E30 Zone

Hello,

My name is Will and I thought its about time I put my project up here as at this point some guidance would be much appreciated

I have a 2 door facelift E30 which I am turning into a track car. So Far I have managed to Kill an M20 within 10 miles of finishing the conversion while "testing" !

Ok, so I work at a salvage yard/vehicle dismantlers in the south west...

One day (feb 2008) this E30 pictured below came up for grabs. I had always wanted an E30 and £250 later this super clean 1.8 auto example was mine ! The only damage consisted of a broken sump and number plate




So I fixed the sump and got her on the road. She was great to drive but the only downsides of driving it were;

The fuel consumption,
The boat like suspension,
The awfull steering ratio,
The open diff
The lack of wheel geometry adjustment available...

But on the other hand it was still a joy to drive and I could tell it had bags of potential. After a couple of weeks of use and on a rainy day I was launching at moderate revs into 1st gear from neutral out of junctions when the torque converter gave up ! Oops poor old girl didnt really deserve that .

The car was parked up and about a week later somebody I know offered me an mot failure 4 door 325 (manual). £125 Later and I had a sweet running car with all the bits to fix/convert mine.

So the stripping began ! By this point I had made up my mind on it being a track only car - Fully stripped and caged etc









Where possible everything from the donor car was stripped and cleaned/painted. The rear beam had new bushes fitted and the diff got welded up. The engine got new belts, water pump, dizzy cap, rotor, and plugs etc.



(I have a welded diff, get over it - I like drifting !!!) - I also have an LSD so dont worry .










At this point I had fitted and fired up the engine and needed to connect the prop, exhaust and sort the clutch pedal out. Also the horrid sound deadening scraping began, It seemed to take forever !!!

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It was a relief to hear it again and I had also fitted some bilstein shocks and unknown lowering springs.





Ok I've had enough for one eve and will continue this later as its 01:32 am and I have work at 8:30

Nice transformation so far!

hello dude woundered if you where on here lol.

shes looking good matey keep up the good work!

Driftnething wrote:

(I have a welded diff, get over it - I like drifting !!!) - I also have an LSD so dont worry .

So long as you don't mind drifting all the time . Cool project dude I look forward to the next installement.

nice project dude! like how its going

I love threads like this with plenty of pics, excellent work!

Subscribed

that car looks familiar... are you in the hastings area?

sounds like a fun project so far

Nice transformation so far!

Thanks very much, Its just the beginning - I have lots of ideas for her hehe.

hello dude woundered if you where on here lol.

shes looking good matey keep up the good work!

Hello ! yeah mate - you gotta love the zone havent you , thanks !

haha been there, done that..

Use a heat gun, makes life MUCH easier!!

Thats true, also I found that when working on it when the weather was really cold that if you hit the floor with a hammer it cracked apart and came off in nice big chunks

So long as you don't mind drifting all the time . Cool project dude I look forward to the next installement.

Well, thats exactly the plan actually haha. But although I have been tempted to sell my LSD a few times to fund other bits I will keep it so I can do track days and not just drift days. Also I have never used a welded diff so in the unlikely event that I dont get on with it (which i doubt) I can remove it.

nice project dude! like how its going

Thanks a lot ! I just wish I had much more time/money to throw at it

I love threads like this with plenty of pics, excellent work!

Subscribed

Yes I try to take pictures of everything that I do to the car, its nice to look back through them now and again for motivation or for reference

that car looks familiar... are you in the hastings area?

sounds like a fun project so far

Well, I'm located riiiiiiight down there in cornwall but I am not sure where the car lived before it was written off ? could well have been as the vehicles we get at work are from all over the place.

OK, so back to the build.

At this point I was gettting the manual pedals out from the 1989 325i donor car. Then I installed them on my car and the dash had been removed and steering column swapped (i lost the bloomin keys didnt I !!!) It was interesting trying to open the boot from inside the car but worked . And typically after swapping the column (which is a job i hated !) I found the keys..... oh well you gotta laugh hey ! On a good note though, I found an "is" lip



Here are both the cars, the 325i is almost finished with and ready to squish ! Note the use of wheels as I hadnt hooked up the handbrake yet lol.


I had a bit of a head scratching moment when trying to bolt up the prop centre bearing and then realised the 1.8auto had different bolt holes. I swapped the bearing over with the original one and job done !. The drivetrain/brakes were now linked up and I just needed to bleed the clutch and brakes


Also I had never eralised there were different exhaust systems for the 325, I has a downpipe which would not bolt up to the manifold and I had only quickly tried to offer it up and thought maybe the exhaust studs were bent !!! I ordered new ones and a gasket set and then realised when I went to fit themwhy it wouldnt work.


I would like to say a big thank you to Paul at JDM Garage in holsworthy for a bargain deal on a hydro handbrake . Ebay also produced some more goodies !





I got the dash back in

OK, so at this point I had the clutch and brakes reconnected, engine in and running, now I was going to turn my attention towards bodywork and interior including a custom cage/fuel tank...

I took the car for a test drive round on some private land and all seemed well. Every week or so I would do so and one time while running it up i gave it a rev almost to the redline while warm and it made a horrid pinging noise and came to a halt as if somebody had turned off the key.

I had presumed the cambelt (which I had replaced) had slipped - maybe due to incorrect tensioner setting or something !?!?

Anyway I knew that in the absolute least the head would have to come off and maybe I had some bent valves to replace...

The car then sat for months while I decided what to do with her.

By this time my friends and I had moved into a new workshop near the old one and I got the car inside where I could work on it again as it had been outside for the last couple of months.


I had also got my hands on a nice set of 16" borbet a's


I had a high compression 325is engine from a good driving but rusted out e30 sport which I bought from a mate for spares a while back, so I began tarting the engine up as it needed new core plugs anyway because some of them had rusted and coolant was leaking down the block.


The rusted out 95k 325i Sport also had an lsd, some 16" multispokes (as seen in earlier pics), stainless scorpion system (which had a couple of stress cracks but otherwise was good), and a boot spoiler. A local welder/fabricator/legend welded the system up for me on the cheap thanks Mr Thomas.

The zorst !


The parts were slowly finding their way to the E30


So back to square 1 I suppose, So I phoned Ocean BMW/Mill Auto and ordered up a new bunch of parts;

Inlet/Exh gaskets
core plugs
studs
oil filter
valvoline oil
3 prong plugs
dizzy cap/rotor arm
silicone ht leads
cambelt
tensioner
water pump
red black and silver paints.

The stripping/cleaning begins again... sigh


I picked up a nice ACS oil cap from ebay


While getting the replacement engine ready I thought I would remove the old one and see what happened/clean the engine bay up - more out of curiosity than anything !!!




Scrubbed up a treat !


OK, so I had the engine out. It turned over by hand but once every revolution it felt like there was some kind of notch and you could hear a "tap" ! I checked for any broken rockers but nothing. The pics below explained all after I took the head off.



So the only internals which are undamaged are a cam, rockers, three pistons and a crank - the rest is only fit for the scrap pile

At this point I was wondering about If the M20 is really the engine for this car as to be honest I intend on giving it a whole boot full of hell all the time. Not to mention I am power hungry !!!

While this was going on my everlasting quest for a 1.9 z3 rack had finally come to an end !!! WAHOOOO.
£265 later and I had it - the numbers and ratio was right and it was in great looking condition. The people I had bought it from had even put new arms and boots on, Happy times !
I thought I may as well fit this as the engine was out anyway...





Job Done !!!! , Next out came the grinder and the sunroof got some attention I intend to weld the original skin back into place or a sheet of metal...



I also got some 17" BBS Splits (7.5j x2 + 8.5j x2) and a 5 stud disc rear beam setup from an E36 compact. E36 M3 3.2 brakes up front are a bonus and the availability of different coil over suspension for an E36 is soooo much better than an E30


Jason from Fab Part kindly donated me these E46 topmounts Thankyou very much...
I got these reinforcement plates also from ebay.


I have now bought two S50b32 engines (one has a bottom end knock and the other was removed from a fire damaged vehicle). The engine with the knock is complete and the burnt engine was
also complete but got pretty hot and only the head/block/internals/flywheel etc would be usable.

The plan was to put the crank and shells from the burnt engine over to the knocking engine and have a working unit to eventually put into the e30 one day. If this didnt work I would not be too bothered because both engines cost me... well lets just say not a lot at all

The plan I am now considering is to regrind the crank in the knocking engine and fit new shells. Fit the engine to the e30 using a e36 325 gearbox etc which I can pick up easy peasy...

This would leave the burnt engine for me either as spares or to build up with forged pistons etc and if the day comes and I need more power - hey presto ! (just like that he says ).

The only problem is I dont have engine management kit and I bet that could cost a pretty penny for an M3 evo. The other option is Megasquirt (which I wanted for the M20 anyhow) but as most of you will know it will not control the vanos.

The other option would be deleting the vanos or bolting on a non vanos m50 head (I dont even know if this is possible but im exploring every option at the mo) to the 3.2 bottom end and use a turbo/megasquirt setup. Ideally I would like to keep the vanos and use the engine to its full potential though

I'm even thinking about plain M50 swaps too as they can be got for sod all at work...

I am a bit stuck at this point unfortunately and would love some advice on which direction to go - which is the main reason for starting this thread rather than just asking a question with you knowledge kings not knowing all the info needed !

Your suggestions are very welcome - good or bad LOL

thanks
Will

Ouch! Now that's called dropping valve. Sorry that you lost your engine - mega bummer.

How about fitting a plain M50 - Seeing as you can get them cheap in your line of work? Not that a properly working S50 wouldn't be better, but you could land up spending a bit more money than you planned if your two donor S50's aren't quite as simple to fix as you expected. With lots of M50's and M50 parts around you an M50 might be the way to go?

From what I have read on the zone it is possibly to modify/add-on to a megasquirt to operate an engine with Vanos. I believe that there are people here who have done exactly this.

Best of luck

From what I have read on the zone it is possibly to modify/add-on to a megasquirt to operate an engine with Vanos. I believe that there are people here who have done exactly this.

Oh I didnt realise this can be done ! thats good to know...

Yeah M50 is good... and tempting for the ease of it...
We have a 325 non vanos here right now with a manual box and wiring/ecu etc but there is 150k miles on it

What kind of power would that engine produce ? It could be turbo'd I suppose...

More ebay goodies

My rear beam !

I will strip it, clean it, paint it, and polybush it. Also considering the rear adjustment tabs

good old project you have there..... i do like abit of work. out of interest where did you find the rack? i really need one before my engine goes in which is coming up very soon.

wow really cool project!
the m20 is a fine engine for drifting and is well up to the task of powering a lightened e30 shell for drifting. once up to temp you can hold it on the rev limiter all day! i love mine.

doesnt look like it but that about 60 mph in 3rd.

standard facelift lump on with zone chip.

you said you like drifting. have you done any drifting?
until your skill out grows your car, stick with what youve got. with a standard m20 it'll easily do 3rd in the dry without bogging down. its the perfect car to learn in!
have you been on trampdrift? youd fit right in with us baaaaaad folks!

good old project you have there..... i do like abit of work. out of interest where did you find the rack? i really need one before my engine goes in which is coming up very soon.

Thank you very much !

I got it from.... hmm good point ! Actually I think it was Quarry Motor Spares, but I had looked for a z3 rack for about 10 months though before I found this and it cost about £265 delivered !!!!
ouch (lets hope its worth it).

the m20 is a fine engine for drifting and is well up to the task of powering a lightened e30 shell for drifting. once up to temp you can hold it on the rev limiter all day! i love mine.

Yeah I think maybe I was unlucky with the last engine and I'm going to put the other m20 in even if just to sell as running so it can be heard but I am tempted to use it as it doesnt owe me a great deal I suppose.

you said you like drifting. have you done any drifting?

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The vids are a bit crappy to be honest but I can drift ok for a beginner. It all started with watching the drift bible and playing Gran Turismo when I was too young to drive, then when I got my first car (1.1 mk3 fiesta lol - but hey it was free !) I would handbrake it round a friends fields, then I got my first rwd car (my mx5) and began drifting properly and found it pretty easy/addictive !. I need a track and more power to progress...

But here in cornwall there is nowhere to practise legally

After getting to know the local police a bit too well I decided it was time for a track car as I was fed up of getting in trouble Hence the E30 !
The Mx5 has a 150bhp engine from a newer shape 1.8 with a few mods and torsen lsd. I have outgrown it for sure and need much more power and it can only do 2nd gear drifting on tarmac

oh by the way - loving your e21 ;)

yum

The M20 has been assembled now with the facelift wiring loom/ecu etc.....















After building the engine up to run with the later management and having a good friend make me some lovely silicone ht leads I managed to snap a stud on the water outlet which sits at the very back of the head. It already had a snapped off exhaust manifold stud before I got it and somebody had tried to drill it only making matters worse.

I bought another head but was so annoyed at the thought of dismantling what I had just finished building that I left it in the corner.

As luck would have it a few months later the opportunity to buy a m52b28 engine/gearbox etc fell in my lap. The rest is history I suppose...

The M20 will be sold when I can be bothered to swap the head over and the money will go towards my roll cage .

Ok, so far I have collected for my 2.8 24v conversion...

M52B28 engine with ally mounts + tubular exh manifolds
zf gearbox + linkage
E36 328 propshaft
wiring loom
key and ecu (but not sure where to find the EWS module ???)
M50B25 inlet manifold
E34 525 sump, pickup, dipstick tube
E34 525 rubber eng mounts
Clio brake servo









The donor car

just a quick update !

started painting interior,
painted engine bay,
stripped front suspension off completely,
painted and refitted front subframe/z3 rack,
fitted nsf e36 shock/spring + e36 2.5 hub,
fitted nsf e46 330d brake caliper/disc,
test fitted nsf 17" rc040 bbs alloy wheel,
cleaned, stripped, painted and fitted power steering pipes,
cleaned and fitted e34 525 rubber mounts,
fitted e36 2.5 radiator
cleaned, stripped, painted and fitted clio brake servo,
stripped wiring from egine and sent to "danthe",
ordered a replacement key and sump gasket/pickup gasket from bmw,
cleaned 525 sump,



























Thats it for now.[/img]

GeoffBob wrote:Ouch! Now that's called dropping valve. Sorry that you lost your engine - mega bummer.

How about fitting a plain M50 - Seeing as you can get them cheap in your line of work? Not that a properly working S50 wouldn't be better, but you could land up spending a bit more money than you planned if your two donor S50's aren't quite as simple to fix as you expected. With lots of M50's and M50 parts around you an M50 might be the way to go?

From what I have read on the zone it is possibly to modify/add-on to a megasquirt to operate an engine with Vanos. I believe that there are people here who have done exactly this.

Best of luck

well, your prediction was almost spot on wasn't it !!!

Glad I went down this route now though, 24v all the way and no going back lol. I would still love an m42 turbo though, nice and light

Liking your work dude, constant changes of direction, but improvement in the end result every time.

24v power FTW!

As Lee says, your improving with every decision

It's in

wahoooooooooooooo

Im tired and its late so I will just let the pics speak for themselves !

Will


more 328 alloys !







E36 M3 parts...









Skateboard grip tape for the footwell...







LSD



E30 M3 Master
















thats it for tonight [/img]

Driftnething wrote:Im tired and its late so I will just let the pics speak for themselves !

Your pics say a thousand most excellent words Great work, I will look out for future pics with interest.

Regards
Geoff

thank you for your kind comments ! they keep me motivated
Will

After a month or so of "time out" I got back to my second love of my life - the e30 !!!

So the diff is now installed and the adjustable rear beam is bolted up with new plates.

The e36ti trailing arms have been stripped, cleaned, painted, had new bearings pressed and rebuilt with new copper and goodridge brake lines/new oem handbrake cables.

The rear is now sitting pretty on its wheels, the front is bare and hoisted up and away from the eng/box/suspension at the mo...

I have both of the e34 steering uj's now and should be getting my link bar from danthe in the next day or so...

I have picked up a set of used apex e36 m3 3.2 coilovers (with anti roll bar to shock mounts) and adjustable height all round.

Still desperately in need of some decent 3.2 wishbones at the right money - people on ebay are asking stupid money for them. I have found new pattern items for £130ish a pair.

One of the two broken bellhousing bolts have been removed and the 2nd is proving to be very troublesome. I have a full set of new oem bolts as I never want to have that problem again !

I have now got all the sections of exhaust I need my scorpion twin pipe system and as soon as I get the engine back in Will weld her up.

I need to get the M5 or M535 engine mounts but I am unsure of which ones are needed ?!

I dont suppose anybody knows the part numbers do you ?

More pics soon

Looks great mate. Just noticed that you used e34 525 engine rubbers. Did they work?

Also how far are you from holsoworthy? Got a mate who lives in Bude, lovely area ;)

Hi,

I used the 525 e34 mounts and to be honest I dont see why they wouldnt work ??? (dont know if they do or not !) but as it is going to get some serious abuse I am opting for the M5 jobbies (as soon as I find out the part numbers ) I will trial fit with these and wait til she is sitting on the correct mounts before welding up the front exhaust area in case it moves with the mount change.

Holsworthy is about an hours drive from here (a nice twisting road drive ) I also have a friend in bude - Runs/owns - http://www.jdmgarageuk.com yes nice area indeed but still too far from all the good tracks !

I think when this thing is done im moving to cadwell or nurburgring haha...

Lol. I know some people who hire lock ups out near the 'ring and just get a cheap flight over when they've the time! I should think that your nearest track is at the Haynes motor museum followed by thruxton?

Think I've seen a van along those lines when down there. Ther are plenty of top class roads around. Bude oakehampton's good

.. I know some people who hire lock ups out near the 'ring and just get a cheap flight over when they've the time! I should think that your nearest track is at the Haynes motor museum followed by thruxton?

Think I've seen a van along those lines when down there. Ther are plenty of top class roads around. Bude oakehampton's good

Hi Mark, that is complete genius having a lock up at the ring !...

Yeah the haynes museum is the nearest track, from what I am told its very small and they are not keen on drifting , Still as its so close it would be stupid not to check it out !!!

The roads around bude are amazing ! Bude - Wadebridge has so many nice flowing curves - its a pleasure at any speed



Would I be right in assuming that the leading outlet on the m3 master is for the front brakes ? The original item had 3 pipes, 2 front - one rear.

This is previous pics i forgot to add...







I have a bit more progress the past couple of days...





Apex racing coilovers, E46 rear top mounts and reinforcement plates...

Small spoiler re-fitted and rear bumper/numberplate back together...

Sitting sweet on the BBS 17's... Just need some wheel arch tlc now !

The interior is coming along, gauges are in the dash now, need to get them wired in and tidy the wiring around the floorpan.

Also just have to finish the last few ends of brake pipe. The skateboard griptape floor is quite pleasing and should work quite well hopefully.

I need to weld up 1 more seat subframe as I only have the one OMP item. Then the harness mounts need welding in.

Sunroof needs plating over also Not looking forward to that one...

I made an L shaped bracket out of some angle steel which was kindly donated and welded it to the tunnel and bolted the bias valve onto that. Some red spray later and it looked right at home



Some Silicon hoses will eliminate those crappy BMW items which look bad for flow and always split ! also a little more red in the engine bay will be good - I love red... lol

Well, thats all update wise for another week !

Still desperate to find out which e28 engine mounts I need ? M5 or M535i ? are they the same both sides ? On real OEM the M535 ones look sided ?!

PS A big thanks to Danthe for dropping by on his travels in cornwall to hook me up with a steering linkage top bloke...

Hello mate, best thing to do with sunroof is tack/bond the original panel in
Ive been using S38 engine mounts in my track car and the engine still moves more than id like it to. Ive come to the conclusion the E28 square shaped mounts are crap, both of mine ended up with separated steel/rubber