Joeseth's Lachs coupe *new pics* Low but no longer slow!

[joeseth]

yeah gota love caddys. i swear i keep seeing more and more on the road? shame most are prob 1.6 non turbo diesels, least my bro's is petrol.

[joeseth]

Time for an update, been too busy driving the thing!

Finally got my ass in gear and put the m42 in. Took 4 evenings and a satarday morning to do which I didn't think was too bad! Not all of it is standard as well which hopefully makes it a better than a standard 318is.

Whilst the engine was sitting about I did the throttle body heater delete and managed to use all oem 318i pipes as I had them sitting about. I got my engineer mate to lighten the fly wheel up a bit. Only about 5mm was taken off from the outside, but as the outside makes the most difference i think it has helped a lot. I'll post pics as soon as i get them off my old phone.

When I took out the old engine i realised that one of the rubber engine mounts had ripped apart! After searching on the net I was told to get m5 mounts as they are stiffer. Unfortunately they were over £30 each compared to the £10 that standard ones cost. I got them anyway as i figured it could help in the future with a e36 rack swap? Was a bit of a challenge lining them up but all was well in the end. They are rock solid! Im sure its helping the throttle response. The car shakes on idle which I dont mind at all, looks cool if anything haha. Also the mounts have raised the engine by about 15mm which is very helpful considering the amount of sumps i've been through!

Next is the exhaust. Got hold of a whole exhaust from manifold back off of a fellow member. The front section is standard iS with 2 small powerflow stainless boxes out back. I wasn't a fan of the tips, plus they wouldn't fit the cutout in my bumper so they were hacked off. The exhaust is pretty dam loud considering it has 3 boxes! I'm hoping its mainly from not having a tip and the exhaust noise echoing round the underneth of the car. It also looks a bit dumb without a tip so one is on the way!


Engine swap in progress

[Nobby_N]

good thread a like it!

[joeseth]

Whilst the engine was sitting around I painted a lot of it which came out really nice. Also cleaned the bay a bit while the old engine was out.

So pleased with the swap! Prob cos me about £350-£400 in the end but was well worth it. The day I got it going I put it against my mates cars and they were all shocked haha. Was exactly the same speed as one of thems mk4 golf 1.8t. Was a tiny bit slower than an mr2, but he couldn't over take. My other mates e30 325 did still pass me but at a much slower pace than ever before which i was well pleased with! And I still get about 30mpg! Alot of the speed i'm putting down to the 4.28 ratio 318i diff. Goes through the gears really quick, so much so that I kept redlining it when I first got it! Now all I need is a lsd in the same ratio but apparently they are rare as fook.

Got a iphone now so should be taking way more pics.










Not a fan of stickers but thought this was fitting with the rest of the car

[spook]

Engine swap in progress [/quote]

Looks like plenty of council activity is going on, nice pic.

[polsta]

cars looking good joseph, did you get the rear panel rust sorted out ?

[TPS]

Pm'd

[joeseth]

Nah haven't got it sorted yet, really need to. My prioritys are a bit random I know! I'm terrible at body work aswell which doesn't help

Yeah was a pretty ghetto engine swap haha

[hongkongfuey]

nice job love the colourm my first e30 was lachs, me and spook love council activity

[kangman]

engine bay looks sweeet!

more pics & how to please, i want my m42 to look like that but keep my square oil cap

[polsta]

Nah haven't got it sorted yet, really need to. My prioritys are a bit random I know!

crikey man, hate to say it but throwing money at fancy stuff and engine swaps when it had them sort of rust issues is crazy, you loonatic get it done or it will, probably already has, spread deeper and could be/get a lot worse buddy

you can buy a pattern rear panel for about £40

[joeseth]

Some more pics i've found on facebook, taken by my mates.


Crappy weather at run to the sun show and shine this year









If anyones on instagram my name is joesethg

[Sweety]

My old IS was not quite as low as yours but it was low enough for me to keep loosing my splitter everytime I reversed off a slopped drive. Drove me mad! I swore to never have a car lowered by more than 30mm ever again after that.

So have fun with that splitter lol

[johnl320]

Engine swap in progress

Looks like plenty of council activity is going on, nice pic.[/quote]

Agreed, car of the month winner with this shot I reckon. good work

[joeseth]

So have fun with that splitter lol

Haha yeah does scrape a bit, luckily it's held on pretty well and is relatively bendy

[mani]

Nice i need to get me a pair of e90 seat spring

[joeseth]

Few updates.

After a month of driving round with no exhaust tip it was starting to annoy me. Its was pretty loud at low rpm which just sounds stupid round town. Did sound kinda cool on idle though as was very burbley cos im pretty sure it has an air leak in ther intake. It was also looking a bit dumb without a tailpipe. I wanted something a bit different and I quite like the sticking out sideways look of mk1 golf gti's. Managed to find a piece of stainless with a decent bend in it and the same 2.25 inch bore that the rest of the exhaust has on ebay.


After a couple of cuts and trial fits I got a mate to weld it on for me. Didn't have enough time to take the exhaust off so at the moment it hasn't got any weld round the top. I wasn't sure if it would quieten it that much but the difference is amazing. Even with it slightly blowing round the top.


Here's the finished item. Makes the back end look a bit more interesting as I had been thinking it needed something.


Went to get some dealership parts


Since I bought the car the pas fluid bottle has been held on by a bit of wire. So replaced that with one from the scrapy.


Had an oil leak from one of the bolts holding the rocker cover down.


Luckily eurocarparts sell the new gasket I needed for £3 something! Also changed the oil filler cap for one I had laying round as this was also leaking slightly.


Engineering beauty


Can any m42 geeks tell if mine has been fiddled with from this pic? It looks like the cams have been adjusted but im no expert.


As you can see the intake manifold literally touches the bonnet! Good for a low car!


Fitted some air horns from halfords just for fun. Good for making people jump haha


Even after water and a bit of a scrub the k&n filter was still pretty black.


Used some of my brothers motocross air filter cleaner on it and an air line to dry it. Came out much cleaner. So much crap came out!


Splitter makes a good leaf plow!




Got an oil cooler grill of a fellow zoner.


Tyre off my mates 325i. Extreme camber looks cool but there are consquences haha


Flooding

[joeseth]

My car with my bro's new bike.



So far I've spent £2000 including buying the car in the first place. Pretty pleased with that as a half decent 318is seems to go for bout £1700!

Have just bought a z3 steering rack aswell so that will be sorting the sloppy steering soon, which Im looking forward to.

[tuna]

Mate you've turned this into a sick little car, love the wheels / coulour! And that sump guard is genious lol

[joeseth]

Cheers mate. Yeah that sump guard is a life saver! Had it on for a year now and done about 12k miles and had no problems at all. It's pretty battered though haha

[59Drifty]

proper nice car mate, i really like it, this is the route i want to take when i get my 4door, thanks for the inspiration

[hammoj28]

Great looking car, come on leaps and bounds. Love that exhaust. Looking forward to seeing more progress.

[joeseth]

Cheers for the kind words!

Got an autumn shot

[joeseth]

Just before xmas I get an unexpected present!

Isn't it annoying when you soon need to change you front tyres and then you get a screw in one of the rears! The tyre still has plenty of tread left . Luckily a couple of months ago I took the tyres off my girlfriends dead ibiza gti. They are exactly the same size and are toyo proxies, same as mine which was ideal!

Dunno if I mentioned before about the ibiza dying in summer last year. Just as i was putting my m42 in and thought I had a chance of keeping up with her, she bought a 260bhp Leon Cupra R. Unfortunately some twat ran into the back of it couple of days before xmas. No doubt she'll get another car that makes my e30 look slow haha. Atleast I get to drive them

Back on point, my sub stopped working. All the wires at the sub end seemed ok so I went to the radio end. After making the whole radio not turn on anymore and after an hour of fiddling, I started to take it apart

After this i was sure it would never work again so was pretty pissed off. Put it back together an plugged it all in just incase it miraculously would work. Thats when i realised I hadn't been pressing the on button!!!! Turns out was just a wire loose inside the sub box all along...

How these two wires haven't come off before in the past 3 years is a mystery. With everything back together and any dodgy connections sorted, the speakers and radio in general seem much better. So all was not lost, and I now know how to take a radio apart haha.


Half winter spec. Should be moving out in a month so no more muddy car!

Since I put steelies on the back I've had a really bad droning/vibrating at 70mph. I gets so loud I avoid 70 alot. I gets better above 70. Tried putting some old alloys on the back (pic above) and it did make it alot better. But when I swapped the steels round with other steels it still made the noise? Could they just be badly balanced or really noisy tread? Or could a rear wheel bearing be on the way out (has been making a slight noise since I bought the car) and the steels excentuate it?

[BFC]

i love this car!

[joeseth]

Got a load of pics off my old phone finally. Most are between a year and six months ago.


Weighed it out of curiosity. 1140kg.


Neater tax disc holder.




Mot time


Getting used to new splitter


New inner track rods for mot. Quite different from the old ones but seemed to fit.


The new rods had nothing to fix the steering rack boot to so I cut the old rubber off and used that.


Flintstones cars unfortunately don't pass mots!






All sorted.




Fitted some air horns for a laugh. Were good for bout 6 months but then died, dam halfrauds.


Air horn switch.


Went on holiday to Cornwall in it


VDub at the pub


M42 engine arrived


Broken throttle position switch


Gave it a good blast off with a pressure washer and a trusty engine crane haha




Fly wheel before lightening.


And after. Nothing drastic but hopefully makes a bit of difference as is all from the outside edge.




Rocker cover before.


And after. Used some high temp satin black paint and sanded the lines back.


Read about the throttle body heater delete and thought it sounded like a good idea.


And getting rid of most of this tidys the bay up a bit.

I reckon this is the perfect time to do the TB heater delete as I used only pipes from the old m40 engine which was lucky.

This pipe was perfect.


Painted the intake manifold whilst it was all apart. This shows the routing and pipes used for the rocker cover breather to the TB.


And the intake to icv pipes.


Got another throttle body with a decent switch and painted that too.


Suspicious swimming pool in boot.


The mileage when I started the engine swap.


Goodbye m40






Steering guibo has been done at some point.


Fly swatter


Was rubbing a bit on this random lump but it soon hammered in


Run to the sun not living up to its name


E30s cry at the sight of French cars haha


This is why you don't stick three of your mates in the back seats!

[joeseth]

Few pics from the last few months.


Put my steels on whilst it was snowing and generally being rubbish weather. This pic is the difference between the Xxrs and the steels ha.


Changed from blue/white to yellow bulbs for awhile, but they were rubbish with the tinted lights and I couldn't see anything!


Changed my completely knackered rear shock mount for an e46 cab item.


Sump guard still doing its job.


Armed with loads of spares I finally felt up to tackling my z3 steering rack. Rack on the left is the z3 one, then 2 e36 racks, and on the right is the old e30 one. Took me a whole day to fit it but I manage to get it all up and running without any problems at all. So much nicer to drive with the 2.7 turns lock to lock!! Great mod!


Used a plumbers pipe bender to bend some of the e36 pipes to get the steering rack going. Worked well and didn't link it once. Was very tight and fiddly though!


Had its mot, which is actually why I didn't the steering rack. It fail on a track rod end and I thought mite aswell do the rack at same time. Also failed on the emissions. Was sorted by just tweaking the airflow meter which was good.


Had fun whilst trying to sort the emissions. Changed the inlet manifold gaskets and checked every single vacuum hose!


Got a new rear panel from BMW which almost bankrupt me.


Put my brothers bbs wheels on my car whilst his caddy was off the road. Got some new bearing dust caps from BMW, for some reason forgot about the scrapyard ha


A pic of it on the bbs'. 25mm spacers on the rear aswell. Looked quite smart but it made the car quite low!






Drilled few more holes in the sump guard when I changed the oil and filter. Could do with a bigger drill bit/core cutter.


The laquer had suffered at the start of winter. This was the worst wheel. The bolts came out quite easily which was good.


Started taking the laquer off and polishing.


After absolutely ages polishing they came up super nice! Well pleased! Did the left hand 2 wheels before I went to run to the sun. Luckily the other side isn't as bad.




Got a few pics with the wheels back on and after a good wash and polish.




Put the badge back the right way up ha


On the way to run to the sun. Not much sun mind!


Rtts


Rtts


Rtts


All my polishing paid off, got a pic on the fastcar website! Left the bolts out so the are easier to clean now that they are polished. Think I prefer it without them anyway.

[joeseth]

[davelarge]

Looks great! Makes me realise I need wider wheels for my IS!

[joeseth]