E30 Zone

OK here's my thread about an M52 conversion, though given some of the other types of conversions going on these days it doesn't seem all that great (but the satisfaction will still be great I hope when it comes round to firing her up for the first time)

Anyway long story short, by the time this is running I wouldn't have previously owned a road-going E30 for nearly 6 years (only just worked that out...ouch!), and now is a good time to get back into the swing of things. The purpose of this car is to get it on a track and to have a nice 'play' car.

Moving on..spent the last few weeks lurking on the Zone and preparing the shopping list, first thing off the list to be purchased was a N-reg E36 328i - found one just up the road on Ebay for £1000 or best offer, after a few rounds of negotiations and a test drive I took it home for £600. One of the perks is a new engine was fitted in 2003 and has only covered 34k since. Here she is (was!):







Earlier this week I tracked down a 728i for breaking and got the sump and accessories for £20, haven't been able to find any hard evidence if the pickup pipe and dipstick tube will do the job or if I need to find the bits from an E34.

Due to the various bits and pieces needed from other cars I have been spending the last few days keeping an eye on the local scrappy's website, on Friday an E36 325i turned up, so on Saturday morning I got up nice and early to get the inlet manifold and throttle body. Glad I put the effort in here, as I was barely able to get my toolbox open for 2 lads to walk round the corner in the hope of pulling the manifold for themselves. After a near 2 hour struggle (the bonnet was propped up with a baby seat due to another car being sat on top of this E36 and so the bonnet wouldn't support itself...) I left the scrapyard £30 lighter but with inlet manifold and throttle body in tow, but I fucked up and left the throttle body elbow/boot in the car (a long with a few other stashed bits) mainly down to the relief/back spasms that I had got the bloody thing off in the first place.

Drove the car to my mates new place last night, he moved in last week - the garage was still nice and empty and he was only too kind to offer the space! Work commenced this afternoon, the goal was to basically get the engine ready to be lifted ASAP (hoist not available until next weekend), unhooked the loom and various ancilleries (I couldn't resist but to take off the inlet manifold, much easier without a bonnet or car sat on top getting in the way!)
As my mates have only just moved into the place their tools were all over the place and I only had the essentials, unfortunately the angle grinder couldn't be found so we decided to take the whole front end off, which made life a lot easier. The biggest issue we had was having to take a blow torch to the exhaust bracket as it had been welded on and we had no other way of getting round this royal pain the arse.

Final pics of today's work:






There was a nice result in the radiator has been replaced fairly recently as it still looks new.
The exhaust is off, prop is off and we're ready to undo the engine mounts. Forgot to take apart the gear shifter linkage though so will have to do that one night this week, along with strip the rest of the shell of the morsels to make a few quid back, and also make space for the E30...

..don't even have an E30 yet! Have got my eyes on a shell that is ideal and would definitely like to own but I need to shift my mountain bike to make funds available for that. I hope this will be resolved within the next 2 weeks.
Plans for next weekend are get the engine and gearbox out, strip the car of any final bits and pieces to sell before getting it scrapped, and take the exhaust manifold off and given to another mate for cutting/welding.

I quite like the E36 you killed to get the lump..

Look forward to seeing progress

You almost made me feel a bit guilty there mate! Fortunately the car photographs very well, or perhaps I have the photography skills of a second hand car salesman. MOT and tax was due next month, and it definitely needed a bit of work.


I've made a bit of progress today as I've managed to flog my mountain bike, which is funding the potential purchase of a 318iS. I had hopes of buying the 325i Sport rolling shell from the Zone classifieds but going on my spreadsheet of calculations it will work out roughly £500 cheaper to go with the 318iS. It would've been nice to have owned an M-tech 2 car but as this will be a road-going track car then it wouldn't be practical and the money saved can go on track related parts.

Good job on negotiating the price of the dirty6 I love how the front of E36's come off and you can just drag the engines out.

Hey Rich I think you'll be seeing me when the car is done to fit a few bits as I want to get this thing on the track, you're only about an hour away!


So I got the money for my bike earlier in the week which covered the cost on the E30, I went up to Slough this morning with a mate to have a look with the view to purchasing it. It was a 318iS up for £1300 and to be honest that's in the realm of good condition...this thing was looking a bit tired, paint needs a good mop to bring back to life, cracked headlight and a few other bits and pieces which soon add up. However it drove flawlessly and the suspenion, linkages etc have all been replaced recently and it drove very nice and tight! After negotiations I overpaid a bit I think at a grand, but I didn't want to the project to stall and was happy as it came with 16" Alpina wheels with good tyres, a nice black leather interior (also got the original stuff), M-Tech 2 wheel and Bilstein B8 shocks with H&R springs. Here's a few pics:






The E36 is now stripped bare, the engine will be coming out tomorrow then the shell will be scrapped as soon as the log book comes through.

Had to go pick up the engine hoist after getting back from Slough, my boss had one I could borrow so I went to pick him up to pick it up from his garage. Whilst I was there I convinced him to take us for a spin in his Caterham



Fast is an understatement, the country roads got eaten alive by this thing, not sure on BHP but it's a Ford Crossflow engine with ITB's and Megasquirt management. Though I didn't need it, the drive certainly gave me extra enthusiasm to pick up the pace with my project!

Jimbob wrote:Whilst I was there I convinced him to take us for a spin in his Caterham



Fast is an understatement, the country roads got eaten alive by this thing, not sure on BHP but it's a Ford Crossflow engine with ITB's and Megasquirt management. Though I didn't need it, the drive certainly gave me extra enthusiasm to pick up the pace with my project!

You will leave him for dust when your done

Jimbob wrote:Hey Rich I think you'll be seeing me when the car is done to fit a few bits as I want to get this thing on the track, you're only about an hour away!

I look forward to it

Looks like you got a pretty good deal on the iS for the money! What condition is the engine in? Might be after an M42

You got a lot if e36 there for 600 quid, I will be watching this one with interest...

Sould be a good watch this.

Jimbob wrote: After negotiations I overpaid a bit I think at a grand

You tight fecker!! If there's minimal rust you got a bargain there. You not seen how much Alpinas sell for these days!?

rix313 wrote:What condition is the engine in? Might be after an M42

Hi mate, the engine has done 177k - the timing chain was replaced in 2009 and judging by the MOT history that was at roughly 135-140k. It ran really well considering the exhaust was blowing from the downpipe, it was nearly silent. Only prob it had was the thermostat was stuck open!

Kedge wrote:You tight fecker!! If there's minimal rust you got a bargain there. You not seen how much Alpinas sell for these days!?

Hahaha! I checked as best I could for anything terminal and it seemed fine, the exterior is a bit tatty, biggest issues I have is a big patch of rust at the bottom of the passenger door and a hole on the rear valance. Will replace both over time but not near the top of the list just yet...

When I was looking for a car the plan was to put 16" rims on it for the track, and now that I've already got them I don't want to part with them, I just need to track down a centre cap for one of them!! I don't know how much they're worth these days though, any ideas??

I'm just going through all the receipts of the car from ECP, there's tonnes! The car handles on rails, much better than my 327 with the H&R cup kit, I suppose the true test will be when the 4 pot is replaced by the M52 though



Update from today, spent an hour or so on it earlier, engine is now OUT and the gearbox/clutch/flywheel is off. Unfortunately it's taken A1 Plant Hire over a week to send me the f#cking stand but hopefully that will arrive tomorrow so I can start fiddling with it properly.
Exhaust manifold is off ready to pass on to a mate to do the necessary modding, I'm a little concerned about what looks like some sort of exhaust sensor bolt, I'll have to do a bit of searching on here and see what can be done about it.

Anyone tried offering up their E36 exhaust system to the underside of an E30? It will be a few weeks until I can see for myself, and from a cost perspective it would be loads cheaper if it fitted with a bit of persuasion than buying a custom or E30 M3 system.

Engine stand has finally arrived and the exhaust manifold is getting modified on Friday, will be interested to see what progress can be made this weekend.

Saw an E46 compact steering rack on Ebay earlier for £35 BIN, couldn't resist at that price as it's the same part number as what is banded around for the clubsport rack - quite a way down the list until its fitted mind as I'm running out of cash now!! Pay day needs to hurry up.

Jimbob wrote:

Kedge wrote:You tight fecker!! If there's minimal rust you got a bargain there. You not seen how much Alpinas sell for these days!?

I don't know how much they're worth these days though, any ideas??

With a refurb i bet you could ask £600, and that's without them being a staggered set, prices have gone stupid for them.

You don't even want to know what people are asking for 4 stud 17" Hartge split rims these days , should neve have passed on those you had .

You setting a time frame to get this done?

Hartge splits
Yeh shame about those, can't remember what I sold them for now, think it was around £800-£900


Haven't got a completion date as yet, it would be an awesome Christmas present to myself if I could get it running before 25th Dec! But will probably say end of January as a bit more realistic date. Ordered all the bits from BMW today, have a few odds and sods to come from ebay and the Zone but hope to have collected all necessary bits before December 2nd.

I've got a spreadsheet with all the costs on, can't stop adding more bits to it!!! Need to find some more bits to flog on ebay

Minor update, got my manifold back off my mate:



Still waiting on the log book to come through to get rid of the E36, so not much to do this weekend. Will have a quick look at the wiring loom and go to the scrappy for the brake servo.

Nice welds..

At last, the log book is through for the E36, now it can finally get scrapped and get the E30 into the garage!

Brave fool having a cost spreadsheet, I soon stopped updating mine for by chromie build

Jhonno wrote:Nice welds..

Certainly is

Yep definitely a fool!
Hopefully it can get added to the M52 sticky at some point so it might be able to help others in the future.

E36 is getting scrapped on Friday night, the E30 will roll into its place on Saturday morning and hope to have the M42 engine removed later that day!

Only single men add up the cost of a resto!


Married men burn all evidence, and only tell a select few (people who don't know the warden) about any project!

Heh, I'm supposed to be saving for our wedding next year...I have a very understanding missus!

On another note, £60 to lighten the flywheel

Jimbob wrote:On another note, £60 to lighten the flywheel

That's a rip-off! Find somewhere else - I paid £20 to have mine done which seems like the going rate.

Just run every place I could find on Google/Yell and have settled for £35+vat, someone wanted £120!!!

I think when you're getting varying qoutes like that it just shows some people don't want the work.

One less thing to think about until next week now, got a call from andyp saying the courier didn't turn up yesterday so won't be getting the flywheel till next week.

The E36 got picked up earlier.
My mate's driveway is really steep and not very wide..and also has road works directly opposite so it's a right f#cker to turn into let alone drive up with traffic right up your arse, obviously the recovery truck had no chance but we were prepared for this - one of the lads in his Vectra took the weight of the E36 and lowered me down the hill, there was a brown trousers moment when all wheels locked up
The E36 was close enough to the road by that point so I relied on the handbrake and what was left of the foot brake to roll me round the corner whilst the other lads blocked off the road for a minute, what a bunch of pikeys! To be honest I think the onlookers actually appreciated the ballache we were going through at the time.

Whilst all this was happening, adit was arriving over my parent's gaff to pick up an interior! It was a mad rush but got everything sorted in the end, now to find something else that will fill their garage space...little do they know but the E30 will be living in their garage as I don't have the room in my own garage!

The E30 is in its final resting place over at the workshop until the moment comes that the M52 is plumbed in and ready to rock hopefully get the M42 out by the end of play tomorrow..its my birthday on Sunday and my missus has banned me from the car

Jimbob wrote:Just run every place I could find on Google/Yell and have settled for £35+vat, someone wanted £120!!!

]

But what are they quoting for exactly? One places work can be very different to another, I charge £50 to get it down to just over 5kg

Sounds like a right pikey-fest

DanThe wrote:

Jimbob wrote:Just run every place I could find on Google/Yell and have settled for £35+vat, someone wanted £120!!!

]

But what are they quoting for exactly? One places work can be very different to another, I charge £50 to get it down to just over 5kg

Sounds like a right pikey-fest

All I was asking for was a flywheel lightening service, but I also tried to explain what I wanted to allow the M20 flywheel to bolt up to the M52 block so I guess they must've thought I didn't know what I was going on about and just saw £££ !

Was beginning to pull the M42 out tonight, then the hoist had other ideas and lost all pressure - no sign of any oil leaks either

Might have another one lined up for Saturday but was hoping to have it removed tonight to get to work on cleaning the engine bay and changing the rack at the weekend. Seriously what a f#cking c#nt.

Howay, got the hoist back in action, M42 is now out! Next on the list: change the servo, change the steering rack, clean the engine bay.

Good grafting there fella! You left the engine loom in the car though?

Yeh had to shoot off straight away so didn't quite finish that bit, to be honest wasn't expecting to work on the car this weekend due to the hoist - there's only so much disappearing for hours on end before the missus starts breaking my balls

You did it the hardway then fella always easier to bring an engine out with the loom still attached to it

Argh bollocks
Thinking about it, I removed the M52 with the loom still attached so not sure why we did this different. I've had a few pairs of hands helping me out so I guess someone saw half the loom off, so carried on and did the rest!

This finished yet..?