she's now worthy of an introduction

[Snou52]

Hi All,

I’ve been trollin’ around r3vlimited for the last year or so. Shortly after, I picked up an ’88 325is. I’m the 4th owner…she had high mileage, she now has 230k, but she was well taken care of minus the awful mods the previous owner through on. Paint was in good shape and everything worked for the most part. At least that’s what I thought. I’ve been pouring money into her to get everything done how I want. She’s mainly my daily driver but I wanted something fun, stylish, practical, and being my daily driver she needed to be somewhat gas friendly. I have a lifted FJ which gets about 15 mpg and spending $65 every couple days to drive to work wasn’t friendly to my pockets. I figured if I’m going to spend that money towards gas, I might as well get another car out of it =P

So anyways, here I am with the E30 and I love it! Bunch of my buddies have the newer M3’s and I had a g35 before and I gotta tell you, the e30 has all the amenities of any modern day car…except a cup holder! And it definitely sucks lol. But basically I’m just going through the car and fixing the rest of the small issues she has…I’ve done a lot but there’s still a million more things I can do.

So far I’ve replaced the following…

-blower motor
-control arms and bushings
-inner and outer tie rods
-struts and shocks
-rear shock mounts
-all sway bar bushings
-recaro ls-b front seats
-front brakes and rotors, calipers, and SS brake lines
-diff fluid
-tranny fluid

And a bunch of other little things as I’ve been chasing through different issues. Overall, she’s a dependable DD but she does like to overheat while in stop and go traffic. Replaced the radiator and clutch fan, aux fan resistor, radiator fan switch….and she still overheats, any other suggestions? Next plan is to see if the gauge is working correctly once my buddy can move his tools to get his temp gun.


Anyways enough yappin’ onto the pics…..

[Up next on the list…
-need to get my subframe, rtabs, guibo, and driveshaft bearing replaced
-fix my overheating issue
-looking to go turbo! I can’t keep up with the other cars…need. More. power! Lol
-spot weld my door hinge (anyone have a reference for this?)
-coilovers…running on eibach pro’s right now and they are waaaay too soft. Body roll in the turns is ridiculous.


I could go on and on…I love this car! Hopefully I’ll be updating this post with my turbo build soon! Any references and resources for any of my call out issues are appreciated….I missed the e30 picnic this year because I didn’t get my wheels on in time, but I’ll definitely be there next yr!

[RUFFLZ]

what.the.fuck

[achtung911]

Those wheels look unsafe, I would have def sent them back...

[Snou52]

yeah that's how i felt as well....they are aware of the issue, i sent them pics before mounting tires and spoke with them on the phone. i should have sent them back but it was killing me to wait for wheels and the XXR 531s hadn't come in yet back then....i've mounted the tires and put them on the car so i doubt they will take them back now. that's why i'm posting them on here, so others are aware of potential issues they might run into with them. i feel like its crappy customer service to be aware of an issue like this and be willing to ship out the product anyways...to be fair i made the call to keep them in the end but buyers beware when buying from them and they also run DTM fiberwerkz.

[idanity]

nice work
and ESM wheels are cheap enough to get another set, they should not have sent those out imo...
in fact, whoever drilled it should have filled the 5 prior to drilling the 4...and should be slapped...

on to this....was your car squatting ?


all joking aside.
nice roads for a drive....where is that ? coordinates please.

[george graves]

Sorry to hear about the wheels - the car is looking much better then with those those pep-boy chrome specials.

[ak-]

Nice save.
I think the red center console(maybe not the glove box) could of worked somehow depending on your interior.

[AustinK425]

I remember this car on cl, I had absolutely no interest in meeting the owner haha

[Court M3]

I would have ditched those wheels and waited. What happens when they fail? Shame on Ary for even shipping those out.

[Mauiwowi]

wtf are those seriously considered safe?

[PNWDan]

I've seen ESM do this to other people too...

[M-technik-3]

I think you are mistaken about the seats. Those appear to be Recaro trophy's that were sold in 92 VW Golf 16V and Jetta 16V as a last of A2 chassis. Great seats but the blue suede was never in E21. They tended to be vinyl or leather optioned and the base sections had lower bolsters and the seat back lifts are in different places. E21 seats have the forward leg bolster as well.

Trophys


E21 recaro


That being said they are still nice seats. And honestly I'd rather have the cloth trophy's if my interior matched as they have deeper bolsters. The wheels look like a future lawsuit in the making. What are they going to do when some one cracks a hub and crashes and someone dies.

[achtung911]

It's a huge liability on there part too. If something happened you probably could sue them... But they did say its up to you idk lol

[BBDirtbiking]

You need an iS lip! Other then that the car is a million times better then when you got it.

[Snou52]

on to this....was your car squatting ?


nice roads for a drive....where is that ? coordinates please.

hahah the car is parked at the foreclosed house next door to my buddies house...comes in handy when his driveway is full ;)


we were driving up to mt rainer that day...those are the twisties right before alder lake, they have them closed down for road repair. :(