petone

does a rollcage count as show or go?

that depends on the reason you have one doesn't it?

Could say the same thing about bigger wheels, I want to go bigger for handling reasons but most get alloys for the looks.

I'm all for a healthy mix as long as looks don't come at the expense of performance, like a pod sucking in hot air, heavy chrome wheels, etc, you know what i mean.

At the moment though none are important to me, I'd rather have cash for other things.

Absolutely agree with this, it is gutless unless you rev the sh1t out of it...

Did my mate's 318 over some years ago. He wanted to stick with the 2l-4cyl because of the weight advantage over the M20 engine, but wanted heaps more grunt.

We balanced the bottom end of the motor, skimmed and reprofiled the combustion chambers in the head to up the compression , flowed and ported it with bigger intake valves. chucked the fuel injection off and added 2x45 sidedraught twinchoke webers on a decent manifold, added a really wild cam, had a decent flowed exhaust manifold  and exhaust made up, lowered it on 16" alpinas.

It went like a bloody scalded cat, ate my standard facelift 325 E30 bauer cabriolet for breakfast.... also really handled extremely well because of the lesser weight up front too...

Won't talk about the fuel consumption at full tilt tho'... :beer:

Do you mind telling me what the total bill for the engine was? just curious about bang for buck. Also, why did you ditch the EFI? was it just easier to tune or was the EFI setup too restrictive, or something else entirely?

Cheers

edit: brighton, half the problem would be the auto box, although mine's 5spd and still horribly slow. Is the 320 auto or manual?

e21 will be sh*t slow......and you wont get 6 for your car

its a harsh world

yeah but so is a E30 320 auto, if anything the e21 will be faster than the e30, so what if its down 5hp, its lighter and is 5spd

That E21 will probably go better than your E30, but the E30 would handle better and IMO looks better as well, haven't seen a E21 I like yet, thats just me though. I also think you'd be lucky to get 6K for your car, no harm trying though. Have a look on trademe and see what they are going for.

E21 parts would be way harder to come across, especially performance bits. You should really try and get a manual kit for your car, and BTW you can't put the e21 box in.

Looks real good, what engines in there?

Nice boot install, looks similar to what I have done.

words fail me

Theres more conversions than that on the site

Matt has a 12A in his E30, while 2 other have put in other bmw engines, an M50 and an M30 turbo, both in E30's as well

looking good -

hah for a change I didn't even clean the car for a BMWCC event.. i'm going for dirty esirty.

And judging by outside.. its gonna rain hard.

Thats nothing, I have a confession to make...

My car hasn't been washed for 4 months. There still mud all over from a grass/mud event I did a month ago.

*Runs away and hides in shame*

I get around around 9 or 10L/100 around town and around 7L/100km on the open road, Can't tell you how much a full tank cost as I never fill it up.

Clutches the pressure plate and disc etc are fine, AFAIK mine is still original after 250'000km. Hydraulice problems are quite common though. Easily fixed though, around $100 for a new master cylinder or $50 IIRC for the slave.

Cambelts, early 318i have a chain so it doens't need replaceing, Not sure about the M40 whether its chain or belt. As e30stz said its not worth worrying about.

Definatly buy the workshop manual and you don't need the reset tool. Just use a wire and short to points on the plug. Easy.

You can do most things yourself. I'm 19 and just taught myself and my car hasn't been to a garage or workshop in the 2 years I've owned it. Have had a bit of help from a few people on this site.

Insurance can be a problem, Often I can't even get past saying its a BMW and I'm 18 before they have refused cover. Then when I say its had some modifications done its all over. It helps I have had insurance for a few years now though. I would either put it in your parents name or try the same insurance company that they use but in your name. The problem with using your parents name is that its harder a few years down the track to get cover in your name. AMI, NAC or your olds company would be your best bet.

Basically a help yourself yard. Pay a dollar to go in have a look at heaps of cars, pull off the bits you want then go pay. Cheaper than normal yards.

Parts are cheap, and they are simple cars so servicing shouldn't be a problem, just DIY it.

318i is an ideal first car, thats what I got when I was 15. Slow as sh*t, but I'd kill for the gas consumption again, my best was 6.6l/100km, which is better than Toyotas claim for the Echo.

Yip, what he said, be an ideal first car. Should be nothing major wrong at those km's. If anything most the the stuff that was going to go wrong has already gone wrong. They are pretty simple cars and theres loads of parts everywhere. I reckon biggest worry would be rust. It does seem a little expensive though.

Andy- she's in dunners, cook straight will be the killer on transporting it.

Huh? What happens? Does it just run out of steam or is it hitting the limiter early? Yeah, definate engine change time. Have you seen that manual conversion on trademe?

thats huge! is that on a hub dyno or rolling road? Thats some serious competition Glen.

just check the part no's on the ETK. the link is stickyd somehwere

V.Nice, pitty it is missing the B & C pillars, oh, and the roof!!

There is a woman here in wgtn that has one exactly the same, but the front wheels are on the rear and rears on the front!! Monkey's!!!

Haha, I bet understeer is unheard of.

Cool M3 BTW, i like those mags that come on them.

Danm that vert is hot

As for strut brace, supposedly nice improvement if you have a vert but if you have a roof they don't make as a big a difference

if your going to do the car up don't bother with the 2l, you'll only be wanting more power n a few months time, they are not a fast car, even with a 5spd box. Mtech2 wont fit on you car with out heaps of work, the sides will fit but the front and rear will require lots of custom work.

PS: Please use punctuation. Makes your posts so much easier for everyone to read.

very rad.

It all counts though. If he spends a little bit each time on improving the entire system. He will have something better than what he started with.

True, but the problem is before any worth while gains are made he will have spent as much as what a engine transplant will cost.

Just a general rant about intakes, I've heard so many different theroies from so many different people I have no idea what an ideal setup is. The only thing they have in common is that air should be a cold as possible. Some people have said that its best if the air is stationary, others say the ram-air effect does work though you have to be going about 150kmh to have any noticable effect. Then there all that talk about pods creating vortexes, or swirls or whatever. I've heard all that different rubbish from people who have all been playing with motors for a long time.

As sic has said, the only way to tell is dyno time.

Sic- about time we saw some decent pics of your car.

Heres the 2 different intakes i've had on mine

This is my current setup:

and my older one, the pod sat behind the foglights.

Both have that intake noise, I have to say they do sound cool, especially when you take it to redline under load.

You sure that tire size is right? Thats smaller than what would go on an E30.

I realise that but 100k is pretty much the standard time for a cambelt change. Just wondering why andy reckoned it was so much shorter for M20's.

Depends how much you want to spend, say anywhere from $200 upwards a tyre. size your after is 215/40 17. 18's is a huge price jump, also there too big for E30's IMO.