E30 Zone

Hi guys,

Thought I'd introduce myself. I'm mainly a VW guy, but fancied something slightly more practical as a daily, and loved the look of E30 Touring's so ended up buying the first one I went to look at. Hopefully I won't end up regretting it! Seemed a reasonable price, and it saves me the hassle of continuing to use my 60s VW as an everyday car.

I have some plans for the Touring, but they'll have to wait for a while now that I'm paying 2 lots of insurance per year.

I've been told there may be some guy on here who makes/sells custom front struts for getting E30's seriously low (jap car coilover mounted in E30 hub or something?) - If somebody could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

Here's the car in its current guise:

Welcome to the zone, looks like you have a solid base to start with.

welcome , most of the guys here will say only lower your e30 40mm but thats opinion , youve either got cheap coilovers from ebay aprx £200 or gaz i think prices range from 6-£900 somthing like that. if your going low id use a strut brace and hope you dont suffer from back pain !

nice lookin touring tho ;) have a look in the e30 wiki especially rust points

Looks a nice starting point mate!

Cheers for the welcome guys!

BATTS91 wrote:welcome , most of the guys here will say only lower your e30 40mm but thats opinion , youve either got cheap coilovers from ebay aprx £200 or gaz i think prices range from 6-£900 somthing like that. if your going low id use a strut brace and hope you dont suffer from back pain !

nice lookin touring tho ;) have a look in the e30 wiki especially rust points

Yeaa I had noticed that a lot of the threads I had searched for about lowering an E30 included lots of hatred of slammed E30's haha. What benefits do a strut brace bring then? (Interested as I know practically nothing about E30s so far).

Cheers, yea I'll have to check that out! Unfortunately my rear sills don't look too great, they're bubbling up nicely in fact - but, seems solid enough overall.

Regarding back pain - this is my weekend car (ex daily):

nice vw

strut brace just goes between the suspension towers and stiffens them up and reduces flex to a certain degree,

as with anything its all opinion and personnal taste if you want to slam it into the weeds its your car
id invest in a sump gaurd though if your going really low

karmann ghia

That karmann looks awesome

Cheers for the Karmann comments


Took some pics over the weekend of the Mauritius-blau 318, after waxing it yesterday.


Seriously wanting some 15" BBS wheels... Slamming can wait, I'm enjoying driving it as is - maybe the 30mm everybody suggests might be nice though.

Looks lovely, one of the best colours that

Nice tidy base to start with.

My tourings dropped by about 100mm and it doesn't affect my back.. most probably cause it's already fucked haha. Strut braces are a good idea. I smashed my first touring up and it held the car pretty well, I'd dread to think what would've happened without it.

Im dropped 60 and 80 as a daily, yes i occasionally smash a sump and it wears out centre boxes, but 3 exhausts and 3 sumps in 50000 miles isnt bad is it?

Looks nice mate, where you from?

Cheers Alex - Yea, I do think it is quite a nice colour! Subtle metallic to it is a nice touch.

Ahh wow, that's cool Gem - From the sig picture, 100mm'ish does look a nice height. I've been in slammed old VW Golfs and Passat wagons, and they've been comfortable in comparison to the Karmann Ghia I drove daily - so I imagine I could probably cope with a low modern'ish car, haha.

Hazd, what sort of exhaust do you run for a low beemer then? I really wanna keep my Touring pretty stock apart from the lowering and wheels - so was planning on keeping the stock exhaust - is that better than running an aftermarket exhaust, clearance wise? Also, is an engine raise an option to keep the sump from smashing too often?

Cheers Nobby, I'm from Cambridgeshire - Work just outside of Ely.

You can use different engine mounts which will help raise the sump. Personally mine's not raised and I'm yet to smash the sump on this one, my old one I went through 3 which is weird lol.

Alex wrote:Looks lovely, one of the best colours that

agree, nice looking.