The One That Didn't Get Away [100K Mile E30 325is]
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Here is how it will play out: you grab a bimmerheads ported and polished rebuilt head with a cam, attach some ceramic coated headers while you are at it, Drop that in sometime in June. then work on a stroker bottom end build and preparing for MS2 over the winter.
i kno, rite?
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Orrrrrrrr, k24 swap it & add cams. Better weight balance, more power, wasn’t brought to the US on the mayflower, etc.
reading this for 245hp makes my wallet cry
/roastme
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reading this for 245hp makes my wallet cry
/roastme
245hp at the crank after playing with the smoothing and correction factors, deleting the lot of 237bhp plots that preceeded it and dry-icing the intake.
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Orrrrrrrr, k24 swap it & add cams. Better weight balance, more power, wasn’t brought to the US on the mayflower, etc.
reading this for 245hp makes my wallet cry
/roastme
I honestly wonder what the cost difference would really be between building the M20 already in your car vs swapping a K24. The adapter plate is like $1500 alone.
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Oil pump location on the K motor is right in the middle of the subframe on an e21/e30. Not that it can't be done, but it's not pretty and there is some fabrication involved.
Luckily kmiata exists and takes the headache out of the swap. The e30 k swap is much simpler than the Miata k swap.
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I'd rather stay with the M20 platform at this point.
My original point was with the time/cost you’ll sink into a high strung 3.1L m20 would probably be close to putting a k in. Not to say the K is a cheap swap, but neither is building a motor.
that being said my vote would still be do whatever you want because a high strung stroker m20 sounds sweet
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My original point was with the time/cost you’ll sink into a high strung 3.1L m20 would probably be close to putting a k in. Not to say the K is a cheap swap, but neither is building a motor.
that being said my vote would still be do whatever you want because a high strung stroker m20 sounds sweet
Completely understand, it would definitely be a pricey build. I very much like the idea of retaining the M20, while being a modified variant, would adhere to the vast majority of maintenance, repairs, and trouble shooting sequences for a normal M20
I vote m20 stroker because it is OEM + and I am all for OEM +
I agree.
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With a car as clean and low mileage as yours I'd definitely be inclined to keep the original engine. There is absolutely no shame in liking an M20, they're pretty hard to hate! I'd love one to play around with again at some point.
I totally agree that M20's (and the M30) are some of the best sounding BMW engines too, anything newer has absolutely nothing on them.
The M30 is one of my favorite engines and I would absolutely buy a 535i just because of that but I also take exception to that last sentence...
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The M30 is one of my favorite engines and I would absolutely buy a 535i just because of that but I also take exception to that last sentence...
I'm glad to see the boat anchor is still going strong in this group!
I think doing any engine swap on this car is dumb.
It is a low mileage, low owner vehicle. While I do believe you should enjoy the vehicles you buy, I think if you wanted to build something swapped I would sell this one and build it off the profits. -
I'm glad to see the boat anchor is still going strong in this group!
I think doing any engine swap on this car is dumb.
It is a low mileage, low owner vehicle. While I do believe you should enjoy the vehicles you buy, I think if you wanted to build something swapped I would sell this one and build it off the profits.Technically he does have another shell
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Technically he does have another shell
Correct
Though that thing has been bouncing around like a bad case of VD.
Not that I helped the situation any! -
Here's my YouTube click baity post of the week. Going to be picking up something for the car in Madison this weekend that I kind of fell backwards into. Something I've wanted for a long time, and, even appears to be the same color as my car. Also a great deal that I couldn't pass up.
Insert capitalized words and exclamation points where you see fit.
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The M30 is one of my favorite engines and I would absolutely buy a 535i just because of that but I also take exception to that last sentence...
I was thinking 6 cylinder engines. Anything v8 isn't a fair comparison haha
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Did the LED light conversion kit on the car today. Just the interior, trunk, and number plate ones. Was able to do one number plate light as one of the screw heads was completely rusted. Was doing this at my house so didn’t have access to all my tools. Getting the license plate light on my check panel, not sure if this because there is a halogen and LED, or because the LED doesn’t register with the car. Had the same thing happen on my E46. Considering switch back because the light on the panel bothers me.
Interior dome lights are a little surgical for my liking, but do a much better job lighting the car. For the minimal amount of time they are on, it’s fine. The ash tray ones I wasn’t able to change as the LED stalk was too big for socket.
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TLDR:
I bought an E28 M5 spoiler. Believe it's the same color as my car.
Full, but quite the experience, story:
With not a lot to do during quarantine, been doing a lot of online window shopping for things for the E30. Found one of those "I have parts for *inset car here*, just ask me what you're looking for" type Craigslist ads. I figured why not just see what he might have, was just looking for unique/rare little bits to add to the car. He knew a guy who was selling an E28 M5 spoiler, but it was a little more than what I wanted to pay(reasonably priced for the part, just more than what I wanted to spend at the moment). Conversation stopped, but he ended up texting me like a week later saying that he actually did have one, just found it when he was going through some of his stuff. The insert was red, but was hard to tell from the pictures if it was the same red as my car. It had some blemishes, so he told me to make him an offer. I threw out a pretty low number in comparison to what these usually go for and to my surprise he accepted it. Told him I could come down Saturday and pick it up.
Saturday 5/16: Drive down to Middleton. I took a look at his address on Google maps before heading out. Looked like a small farm out in the country, so wasn't sure what to expect when getting there. Turns out the Google maps images were old, because at the end of his long, hilly driveway were two, large, brand new metal buildings. First one was in the shape of typical shop, probably 80x80 if I had to guess, and about 20 some feet tall. First car in the door was an E36 M3 on a lift, next to it was an Oldsmobile(not sure the model, 60s Camaro shaped), and next to that was Diamond Schwarz E30 M3.
Unfortunately, this was the only picture that I took. Never seen one on Borbet type A's, but I like it. Above the car, you can see there is a loft with a ton of parts on it(as you can, there's also a motorcycle up there lol). He had like 4 M-Tech 1 wheels, Momo wheels, new old stock S38 valve cover, euro E28 interior pieces, misc E30 pieces, etc. Just tons of stuff, all of which I took a look over. On the wall behind where I took this picture, there is another loft. Had E30 and E28 hoods, doors, trunks, windows, bumpers, etc. One caught my eye that I couldn't determine which it was. Turns out it was a euro M-Tech 1 bumper that he checked as a bag on flight from Germany...
So this building was divided in two parts(you can see the wall behind the E30). The door was open between the two and saw something through that I had never seen and had no idea what it was. We take a walk through and I felt like I was transported to the Peterson Museum. There were four 4 post lifts on one wall and two on the other wall, both had cars on top and below them. Two BMW 2000 CS's, two Auto Union badged Audi's that I had never seen before, a wood panel Willy's Wagon, a Nissan S-Cargo, Oldsmobile 88, old Germany military motorcycles, other old motorcycles from manufactures I had never heard of before, and probably 8 other cars.
The second building had 5 double wide garage doors spanning the length of building and was probably 30-40' deep. Once again, walk in the door and feel like I'm in Bruce Canepa's or Bruce Myer's garage. I'm looking over a sea of what had to be like 40 cars, most of things that I could vaguely recognize or had no idea what I was looking at. There was his E28 M5 a Messerschmitt car, the classic amphibious car, old VW looking wagons but were made by someone else, that weird electric car where the whole body folds on clam shell mechanism, and 30 other old German and other foreign cars. Both of the buildings have epoxy sealed floors, insulated walls, incredible LED lighting, and are climate controlled.
It was overwhelming(in a great way), because the last thing I was expecting to find in the hills of Middleton was this incredible car collection in these amazing buildings. The M5 spoiler was honestly an after thought in all of this. We grabbed it after 20 minutes of talking and it sat on a bench until we were done walking around the rest of the buildings.
These kind of finds are the things dreams are made of. The guy couldn't have been nicer and was really a BMW nerd. I think we were there for like an hour. I don't think I'll ever have a better Craigslist transaction experience in my life. This was completely stream of conscious typing, so it's possible I'm leaving things out.
Anyway, the spoiler. In pretty good condition, definitely is worth a lot more than what I paid for it. Has a couple of chips on the ends I should be able to fix. The paint was pretty hazy, so I started to polish it to see if I could get a better idea of the color. I had an old pad that I used on the car, so I couldn't get a good cut or polish. From what I was able to do, I think it's the same color as my car, or very close to it. Very stoked on it, think it's gonna look great on the car.
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