E30 M3 number 2. 04/09/22 Engine build.

[bss325i]

A couple of pics from the track day last Friday at Abingdon.

http://www.motorsport-events.co.uk/abingdon.php





The car behaved very well and was a joy to punt along, most notable were how good the tyres were!

It has highlighted a couple of areas that need addressing one of which is the wear in the gear linkage giving a less than positive gear change and despite overfilling with oil to the first kink, the constant fear of oil starvation means a decent baffle is going in!

[ross_jsy]

Agreed on the tyres. I actually use them on my daily, surprisingly good life from them. Also far more predictable than r888's which I used to use. These are very progressive on the limit where I find r888's snatch badly when they let go.

Car is looking great

[Jon_Bmw]

Fuck it Barry, I had planned to be at Abingdon in the 205 on this day, alas I didn't get the gearbox change done in time!

I am about to book the 22nd April.

Is it left or right handers that are worse on an S14?

With Semi slicks on the 205, we had to run a deeper sump, elongated pickup and baffle it. Bloody Mi16s love to oil surge.

[ross_jsy]

Barry how much does the rear beam bush tool cost?

Just had a 7 hour shit-fest doing all the rear bushes on my car, what a nightmare that was. Made your bushes look brand new in comparison!

[DanThe]

Looks good doing what it was made for Barry

My mate runs the tyres on his E36 track car, wet or dry they seem to do the job pretty good considering how cheap they are

Thats an AST bush tool Ross, they do bushes on several models and are well over £200 new

Cheaper version here in your back yard http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rear-axle-car ... SwT5tWOjFy

[tristan325]

Very very nice!

[bss325i]

Thanks for the comments guys! I thought i had replied to this.

As Dan said, its a tool thats made by AST and does several cars, E23, E24, E28, E30, E32, E34 and E36 compact. I bought it nearly 10 years ago and it has done countless cars so was well worth the high purchase price which was about £300+vat i think.
A cheaper version like what Dan posted would be fine for occasion DIY use.

Yes the tyres are pretty epic have found and fine for normal use in the wet i have found.

Jon, right handers and heavy braking are the problem areas for S14's so......

A horizontal baffle plate was ordered from Frank at rsgarage.com.pt and fitted along with a fresh fill of castrol 10w60. The picture is not my actual sump as i forgot to take one but its exactly the same.





This sloppy mess was replaced with all new bits from BMW including a Z3 1.9 shifter which has tightened things up.



The well proven upgrade of 25mm master cylinder from an E32 750i was also fitted which has improved pedal feel.



A sparco/Hartge style alloy strut brace has also been fitted as it will clear a DTM style carbon intake.





The A/C system was not blowing cold, had not been converted to R134a and had no gas in the system. The condenser was looking worse for wear so a new one plus new receiver/drier, new dual pressure switch, R134a port adaptors and some new seals along with a shot of gas had the system blowing cold just in time for...........





....an epic weekend at the Ring!

I have driven 3 different E30's there now, an S50B30 touring, my 325i sport and this which is by far the most enjoyable!
The trip was not without its hiccups though, the A/C compressor decided to seize on the way there and cooked itself nicely and at some point on track the compressor bracket broke which is a common problem.
The slightly worn alternator bushes saw a belt make a bid for freedom on track as well but a spare belt was fitted to keep going and i have new bushes ready to fit.

I also got brake judder from the OSF so I'm pretty sure i warped that disc. I'm mulling over some brake options at the moment and some Evo cooling ducts will be going on.

Despite replacing the gear shift parts with new and a Z3 1.9 shifter I'm still not happy with it so i may go down the DTM shifter route but that would also mean group N engine and gearbox mounts from either BMW or AKG. If anyone in the UK has this set up i would love to see how much extra noise and vibration this gives.

[ciaranthemurph]

A sparco/Hartge style alloy strut brace has also been fitted as it will clear a DTM style carbon intake.

Great car. Where did you get the strut brace from? I might be looking for a similar one in the future.

[bss325i]

Time for a another update of the last few months activity in some sort of order.





This was fitted before some time back but forgot to post about it. Its basically a Becker traffic pro but a BMW branded retrofit item for later models which has an AUX in, matches the dash illumination perfectly and doesn't look as offensive as the early 00's Pioneer that was in there when i bought the car.





A lucky find on eBay got this Italvolanti 360mm steering wheel as used on some of the Group A cars but Ive yet to fit it as before i bought it i had already sent the 370mm tech 2 wheel i had off to Jack at royalsteeringwheels.com.





I ended up going with black alcantara with M tri colour stitching as no one who does steering wheels seems to do suede as per sport evo.



As said in my last post i was going to to fit some evo brake ducts so it was a case of new ducts, tubes, lower engine cover and all 4 wheel arch liner sections.



During the last Ring trip the exhaust note got some what louder and i had noticed a popping sound on overrun at high RPM when on track, this was confirmed as a flame out the tail pipe by people following me as as the rear silencer has some corrosion and a small hole where they always start to go, i guess on pop to many caused the end to blow out.

The rear silencer was replaced with a second hand Eisenmann rear silencer as a temporary measure until a new OEM one is bought but no pic of this yet.



Also another thing mentioned in the previous post, worn alternator bushes replaced.

Some new rear discs and pads as well as a new pair of front discs and a reface of the paid RS29 front pads meant it was ready for.....





Another trip to the Ring which was not without drama but no real car related issues other than an OSF calliper that started to stick but that was sorted by stripping and cleaning the piston.

Once back it was time to make the car a little more road friendly so the pagid RS front pads were swapped out for some OE pads to get rid of the rattling and squealing as well as the savage brake dust!

Another thing ive not been happy with for road use is the front ride height as despite shortening the internal bump stops on the front B8 bilsteins, over harsh bumps or unavoidable potholes it was still bottoming out with a horrid bang. Great on track, crap on road.

For those of you who have read the thread from the start will know i ended up using a new set of eibach springs and as they don't do M3 specific ones, just 4 cylinder or two types of 6 cylinder spec springs for 2dr/4dr saloons i went with the 4 cylinder spec ones.

The OE front ride height with 16" wheels is 568mm and i was down to 520mm so a drop of nearly 50mm.





A pair of sport evo spec springs were worth a try as they are meant to be approx -15mm compared to the standard M3 springs so with these now fitted the ride height is 555mm so close enough.
More importantly no more crashy ride!

Interestingly the rear ride height on the eibach springs is pretty much bang on OE ride height at 533mm.




Thats it for now.

[Jon_Bmw]

Barry, how much is an OEM rear muffler then Barry?

I am half wondering about re-manufacturing an OEM spec box with better longer lasting materials. If you still had your old one I might be able to use it as a pattern...

[bss325i]

Barry, how much is an OEM rear muffler then Barry?

I am half wondering about re-manufacturing an OEM spec box with better longer lasting materials. If you still had your old one I might be able to use it as a pattern...

Yes I still have the old one.

There are three types of rear silencer for E30 M3's and they are all around £400+vat.

[Jon_Bmw]

Perhaps I'll pop up to a Surrey meet at some point and have a chat about it. Don't throw it out.

[bss325i]

I'll dig it out of the scrap pile!

[anothere21323i]

Don't suppose you've still got the part number for the front springs do you? The factory Sport Evo ones I mean?

[goosiegander]

Excellent work as always Barry!

[E30M3EVO]

Any more updates Barry....

[bss325i]

Don't suppose you've still got the part number for the front springs do you? The factory Sport Evo ones I mean?

31332226781 is the number.

Excellent work as always Barry!

Thanks mate.

Any more updates Barry....

None as of yet but it will be coming off the road for winter in the next week or so.

[bss325i]

While its been tucked away for the winter ive acquired a selection of go faster parts to give the 4 pot a kick up the arse.

[Jon_Bmw]

Yeah Boi!

What are you doing for engine cal? That is going to sound the nuts.

If you measure the ARPS and monitor the stretch whilst fitting and record the data you can reuse them in the future if they haven't stretched beyond their specified limit. If they are ARP2000's sometimes it isn't worth the bother as they are cheap enough, but I suppose it gives you an idea if you are getting 'close' if they have stretched!

[TPS]

Very Nice Car

[bss325i]

A LONG overdue update!

After Photobucket decided to try and ruin the internet I have been putting off reloading all my pics to another photo hosting site until now and this thread is the first one I've done so after spending hours sorting this and reloading pics I can now update whats gone on in the last 8 months.







The Becker wasn't cutting it for me and a lucky eBay find was this period brand new old stock Pioneer KEX- M700.



Coupled with this JL audio bluetooth receiver hidden away it gives the best of both worlds of having a nice looking head unit and being able to stream music from any bluetooth device.



New under dash panel while I was in that area.





As seen in my previous post one of the go faster goodies is a JB racing billet flywheel and above shows the weight saving.
This mod has given a nice improvement in responsiveness to the engine and well worthwhile.





The old clutch dated 11/86 so the original to this car! It wasn't slipping but it was getting a bit on the heavy side plus there was not much life left in it upon inspection.



New Sachs clutch kit, new Genuine prop centre bearing and Guibo coupling all went on with the flywheel in time for a forthcoming road trip!

[Speedtouch]

Opening the DME up revealed that the eprom chip has been changed but I'm unable to identify it. I suspect its one of BBR's own chips as they built the engine and i know they offered chips for various cars.

[img]

It appears to be the stock BMW chip for an early 'Red' 071 ECU - see top of this list:

https://tinyurl.com/y8rmkkcq

[TurtleDesignTech]

Glad you updated this thread, so I found it.

The story is epic. As is the transformation of the interior.

[bss325i]

For those of you that have read this thread from the beginning you may have seen me mention that I had an impending wedding. Well I got married in June which lead me to my honeymoon in august.

What has this to do with my M3 I hear you say? Well The wife and I had two weeks off work and instead of lying on a beach for two weeks we decided to do something different.

I've always wanted to do a European road trip taking in some of the Alps so I worked out a route with an overnight stay in a different city each night for a week with us leaving the car at an airport so we could fly out to Santorini for a weeks relaxation.

So, onto the road trip! The exact route was planned loosely around a route used by one of the companies that do driving tours round Europe but tailored to fit in with what wanted to do so the route went like this,

Calais via the tunnel - the Nurburgring - Munich - Burghausen - Innsbruck - Bolzano - Chur - Zurich - Stuttgart



As we were driving through Germany it seemed rude not to stop off at the Ring for a couple of laps and more to the point to show the wife what the fuss was all about. My wife is not the greatest of passengers and it took some persuasion and reassurance to come for a lap so after which she said 'that was not as bad as I thought it would be' we did another and I'm glad we did as it was a much cleaner lap with less traffic and a better flow.
This was followed by the obligatory meal at the Pistenklause and some drinks in Adenau.

The following morning we headed south toward Munich via a large section of the romantic road taking a more scenic route instead of sticking to the autobahns.

http://www.romanticroadgermany.com



Still managed to stretch the M3's legs on the autobahn though!



Parked up in a side street in Munich city centre. Even in its home town its surprising the amount of attention an E30 M3 can attract as several people waking past this sport would stop to have a look and take a pic!







We met up that evening with family for traditional German food and beer.



After leaving Innsbruck we headed toward Bolzano in Italy... the long way round!
This was so we could travel via the Grossglockner high alpine road in Austria.

https://www.grossglockner.at/gg/en/index





The following morning on route to Switzerland we tackled the famous Stelvio pass.

http://www.stelvio.net/english/

This was one of the highlights of the trip for me as it is simply breath taking.



Along the route we took from Chur to Zurich which included the San Bernardio pass, we made a stop off at the Verzasca Dam which was used in the opening scene to the James Bond film Goldeneye.

I tried to keep this post mostly car related but there was much more I could have wrote about and posted pics of.

Needless to say, the M3 was in its element on some of the greatest driving roads in Europe!

I took with me a selection of spares and tools including a pair of crank sensors, fuel pump, relays, hoses but I didn't need to open the tool bag once!

Approximately 3700km's covered without a hitch and this fortifies my opinion that a well maintained E30 is one of the most reliable cars you can own!

After we flew back a week later then drove home from Stuttgart it was back into use on the Monday for the daily commute to work.
Its now tucked up in storage for the winter until I get some spare time to fit the rest of my go faster bits.

[bss325i]

Opening the DME up revealed that the eprom chip has been changed but I'm unable to identify it. I suspect its one of BBR's own chips as they built the engine and i know they offered chips for various cars.

[img]

It appears to be the stock BMW chip for an early 'Red' 071 ECU - see top of this list:

https://tinyurl.com/y8rmkkcq

I had since found this out as someone pointed this out on another forum.

[Kedge]

Excellent stuff Barry, Euro road trips are ace, although I’ve only done one on a motorbike.

I had one of those JBR flywheels on my iS, and it transformed the car, can o my imagine it makes an even bigger one something with a lot more guts. Good choice on theJL Bluetooth receiver, I’ve one of those fitted and not bothered with a headunit.

Is anyone else not seeing pictures anymore though? Since the Photobucket issue I can’t see any pictures people are loading from other site.

[brettski]

Great update Barry nice to see an M3 being used as it should be.

[ah]

Thanks for all the comments guys!

Removing window tints is a sad job isn't it!! Especially ones that have been on a number of years.

The interior transformation is remarkable, well done. The original interior is equally remarkable, who has that little taste. When that was done, WTF must the trimmer have thought.

The valleters at work got that task, took the poor cooonts a whole day to remove, clean the glue residue and polish the glass.

The lurid interior makes up part of the story behind the cars interesting past... more on that later!

I'd ditch the steering wheel and private plate too.

The steering wheel has been replaced with a 370mm tech 2 and the plate is staying as its been on the car since new and as with the interior, makes up part of the cars interesting history.

I'm glad you diched the front spoiler,it looked so wrong,lovely job you've done.

I'm lost. Which spoiler are you talking about? As the only front spoiler pictured is the Evo 2 chin and the was on there and is staying.

I haven't got clue what I was talking about !

[Sprungcasper]

What an epic topic to read. Always great to speak to former owners of a car.

That road trip though .
That's on the list to do when mine is finished.

[jiten1111]

loving the stock look and those seats. well done

[bss325i]

Spring is here!



That means the M3 is now out of its winter slumber where it has resided with my other E30 which doesn't really get a look in these days.. 240 miles in it last year and a chunk of that was for my wedding.





So what do we have here? A freshly rebuilt LSD including new clutch plates with the lock upgraded from 25% to 40%, the ratio changed from 3.25 to 3.46 (which the 320iS uses) finished off with a new Z3M back plate which has extra cooling fins and a stronger bush over the E30 back plate.

Ive only driven it home from the workshop but early signs are good, tomorrow ill be off out on a better drive with clearer roads.

[Simon13]

poor 325i sporty

[bss325i]

Update time.



The black leather BMW sport seat interior has been replaced with an anthracite cloth interior with the rare optional Recaro LS seats as ive had these seats in a few E30's over the years and some Fords from my youth and find the more comfortable and supportive than the BMW sport seat. That and the cloth grips you better than the leather.

Pressed into regular use again after the LSD was fitted i began to notice a noise at low speeds which i pretty much new what it was going to be before i investigated as it was quite a distinctive rattle ive heard on other E30 M3's.

What was more worrying was that i was booked for the DN19 track day a few weeks after i noticed said noise.



So gearbox out, the detachable bell housing of the Getrag 265/5 making it a bit quicker/easier for it to be stripped and rebuilt with all new bearings and anything else it needed.

BIG shout out to All-gears in Worksop who not only repaired it cheaper than i could have (BMW want £900+vat for the bearings, gaskets and seals alone!) but also got it turned around in time for the track day.







First track day at the Ring after years of Touristenfarten and its the way forward. Had a great time but im beginning to find the limitations of its very much road biased suspension so i think it might be time to retire it from track work.

We shall see.

[tha881]

Love the new interior. Those pics at the ring look stunning

[TurtleDesignTech]

Thoroughly enjoy these updates.