E30 Zone

Ok so i decided as i had a spare 330d M57 engine box lying around i wanted to put it into a E30 coupe shell and as my mate had a 318is lying on his drive looking sorry made a deal and bought the car.



after a quick wash

Out with that 4 pot engine

First hurdle was the sump as the bowl was on the rear were as the E30 needs the bowl on the front, the options were to buy a E38 730d lhd sump for £400 or modify the M50 sump as it was 5mm or so longer towards the crankshaft pulley. therefore the M50 sump was the option i went for.

Once that was done i decided to that i definatley want 5 stud on the car so off with all the front suspension

That looks a nice buy, seems a shame to whack a diesel lump into a nice taxed and tested Is though.

RM2186 wrote:That looks a nice buy, seems a shame to whack a diesel lump into a nice taxed and tested Is though.

it was but oh well, can always be reverted if needed.

Liking this, very interesting. Look foward to updates.

i bought some e36 m3 evo goodies wishbones, kingpins floating discs and calipers.

Bimey! Quick work

Although the wishbones had decent ball joints decided to replace the what a nightmare


Calipers with a quick clean up

Bought some style 5 mono blocks 16x8



refurbished the to now look like this



and with the help of some e30 centre caps

RM2186 wrote:Bimey! Quick work

lol, didnt have time to post up as i was doing this project so here it is in a lumpsum.

Drained out the stuff they call petrol



And decided to use it something that appreciates it more, my motorsport

And welcome the dirty diesel lump and box

Nice work, is there much room near the steering rack then?

Also do I spy a non sunroof shell?shell?

appletree wrote:Nice work, is there much room near the steering rack then?
Surprisingly there is enough possibly more than the e46

Also do I spy a non sunroof shell?shell?

No mines is a sunroof model

Liking this thread keep the updates coming

shedrool83 wrote:Liking this thread keep the updates coming

Will do,glad your liking still waiting for the haters lol

Don't think there will be many haters tbh, I think most people will be intrigued to see what it turns out like, performance figures and mpg! Well, I am anyway

The driver seat bolster was f... so found a replacement and mint again, you can see the damaged one in the pic on the floor

Rear 5 stud bits all ready

the electrics are a pain in the a.. but as long as ive got a tight link with my main man "Enda" from End tunning who sorted all the electrics out for me absolute top guy cant praise the guy enough. I wanted the car to remain OE inside so kept the e30 clocks and tapped into the original e30 loom also the EWS is wired in.

When i bought the car my mate told me that there was a LSD on the car which there was however as the ratio was totally wrong i took it off and found that when you turned the input flange you could grip the output flange whilst still being able to turn the input flange. So at this point i thought that 1 of 2 things

1: the LSD is blown
2: its actually a open diff

So as the diff was a 168mm small case LSD, i managed to find a e36 318tds compact open diff that had a 2.65 ratio which was virtually perfect, now i just needed to sort out the LSD so i stripped down the LSD only to find that it had second set of clutch and friction plates in order to ram extra clutch and friction plates the LSD top cap has to be lathed back. in my case it had been lathed a touch too much had to get a custom spacer to make up what had been lathed to much and happy days, bolted the diesel crown wheel to the LSD and dropped it off to get the backlash set up. This all made sense in the end as my mate said to get that lsd to lock up he had to rev the tits off that 318is engine and then pop the clutch.





330d LSD 210mm

318TDS LSD 168mm

oh yea i put this stuff into the diff

Trial fitted the intercooler and front 5stud bits fitted.

e46 purple tag steering rack fitted and modded the steering knucle to suit

I do like reading a whole thread in one go start to finish without having to wait ages for updates, especially when its an interesting project like this one.

Want to see the end of this one

Rear 5 stud bits fitted and wheels on



Forgot to say the car is going back to the original 318IS look so i sold the tech 2 kit

these alloy top mounts were too harsh for the road so went back to oem.

accuired some pop outs



This has been the star tool of the project, low profile even fits under the cabby

Started to fit the interior up but not the carpet as it needs a lil 5p hole welded on the floor.



and now relax

Centre caps are done with the bbs emblem

Here's how the engine bay is looking at the moment



Need to wire up the electric fan for the rad and reposition the temp sensor for the instrument cluster

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