Gradual creation of perfect E30 - aka B*stard Hybrid/mongrel

[Dr Firefly]

This is a thread I'm planning to update for a few years.

I know you'll all think I'm yet another idiot who hasn't actually done anything to his car yet, but I've been on economy drive during the last 3 years of my medical degree - have managed to get a £200 car back into MOT-passing-with-no-advisory condition now though, and once I qualify I'm planning to quickly get it back into mint condition mechanically. The thread below is the end result of a fair bit of thought of what I want to get my E30 like eventually. It's a 4-door 320i, so pretty undesirable to start with, so I don't feel like Im wrecking it's originality by altering it. I understand it makes no economic sense, I've just got fond of this car and I want a great project. Want pretty much an amazing E30 in terms of spec, and a good economical motorway driver with decent acceleration and good handling. Want an all-rounder, not just a crazily fast one, that I can use everyday.

Mods so far:
BMW business CD player
Stirling alarm - may put a better one in when I've got money - don't know what the most OEM one would be...
Mtec1 steering wheel and gearknob
Next few weeks (once the last of the rust is sorted) EDIT: HA! WAS A TAD OPTIMISTIC THERE (16/02/08 ) - having SE sideskirts, Mtec2 spoiler replaced by Mtec1, bumpers sprayed so they have smaller black trim, and IS lip fitted.
Beige sport leather fitted


Plans for interior.
Keep Mtec1 steering wheel
Lighting up gearstick
Leather dash - did they ever come in anything except Cecottos? And in RHD?
Leather everything really - console, glovebox, pillar trim etc. I like leather
Maplight mirror
Onboard computer
Cruise control
Retrofitting aircon - how much of a job is this?
Rear electric windows
Electric sunroof

Electrics, lights etc.[b/]
Also want to retrofit levelling and wash-wipe lights but not sure what this would entail
HID dipped beam lights
Possible angel eyes but worried about the chav associations now all the Saxos have them!
Heated seats
Heated body coloured wing mirrors
Heated washer jets

Mechanics
All the below I haven't yet decided on, as there's so much conflicting info on here, will just go with what is seen good quality stuff (ie not budget but not silly money)
Decent anti-roll bars
Decent shocks and springs - thinking a 25mm drop to Mtech spec suspension
As long and tough a diff as possible - M3? Haven't looked up the best ratio yet
Probably an M3 prop
Engine - thinking 330d E46 engine - M57TUD30 (from memory, might be slightly off). Can't find reliable figures comparing weight with M20 but I don't think it's far off, (maybe 11kg) so hopefully won't wreck handling.
Don't know what gearbox would go best with that - and how would aircon fit in with that idea? Have looked for all this info on here, but some of it just hasn't been asked yet! I think when the time comes I'm going to have to rely on Ant for all this - I know he said I'd need a custom sump etc, and I'd be interested in a 6-speed but I'm guessing it won't fit in the transmission tunnel.
Obviously upgraded brakes to deal with the power - like BBS 16s so probably get slightly larger brake discs and 4 pot calipers under them. Again I'm going to have to trust zone guys when it comes to choosing them

Basically I reckon I'll be looking at about £10,000-£15,000 over 5 years or so. But then I'll have my car for life.

So what do you think? Any other ideas for what would be a nice addition? I've listed pretty much every extra I know - any others that I've missed?

I would appreciate constructive comments on this one! Not the "Oh ur a f**king idiot - get a 325 or an M3" ones! I know there'll be impracticalities on the mechanical side, but I'll have to sort those I come to them - any opinions very welcome though.

Just going to post up some photos of what the car looks like now. Trust me it's changed a hell of a lot since I bought it - had holes from rust everywhere, rottweiler spec seats, no working gauges, no radio, wheel bearing died, whiney diff, knackered prop shaft coupling, all shocks knackered, rear disc conversion with all new discs, pads, handbrake shoes +cables etc., AFM, ECU, TPS, ICV replaced, SI boards replaced, gear shift bushes replaced, subframe bushes replaced, new front kidney grills, new windscreen, and lots more I can't remember.... been so much fun learning my way round it.







Will add photos as I do/get work done on it.

[munky30]

iirc the 330d engine uses fly by wire pedals... good luck with them

the rest sounds good.

I've always fancied an e30 with all the trimmings and a modern reliable engine. To use as most people would use their new mondeo/focus/astra etc.

I'd want a few modern touches too like dual zone a/c, heated electric seats, built in satnav/dvd etc.

[blyoss]

Hey mate, sounds like one hell of a project you've got there. you dont want much lol But have you had the car thoroughly check for rust etc. i wouldnt spend a penny until thats checked. but other that sounds cool.

Are you keeping it white? i only scanned the details really

[Aleksandar]

Great project, just don't like the engine.

[e30m3s50b32]

most of what you want is straight forward and simpple, nothing to realy worry about there, its just all personal preferance and taste when it comes to decision time in regards to suspension set ups, interior trim etc

what you will find the most people will recomend the bilstein/H&R/eibach combinations are the prefered and proven set ups,


your headaches will come from the electrics involved with that engine

the engine swop alone is going into the un known, the complexity of the electrics and management system will be hard to get through, a very skilled auto electrician will be needed to get it running and running right.

once you have it in and running, then worry about the prop/diff set up. ar for gearing, you will need a similar final drive to as what the doner engine car came with, maybe a little taller as the e30 is much lighter than any e46, i'm gussing that where the engine would be coming from.

also, you need to consider the clearance issuse from the the manifold and turbo location. you may need a custom manifold for it to clear, custom intertcooler etc

to get round the "fly by wire" you could source the parts needed from 324d but thats the least of the issues you will need to over come. the custom sump is fairly straigh forward.

nothing is impossible, but there is a cost involved.

are you planning on doing it yourself or would you be getting the engine in through a specialist? having seen over the years e30's with V6 V8 V12 and even a V10 form the M5 going into them, the M57 will go in with some mods and fabrication but again, electronics are where the complexities and probs arrise.

on final note, with any project involving engine swops and serious moddifications, look at your "estiamtes" and the double it. i kid you not, i think you will find getting that engine in and running and the car driving will probably come close to £10,000. not sure what the engine cost is for a used unit but the basis for this estimate is that any one here and in in general who has installed an s50b30/32 will tell you the minimum cost to get that engine in including buying the engine and gear box but with lots of DIY work come in about £5000, but to do it with a 3rd party doing the work weighs in at £7000.

say £2500 buys you a complete engine and gear box complete with ecu's etc
then say 100 hours for fitting, wiring and general work involved getting it running at a cheap rate of £25 and hour , thats £2500
fabricaton and custom parts eg sump, manifolds, intercoolers, prop shaft and say a new clutch in there while you are at it £1000

£7000 already but .................

these are "guestimates" but i do know that the labout rate is at HALF of the current going rate of what a specialist would charge.

get a current price on an engine and gear box, i have feeling it will be a lot more than my £2500 guess

[HairyScreech]

i shouldnt think a second hand diesel from a standard production car will break the £1000 mark, as after all it is an engine that can be picked up with the rest of the car for less than £5000.

[Dr Firefly]

Great project, just don't like the engine.

I did have lots of second thoughts about the choice of engine, particularly as I love the sound of my M20 between 3k and 5k rpm - sound beautiful, and the diesel just won't have that. Suppose I'll have to get an Mtec1 sport one day just to keep my M20 fix, and keep that totally standard. Thing is with the diesel, over the next few years I'm going to be driving somewhere between 20 and 50k a year. I need an engine that is a bit better on fuel - not just because of price, as I know the cost of the conversion will be high. Sounds corny but I do believe in global warming, and if I can afford to give my E30 economy of 50-60mpg, with a 0-60 of around 6-7 seconds (believe me those 3 litre diesels are fast), I might as well have my cake and eat it - it won't have the trade off of performance vs economy. Otherwise I'm going to have to buy a new 1 or 3 series - and I just don't like them. Thinking that the engine conversion will be much cheaper than buying one of them, and I'll like the car much more, so I might as well do it.

e30m3s50b32 - thanks for the useful and constructive comments - good to get a bit more of a handle on the issues I'll be dealing with.

As regards the engine, my dad has an E46 330d with 160,000 on it. Would obviously do a full rebuild of the engine, as it's smoking a little, but probably be able to get the engine for free or pretty close. Could swap in the M20 and sell the E46 on to an unsuspecting single mother....

I know the electronics will be an absolute nightmare - but at the end of the day under all the electronics it's an engine with pistons and stuff - maybe megasquirt could be used? Or is it specific to petrol engines? I've heard of the conversion being done - thing is I want the car to appear as OEM as possible - so mating it up to the dash might be difficult - can't see the tachometer, temp gauge, OBC and "funometer" (mpg gauge) being simple to get the right readings.

As regards working on it, it's definitely going to be one of those where I give it to someone else to organise and just come down and play at helping...

[fuzzy]

interesting sounding plan you have and quite thouroughly thought out . you wont get any negativity from me as i like a different approach to the established norm. ive done 2 major projects in the last 10 years and have been subjected to more than my fair share of critisism along the way. my first project was a 1985 rwd celica that was originally planned as a minor tidy up and tune project but snowballed to an 8 year £28000 complete nut and bolt restoration ,rebuild and conversion also to cosworth. once you pass a certain point you realise you cant give up and have to plough on regardless of the costs.
my current project,my cossie touring is sitting at around £8000+ and counting but ive not went anywhere near the levels i did with the last one. whatever you are planning to spend i gaurantee you will spend about double especially if you are relying on others to do most of the work.its very satisfying when you complete it and get it on the road for the first time. i especially liked driving around the garages that i had approached to quote for work that never got back to me because they thought i was a dreamer
good luck and dont give up.














=

[deane30]

sounds awesome

[bootyman]

Save yoursel the headache and buy my car if you want the a mental E30. Plus any modder know that what ever you think a project will cost you, you need to double it cause there are always thing you dont forecast for that come up and you will need the extra dosh!

[Alex]

not keen on the engine a its a diesel but makes a change from the usuall conversions

[Dr Firefly]

not keen on the engine a its a diesel but makes a change from the usuall conversions

Don't think the diesel has the same disadvantages as it used to have. Ever driven an E46 330d? Feels pretty quick, will be interested to see how it feels in 400kg lighter E30. Big thing I'll miss from the M20 is the noise - suppose I'll just have to record it and burn a CD so that as I'm accelerating I can play it back.

[goosiegander]

Started in the same place man, hope it all goes well for you

[nickso]

interesting project but i would drop the diesel plans. depends how much you want to spend on it i guess. i would stick to an established engine swap myself. but each to their own

if you wanted 90% of your list on the car it could be done pretty easily. im always coming across heated mirrors (might even have some hiding just now) and washers in the scrappy and i have most of the kit for the headlight washers too, came out easy so i guess it wont be hard to put in.

ive never done it myself but i believe retro aircon is a bitch to fit.

[Turbo-Brown]

Be really interesting to see a modern diesel conversion.

Don't think you could use an aftermarket ECU to control it though as modern diesels have all sorts of injection ramps and features which make them run smoother, they must run sequential and of course diesel engines don't have a throttle body, they just run 'full throttle' all the time and the amount of fuel going in dictates the power they make.

I'd have thought you could get a complete scrapped E46 and carefully go through everything, modifying it to suit the E30 so that the original electronics aren't aware that they're in the wrong car.

[munky30]

interesting sounding plan you have and quite thouroughly thought out . you wont get any negativity from me as i like a different approach to the established norm. ive done 2 major projects in the last 10 years and have been subjected to more than my fair share of critisism along the way.

And rightly so.

[Hakkera]

Any chance you could make some bloggy thing to keep us all updated, I'm really quite interested. I want to see how its done and what not, then idea of an up to date E30 Sounds fantastic.

[CustomX]

Good luck buddy - if you may run into negativity on this site but ignore.

I would also consider E36 engines, perhaps a 325tdi if you love Diesel, just as they'll be easier to put in.

Diesels give huge gains on re-maps too no?

Where's the shot taken - Scotland? Beautiful...

[hammoj28]

320d engines are going quite cheap apparantely. My lecturer said he saw one go for 500 quid on the bay with gearbox and loom etc.

[Dr Firefly]

Well the car's been up to Beardymat's to get some work done, and it looks sooo much better. But Matt can be brutally brutally brutally honest, and he pretty much told me the shell needs new rear arches, and inner arches, rear quarter panels, doors, front wings, and rear panel. Will also need welding to the bulkhead and scuttle panel. He's done a great job sorting out all the really important structural work to get it through the MOT, but it's going to need a lot more to get the car back to mint condition. Obviously no point in modifying a knackered car, so plan is still to get it back perfect before I start altering it too much.

But I had promised some subtle body mods to reward myself for passing the last set of exams I took, so it's now got white SE sideskirts, smaller black trim bumpers, a fake IS lip (will change that for a real one at some point cos doesn't fit perfectly), rear valence sprayed all white, and an Mtec1 spoiler.

I think the car now looks great, and I could sell it onto any unsuspecting newbie for a good £1200 I'd have thought! Pics to follow soon. When Matt emails me the photos he took I'll put them up so you can see the quality of the work he's done for me. Don't all mob him at once thought cos he absolutely hates rust work! Had to do the cosmetic alterations just to keep him happy I think

So plan is possibly extending a little.

Scrapping the shell is not an option, as I've recently found out that this is the same car my dad had from new when I was a kid. It's actually the same car that I used to lie in the back of when I was 4 and watch the streetlights flash by, and that created my love of E30s. Had a numberplate change to a private one in 1992, and then when it was changed back in 1998, just had an age appropriate one whacked on. Never thought anything of it until my dad mentioned the numberplate of his old car, and it rang a bell! So I can't scrap it - it's fate that I bought it at 2:00 in the morning drunk on Ebay.

So how do you save a shell? I think we could probably do it piecemeal without taking it to pieces, and preserve it another 5-10 years, or am I better going with the stripping it down route, acid-dipping, welding, and respray? What kind of cost is an acid dip? Kind of tempted to do a proper job as otherwise it'll just always be a recurrent problem.

Pics are coming up, just waiting for camera battery to charge.... also it was getting dark and it hasn't been cleaned yet, so forgive the poor quality and the dirtiness!

[/img]







And here's a sample of some of the great bodywork Matt did:

[E30BeemerLad]

I'd forget all that malarky with the bodyshell and god knows how many other panels and buy a late touring on a K or L and save about twice what that bodywork would cost and ultimately have a more desirable car i.e. 3.0TDi Touring

[Dr Firefly]

Thanks for the input E30BeemerLad, but just not into Tourings. And I fancy this as a project. People don't bat an eyelid at restoring sports - this one's way more important to me than any sport. And it's another E30 shell saved too instead of going to the scrappy's.

[Dr Firefly]

Oh and I forgot the best one - slightly blurry, but I'll get better ones up when I've had time to clean her up...



(and just for comparison), here she is a year ago.

[snoops]

looking good

nice numberplate 'feck'

[Dr Firefly]

Cheers Snoops... not feeling the zone love on this one much though.... I think it looks great with the lip, sideskirts etc. Guess I'll have to get some better photos so that people actually bother to comment!
Ian

[HairyScreech]

its the chrome kindey wrongness, its blinding people so they cant see the rest of the car to coment.

[march109]

I admire what your doing fella, some poeple are always gonna tell you its not worth it but to you it has personal significance, in a few more years time everyone will have to repair and make do, there are only so many perfect shells out there, its frightening how much work some of the Mk1 escort boys take on to save a shell so its not impossible.

Speaking of which get yourself a copy of classic ford mag, loads of shotblasting and acid dipping companies reguarly advertise, or any other generic proper classic focussed magazine.

If you want to go proper menthol get it acid dipped, repair it and then zinc plated! then paint over. big bucks though.

[hammoj28]

Looks much better than before. Just needs dropping now.

[Dr Firefly]

Looks much better than before. Just needs dropping now.

Lots of speedbumps round me, so not going to drop it too far, just going to go with the Mtech drop I think, nothing crazy.


Thanks for the kind words March!

And Hairyscreech, think I'll be keeping the chrome kidney grill, blinding as it is - in two minds about the chrome window trim though. It really signals to anyone that knows E30s that the cars been modified, as all IS's had shadowline trim didn't they. But then I suppose the SE sideskirts, black wing mirrors and Mtec1 spoiler also don't fit... What the hell, think it looks good as bastardised hybrids go

Got the car pretty much how the car's going to look eventually, but will be in much better nick, and will have sport evo 16" wheels once I get round to a 5stud conversion.

[Ant]

Looks much fresher dude !

dont take the anti 4 door brigade to heart, as you say, labour of love over anything else.

FYI I'm doing a 320D in to E30 swop for a customer this summer, and adding the 330D intercooler and turbo for good measure, may yeild some useful info in time

[d6dph]

Looking nice fella. Looks like you have a good base car.

[bmwe30mtech]

Excellent to hear your doing this.

Ignore comments saying its not worth the money or effort etc, most E30's are rotten now, save the one that means a lot to you. Im doing a lot of the body work on mine in the summer that you are doing on yours now. Totally worth the effort, keep lots of pics of the project coming along

[daimlerman]

First off,well done on the exam results.I have met Beardymatt a few times and would trust his judgement as to proceeding with this shell or starting with a replacement.OK,this car has some history that is special to you,BUT, with losing it's idendity it is not as special as it could have been.It's very easy to get carried away by motor cars but consider where you may be in another 5 years,married with a toddler?Partway through a barn conversion? Would a part restored 320i 4 door still be your best motoring option? Sorry if I sound like your dad... I admire your dedication to the cause...

[Dr Firefly]

First off,well done on the exam results.I have met Beardymatt a few times and would trust his judgement as to proceeding with this shell or starting with a replacement.OK,this car has some history that is special to you,BUT, with losing it's idendity it is not as special as it could have been.It's very easy to get carried away by motor cars but consider where you may be in another 5 years,married with a toddler?Partway through a barn conversion? Would a part restored 320i 4 door still be your best motoring option? Sorry if I sound like your dad... I admire your dedication to the cause...

All good points Daimlerman, and what I was saying wasn't in anyway questioning Matt's judgement - don't often see someone who's so keen on doing a great job and doing right by his customers. Have no doubt he was telling me stuff in my best interest.

Point is there are two cars I've always wanted - a series 3 safari spec land rover, and a white E30. Sad I know (low aspirations eh?), but I've got them both now. I have no doubt that when I have kids, I'll be carrying them round in a boring, air-bagged to f**k, safe car, but I'll still be keeping this car and hopefully using it for my daily commute.

Only dilemma I have is whether to go the diesel route to be honest - that'll be what makes me decide whether I can use it as my daily driver longterm, or whether it's a bit of fun to tinker with in my garage and use at weekends,. Haven't decided that yet, but whatever route I go down I've got to start with getting the car straight first.

I did toy with the idea of getting a Tech1 sport and restoring it, but I honestly do have the basis of my perfect car now, and fixing it up'll be so much cheaper than buying a new car (such as a Bugatti Veyron) - also the lack of specialness of the basic model makes me feel more able to do whatever I want to the car - would struggle to bring myself to de-originalise a sport.

Looks much fresher dude !

dont take the anti 4 door brigade to heart, as you say, labour of love over anything else.

FYI I'm doing a 320D in to E30 swop for a customer this summer, and adding the 330D intercooler and turbo for good measure, may yeild some useful info in time

That's good Ant - will be interested to hear how that one goes, could be really useful from an electronics perspective. I wonder what kind of power that would make? How heavy is it compared to an M20?

Thanks for the compliments...

[Dr Firefly]

A few slightly better photos after a v. quick wash...