The Full Banana said:

TJ is totally right; that finish does make them look like trailer wheels 

Glad to see this car still kicking around! 

I kind of want to make new centercaps that say "Karavan" until I can refinish them haha.

Glad to see this car still kicking around!

Picked up a set of wheels I've been casually on the lookout for forever: OZ Fittipaldi Fittistars! Specs are 16x7 et22 and tires are Falken RT615k+'s in 215/45r16 that are pretty tired but workable for now. I'll need to roll the rear quarters a bit more as they rub on bigger compressions but loving the look and fitment. Short term goal is to refinish the RS's while these are on the car. Long term I'm thinking rebuild these to 15x8" (the factory lips/barrels are double step) and paint the faces because the original diamond cut finish makes them sort of look like boat trailer wheels (thanks for that @wasnt m3, now I can't unsee it haha).

P_Roloff said:

Nice score, by far my favorite of all the factory spoiler options! Want to sell me your old IS spoiler now?  

Agreed! And I would but I'm going to save it for my 4-door that I'll start working on someday...

m42b32 said:

Got lucky on ebay a few weeks ago and scored something I've wanted for this car since the day I bought it, an e30 Mtech 1 spoiler! The rubber is in extremely good shape and the insert is conveniently already white!

Nice score, by far my favorite of all the factory spoiler options! Want to sell me your old IS spoiler now?

Changed the oil and did some other random maintenance on the car a couple weeks ago.

While I had it on jack stands I also replaced the adjustable ground control sway bar links with some Meyle HD e30 M3 links as one of the heim joints on the GC ones was knocking. I also swapped the Condor transmission mounts with rubber e21 trans mounts and UUC aluminum reinforcement cups that I had kicking around from when the car had an M42. Holy cow did that make a difference for NVH! It is much more pleasant to drive and there is still no noticeable movement through the chassis-mount shifter.

I've been driving it at least once a week and really enjoying it this summer!

I did some googling and Austria switched to the euro at the start of 2002... so either someone went on a European vacation and lost a coin when they got home, it's been in the seat since the car was built, or the car spent some time in Europe. Either way it's pretty neat.

P_Roloff said:

Looks awesome, love the creative use of the 3D printer. I’m sure the sound improvement is awesome, and it really does look very OEM. Great work!

Thanks! Having a 3d printer that can print in durable materials has opened up a lot of possibilities for all kinds of fun stuff.

SteelBlue said:

Speakers look good.

I need to do that with my parcel shelf this summer as mine is also a nice grey/purple.

Are these running off the stock amp?

Thanks! And nope, my car had the base sound system so I didn't have a factory amp at all. I used a Sony XMS400D amp inline with the speaker wiring. It basically takes the 4 speaker level inputs from the headunit and puts out 45watts RMS to each speaker.

I need to do that with my parcel shelf this summer as mine is also a nice grey/purple.

Are these running off the stock amp?

After much thinking and hunting around I finally came up with a solution to put 5x7 speakers in the rear parcel shelf without cutting big holes or looking like someone landed a UFO back there.

Before I did anything with the speakers themselves I figured now's the time to refresh the parcel shelf itself. I had a spare standard speaker parcel shelf so I used the markings on the back and opened up the speaker cutouts and moved the mounting clips to the premium speaker layout. Since every parcel shelf is now faded to a lovely shade of light blurple I gave it a couple coats of black duplicolor vinyl/fabric dye and cleaned up all the plastic parts.

Once that was done (and after letting it dry for about 3-4 months), I got into swapping things out. With the old parcel shelf out, I added some sound deadening over any holes in the sheet metal and a few spots that made a lot of noise  when tapping on it. My thinking on doing this was it should help the speakers perform better/keep more sound in the cabin/maybe reduce some road noise bleeding through from the trunk.

Side note: I've always hated the tan rear seat in my car ever since I put it in. Its in really good shape and the original plan was to dye it eventually, but I realized I have a perfectly good black sedan back seat sitting in my basement. My car is a coupe so the seat isn't a perfect fit, but I also happen to have the rear carpet section from that sedan so I swapped that in as well to get everything looking as factory as possible. While it still isn't blue, it looks so much better. 

Back to the speakers. After much hunting around and thinking, I came across these speaker grills from a 90's ford van/ranger/etc. that had an identical grille pattern to the kick panel speakers in the front. I found someone selling NOS ones and ordered a pair. With the new decklid in place, and the grill/speaker (Polk audio DB+ 5x7 coaxial) in hand, I designed and 3d printed the adapter to make it all work. 

The adapter has slotted holes to screw into the factory e30 parcel shelf premium speaker clips so you can shift them around and maximize speaker clearance, matches the profile of the ford speaker grilles, and spaces the speaker up high enough to require no hammering/cutting of the sheet metal underneath. It is printed in ASA which is UV stable and should have zero issues dealing with the heat inside a car parked in the sun. To finalize the fit and finish, I screwed the speaker grille to the adapter and sanded the outer profile as a unit to get rid of layer lines and align everything perfectly. 

I obviously didn't want a gray speaker cover, so that got scuffed up and sprayed black with adhesion promoter and SEM trim paint. The adapter was then sprayed with adhesion promoter and filler primer, sanded smooth, then another coat of adhesion promoter to re-coat any exposed plastic, textured black paint, and a final top coat of SEM trim black. I did this same process on the tweeter pods and it's held up perfectly so far. 

With everything painted it was time to mount it all up! Here is the adapter mounted to the parcel shelf: 

Then the speaker gets mounted to the underside of the ford speaker grille. To fit the speaker I did have to remove a trim ring/spacer from the top side of the speaker and use a tin snips to remove the outer mounting tabs/trim a bit of excess material on the other mounting tabs. Also, because of the placement of the wire connections, I bent the connectors outwards 90 degrees so that they would clear the parcel shelf without having to cut a notch in it. 

I then mounted the speaker assembly to the adapter in the car and went back and did the whole thing a second time!

Couldn't be more stoked on the end result! It looks very factory and the sound improvement over the previous 5 1/4" coaxial speakers is huge.

P_Roloff said:

That is awesome. I figured this post would be about the headers and I was pleasantly surprised! We’re down on FI e30s right now so this should reset the balance quite nicely

A very convenient coincidence! They should play quite nicely together. Picnic 2045 or bust!

YoungCR said:

Nice score!

Thanks!
 

GunMetalGrey said:

I have to you snagged that one after it had been floating around for a bit on FB. I'm glad someone I know snapped it up as I was contemplating it myself, twin screws satisfy most of my desires when it comes to power additions. 

I'm looking forward to seeing more about it!

I've always thought one of these ESS TS2 kits would be my ideal setup if I could ever find one. After staring at the ad and contemplating for like a week I figured how often would one actually pop up locally in good shape for a good price. I'm excited to dig into it!

I'm looking forward to seeing more about it!

m42b32 said:

Things I've done to the car since my last update... nothing!

While I've enjoyed having a running car that I can drive any time I want, there's been some issues needing addressing and I've started to plan to improve a number of things. One thing I've noticed is that the pressures in the intake manifold were constantly negative and I don't have time for all that negativity. In a random late night marketplace search I came across this lovely chunk of positivity for a pretty good deal... 

It'll be a while until I dig in and start fitting this as I want to finish my garage improvements first but it should make for a pretty fun project later this year(s). 

That is awesome. I figured this post would be about the headers and I was pleasantly surprised! We’re down on FI e30s right now so this should reset the balance quite nicely

While I've enjoyed having a running car that I can drive any time I want, there's been some issues needing addressing and I've started to plan to improve a number of things. One thing I've noticed is that the pressures in the intake manifold were constantly negative and I don't have time for all that negativity. In a random late night marketplace search I came across this lovely chunk of positivity for a pretty good deal... 

It'll be a while until I dig in and start fitting this as I want to finish my garage improvements first but it should make for a pretty fun project later this year(s).

SteelBlue said:

Just running off of the factory AMP and headunit? **Reading your previous posts now**. The stock Premium system in my car sounds decent, but wouldn't mind some additional punch on the low end. Really don't want to alter the look of the rear decklid speaker housings, so maybe these in the kick panel would be a good option. Maybe replacing the tweeters as well.

I don't have a factory amp in my car so I used a small Sony amp that can work with the speaker level outputs from the continental head unit. I totally agree on not wanting to change the rear speaker look since most larger aftermarket speakers look like you landed a UFO on the decklid... so my plan for the rear 5x7's is to design and print something similar to the rear premium speaker housings (though maybe just a flat top instead of the angled outside edge). A main goal for this project is to have the end result be almost completely stock looking.