skubez

Just in case anyone was wondering, I bought the car with the intention of having just a run around car. I liked the look of the older BMW's and wanted something like the 2 door. This was cheap, and because of that it made sense as my girlfriend is learning to drive. However, I now have more of a thirst to modify it, so would like to work with what I have. I like the platform from which I can work from already, and it has that extra wow factor because it is a BMW. This won't be happening anytime soon mind you, I already have another car that I am working on, which is another Subaru. Later this year I will be looking to do a few more things to the BMW, so I will keeep you all posted. In the meantime, I would like to fix up a few problems that I have with it.

The car is smoking from the exhaust. I noticed also that there is some oil leaking from what looks like the rear of the car somewhere. Again, I will need to confirm. I haven't noticed the oil as yet, as I am still working on fixing the bonnet release lever. The thought of swapping engines was just an idea, I really don't have the money for that sort of thing anyway, but thought I would just ask. If I was going to swap the engine, and had the money to do so, I think I would also go for a motor that is already turbo'd. Probably look at something like a SR20DET, or 13B rotary. This would also mean getting some power steering, upgrading the suspension and brakes and basically a few other things like engine management. As for a recon, does anyone know about these, and where and how much?

Forgot to ask whether anyone has recon'd an engine before? Would it be worth recon'ing a 318 or just sourcing and dropping in a new motor like a 325? How much and where??

Hey Graeme, can you let me know if these parts are still available? How much would the parts cost for this?Do you sell parts normally?

My 318i has a 55L tank, so the gauge states anyway. Since running on 91 it does seem a lot smoother so I will continue running this until something changes. I live in Mt Eden, but the shore isn't that far away and I should be able to get over there during the day. I will try Bavarian motors and see if they can fix up the timing etc. Also, when I am cruising around town, I notive the petrol monitor gauge say I use around 7-8L per 100km on average. Open road driving at 100km/h it goes up to around 10L per 100km, and if I back off to around 90km/h it will then go down to around 6L per 100km. I don't know how accurate the gauge is however, it does jump around a bit.

Well I have been running the BMW on 96 or 98 (whatever is available where I am) and it has started to blow smoke. I switched to 91 the other day and the car seems to run smoother, and from my patented "seat'o'my pants meter" it seems to have the same amount of power if not more. I will need to get the timing looked at for sure, it is still running rough when cold. Can anyone suggest some good places to get BMW's looked at in Auckland that aren't the official BMW people - I can only imagine they will be hellishly expensive.

Hey all I noticed the other day that my car has started to smoke. If I have had it running for a while ie been on the m/way, or driving round town quite a bit, when I stop at an intersection and then accelerate off the car will puff smoke. Any ideas on what this could be? Head gasket? Valve sleeves? Someone suggested to me to use some slightly more viscous oil? Another problem was when I went to open up the hood to check the oil levels, I pulled on the bonnet release handle and nothing happened. Does anyone know how I can fix this? The handle is hanging all limp now - maybe it needs some car viagara?

Where can you get this done? If the car didn't already have power steering, would they need to do much in addition to replacing the rack and pump?

Thanks Grant. I might look into getting one of the speedline wheels for my car. Segedins on Dominion Rd seem to have a good range of wheels.

Alright then, I will bleed and replace the brake fluid, and then if the pedal feels alright will look at replacing the pads. Any ideas on the power steering? Where is a good place to buy some used BMW parts? I wouldn't mind taking a look at getting some other parts for the car also, my drivers door needs a new hinge I think, and my ciggy lighter doesn't work - only a problem when I need to plug my phone in

The other difference between fibreglass and carbon panels is that fibreglass get staticly charged by passing air flow, and consequently picks up a lot of dust. People driving Lotus Espirits noted this as being a big problem in the early days, I don't know if they were able to rectify the problem. I don't think cf hoods have the same problem.

Does it have discs all round? The pedal is very spongy! I have been thinking of naming it SpongeBob!

How much are the boss kits normally? And where can you get the boss kits from?

Hi All Well, I have been driving my E30 around now for several weeks and am quite pleased with my purchase, except for a couple of things which I would like to rectify. 1) I want to upgrade the brakes on my E30 318i. I am unsure (only cos I'm too lazy to take a look at the moment) of what the car has in its current setup, all I know is that I have to plan well ahead before I stop currently. I have been thinking of getting some rotors and callipers off another car (either BMW or other) and upgrade this way. Can anyone advise me on how much of a task this would be?? 2) The car doesn't have power steering, and I realise I should probably have just bought a car with it already in - but I didn't. Could I install a power steering unit (pump and additional equipment) from another BMW 318i or similar car? What are the challenges involved here? I am not having a problem with the steering at the moment, but later on I would like upgrade the springs which would make it a harder still. At the moment, I am just thinking about these things. If it all works out to be too much of a hassle, or far too expensive, I will probably see if someone wants to swap the E30 for a Toyota Starlet or something. Cheers all.

Cheers Grant I need to get the car serviced anyways as it runs rough and stalls just after you turn it on. I have to hold the throttle in (on about 1500rpm) for about 20 secs to stop it from stalling. It probably just needs a good oil change etc. Hopefully it will run a little better after that. Cheers for all the replies by the way. You guys (and girls ) have been really helpful.

I have a sneaky suspicion that someone may have modded up my 318i, it uses quite a lot more gas than I expected a N/A car to use (especially one with EFi - someone please let me know if it doesn't have EFi!!) and the other thing that alerted me to mods was the odd whining noise near the rear of the car that sounds similar to aftermarket fuel pumps. It also has a pod filter, MOMO gear knob etc so someone may have been tinkering around with it at some point. Is there anyway I can check whether this car has EFi? My sister drove the car from Wellington to Taupo for me at the weekend and it used 3/4's of a tank to get there. Does anyone know if this would be a normal amount - and my sister doesn't drive hard by the way.

Cheers guys. Well, I have finally got my new (old) BMW. I found that it isn't that much more economic on gas than my WRX, but it might be cos I've been trying to ring it out a bit. I haven't filled it up yet, but I will try to run it on 91 to start with and then switch to see how it goes. I will probably end up running 96 just for the added performance factor even though it costs a bit more.

Hi all I still haven't taken delivery of my new BMW yet, this is happening on Sunday (woohoo ), but was kinda wondering what gas I should be using for my long drive from Wellington to Auckland. I really don't want to go all that way on the wrong gas and stuff anything up. What are you guys/girls using? What is the car supposed to run on? I have heard that all n/a cars should run fine on 91, but then I have also heard that older cars may not, and should run on 96?

A hundy for a cold air box is a pretty good deal. Can you please give me some more info and/or pics cos I am quite keen also! Cheers.

Oh, thought I might add that I have driven a few cars that have had aftermarket ECU's - all of them Subaru's. The big thing with these is that you can customise how your car runs - ie if you want to get rid of the safe factory settings and run your car on some harder settings you can, likewise if you fill it up with some bad petrol somewhere you can retard the timing so you don't hurt your car too much (probably more pertinent to turbo cars though). From what I know of Link, it isn't as good as some other replacement/piggy back ECU's only because it doesn't have the processing power. They all have their pro's and con's, but I would definitely look at whether an Apexi Power FC would work on an E30 - this just has more options and processing power than the Link, although it stills requires you to run an AFM. But with the AFM, there are things you can do to de-restrict the airflow, most of them have screens on either side of the sensor (why there is one on the rear side of some I don't know??) but these can be removed if need be. Nothing should get through your air filter setup that could hurt your sensor - well it shouldn't do. And with any mods, you will notice an increase in performance, however big or small, but this will depend on how you want to run your car - on the edge or safe!

Hey E30-323ti, what kind of ECU are you running Link or other? I notice your description says your car is a TT with 280HP, thats pretty impressive!! What else have you done to it?