An E36 Investigation

[GunMetalGrey]

Story time! 

I'm laying in bed being lazy on a Sunday, browsing on Facebook. I see someone had posted an ad for a white E36 from craigslist, and I had just told myself not to buy more cars, so I shoot the guy a message 25 min after he posted the ad. The car looked clean, and the interior was cool, that's about all I knew about it. I told myself if the dude wasn't free that day I wouldn't bother, and then he texted me back saying he was free. Cool. I pick up Mike and we go look at it after pulling money from the ATM (ATM dance game) and I intentionally pulled less than he was asking, because I shouldn't be buying more cars. We show up and look at it and find things to be questionable, but largely very clean. The ad said it ran, but he could not get it running for us. This whole time the guys phone is blowing up with messages and such and he was getting annoyed, it was obvious he had owned it for quite some time and never had it working, and he had finally decided he wanted it out of his driveway. He looked at me and said "Well, make me an offer and lets make this happen". I told him that I would need to get a trailer, and didn't have access to one right then and there, so I proposed giving him half the money now and the other half when I picked it up, and I would take the title. We quickly realized that wouldn't work out safely for both of us, and he just agreed to pull the ad and take my word to show up the next day. I had offered him a large percentage less than he had it posted for and he was fine with that. I ended up being able to grab a trailer same day and went and grabbed it, he helped us get it on the trailer and load it full of the many boxes of parts that came with it. Just like that he had more space in his driveway.

Taking it off the trailer was amusing, because the thing felt the full force of the early 2000's car scene. Fully chrome headlights, clear corner markers, chrome inserts in the grilles (wrong grilles) and fully white painted trim. It was a sight for sore eyes. (sorry for the poor pictures, it was quite dark out)

In his ad he stated that this car was 1 of 150 ever made, which I largely passed off because I don't know E36 things and it felt like a sale tactic. I knew it had a cool interior and a motor swap. Mike alluded to the fact that the car was more special than I realized, and pointed out the BMW Motorsports door handles which I hadn't noticed while looking the car over. Shortly thereafter I ran the VIN to look at the options and posted the results here. It was a fun day of realizing what I had stumbled across without ever realizing it. 

Fast forward quite a ways and we come to this weekend, the first time I have truly put forth any effort into working on it. 
I checked for fuel pressure this weekend, because when the guy was trying to start it there would be an occasional pop or other noise, so something was happening. 
Fuel pressure checked out and the car had tried to run during the test, so without connecting the MAF I gave the key a turn and my surprise it fired up and ran butter smooth. Super weird. Plugged the MAF in while it was running and it stumbled for a second then continued to run smooth. The good news is that the motor is completely silent and is one of the healthiest sounding motors I've heard in awhile. I shut it off and tried to start it again, nothing. Unplugged the MAF, tried to start it again, nothing. Confusing. 
At this point Mike pointed out (once again) all the points for major vacuum leaks and I knew pulling the manifold off would be required to address what was going on with this OBD1 conversion. I found a handful of odd things, and tons of major sources of vacuum leaks. 

I also identified what motor is in it, and am frankly quite confused by it. The car was advertised as being S52 swapped, and the motor is indeed OBD2 with the M power cover, but upon further review I find it is an M52. I tried to peek at the back of the head to read the vin tag, but instead found a different type of paper tag. 

Just legible enough.
So either the guy that bought the engine was duped (unlikely given this tag) so when he sold it it was sold as an S52 with no quick easy way to check. 
The block has the 2.8 stamp on it for displacement so I'm certain that it is indeed an M52. 
Which brings me to the question, why the heck would you swap an M52 into a sub 100k mile car? It's an incremental power gain, and a fair bit of work. 

Anyway, someone did a bunch of dumb stuff to it and swapped parts around, so I plan to get all of that sorted out (small details) and get things like the seat sliders working again. The trunk needs some alignment help, and the car overall needs a bit of a cleaning. 
I've got new headlights, will be ordering new grilles, and am on the lookout for stock corner markers to bring this back to its original glory days. 

Until next time!

[GunMetalGrey]

Also a question, the car came on a special set of wheels that seem to be the only time these wheels made it to the US. 
BBS RC041

I'm questioning if it's worth the $1500 to put these wheels on the car to sell it. 
Thoughts?

[suspenceful]

GunMetalGrey said:

Also a question, the car came on a special set of wheels that seem to be the only time these wheels made it to the US. 
BBS RC041

I'm questioning if it's worth the $1500 to put these wheels on the car to sell it. 
Thoughts?

Address other things first and worry about this later.

[GunMetalGrey]

suspenceful said:

Address other things first and worry about this later.

Finding these wheels is one of the harder things I've had to do related to cars. I've got a guy with a set of them that will ship them, so I need to make a move with relative swiftness.

[suspenceful]

GunMetalGrey said:

Finding these wheels is one of the harder things I've had to do related to cars. I've got a guy with a set of them that will ship them, so I need to make a move with relative swiftness. 

I guess. To me, that's a large investment on a car that still needs a decent amount of attention if your plan is to fully restore it. But it's your car/money!

[Rekpoint]

I know this in an unpopular opinion. Usually I wouldn't voice this about another car.

But I actually like the white paint matched trim.

Dont flame plz

Edit :  we need interior pics ️

[m42b32]

Rekpoint said:

I know this in an unpopular opinion. Usually I wouldn't voice this about another car.

But I actually like the white paint matched trim.

Dont flame plz

Edit :  we need interior pics ️

mods please ban this troll

[GunMetalGrey]

suspenceful said:

I guess. To me, that's a large investment on a car that still needs a decent amount of attention if your plan is to fully restore it. But it's your car/money!

I don't plan to go all out, just fix up the major things that aren't right about it (M3 badged side trim, lights, basically the stuff that makes it what it is)
It's kind of like if it came with a black leather interior, it would be worth finding one of the original interiors.

My ideal buyer is someone that is buying it because it is 1 of 150 made, so having the correct wheels will appease that buyer. 

Rekpoint said:

I know this in an unpopular opinion. Usually I wouldn't voice this about another car.

But I actually like the white paint matched trim.

Dont flame plz

Edit :  we need interior pics ️

Yeahhh, I'll just pretend I lost my flamethrower. 
Interior pics will happen soon. Gotta take the seats out anyway!

[YoungCR]

If you can buy the wheels and still make a profit I’d say go for it, they look great.

[GunMetalGrey]

Per request

Got the front bumper off and disassembled so I can fix the white paint on absolutely everything lol.

[Rekpoint]

I used rust-oleum Trim & Bumper Paint to paint my front m3 front lip and my m3 side trim. It turned on great. Has a texture to it so it looks very OEM. Scuff, clean and spray. I can grab pictures if you'd like! 

[YoungCR]

Looks pretty clean inside and out!

[GunMetalGrey]

The tear down continues.

I've got plenty of things to paint!

[suspenceful]

Find anything juicy during removal? Previous body work, accidents, rust, etc?

[Rekpoint]

Based on the rear bumper trim it appears it was painted without the trim being removed :c

[GunMetalGrey]

Rekpoint said:

Based on the rear bumper trim it appears it was painted without the trim being removed :c

Yeah there's stuff like this all over, clips that were broken at some point so someone decided to use double sided tape, trim clearly painted on body panels, weird screws instead of the proper hardware. 
Nothing that would be noticed with it assembled though.

[GunMetalGrey]

Just hanging out waiting for parts that Mr. Pat was so kind to help me out with! 
New interior pic to try out the new phone camera.

[GunMetalGrey]

I have painted so many feet of trim.....
Should have some shots of this with black trim coming up this weekend, and I look forward to that!

[Jdesign]

Im sure it will be a night and day improvement!

[GunMetalGrey]

I forgot to order side emblems so I gotta wait on those before throwing the side skirts on, but I did get the bumper back together. 
Looks much better already!