First E30 project 316
Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2016 11:15 pm
So here's how i got my very first e30, after wanting one for a good few years i finally found on for sale locally, managed to pick it up as a unfinished project for the grand sum of £600, i knew the previous owners of the car and i knew it was solid underneath.
So here she is as i got her
Luckily my boss is also into e30s so he has alot of spares from his m60 conversion he has underway, first thing i had off him was his 15" genuine bbs's as hes now gone 5 stud
after that i started looking in to getting it running, it was at that point i could see why the previous owner gave up as he clearly had no clue what he was doing, the ht leads were in the wrong order, the carb and carb mount were loose, vacuum pipes were all mixed up, after i sorted all that out she sprung into life
at this point i was umming and ahhing about trying to find genuine second hand pannels or order some after market panels from euro car parts, opted for the after market route as i was struggling to source a decent set of wings and front panel for a decent price that weren't rotten, i was a bit worried about how well they will fit but after i bolted them all on i was pleasantly surprised
I also got a fibreglass replica mtech 2 front valance with the car
Cheeky little picture with my e46 ;)
After my boss ripping his e39 apart for the engine for his e30 he had a leather interior left over, me not being one to let good stuff go to waste i gave him £20 for a set about making it fit in the e30, obviously being a much bigger car i knew if wasnt going to be a straight swap, didn't stop me trying though
so after alot of measuring, cutting and welding i finally managed to get them in using the original e30 seat runners
Now some of you may call me a pikey but i only done this because i knew i was going to upgrade the suspension before it went on the road but i took an angle grinder to the springs to see how it would sit
next on the list was the fun part, my boss had a spare M20B25 kicking about that he took out of his e30 so again i was umming and ahhing whether or not to buy that off him and stick it in mine, eventyually i came round to the idea and parted with £300 for the engine and gearbox
So started ripping the power house of an m10 out
Whilst the engine was out i thought it would be a good time to give the bay a quick clean, when i say quick i mean 2 and a half hours with 2 litres of tfr a tooth brush and a pressure washer
a few hours later the m20 was bolted in
Now this is where the real fun begins, unbeknownst to me there is an issue of the abs live feed wire and the unused earth wire being on [in 20 of the c101 plug, so the second i conneted the battery and turned the ignition on there appeared to be plumes of smoke coming from the engine loom, after researching about this and finding all i needed to do was cut this wire out i did just that
My 316 being a carbed engine has no electric fuel pump so i knew it wasn't going to run anyway, but just to see if it would run i sprayed to easy start down the intake and cranked her over, Nothing, it cranked but wouldnt fire, after whipping a spark plug out i soon figured out we had no spark, so after hours and hours of testing wires, pining out the ecu to make sure i had the correct feeds and earths and scoping the crank sensor...
...I found nothing out of the ordinary, the ecu was getting all the signals, lives and earths it needed to run but well... it didn't, so as a last resort i though id open up the ecu and VIOLA i found a burnt out track, to make sure it was just that i bridged it with a wire
plugged it all back in and she was now sparking like a gooden, in a moment of excitement my boss squrted yet some more easy start in the intake, opened the throttle, i cranked it over and after backfiring in his face and nearly taking his eyebrows off it sprung into life for a split second
So now i have found the problem i am going to get another ecu.
I am at the point now where i am just getting it all together and tidied up
So that me up to date for now, next on the list is to get the prop swapped over as the 316 one is too long, get another fuel line run for the tank return, wire up some sort of fuel pump, get the front panel and wings sprayed sprayed up and get her moted and taxed ready for the road
***Update***
Little bit more done today,
New cambelt and water pump
Swapped the tacho gauge chip to a 6 cylinder one
And after my new ecu and fuel pump turned up today, i rigged up a fuel supply from a jerry can and she fired up
[youtube][/youtube]
Fuel lines turning up tomorrow so tanks coming out to have the pump an lines fitted, exhaust and prop will be going back on too[/youtube]
So here she is as i got her
Luckily my boss is also into e30s so he has alot of spares from his m60 conversion he has underway, first thing i had off him was his 15" genuine bbs's as hes now gone 5 stud
after that i started looking in to getting it running, it was at that point i could see why the previous owner gave up as he clearly had no clue what he was doing, the ht leads were in the wrong order, the carb and carb mount were loose, vacuum pipes were all mixed up, after i sorted all that out she sprung into life
at this point i was umming and ahhing about trying to find genuine second hand pannels or order some after market panels from euro car parts, opted for the after market route as i was struggling to source a decent set of wings and front panel for a decent price that weren't rotten, i was a bit worried about how well they will fit but after i bolted them all on i was pleasantly surprised
I also got a fibreglass replica mtech 2 front valance with the car
Cheeky little picture with my e46 ;)
After my boss ripping his e39 apart for the engine for his e30 he had a leather interior left over, me not being one to let good stuff go to waste i gave him £20 for a set about making it fit in the e30, obviously being a much bigger car i knew if wasnt going to be a straight swap, didn't stop me trying though
so after alot of measuring, cutting and welding i finally managed to get them in using the original e30 seat runners
Now some of you may call me a pikey but i only done this because i knew i was going to upgrade the suspension before it went on the road but i took an angle grinder to the springs to see how it would sit
next on the list was the fun part, my boss had a spare M20B25 kicking about that he took out of his e30 so again i was umming and ahhing whether or not to buy that off him and stick it in mine, eventyually i came round to the idea and parted with £300 for the engine and gearbox
So started ripping the power house of an m10 out
Whilst the engine was out i thought it would be a good time to give the bay a quick clean, when i say quick i mean 2 and a half hours with 2 litres of tfr a tooth brush and a pressure washer
a few hours later the m20 was bolted in
Now this is where the real fun begins, unbeknownst to me there is an issue of the abs live feed wire and the unused earth wire being on [in 20 of the c101 plug, so the second i conneted the battery and turned the ignition on there appeared to be plumes of smoke coming from the engine loom, after researching about this and finding all i needed to do was cut this wire out i did just that
My 316 being a carbed engine has no electric fuel pump so i knew it wasn't going to run anyway, but just to see if it would run i sprayed to easy start down the intake and cranked her over, Nothing, it cranked but wouldnt fire, after whipping a spark plug out i soon figured out we had no spark, so after hours and hours of testing wires, pining out the ecu to make sure i had the correct feeds and earths and scoping the crank sensor...
...I found nothing out of the ordinary, the ecu was getting all the signals, lives and earths it needed to run but well... it didn't, so as a last resort i though id open up the ecu and VIOLA i found a burnt out track, to make sure it was just that i bridged it with a wire
plugged it all back in and she was now sparking like a gooden, in a moment of excitement my boss squrted yet some more easy start in the intake, opened the throttle, i cranked it over and after backfiring in his face and nearly taking his eyebrows off it sprung into life for a split second
So now i have found the problem i am going to get another ecu.
I am at the point now where i am just getting it all together and tidied up
So that me up to date for now, next on the list is to get the prop swapped over as the 316 one is too long, get another fuel line run for the tank return, wire up some sort of fuel pump, get the front panel and wings sprayed sprayed up and get her moted and taxed ready for the road
***Update***
Little bit more done today,
New cambelt and water pump
Swapped the tacho gauge chip to a 6 cylinder one
And after my new ecu and fuel pump turned up today, i rigged up a fuel supply from a jerry can and she fired up
[youtube][/youtube]
Fuel lines turning up tomorrow so tanks coming out to have the pump an lines fitted, exhaust and prop will be going back on too[/youtube]
