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Very unoriginal 1984 318i... M30 + Boost!

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    Very unoriginal 1984 318i... M30 + Boost!

    Hey dudes,

    Usually don't post around forums too much but I've got some spare time so here's a thread to document some of the recent/future projects going on. This is just a fun car for me to play around in, learn how to weld, dump money into, you know the drill.

    I usually run through cars pretty often, but I'm quite attached to this car for sentimental reasons. The muffler has been on 4 different exhausts and I will keep using it until it falls apart.

    The car's been through a few versions...
    1984 318i -> 325i running gear/brakes -> 528e block + 885 heads -> Late model bumpers -> DIYPNP + headers -> M30B35 swap -> ???

    I'll start this with the most recent project, the M30 swap. I chose the M30 because of the simplicity of the swap and the fact that it was contemporary to the M20 and I liked keeping things in the same generation. I completed the swap in about 7 evenings.


    I was planning to pull the engine and do a refresh on it, but happened upon an E34 535i with a blown automatic and an unfortunate paint job. The engine seemed unmolested except for a cone filter and it ran pretty good so I decided to take a gamble.

    I brought the dirtymax and towed it home for the princely sum of $600. Yes, that is house paint.


    Here's the original color/engine... Original everything. Some signs of repairs, but even the radiator was original. I guess if my car was 'gletscherblau metallic' I would have painted it too.


    It's a shame too, because the interior is mint and there's not a dent on the whole car. Anyway, engine comes out:


    Decided to do the head gasket and everything else so I started stripping the dirty sucker down.


    Once I got in there, I found a fairly new looking Elring head gasket already in place so I decided to let it be. The oil pan came out where I found a bunch of plastic shrapnel everywhere. Discovered a shattered timing chain guide which I replaced, then I flushed all the little chunks out of the oil pump screen and vacuumed out the pan baffles.

    Double checked the spraybar up top and put it back together with all new gaskets and new front/rear mains. Fast forward a couple evenings of work:


    I went with garagistic mounts of course, along with some AKG poly bushings for engine and transmission. The radiator, transmission and flywheel came out of an E28 535is. Here's the newly machined flywheel:


    Bye bye M20!


    Hello M30!


    I was so surprised it actually fit in there. I normally keep things pretty toned down, but I thought the valve cover could use just a bit of flare ;)


    I already had an eta driveshaft with the big guibo, so everything bolted right up in that department.


    For cooling, I went with the E28 radiator, welded a couple little brackets to hold the bottom and then used E28/E34 hoses for cooling. I had to go score a late model expansion tank which I didn't have a bracket for on my car. Luckily there was a bracket on the driver's side that had a couple holes in the right places, so I put a couple captive nuts on the tank and attached it that way.

    After everything was all wired up and all plumbed in, it was time for a test drive!


    I drove it around without a hood and with the DME zip tied there for a couple days until I trusted it. Then I finished wrapping the loom, putting the wiring through the firewall, and reinstalling the hood.

    Unfortunately, no photos yet of the finished wiring harness. I used the engine loom as-is from the E34. Since I already had the motronic 1.1 in the car, the C101 was plug and play. Since I've got an early chassis, my battery is still up front. I simply extended the +12v wires from the E34 relays to there. Also I had to splice the C104 connector on so my tach would work.

    Since it was only one day between driving it with the M20 and driving with the M30 I could compare directly. First impressions: Screw these solid engine/trans mounts. They'll be gone ASAP. Also, the M30 feels slower than my old engine, so that's something I need to check on :( I didn't think the MS/headers/AFM delete would have made that much of a difference on the M20.

    So what's next?
    Scale up the MS tune to work with the M30 and get that installed.
    I've also decided on a turbo setup but like a dumbass, I didn't tap the oil pan when I had the chance :(
    Last edited by keyland; 08-26-2017, 03:44 PM.


    #2
    Installed the DIYPNP and wideband today, scaled up the M20 tune and added some fuel in a few places.

    Did figure out why I was so underwhelmed with the M30's performance. The throttle body linkage was jacked up so it only opened halfway even with the pedal on the floor. Much more snappy now! :D

    Just did a little cleaning and went for a drive. Hate black car maintenance, but when it's looking good, it looks /good/ especially for an '84.


    Last edited by keyland; 10-18-2016, 11:25 AM.

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      #3
      Looks great! Can't wait to do plastics on my '87. So overall would you say the M30 was worth the time and money?


      --Roundie Revival 2.0 - 1973 BMW 2002 Build Thread--
      --Golden Boy E30 Build Thread-- (sold)

      Comment


        #4
        Thanks, I think the early tail lights with the plastic bumpers is the ideal combo.

        As far as the M30 swap, hard to say if it was worth it or not. Definitely not the performance increase I had expected. It wasn't too much money, probably $1500 total after buying the donor car, e28 trans, and misc parts. Wiring wise, it couldn't have been easier. 100% plug and play, except the tach signal.

        In hindsight, I would probably choose to freshen up the M20 and go FI on that instead but I don't hate the M30 :)

        Comment


          #5
          Car looks good. What differential are you running?

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by efficient View Post
            Car looks good. What differential are you running?
            Thanks! It looks better in photos or from a distance. Up close is a lot of swirl marks and sap stains in the clear coat. I'm looking at doing a vinyl wrap or learning to paint over the next few months.

            Differential is a 3.73 LSD but I might go taller when I do the turbo over the winter.
            Last edited by keyland; 10-03-2016, 03:58 PM.

            Comment


              #7
              I usually don't picture it but the PO had someone hit the driver's door and take off without stopping. It's in surprisingly good shape considering what happened to it, but it's one of the few body flaws on the car:



              Since this car isn't a real BMW color I've never bothered to find a door because it wouldn't match anyway. Recently I found a cheapo door for a few bucks through a part-out and decided to try some bodywork.

              It was covered in plastidip, not thick enough to peel of course. After quite some effort I got it all off but found some previous filler work underneath. Here's the door shortly after starting:


              Because of the not-great filler job and to learn a little more I went down to the metal. Sanded the whole door with 80 grit on a DA, marked all the dents and dings and filled them a little more carefully. I forget if this is the 80 grit stage or the 180 grit stage but here's that:


              In the meantime I bought a cheapo harbor freight HVLP gun to spray primer with while I wait for my nicer base/clear gun. It was pretty warm today so I shot a couple coats of epoxy sealer on the bare metal. I haven't ever sprayed paint before but I spent a lot of time watching how-to videos. After practicing for a while on some cardboard and getting the spray pattern dialed in I went for the door which started with quite a bit of orange peel, but seemed to level off over a couple of hours, ending up much nicer than expected. I brought it in the house to help it cure for a couple days.


              The door came with a piece of early model trim (also buried in plastidip) from which I excavated the shiny bits and clipped onto the driver's door. From a few feet away, you can't even tell it's jacked up. So here for the first time is the driver's side of the car, haha!
              Last edited by keyland; 10-18-2016, 11:25 AM.

              Comment


                #8
                badass transformation!!

                Turbo M42 Build Thread :Here
                Ig:ryno_pzk
                I like the tuna here.
                Originally posted by lambo
                Buttchug. The official poster child of r3v.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Probably a noob question, but what wheels are those?
                  1991 318is Brillantrot daily driver (slow restoration)

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Dj Buttchug View Post
                    badass transformation!!
                    Thanks, although to be clear, that's still the original door on the car... It'll be a while before there's paint on the new one.

                    Originally posted by c0rbin9 View Post
                    Probably a noob question, but what wheels are those?
                    I have a couple different sets. The older photos are BBS's off of a VW of some kind, never did figure out which one. They look alright but aren't the right offset and are pretty narrow.

                    The more recent photos are some BBS knockoffs I got over the summer. They are XXR 536. Not great quality but they're the right offset for the look I want, and I can run a little wider tires now too. I think I paid around 300 bucks shipped for the whole set on a closeout.
                    Last edited by keyland; 10-18-2016, 11:24 AM.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Brought back a souvenir from my trip to Europe a couple weeks ago, finally got the right adapter for my momo hub and installed it.

                      Yeah I know it's from a Renault, but I like it and I'll find a replacement center cap soon :)
                      Last edited by keyland; 08-02-2017, 02:01 PM.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Some parts arrived this week...


                        Comment


                          #13
                          Fuck yeah!
                          '72 2002 pickup | '88 M5 | '89 330is | '89 M3 | '01 Z3M | '11 328xi-t

                          Comment


                            #14
                            It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't go to work for a couple days.

                            First was wasted spark using the Bosch Motorsports (aka Saab V6) coil... Stole idea from this thread: http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=399056

                            It's Bosch part number 0221503002 and cost me $20 at the junkyard off of a Saab 9000.

                            For a DIYPNP megasquirt it's super easy... Jump IGN1 to S1, IGN2 to S2, and WLD to S3 just like in this diagram:


                            Then add your BIP373's Q2 and Q3 to the board itself (forgot a photo).

                            What I ended up doing was jumping S1 to both pin 1 of the motronic harness where the stock coil goes, and also pin 1 of the DB15 expansion connector to make it easier if I ever want to go back to stock coil/distributor.

                            Don't forget this 100 ohm pull up resistor in R2 or you're not going to have a Spark C output and then waste a couple hours trying to figure out why.


                            Soldered these three guys in and poked through the firewall:


                            I cut off the back wall of the spark plug cable guide and flipped the wires around so that 1 = 6, 2 = 5, etc...then I mounted the coil to where the battery used to be before I relocated it to the trunk.

                            Final product before being actually screwed down:


                            And in the glove box:


                            The thread above links to the Bosch datasheet in PDF. It provides the pinout of the coil:
                            1: SparkA (Cyl 1&4)
                            2: SparkB (Cyl 2&5)
                            3: SparkC (Cyl 3&6)
                            4: +12V

                            I used the existing +12V from the stock coil, and wired up as above. Dwell settings are also in the PDF... I used 3.5ms to keep things at/around 8 amps which I read somewhere is the sweet spot on BIP373s.

                            There were other activities today but I'll save that for another post tomorrow.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Nice thread. I imagine wider tires are going to be necessary in the near future for you
                              Simon
                              Current Cars:
                              -1999 996.1 911 4/98 3.8L 6-Speed, 21st Century Beetle

                              Make R3V Great Again -2020

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