Hi Guys,
I've decided that I need another E30 in my life, and this time I planning to do it right.
Rewind to 6 weeks ago, some friends and I are having a few drinks on a Friday evening. One friend was browsing facebook and mentioned that he found a '96 328i factory manual for sale. Only $1000 he said. This sounded too good to be true....and it was...sorta...
The car was water damaged - I'm not 100% on the details, but something something Dunedin floods. Surely if it's a factory manual, the manual parts alone would be worth the money and effort.
I thought about it for a while, and then tried to convince myself that it was a stupid idea and to forget about it...I failed. I called the guy, and told him I would take the car and pick it up tomorrow. The car was located in a wreckers yard in Dunedin. I managed to persuade a friend of mine with access to a car trailer and shop to make the trek from Christchurch down to Dunedin with me the next morning.
Jumping forward a couple of days and this is my view:
After decoding the VIN number of the car, it turned out the car was actually a factory automatic and must've been converted at some point.
We started tearing into the car, and it quickly be came evident that, yes, this car was very water damaged. A thin layer of silt covered everything.
As we dug deeper, things started to look worse (not unexpectedly). We found water sitting atop cylinder 1's intake valves, but 2-6 all looked perfectly fine. Draining the sump resulted in roughly 10L of water with mixed about 6L of chocolate milk...not great.
Further investigation found that the car has a ZF 310 5 speed transmission, an OEM 328i dual-mass flywheel + clutch. Cool, at least the conversion looks like it was done properly.
At this point I still hadn't decided what I wanted with to the parts from this car, But I'd been looking for a project car, and I felt I needed another E30 in my life.
As it turned out, my friend's father has this little beauty that he's willing to sell.
It's by no means perfect, but it's a straight, rust free, registered, '89 318i automatic coupe in my favourite colour (Delphin grey).
A good starting point for my project E30. Jumping back to the present, I've pulled the engine and drivetrain out of the 328. The engine is sitting on a stand, and I intend on stripping it down and rebuilding it.
Once it's ready, I plan to swap it into the E30 with the manual transmission. From there I plan to do new suspension, med-case LSD, wheels + tyres, and general tidying up. Eventually I would like to have the car's paint redone as it's a little rough in places.
Looking at the task at hand, I know I have a fair bit of work ahead of me. But I'm ready for the challenge!
Any help finding the various 24v swap components would be great.
I know I need the sump, oil pickup, dipstick, and throttle cable from a 525i E34.
Not 100% on what to do about the brake booster, although moving it over a bit seems like the easiest solution.
The water-damaged ECU is toast, so I need a new one. I would like to keep OBD2. Thinking of getting a (red-label?) ECU and having it flashed (EWS delete, rear O2 delete, M50 manifold, maybe even a higher redline?)
E28 535i engine mounts seem to be the way to go, although I've read mentions of an additional spacer is required?
Subframe reinforcement is also something I want to do.
I would like to use as much of the 328i's factory exhaust as possible as it's still in good condition. Not sure how much of a plain it would be to chop it up.
I want to use the E36 radiator and do an electric puller fan conversion.
