Henna Red 323i

[kdevitt]

New exhaust arrived today - top quality as expected.







Its an Eisenmann exhaust with the TuV approved sound level - so shouldn't be really any louder than stock, and it retains the swept style tailpipes. Having this fitted with the Eibach Pro-Kit tomorrow.

[Scruffymurphy]

The car is coming on really nicely Ken. Well done. It's great to see an E30 getting the treatment it deserves. Are you taking it to the Big Meet?

[kdevitt]

The car is coming on really nicely Ken. Well done. It's great to see an E30 getting the treatment it deserves. Are you taking it to the Big Meet?

Cheers, looks like I'll be there but not certain yet - need to get the NCT onto it, effectively failed on the two sidelight bulbs which should have been a quick fix - but noticed the wiring from the body loom is missing for the nearside headlight, so need to tidy that up. That shouldn't be a big deal though.

[kdevitt]

Exhaust is in place, as are the new springs - very happy with how it worked out. Springs are an eibach pro-kit. Car is sitting slightly better now, ride has improved too. The exhaust was fitted fantastically by the lads at the garage - they're particularly fastidious about their work as I witnessed when they wouldn't let me take the car without getting it on the ramp to ensure I was happy with it. Its all welded up properly where it should be - not a clamp in sight.

They also fixed a buckle in the drivers side front wheel which was causing some funky handling, and fixed a wiring issue with the nearside sidelight. New HT leads (Beru) were fitted too - its reduced an ever so slightly lumpy idle - distributor cap will be done soon too.

Pictures also show the newly sprayed front bumper - am delighted with the job the bodyshop did, the finish is excellent. Someone tried to by it off the garage today while it was being worked on, so at least one other person likes it!

[Jamie8GTi]

Absolutely love this!

[Jamie8GTi]

where did you find them callipers? doing the big brake/rear disc upgrade on my 316i shell and need replacement callipers as the donor car i sourced the rear subframe and arms from had been sitting 5 years and the callipers were basically solid metal lumps.. lol

[kdevitt]

where did you find them callipers? doing the big brake/rear disc upgrade on my 316i shell and need replacement callipers as the donor car i sourced the rear subframe and arms from had been sitting 5 years and the callipers were basically solid metal lumps.. lol

Got them from keri-WMS on here - drop them a PM and see if they have any in stock.

[Jamie8GTi]

cheers mate

[Divol]

Just read this from start to finish and that was a very enjoyable hour.
Cant wait to get my hands on one of my own

[vinni]

kdevitt, the car looks fantastic. It's so good to see the progress over the years. Glad to see it in good hands Top news about the tax as well.

[Royalratch]

One of my fave cars on the Zone.

[87mtech27]

This is getting the m30b35 conversion done a˜³a˜Ž

[kdevitt]

This is getting the m30b35 conversion done a˜³a˜Ž

Yep - its coming on nicely, although have dropped far more money into the engine build than I ever imagined possible!

Current state of the engine - its more or less a brand new set-up at this stage.

[e30topless]

what a really Cool turd !
damn shame you didn't go for straight pipes the slash/angled tailpipes just don't work with the Mtech 1 valance !

Love the old school donk in an early car it works awesome

[87mtech27]

It will be one powerful machine once done

[kdevitt]

what a really Cool turd !
damn shame you didn't go for straight pipes the slash/angled tailpipes just don't work with the Mtech 1 valance !

Love the old school donk in an early car it works awesome

Couldn't find any decent exhaust with straight pipes! Might still have the tips cut and welded straight though.

[kdevitt]

Not sure why I didn't post updated on the swap here - but heres a quick catch up anyway

***

First bit for the next major work arrived today from 300mm.de. They're the engine mounts for an M30 swap.

Less than a week from order to arrival, very impressive.



Things are beginning to pick up pace with this now -

Here's the engine which will be going in.





Inlet manifold, alternator and a few other bits are coming off for vapour blasting. Engine is having an overhaul while its out - so a substantial parts list has been ordered.

Rocker cover will be powdercoated, but nothing overly ostentatious.

First parts started arriving this week too - have also bought all new shifter parts so that the manual box will be as sharp as possible. E46 M3 shift lever is going in - hopefully not too short a throw for my liking.

[kdevitt]

Lots of progress today from my man with the skills!

Engine on its way out of the donor -



Its a big lump!



Clutch has seen better days - will be replaced with a Sachs kit



The synchros were gone on two of the gars on the box from the donor car, so needed to source a new box or fork out for repairs. Decided to take a chance on a box which hadn't been used in a few years, but was guaranteed as having been removed from a 32k mile car. At the moment, it appears the gamble paid off! Oil needed a change though



Would be a shame to leave grotty exhaust manifold gaskets on it, so off came the manifolds -





Some degreaser and a quick scrub seem to do the trick on the head -



Only piece of bad luck was a stud snapping off the manifold -



Going to price up a stainless steel manifold, might just buy a used standard manifold off eBay if the price is over the top - could be easier than getting this out.

[kdevitt]

Lots more done with the donor engine, but its not all good news unfortunately. Looks like the budget is going to explode - but more of that in a bit.

Here is it as it currently stands!



As of this morning this is how it looked -

Before a clean up -



After -



Plenty of parts had come off at this stage though!



Hadn't intended taking the head off - but when looking at the exhaust valves, one appeared oily. Not much point sticking the engine back in and then having to lift it out again if there was an issue, so Dave did a leak down test - the results of which weren't positive. One cylinder had an 80% exhaust valve leak, so make the decision to whip the head off.

Unfortunately there was bad news - one of the valve seats was damaged.



Looks like something was floating around in there and doing some damage -



So its off to get a cylinder head rebuild priced up. To add to the woe, looks like the cylinders potentially need a re-bore.

[kdevitt]

As the song goes - if I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all...

Pretty apt on this occasion. Machine shop had a look at the block and head - there was bad news on both fronts. Firstly, as expected, the head needed a full rebuild - two valve seats and at least two new valves. To make matters worse, cylinder 5 was oversized - so the block needed to be rebored.Apart from the cost of actually carrying out that work, or any other parts - the pistons alone would have worked out at EUR1800 or so. So that idea was knocked on the head and it was time for some head scratching and a few tears at the thought of my new engine now being only good for use as a paper weight.

Given the amount of parts sourced at this stage for the M30 swap, there was no chance I was going for anything different. Turns out that there was an M30B35 from an E32 sitting in the corner of the shed which hadn't seen action in a while.

Decided to go for a leak down test on this - which had healthy results. Head came off the check the block, all looks reasonably ok. Going for a re-hone on the cylinders, new piston rings and a refresh of the head.

Few pics of the new engine -

Sump was looking a bit dirty



Came up well -



As did the head - one stud snapped, another two are sitting tight though - so these will need to be persuaded to come out.

[kdevitt]

This is probably whats normally referred to at the point of no return!

Bonnet off and the engine being prepped for removal.





More or less everything unplugged at this stage



Out she comes -



It doesn't quite match the M30 for size -



Needs a bit of a clean -



Only a handful of parts left to source now. Need to get some of the various parts over for vapour blasting before the M30 gets put back together. Also turns out that I have a pretty rare small case limited slip diff - which is worth a bit, but pretty much useless for the M30 - wouldn't last very long by all accounts. So now need to source a decent medium cased diff.

[kdevitt]

Car is looking pretty sorry for itself at this stage -



Engine bay was given a bit of a scrub down - looks a lot better already -



The expansion tank needs to be shifted from the drivers side to the passenger side for the engine swap - didn't want to be putting a discoloured second hand piece in, so as you'll begin to see - almost everything going in is brand new.

Needed a new bracket put in place to support it -





Alarm siren needed to move as well -



Dave also got the rad test fitted - and its a perfect fit, so one less thing to worry about.

[kdevitt]

The majority of parts still needed arrived yesterday, so had a chance to look through them today. For such an expensive order, I did expect a larger box. Arrived in a package no bigger than a shoe box. I know there's no correlation between cost of products and size of the packaging, but still

Anyway - this is what €50 worth of nuts (12) look like!



Lots of gaskets (yes, I have club thumbs!)







M3 shifter



Lots of other bits, but ultimately nothing exciting. Still waiting on a cylinder head gasket, am also order a slimline steering linkage from Ergen Motorsport, and still need to figure out something with the prop and guibo as well as the diff. Ideally looking for a 3.46 medium case, have heard even a 3.64 is a bit nuts in them, so will hopefully get something sorted.

[kdevitt]

Second update of the evening -

Its pretty easy to look at the engine bay empty and think that we're almost finished, which is quite obviously not the case. Given this is such an early production date car, even some simple jobs are causing problems.

Case in point - relocating the battery to the boot. Firstly - theres no hole in the bulkhead for it! (although if I leave that rust long enough there will be)



And with the carpet stripped back to access the wiring - instead of seeing something like this:



There was some very odd sticky stuff -



It was pretty brittle, so could be removed in big enough chunks -





With that getting closer to be sorted - time to kick off the manual conversion in earnest - pedal box is now out



Some wiring to be tidied up -



Really getting places now.

[kdevitt]

A good news / bad news kind of day. Still trying to decide which one is in the ascendancy. Either way, the curse of the early production E30 struck again.

So the picture below if what would greet you inside the boot of 99% of all E30's - in a 6 cylinder car the battery sits in here. A 4 pot car still has the battery up front, but its a popular mod to shift it to the rear. Very early 6 pot cars such as mine also have the battery up front. Given the amount of space the M30 engine is taking up in my engine bay, there's no real space for it, plus there's already too much weight up there, AND the washer reservoir needs to sit where the battery currently is. Hence it being moved to the boot.



Spot the difference! I will say, its not immediately obvious -



If you haven't managed to spot it - take a look again at where the wheel arch is in each picture. So it turns out that there is no room for a standard battery in the boot. Given that I'd only recently invested in a brand new battery from BMW, its a bit of a pain. Need to source a racing battery now.

Its not the end of the world - and there was plenty of other progress today.

Pilot hole and outline for the bulkhead hole needed to feed the battery wiring -



Cut out -



Cable fed through and positive terminal mounted -



The other end of the cable in the boot - again my car resists the change! The trims for the boot don't fit over the cable, so will need to source later model versions



Quick check of the scuttle panel showed up no rust though - which is rather excellent news given E30's propensity to rust here





Few more bits going in now too - a new E34 throttle cable was bought from BMW - the original E30 one is quite a bit shorter in comparison



Engine work is all scheduled to be complete next week - so that can start going back together then.

[kdevitt]

Things are still progressing nicely -

Had a refreshed servo fitted - am slightly underwhelmed at the WMS brake performance, so decided to swap out the servo in case it was the culprit.



Also delighted to see a full set of pedals at last -



And 4 years after buying them - my pop outs are fitted!



Nice to see a professional job was doing putting the headliner back in by the garage who did the respray -



Window in place - luckily the trim on these is perfect, the previous fixed window trims had been badly damaged when being fitted, so its once less thing to aggravate me -

[kdevitt]

Am waiting for the last major parts order to come on, which is currently holding up things a bit. In the meantime Dave got the timing chain sprocket off the crank. Bit of heat and a bit of brute force required -



Now ready for the brand new sprocket which should be on its way from BMW now -



Also got the racing battery into place - very neat, its a snug fit though -





Engine came back today so its full steam ahead -





Here's the list of items done - not a minor piece of work



I bought POR-15 engine enamel paint from cleancar.ie for re-doing the block. First up, the block was sanded -



Engine was then steam cleaned to clean out oil galleries after machining and water galleries and remove traces of oil from honing from the block.



Finally ready for paint -



First coat -



Second coat -





Threads for head bolts were tapped out to clean them out -



Have the injectors ready to be cleaned by Westward, also have inlet manifold and a few other bits to be collected on Wednesday for vapour blasting.

[kdevitt]

Quick update on the vapour blasting - parts were collected by Michael at Vapourblast.ie on Thursday. Got the first photos back from him yesterday. Will have some better before & after photos in a few days, but this should give you a good idea of what a finish he gets.



Dave managed to get through a good bit of work today - really feels like its all coming together now.

Pistons,crank and all caps and bolts cleaned and ready to go.



Crank in ready for checking oil clearances.



Plastigauge on to measure clearance



Main caps on and torqued down -



Caps off again to check plastigauge -



Measuring 2 thou. Want about 1 thou per inch dia of crank. So it's about perfect.



Clean it all up then. Measuring end float which is within spec -



Crank out again to lube bearings -



Checking piston ring end gap -



New piston rings on and piston in compressor ready to go into block



Piston and conrod in place -



Rod cap on and torqued to check oil clearance -



Cap off -



Looks good -



Also took the opportunity to have the injectors cleaned by Westward Engineering - they're done and ready to go back in now.

[kdevitt]

Its not too often that I'm completely blown away with the quality of work like I am with this - all the parts were returned to me today, price was very reasonable and a quick turnaround too. Just to be clear - these haven't been painted.

Some before pics -























After -

























Can't recommend Michaels work highly enough - site is vapourblast.ie

Finally, another update

Despite having two engines to work with, neither had a very healthy oil pump. Having gotten this far into the guts of the engine, we figured it made sense to order a new oil pump. This decision took a bit of time - turns out the pump costs more than the car itself cost me. Tried a few different sources, and nowhere was significantly cheaper than the other. So ordered from bmwclassic.com, and it was with Dave within three days. Nothing could be done pending the arrival of the pump though, and it was probably a month or so before I pulled the trigger on it.

All new parts from BMW here - timing chain and sprockets, ones on the supplied engines were slightly worn.



Sprocket heated to 200c and fitted onto crankshaft





The oil pump now in place -



Head looking nice and clean -



Timing cover on to set TDC -



Head on and torqued down -



Timing set up -





New tensioner -





Lots of progress made - need to still source a few parts such as the diff, but hopefully the nasty surprises are out of the way now.

[e30Passion]

Excellent work!! That cleaned up like a treat, amazing stuff and what a car! Think she will go like stink

[Royalratch]

Awesome work / effort / discipline.

[kdevitt]

Awesome work / effort / discipline.

Cheers - my current input into it is sourcing parts and a few other bits. Someone far more skilled than me is doing the spannering!

[Royalratch]

That's discipline tho in it - knowing when to defer to shinier spanners.

[mcbonio]

Excellent work, enjoying this thread.!

How much easier did that sprocket go on when heated to 200C?

[kdevitt]

Excellent work, enjoying this thread.!

Cheers!

How much easier did that sprocket go on when heated to 200C?

As per my previous post, I'm afraid I'm probably the wrong person to answer that!!