Tell us your story if you have a proper "Zone" e30

[jimbom30cab]

So,

There has been plenty of handbags at dawn on here recently so here's a thread all about e30s

If you have what I would call a proper "zone" car....we want to hear from you.....

That is a e30 you have restored or modified with the help of e30 zone. Perhaps something you might not have attempted without the help and advice on here.

If you have such a beast.....tell us your story with pics



Popcorn ready......feet up

[maxfield]

Heres my E30. Had it over 5years now. Spent a lot of time working on it putting a M20 in and lots of other bits. Haven't used it or worked on it for about 2 years due to family, job etc. Next year I intend to strip it to a bare shell, cage, bigger engine etc. But moving house comes first.



When I first bought it

[jmc330i]

Perhaps something you might not have attempted without the help and advice on here.

I joined the Zone back in 2002/2003 (the good ole runboard days) after getting my Sport and was after advice and tips on keeping it in the nice original condition it was in... Thanks to the Zone it got S50'd

[Jesus325iTouring]

I bought my Touring in 2002 and shortly after joined the E30Zone on runboard. to keep it brief, with the help and advise my Touring went from 154,000 miles upto 234,000 miles when a new engine was required.
Jonb had an E34 525i which myself and SCOTT325SE when halves, £125 each IIRC. I had the engine and box and Scott fragged the rest.
Scott kindly came up for the weekend and we both fitted the engine. This took the Touring upto 275,000 miles when it finally failed the MOT on quite a lot.
It then sat for nearly 4 years waiting for my attention, which it didn't get, family, business and the usual life events prevented anything getting done. Until now.
I now have a replacement identical Touring which myself and a good friend are converting from a 320 auto into 325 manual using my now donor Touring.

Jesus Zone story, also since joining, I have had two children and got married

Here is WIB..... most of you remember it with yellow splodges so here it is with my missus on one of Wales' fine driving roads.......

[magpie]

i think my car Qualifies as a "proper" zone car.

it was advertised in the cars for sale section as a project , no T&T [ not taxed for nearly 4 yrs ] and left under a very open car port but thankfully on concrete and not grass .The car was in Lymington so not too far from Southampton where i lived at the time , it had been getting slated in the for sale advert for having chrome arches and lots of scaremongering about the rot that lurked beneath them. < this clearly worked in my favour as the car was still available when the seller finally made contact and that no-one had been to see it

@ £350 i thought it would have been long gone

ignore time/dates on first x3 pics..i bought the car 10/10/2008





The chrome stick on arches were removed and the flat paint brought back to life and with the additition of some 16" RG alpina reps it looked $1000,000 !









it passed it's mot first time with just one headlight beam needing adjusting


with thanks to the zone and help from it's knowledgeable members i have fully restored this car over the last 5 yrs to it's current state .

it's had fitted an m50 an m52 and next year it will be running a m52 stroked 3.0L donk cable-tied to an e36 M3 evo 6-speed box







I thank YOU !

[jimbom30cab]

^^^ proper zone car right there

[E30BeemerLad]

If any of you have a few days spare, then my adventures are in here:

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... ic&t=93838

Brief summary - Cat C touring bought for £130.00, put M50 in, but it was crap with baileys for oil, replaced head gasket, didn't run right, pulled that out and put M52 in. Crashed it a month later. Rebuilt the whole lot into a chromie shell.

Good times

[shedrool83]

I've done m30,m20,m52 conversions myself all thanks to the zone.
Currently coverting a 2 door into a pick up and a touring into a track car and i driving a 318is that i bought a a shell and built from the ground up fitting a m20b25.

I had no mechanical know how before i joined the zone ,but i pretty confident tacking anything e30 related now.

Wont bore you with pictures.

[milescook]

Mine's a bit different but definitely wouldn't have been build without the zone. I'd only wielded spanners badly a little bit before. This place has turned me into a half decent DIY home mechanic!

Bought this in 2011:



Nearly 3 years later turned it into this:



All thanks to the zone.

Oh I also used to commute an hour each way down the M4 in track form, for two months, to keep "her" happy so she could keep a car 24/7.... Earphones were required and probably some spine damage occurred...

[steve_k]

bought my tech 2 sport 8/9yr's ago, kept it standard for a while till i joined this place.

since then it's ended up with a 2.6 m20 with a m50 crank thanks to seeing si13's car with said crank.
found out the two griffen motorsport heads i've got are pretty rare.

had plenty of help & advise on here & also a few parts,

if it wasnt for this place the car would still be standard & i wouldnt be skint

[milescook]

bought my tech 2 sport 8/9yr's ago, kept it standard for a while till i joined this place.

since then it's ended up with a 2.6 m20 with a m50 crank thanks to seeing si13's car with said crank.
found out the two griffen motorsport heads i've got are pretty rare.

had plenty of help & advise on here & also a few parts,

if it wasnt for this place the car would still be standard & i wouldnt be skint

Yeah, that is a downside of the zone

[steve_k]

bought my tech 2 sport 8/9yr's ago, kept it standard for a while till i joined this place.

since then it's ended up with a 2.6 m20 with a m50 crank thanks to seeing si13's car with said crank.
found out the two griffen motorsport heads i've got are pretty rare.

had plenty of help & advise on here & also a few parts,

if it wasnt for this place the car would still be standard & i wouldnt be skint

Yeah, that is a downside of the zone

tell me about it i don't want to work out how much i've spent since signing up to this place

a smack habit would be cheaper

[dusty23]

Helpful and informative, a wealth of parts and definitive information(with some not so useful) and years back cheap cars, not so much anymore with that one.

and the the workmanship of beardymatt, mate you did a brilliant job

[jimbom30cab]

i was only complimenting this car today on FB ^^

[dusty23]

^^ Ahh name, face, thanks to Matt!

[Simon13]

See i actually have an e30, i've had this nearly 9 years. Drove it for 6 months put 4000 miles on it and then pulled it apart for a restoration which is very much still on going. Its awaiting the engine it deserves and has one of the longest threads going on here. My aim was and still is to make it as close to an "as new" E30 or one if i chose exactly how i wanted it back in the day. Which if i did it would be like this but a B6 3.5 not the weedy C2 2.7 i have here. It will still be good when done...................

As i started this a while before people were starting to do this sort work but i've probably bought 15 cars since and got somewhat side tracked along the way which is my only excuse. Its cost well i've not added it up but 20k will be about right before it sees a tax disc but they've now gone!

[jimbom30cab]

Thats funny as I was reading your thread last night to get some inspiration Si. Do you think Bazza could re load the missing photos ?

[bss325i]

I still have all the pics i took while it was at the bodyshop. Those along with a lot of pics from my sport thread were on a imageshack account which have all now gone.

Would need to upload them all again to photobucket.

The body repairs were epic!

[jimbom30cab]

Yes they were, best i've ever seen by a long way. I wanted to have a look last night to see the standard to aim for !!

[bss325i]

Deffo a zone car, GRINGO! As many people have come to call it.



As i bought it back in july 2006 with only 32k on it as a completely standard car for £2500!

It's been progressively improved and upgraded with pretty much every factory available option retro fitted plus decent suspension and some engine tweaks.



It got to a point of having the complete Alpina look to it but a decided to put it all back to standard M technic

It's been to the Ring with me, countless zone meets, various shows and up the strip at pod.

More importantly it's the car i had when i first started dating my mrs and both my sons came home from the hospital in it and the reason i will never sell it. To me it's irreplaceable!



As it stands now on 72k.

Soon to be taken off the road and pulled apart again.

[pony]

Sport Tech2 for £2.5k in 2006 was a bargain

I remember some Tech2s commanding £4k. WLN £5-6k.
Tech1s were usually £1k cheaper than Tech2s in £2-3k mark in 2006.

[steve_k]

barry, i'm the same with my sport.

had it when me & the wife got together, used it as a wedding car when we got married, brought my youngest home when he was born,

also it's the only thing i have left from when i had it all lol

[MattTheHat325]

Barry you don't happen to have the alpina boot spoiler for sale do you? Worth an ask!

[Simon13]

Thats funny as I was reading your thread last night to get some inspiration Si. Do you think Bazza could re load the missing photos ?

If you could pass some of that inspiration over it would be nice. Although to be fair i am working on it

[capri_rob]

Got back into E30's after a 5 year break from them in 2008 with a bronzit 325i chrome turd with was somewhat frilly round the edges, joined the zone, proceeded to pull it apart and fix various things over the next 3 years with help both on the zone and in person from various people on here before it failed the MOT on terminal rot.

Broke the chrome turd and used the funds towards my touring which I found on the zone for sale in early 2011 and bought for a very cheap price only to discover afterwards it was the first RHD touring off the production line.
Since 2011 it has had a small fortune put into it particularly suspension, interior, wheels and engine as well as some structural welding thanks to danthe. It's now solid but still scruffy and needs a rear valance and a full respray but I can't ever see that happening I'm quite happy to drive it a few hundred miles a year in the summer for fun.

Does that qualify as a zone car ?

[bss325i]

Barry you don't happen to have the alpina boot spoiler for sale do you? Worth an ask!

Sold all my Alpina parts nearly two years ago mate.

[appletree]

I've been here long enough to remember the runboard days aswell as the transfer to the new rust coloured zone.

Mine car was bought as my 2nd ever car at around 18-19, here are a few pics from when we went to view it, my 1st car ( punto ) in the back ground.









After a respray and the normal service items



Also went to the launch of the new 3 series



Then built the first eaton superchager conversion



car had two mag features one in total BMW the other in PPC



Went to the ring and had to add a bonnet vent to help cool the eaton.


Since then i've done the Rotrex conversion with the e36 6 speed box and have now swapped the roof skin from sunroof to a non sunroof skin.

Performance BMW feature after the rotrex build


How it was before the roof work






Has also been my cusins wedding car



Thats 8-9 years of ownership and probably double that in thousands of pounds.... could have bought an M3!!!!!!

[e30topless]

Some may remember this turd, it's been on the zone from the beginning, Chris has owned it for the last 10+ years



He's sadly come to his senses and moved on from scrap BMW's so I bought it, taking me up to 12 E30's

it's an illness...

[Blitz]

I never did understand why he put undersized tyres on.

[gooner1]

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... ht=warning

Just part of the story.

[magpie]

Some may remember this turd, it's been on the zone from the beginning, Chris has owned it for the last 10+ years



He's sadly come to his senses and moved on from scrap BMW's so I bought it, taking me up to 12 E30's

it's an illness...

wondered what happened to this .

[spook]

All the zone heroes on this thread,some proper turds as well

[gooner1]

All the zone heroes on this thread,some proper turds as well

Post your "new" one up mate

[stew72]

not really a zone car, but in late 2011 I joined up after selling my 924 as I was on the hunt for a 4 pot convertible, either factory or Baur, so I put up a wanted ad.

After a few replies and a couple of viewings I quickly learnt that I'd need to tread carefully with a meagre budget if I wanted anything decent so I trawled through a variety of websites and found this http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C273626#



The zone was useful to fix a few small niggles and especially when it came to fixing the knackered front seats, from this



to this

[HILL]

Again - not a car known to the zone but i'm using the forum for some help and advice as i move it through a complete restoration from this..



to this
[]

to this last week...
[[URL=http://s762.photobucket.com/user/JNHILL ... o.jpg.html]img][/img]