Back in 2012 I bought a bone stock 318i for £500 (gone are the days), It was a fairly basic spec but had BBS and Alpine white - Ideal!
I drove it as a daily beater for a couple of years, mainly using it to cart bikes and friends on mountain biking trips around the country, the M40 did struggle a bit with 4 big guys and 4 bikes on the roof, so naturally I sold the idea of an M52B28 conversion to myself on the grounds of better fuel consumption. This is when the 30 started to become more than just a car for me!
I started collecting parts and researching in 2015, I was only a bicycle mechanic, and had no car mechanic experience at all so it was daunting to say the least! That said just over 4 weeks later I had an M52B28 swapped touring, with all fresh poly bushes, shocking Jom Coilovers, and still on stock brakes. This was plenty for me considering what it was before!
I continued to daily the car, but also bought a van so that was the end of the hauling bikes around for the old girl...
July 2016 I left my 30 parked at my parents house and took the van down on my yearly trip to the French alps riding DH MTB, sadly I haven't driven the car since, on one of the first days of the trip I misjudged a jump and had a pretty bad crash, breaking my back and paralysing me from the chest down - Bummer. I spent 9 months in hospital adjusting to the new life, I sold all my old bikes as soon as I could and allocated the money to properly building my E30! I've been collecting parts ever since, and have just started the actual build....
Collecting parts;
Full leather interior, needs a little love
LSD!!!
Style 32's... Haters gonna hate!
Trail fit...
Refurbed, with a few runs through a diamond cutting machine, it's squared the fronts of the spokes nicely and looks way more aggressive! AD08r's 225/45 and 245/40, but they look huge (and don't really fit!)
Picked up a 46 330i sport for the M54B30... now at negative cost for the engine!
Now getting on to more exciting parts...
Borg-warner EFR7670...
I had the divided manifold, downpipe, and intercooler parts fabricated in deepest darkest Bulgaria...
Aparently it fits behind everything without cutting, we'll find out i guess!
Tight!
That is fairly up to date on my part store so far, I will update more regularly as stuff rolls in...
The build begins!
Removing the faithful M52...
Front end stripped
Bye ABS!... or is it?!
Rear trailing arms restored, polybushed and 5 stud using ETA adaptors kit (E46 M3 front calipers, 328 rears) - more pictures to come...
That is pretty much the sum total of pictures I have taken for now. I will try and update this as regularly as possible, I'm aiming for completion around late spring, but progress is slow in a wheelchair!
Cheers!
