E30 Zone

Hi im going to buy an e30 m3 evo soon but would like it conveted to rhd (ive read the pros and cons).

I am aware that Bird's done a few but if im rite none of these were evo models?

Does anyone know who currently does rhd conversions?

Cheers

Not quite the same thing,but I am just starting a LHD to RHD conversion on a touring,any advice is welcome.

WHY ?

pacerpete wrote:WHY ?

/\/\/\/\/\/\ What he said /\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Pure vandalism, don't.

people will think its as a fake M3

Alex wrote:people will think its as a fake M3

tbh.. that is the least of his worries!!

pacerpete wrote:WHY ?

Why not?? Birds did it and people accepted it........

Not an Evo.

A standard car yes but not a special edition.

It's wrong

I'm sure someone like Pacerpete would do a RHD conversion if you payed by young uns

StuBeeDoo wrote:

pacerpete wrote:WHY ?

Why not?? Birds did it and people accepted it........

they did? since when?

Why not , Guy who was local to me converted a few m3s and one was up for sale on pistonheads around xmas .
Most joe public dont know what a m3 is , People saw my sport and said nice m3
Its only the enthusiasts who will know and ok its a special edition but why not .
Id buy a right hand drive m3 and tbh would prefer it over a left hand drive and would find it more desirable .
Have driven lhd cars in the uk and its just a pain especially when overtaking .
Do it , If half the people on here had the money im sure they would

I had a Lancia Integrale that had be subjected to a RHD conversion years ago. An 'approved' Lancia conversion by a respected specialist. Absolutely terrible compared to a LHD one, but it was £2500 cheaper because of it. So I spent just under half of that putting it back to LHD. Worth every penny.

The RHD conversion had cost around £6000, money well and truly wasted.

Don't convert an M3 to RHD. They're not meant to be RHD. Especially not an Evo.

Then there's the resale point. An M3 Evo is becoming a very collectable car, collectors don't tend to like their cars to be 'wrong' so you'll be sitting there watching the value of LHD ones go up, while yours becomes harder and harder to sell.

I wouldn't buy a RHD E30 Evo unless it was 50% cheaper than a LHD one and had all the parts with it to convert it back to LHD.

If it was converted correctly and not bodged i cant see it being a lot cheaper than a lhd
Why are they supposed to be lhd as most cars on the road are produced in lhd and rhd flavours

i wouldn't touch a RHD M3.. They were left as LHD for a reason... converting an Evo to RHD is a crime

Jhonno , What reason were they all lhd though ??

I think Im fairly representative of M3 owners when it comes to this. I wanted a good one. I didn't even bother looking at RHD cars.

Sure its your money, your choice. But you will have a real nightmare trying to shift it to an enthusiast later on. I would also point out that there are hundreds if not thousands of LHD cars on our roads every single day. Ive never had a problem with it other than at Car park barriers. And thats not impossible wither, just reqs a little foresight. The thing I had a problem with when I first got it was the dog leg, not sitting on the other side. After all its not like LHD makes a car 50% wider than a RHD

Go for it if you want. But I dont think you're looking long term at the hassle/costs involved in it.

Because it was best


Not it's to do with the finite points of the design, rack, brake setup, manifold

It was to do with economics. The volume they required to produce to meet homologation meant they didn't intend to sell enough to warant the development costs of summounting the above problems. If somebody did it properly a RHD one would be fine. The problem lies in that unless you want to get seriously balls deep into doing it properly, compromises have to be made.

Just get a LHD. You get used to it.

Steve-E30 wrote: Most joe public dont know what a m3 is , People saw my sport and said nice m3
Its only the enthusiasts who will know and ok its a special edition but why not .
Id buy a right hand drive m3 and tbh would prefer it over a left hand drive and would find it more desirable .


If it was converted correctly and not bodged i cant see it being a lot cheaper than a lhd
Why are they supposed to be lhd as most cars on the road are produced in lhd and rhd flavours

Most joe public aren't in the market for an M3, at resale time it's enthusiasts you're trying to appeal to. The whole point is they cannot be converted 'correctly' as the parts required to do so do not exist. Why spend a huge heap of money, and it would be huge, making a car less capable and ultimately less valuable in order to avoid spending a few early trips getting used to sitting the other side.

Bluntly, if you can't put up with LHD, you can't put up with an M3. Of course it's totally up to the OP to do as he sees fit, but he'll struggle to find someone who can be recommended to do the work as so few have done it, and there are many reasons why that is the case.

I would have a RHD converted E30 M3 no problem but i would prefer to do the work myself so i know it hasn't been bodged by some idiot. I would only do it to a standard model though and nothing special thats for sure. I can understand that whole kudos thing when it comes to it being LHD but i just prefer RHD.

Oh and the whole "not being as good" thing is crap as,

the quicker steering rack issue can be sorted with an E36/Z3 item.

the brake linkage problem will always be there but since when have RHD E30 brakes been woefully bad because of this? Ok the pedal feel wont be identical but lets be honest, it aint bad, far from it!

The manifold problem. Demlot's RHD S14 powered 318iS makes 237bhp with only cams and alpha N but uses a Birds/Hartge modified item so to say converting would rob the S14 of power is crap. Whats to say this manifold cant be replicated?

Do it but not to an Evo.

bss325i wrote:I would have a RHD converted E30 M3 no problem but i would prefer to do the work myself so i know it hasn't been bodged by some idiot. I would only do it to a standard model though and nothing special thats for sure. I can understand that whole kudos thing when it comes to it being LHD but i just prefer RHD.

Oh and the whole "not being as good" thing is crap as,

the quicker steering rack issue can be sorted with an E36/Z3 item.

the brake linkage problem will always be there but since when have RHD E30 brakes been woefully bad because of this? Ok the pedal feel wont be identical but lets be honest, it aint bad, far from it!

The manifold problem. Demlot's RHD S14 powered 318iS makes 237bhp with only cams and alpha N but uses a Birds/Hartge modified item so to say converting would rob the S14 of power is crap. Whats to say this manifold cant be replicated?
.

Exactly

bss325i wrote:I would have a RHD converted E30 M3 no problem but i would prefer to do the work myself so i know it hasn't been bodged by some idiot. I would only do it to a standard model though and nothing special thats for sure. I can understand that whole kudos thing when it comes to it being LHD but i just prefer RHD.

Oh and the whole "not being as good" thing is crap as,

the quicker steering rack issue can be sorted with an E36/Z3 item.

the brake linkage problem will always be there but since when have RHD E30 brakes been woefully bad because of this? Ok the pedal feel wont be identical but lets be honest, it aint bad, far from it!

The manifold problem. Demlot's RHD S14 powered 318iS makes 237bhp with only cams and alpha N but uses a Birds/Hartge modified item so to say converting would rob the S14 of power is crap. Whats to say this manifold cant be replicated?

Do it but not to an Evo.

Nail on the head.

I have a genuine Birds RHD S14 manifold in my morsel stash if anyone is sick enough to commit this unspeakable crime !

pacerpete wrote:I have a genuine Birds RHD S14 manifold in my morsel stash if anyone is sick enough to commit this unspeakable crime !

I did hear a rumuor that you had another and have had ideas of a RHD S14 of sorts.

Pm me a figure please.

if you cant drive a lhd then you aint good enough to drive an e30 m3!
youl drop the value of your car easily 3 grand and probably cost you 2 to do it!
you gona loose 5 g straight away!!

cecotto_singh wrote:if you cant drive a lhd then you aint good enough to drive an e30 m3!
youl drop the value of your car easily 3 grand and probably cost you 2 to do it!
you gona loose 5 g straight away!!

There IS a market for RHD converted M3's all be it a small one. Some people dont like the idea of LHD but would love an E30 M3. It wouldn't cost £2k to do it if you did the work yourself but it could potentialy reduce the value of the car but to say £3k is just to random a figure.

Oh and to say if you cant drive LHD then you aint good enough is crap!

Was it you who fitted a Cosworth YB to an E30 M3? That i would say, along with many others on here i'm sure is alot worse molestation of an E30 M3 than converting to RHD and would definately devalue it worse than a RHD conversion!

If you must have a rhd from that era, surely a better option would be the 190e 2.3-16v

bss325i wrote: Was it you who fitted a Cosworth YB to an E30 M3? That i would say, along with many others on here i'm sure is alot worse molestation of an E30 M3 than converting to RHD and would definately devalue it worse than a RHD conversion!

TBH they're both bad ideas.

oh and when you say there is a amrket for RHD. Why then do all the RHD cars take ages to shift (if they do at all)

Seriously. LHD is NOT a massive problem in the UK. Plus your closer to the honeys on the pavement

what a was waste of a class car it need to stay lhd drive to realy be worth anything at all

Stu has got it bang on. If the car is to be a brief flirtation then sold on... don't do it.
If it is to be a keeper, do what you want. Its your car. Bollocks to anyone on here, me included!!!

bss325i wrote:
Oh and to say if you cant drive LHD then you aint good enough is crap!

Was it you who fitted a Cosworth YB to an E30 M3? That i would say, along with many others on here i'm sure is alot worse molestation of an E30 M3 than converting to RHD and would definately devalue it worse than a RHD conversion!

+1

an e30 m3 converted to RHD can be done "correctly" and be made to drive like a LHD, manifold only has nil to minimal impact on perofrmance, steering can be corrected with an e36 rack and brakes, well you need to drive it on the limit to really notice it, but again that can be sorted with a few alterations

however, to do it right, you need to do every thing and i mean every thing including the loom so even your mirrors are funtioning correctly, wipers and even ands grips in the roof lining and make sure every light on the dash and central locking works as it should, these are the small details that are often missed out on

keeping LHD is for the originality and ultimately the resale value and as it is an evo this should be taken into considereation , but at the end of the day its your money and your car.

however originality wise, most of the M3's on the road today have been "tweeked" be it wheels suspension etc, all thinkgs that can be easily "corrected" so to speak, but its only done because OE replacement parts can be silly money and uprated parts which improove the drive are more cost efftcive option, so in effect you kill 2 birds with one stone.

in some peoples view converting the car to RHD also does that for the UK market, but any one serioulsy interested will be picking at the car to make sure the job is done right and even then they could still have doubts over the car

personaly i would not do it, i have no issue my self driving LHD in the uk, keeping LHD it ads some Kudos to what is already a very special car.

Steve-E30 wrote:Jhonno , What reason were they all lhd though ??

Originally BMW were only intending to make the 5000 road shells necessary for Group A homologation.
For that, they reasoned, they would all sell in mainland europe and there was no need to make RHD cars.
That allowed them to utilise the S14 motor canted over to fit underneath a standard profile bonnet and to be able to design the optimum exhaust manifold for power and torque purposes and so that group N cars wouldn't be compromised (they had to use standard manifolds).

When they started to fly off the dealers' showroom floors, it was too late to redesign and retool for RHD mass production.

UK sales were (officially) less than 100 cars (around 72 IIRC) and the only other RHD market was Japan

I would say, its your car and your money so do what ever you want with it...
Like some ppl say in here, do it 100% and do not take any short cuts because you see a problem, because this is a very very good driving machine. I dont know the market in the UK for E30 M3s apart from what I see on eBay. I know both the Lancia Delta Integrale and Fiat Barchetta have been converted to RHD from some specialist so maybe you should search for them and give them a call. (its a bit safer to send away a car to some one who have done this plenty of times before)

I wish you good luck with your project! (U will need it)