free one from somebody my Dad works with, so that's cool!

I listed the shell this morning for $150 and got way more interest than I expected, some French guy from LA is actually coming to buy it tomorrow. I think I underpriced it, but I got the entire e36 for $500 so I'm pretty content with it. It's a much better fate than the scrapper. I look short as hell because of my oversized coveralls, but here's some photos from the engine pull:





Finally, a photo of the now-heartless e36:



Once this is gone, I'm actually planning on filling the space with a 1984 Prelude that I got offered for free from a guy who helps run Escondido Cars and Coffee. It starts on starting fluid, so I don't think it should be too hard to get running. I need something to drive while the e30 is getting swapped anyways, so this should be perfect since it's so fuel efficient as well. Now for the photos...









The ranger is still in my plans to get worked on as well. I tore the engine down and found out that the crank didn't rotate because two of the cylinders are badly rusted, not because the engine lost timing like I originally thought. It now needs a full rebuild as well though now. Order of importance for me right now is the prelude, then the ranger, and finally the m50 rebuild plus the swap itself. I have a lot on my plate, but with all of my college applications submitted I have quite a bit of free time now. I'm excited for all of this and can't wait to tackle it all, thanks for reading!

[rudy]

Today marks my one year of ownership now! However, an opportunity in the form of a very cheap e36 presented itself to me a few weeks ago.

Months ago, a friend from robotics had told me how his grandma had two manual e24s sitting. I would keep bugging him to send me pictures as a joke, but eventually he asked if I wanted to buy one for cheap because his dad wanted it off of their property. I said of course I would! A few days later he showed me a picture of an e30 and said that was the car his grandma actually had. Then on the day I was supposed to come see the car, he texted that it was a 1994 325is. I was bummed, but he confirmed that it was a manual and for the price I thought it'd still be a good deal.

I got there and saw that rats had gotten to the car baddd. There was a nest in the area with the battery posts in the bay, plus residue all over the beauty covers. It seemed like nothing electrical was harmed though. The interior and the trunk were both full of rat droppings too.







What's redeeming about the car though is the fact that it ran before it was parked for 6 years. It got parked because the selector rod disconnected from the transmission side. Since my buddy and his dad are stand up guys, I trust that this is true. It also apparently has a pretty new catalytic converter in it. I'm not sure if these things still go bad over time without use, but I guess I'll find out.

Now for more background about the car. It was bought by my friend's grandma using the European Delivery Program. She drove it for a while, then her daughter drove it, and finally a friend of the family bought it for his daughter. She drove it for a few years as a college car, but the selector rod disconnected and it got parked. It was also having trouble passing smog at this time, hence the new cat. My friend's mom then bought the car back and it's been sitting on their property for the last 6 years.

While learning about this e36, I found out that the second e24 my friend talked about is also actually an e36, a 1997 328is. She bought that one the same way but kept it in much better condition. It is currently garaged and only has 7x,xxx miles. Unfortunately though, his grandma passed away recently and they're looking to sell that one which was still in his grandma's name.

Since I don't have a truck (yet), I asked my buddy Roger to help me haul it out of there. I had already came with my e30 before we went to haul it out and the roads in that neighborhood are STEEP. The seller's house is on a private road that I literally had to drive in first gear to get up when I was in the e30. Roger was fine with this, so we went and picked up a tow dolly from U-Haul then headed over. Everything from that point on went fine. I disinfected and removed the rat droppings, then we took it to a drive in car wash to pressure wash the engine bay and exterior. It then ended up in my driveway!









The plan is to use this car as a donor for an m50 swap. I'm going to keep everything I can use, then part out the rest to make back as much money back as I can. I was intending to sell the shell to LKQ after picking at it, but if anybody near San Diego wants the shell for a track build then feel free to contact me and you can have it for a decent price. I only say track build because I believe it never got put on non-op. I've still yet to confirm this, but it's likely it has a bunch of back fees and is only good for use as a track car.

I want to rebuild the m50 completely since I want to have the experience of rebuilding an engine, plus I want to ensure its reliability. I sort of want to build an m50b30 using the m50b25nv intake cam, m54b30 intake cam, and m54b30 rotating assembly, but I'm undecided on this. From dyno graphs and other threads, it doesn't seem to be worth the effort. I still think it'd be fun though. If anybody on here has built an m50 with these internals then I'd love to hear about your experience with it.

I do want to get this car BAR legal though. I don't think this is going to be much of a problem, especially if I decide to not go the stroker route. It should pass emissions fine since I'm going through the whole engine and I'm just going to use the entire e36 exhaust for the test like Kronus did in Lira's build thread.

The swap itself will have to happen after I get the ranger running that I mentioned previously. Right now I just need to get everything I need from the e36 and get it out of my driveway, then fix the ranger, and finally begin the swap. Hopefully this all goes somewhat according to plan, thanks for reading!

[rudy]

H4/H1 is a good upgrade from the sealed beams as you can add better H4 bulbs, and also relay the system for full strength. Plus zero wiring changes

We definitely need another Ranger truck thread as MrBurgundy could use a poke every now and then to update his

Looks like I'll be doing the conversion soon then! Ranger thread soon as well!

[2mAn]

H4/H1 is a good upgrade from the sealed beams as you can add better H4 bulbs, and also relay the system for full strength. Plus zero wiring changes

We definitely need another Ranger truck thread as MrBurgundy could use a poke every now and then to update his

[rudy]

I did the brakes yesterday, it was a school night though so I was in quite a rush and forgot to take photos besides one of the rear. I ended up going with Zimmerman rotors, Jurid pads, and Febi shoes.

According to e30zone.net you can use 6cyl z3 shoes in an e30, as long as you also use the z3 hardware involved in the parking brake mechanism besides the expander. I don't know why 6cyl was specified though, since both the 4cyl models and 6cyl models have the same part number for brake shoes from what I can see.

I ended up trying this. This was initially because it saved me about $20 over buying the e30 stuff (grabbed z3 hardware from a junkyard), but I found out that the z3 springs are SO much easier to install, which gives an even better reason to do the conversion. Cannot recommend switching enough now.

My brakes feel great and the parking brake especially. It's holding the wheels at only 5 clicks as it should be now.



The next thing I'd like to do is swap out the sealed beams. Smileys would be preferable, but the Hella H4/H1 conversion is much more within my price range. If anybody could chip in as to how this conversion performs for them I'd greatly appreciate it. I've seen photos, but would much rather hear from people.

In addition to working on the e30, I've now been tearing down a 2007 2.3l Ford Ranger that my dad has had sitting in the backyard since 2019. He told me that if I can get it running again, I can keep it. This would be great since I'll be going to college in less than a year, which means I could take the ranger with me and keep the e30 as a true California car. Not sure if I should make a thread on this or not, I'm leaning towards the idea that I should since there's a bunch of truck threads on here already.

[rudy]

Real or not, they look great. 15" is a good size though tire selection kinda sucks.

Cars coming along really nicely now. Whats next ? Euro bumpers right? RIGHT!!??? lol

Thanks man! Funny enough I was actually looking into euro bumpers and body kits yesterday. I don't think I can afford them any time soon, but if a cheap set of euros pop up I plan to jump on them. I really would like to go mtech1 eventually, but with the way kits are now I'd probably have to buy a replica set. Not sure what route I'll go, lots of great options!

[2mAn]

Real or not, they look great. 15" is a good size though tire selection kinda sucks.

Cars coming along really nicely now. Whats next ? Euro bumpers right? RIGHT!!??? lol

[rudy]

Those look fantastic! Real ones or Reps? 15"?

Yep 15"! From my comparisons to others they seem real. The embossments lack some definition in certain areas, but they're all there. Gonna go out on a limb and say they got too thick of a coat in those spots. In terms of condition, there's no curb rash but there is some flaking present.

I honestly didn't know how to check if they were reps or not besides looking for the embossments, so I just chatted with the seller for a while. He had a 325is which he manual swapped and put coilovers on, but sold it over 4 years ago here on r3v. The buyer didn't bring the agreed amount, so he just took the wheels off and left them in his garage till he listed them about 8 months ago. He had gotten the wheels yearsss ago from some guy on r3v in LA for $1k. The guy seemed pretty genuine from all our conversation, so I do think they're real all things considered.

[2mAn]

Those look fantastic! Real ones or Reps? 15"?

[rudy]

Well, after a failed attempt to buy the Hartges from some craigslist seller in LA, I came across these AC Schnitzers on offerup. Met the guy with my buddy today, and left back home to put them on right away lol.

[2mAn]

Great work on the car, it’s just a few steps away from being badass. Get some wheels !

[rudy]

Is Arktisblau a rare color? I like that a lot. Don't remember ever seeing one.

Awesome work on the car so far! If you keep having cluster issues, you may want to send it off to get rebuilt. There are a couple guys around that do it.

Keep up the good work.

I'm not too sure if Arktisblau is a rare color but I haven't seen another one in person yet. There's some pretty cool ones on google images though lol.

If anything else happens cluster-wise I'll make sure to look into getting it rebuilt, thanks man!

[Codym42]

Is Arktisblau a rare color? I like that a lot. Don't remember ever seeing one.

Awesome work on the car so far! If you keep having cluster issues, you may want to send it off to get rebuilt. There are a couple guys around that do it.

Keep up the good work.

[rudy]

Sorry for the lack of photos for this post, but here's a small update.

My o-rings came in yesterday and I buttoned it all up. After letting the RTV cure overnight I went to start it up for an early morning drive today, but it didn't crank! I was panicked and started diagnosing, but eventually took out the airbox and saw a wire not connected to the starter. Must have came off when I was wrangling the manifold in.

It started up great after that and now has a super healthy idle! Sounds amazing and the revs no longer bounce. I also rebuilt the fuel injectors and changed out the alternator bushings while everything was out. Mine were worn quite a bit and the alternator was slanted all sideways, but it's all good now.

Tomorrow I'll be filling up my tank and counting my miles, so I'm praying that my fuel economy will have improved significantly. That's all! Thanks for reading.

[rudy]

Nice use of the lift, great learning experience for the right price!

Not sure how you'll feel about all the poly long-term, but you're young Im sure it will be fine... Also, if the rear isnt as low as you want, you can try "adjusting" it with the spring pads. They offer them in different thicknesses or you can remove them completely.

A set of Hartges would've been wonderful, are they sold?

I'm completely happy with the ride height actually, wouldn't want it any lower. Thanks for the tip about the spring pads though!

The listing is down now but I doubt they've been sold. It was some dude on craigslist with a bunch of different listings for 4x100 wheels. Lots of BBS from what I remember and the Hartges. About a month ago they were all deleted then went back up again about a week later, so I'm sure they'll pop up again.