E30 Coupe Complete Rebuild + M60B40 Conversion Thread

[slum dog]

Hi first post ever.
Never really got a chance to post cause all my questions had answers.
I have been saving up to do a M60 swap myself
I have a complete donor car I figured I will work up from there
Anyway reason for post is cause my car is also RHD so I will follow your thread mainly for the engine clearance stuff
Progress on that shell alone is amazing great job please keep it up.
Cheers
Mason

[E30Bug]

Hi first post ever.
Never really got a chance to post cause all my questions had answers.
I have been saving up to do a M60 swap myself
I have a complete donor car I figured I will work up from there
Anyway reason for post is cause my car is also RHD so I will follow your thread mainly for the engine clearance stuff
Progress on that shell alone is amazing great job please keep it up.
Cheers
Mason

Hi Slum Dog, that didn't feel right calling you that haha.

Thanks for your nice comment. Things slowed up a bit the last couple of months for one reason or another but I've made a little bit of progress of late. Will post some more pics up shortly.

I'm no expert with this conversion but will try to answer any questions you might have regarding the fitting of the engine, or anything really. Just be warned, there is a lot to this swap and heaps of things that you don't account for that you have to work out. That said, I think it will all be worth it and encourage you to do it.

I have test fit the engine with the engine mounts I bought from here:http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-E30-V8...-/172431780069 which I found were a lot cheaper than other places but are of very good quality.

The fire wall needs "massaging" back quite a bit as you can see in one of the pics to allow for the pipes running across the back of the engine to have clearance. Brake booster needs to be relocated either under the glovebox on the passengers' side (our left) or set down the front on the passengers' side behind the headlight. There are plenty of forums and writeups on here and other places like rtsauto.com -http://www.rtsauto.com/e30-bmw-m62-v8-swap-3/

Headers are the other thing that is not easy for us guys with RHD cars to do. You can purchase some nice headers from Ergen Motorsport - https://www.ergen.co.uk but they work out quite expensive for us with exchange rate and shipping. I am getting some custom made at the moment which are every bit as good, if not better than the Ergen ones for a lot less.

Hope this helps a bit.

[E30Bug]

A Little More Progress

I've had other things come up over the past few months that has kept me away from the build, but I have just recently gotten back to doing some more to it. I can tell you that at times I say to myself, "am I ever going to get this finished."

Here are a few progress pics.

[E30Bug]

Trailing arms cleaned back to bare metal.









Painted in 2k silver

[E30Bug]

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[E30Bug]

It's was good to get a few more bits painted and back on.

[potatomash]

Did you not put the rear subframe supports back on, on purpose? or is that a mistake?

Thats some serious attention to the underbody, very tidy

[paynemw]

Seriously awesome work man!

[econti]

Tossing up whether to remove the underbody seal and re-do it for mine - would you recommend?
It's a S2 so won't have rusted as poorly but still. Just a lot of work to go and re-seal it again, as I'd coat it in something thick like BMW did originally for stonechip protection

[E30Bug]

Did you not put the rear subframe supports back on, on purpose? or is that a mistake?

Thats some serious attention to the underbody, very tidy

Thanks mate.

Nah, I hadn't painted them yet and I was keen to see what the diff carrier/subframe looked like up against the underside paint.

[E30Bug]

Seriously awesome work man!

Thanks paynemw. Its getting there.

[E30Bug]

Tossing up whether to remove the underbody seal and re-do it for mine - would you recommend?
It's a S2 so won't have rusted as poorly but still. Just a lot of work to go and re-seal it again, as I'd coat it in something thick like BMW did originally for stonechip protection

Perhaps you could just take the underbody seal off around the bolts and other mounting points and check for rust as mine is a S2 and thats where mine was rusted. I could not see it until I took it off, not even on the inside of the floor.

I had no intention of resealing mine (other than sealing every overlap and join) as this was the glossy look I was after. You can't get that when you paint over the rough textured sealer. It's surprising how little it gets hit by stones as I did a similar thing to my e46 M3 a few years ago and it still looks great.

[Jean]

Great job man! I can't even imagine how much effort and work it takes to do a restore like you are doing!

BMW should really just make a batch of E30 shells to sell to us :)

[E30Bug]

Great job man! I can't even imagine how much effort and work it takes to do a restore like you are doing!

BMW should really just make a batch of E30 shells to sell to us :)

Thanks mate. Yeah it is taking some commitment I can tell you.

I forget who it was now, but there was a post on one of the e30 Facebook pages a month or so back that had pictures of about 4 or 5 original bare shell M3s sitting on wooden pallets up on racks with dust all over them. everyone was wanting one and said the same thing as you.

[econti]

Perhaps you could just take the underbody seal off around the bolts and other mounting points and check for rust as mine is a S2 and thats where mine was rusted. I could not see it until I took it off, not even on the inside of the floor.

I had no intention of resealing mine (other than sealing every overlap and join) as this was the glossy look I was after. You can't get that when you paint over the rough textured sealer. It's surprising how little it gets hit by stones as I did a similar thing to my e46 M3 a few years ago and it still looks great.

Roughly how many hours did you take to remove it all?