1987 e30 M3

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

After almost 3 years I picked my E30 M3 up from Wellington Port on Sunday afternoon..

She sounded awesome!!!

Watch this space for pictures and write-up

Laurence

[drifty325i 0]

Awesome well done mate, cant wait to see some picks!!

[3 SERIES 92]

So it is real Laurence

Pics to proove!

[Dyl 4]

I was going Nato after 2 weeks without mine. I don't know how you did three years.

[martyyn 2]

I still dont believe it.

[M3 Cab 0]

Such a tease. Pics or ban

[Guest Ari Gold]

It sat on the docks for 3 years?!?!

[Guest Simon*]

Yeah I don't believe it either

Hurry up Laurence

[tire 10]

Three words - about.fcuking.time

[Forrest 35]

^ werd

[huff3r 347]

So when's the next O'bay meet then? haha not really fish and chips weather anymore is it?

Must be a million times better than that VW thing you turned up in last time

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

The Beginning

A long long time ago (2006 to be precise), and after months of reading articles, I decided to look for an e30 M3 to buy. A few months went on and I was getting no-where fast.. There weren't any e30 M3's for sale in New Zealand, anywhere!

Sight Unseen I jumped straight into a deal and bought an M3 I had found for sale in Japan. I liaised with some people, and people who knew people, and people who knew people who knew people and finally in May, after a lot of paperwork I owned my very own M3.

Car transporter from Auckland down to Wellington and a few days later it arrived at my door.

I checked it over. Not too bad. A little bit of rust here and there in the engine bay, some of the interior was missing, cracked but it seemed relatively nice. The car was pretty much stock standard and only had 62,000 miles on it. 100,000kms didn't seem to bad and the VIN search revealed it spent it previously life in a dry state in the US before making it's way to Japan.

Naturally all but 2 tools in the boot had been pawned by the P.O or dodgy dealer in Japan and the interior looked a bit average. The VIN check also revealed it was a U.S Spec 2.3L with 4.1 Diff and Getrag gearbox. A Euro spec m3 would have been nicer but I was pretty happy to get any M3 and figured they weren't too different when it came down to it.

WTF, the P.O had decided it would be cool to weld a crappy piece of black exhaust to the headers without a muffler. I decided that needed fixing and started to ring around to find out what I needed to do for a W.O.F and Rego.

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

Down South (2006)

Argh, the lady at VTNZ had failed to tell me I needed to Import the M3 in MY name.. Lame/S**t !!!

"You will have to convert your car to RHD" I was told.

I think I spent the next 20 mins #@%$#%#% and &&@^%#*#*@ then ^$% as I was extremely pissed.

Right, I'll convert it to RHD and that will be that..

Hmm. Where am I going to get a conversion done around here?? I started to call shop after shop but everyone was reluctant to do a conversion for me. No-one would quote me prices, let alone worked on any sort of M3.

i spent the next month or so scouting around trying to find someone that could help out. A friend of mine had just finished a rebuild of his e30 M3 EVO and told me of this guy down in the deep south (where snow and sheep are).

Seemed like a good road to travel so I made contact (with my mechanic) and organised to ship my M3 off to Invercargille.

Late 2006 (August I think ) I said bye to the car and shipped it down, with the intention of converting it to RHD and leaving it 2.3L stock. After all the compression test I had done a few weeks earlier showed good even pressure through all cylinders and I had read of the $$ of rebuilds.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Old_Skool_Bmw

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

To Convert or Not to Convert (2007)

Sweet, my Car conversion was finally under way. The parts had been priced up and my mechanic was ready to get stuck into the conversion.. I would have to make a new set of headers to fit the RHD e30 rack (from my old 325i) but it didn't seem too big of a deal..

Then, literally as the car was on it's way to the paint shop for the engine bay re-spray and RHD holes to be cut I made a new discovery.

I made a few phone calls (cheers to my old work for the toll calls.. I mean totally legit work calls I had to make and stuff ) and spoke with my mechanic.

"leave it LHD for now, I might be onto something".

As the car was in the panel shop we went ahead with the re-spray.. NICE. But we left the RHD on the back burner and I made a few more calls.

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

Rebuild (2007/2008)

After discovering that the engine was in fact a little more rooted than i first thought (I knew it was those dodgy sheep from down south) my mechanic started to cost up replacing all the parts to 'freshen' the car up.

New timing chain, new pistons, new injectors, new this, new that.. I may as well rebuild the whole damn thing!!

So thats what I decided to do.. i set about doing some precise and exact research (a.k.a youtube, google pictures). This research thing was kinda cool. But I knew what I had to do. I posted on a couple of forums and started to look into my options.. Everyone was going on about this MAXX kit with a C/F Airbox on their e30 M3's. 15-20 more HP, quicker response, as there wasn't any airflow problems.

I was pretty much sold after the first few pictures and it helped that I had just been for a ride in my friends e30 M3 EVO, The sound, pick-up was so much better than what my 2.3L seemed to feel like.

So I made contact with my mechanic again and we started to price up a 2.3L engine rebuild with C/F airbox and mostly new parts (to replace the tired & worn stuff).

Over the next few months I discovered that shipping car parts from other countries to New Zealand took a while. Why did everyone on the US think it was another U/S State. "No, it's actually a country not and Island and it's down in the Pacific"... "Oh, you mean Australia"..

Anyways the rebuild had begun, all be it slowly but it was well on the way.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Old_Skool_Bmw

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

2.3L to 2.4L to 2.5L (2008/2009)

NICE, we were upgrading the cams to run higher HP. Well before this we had made another discovery. The cylinders were looking pretty shagged and we might as well bore the cylinder block out to 2.5L piston spec..

Cool, 2.3L crank and 2.5L pistons. Made it about 2.4L and rev-happy.

The head and bottom end were sent away for machining and cleaning up and arrived back at the workshop ready for the installation of the new pistons and cams. The engine was slowly pieced back together and started to look like a complete engine again

We were still waiting for the C.F airbox (hello.. New Zealand is NOT that hard to find on a map). The C/F airbox finally arrived down south and the everything was all go..

Right, time to sort out that exhaust.. Ditch the old P.O.S black tubing and replace it with a nice duel pipe exhaust from germany, complete with Euro tips). I happened to score a pretty nice exhaust kit from a cool dude in Germany and that was sent to New Zealand (those guys actually know where we live ). it didn't take too long to arrive and i was told it was a good set-up for the 2.4L engine. (lots of breathing room).

Off to the dyno..

The car was shipped to a local dyno shop and was running ok but had a few ugly noises coming from the bottom end. Back to the Work shop where it was discovered a hairline crack had developed on the 2.3L crank!!!

(And i thought BMW was reliable ))

A few calls took place and we decided there was only one thing to do.

2.5L the b**ch

A 2.5L crank was ordered and a few more things in the engine replaced (new injectors to run more fuel etc etc)

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

(I just noticed how many people are reading this while I type it.. I can't help that I one finger type, LOL J/K)

M3 Comes home (with pictures) (2009)

The year was 2009, the sun was shining (only on week days.. damn you wet weather weekends!!) and I was getting pretty excited as my M3 was finally making it's way to me after a long 2 1/2 years.

The 2.5L was complete and we had opted for a MoTeC M48 to look after all the figures and engine computer thingy whatsit stuff.

Onto the Dyno in Christchurch (Cheers NZEFI) and my mechanic went up to check their handy work..

Not too bad was the report to me.. Engine was super responsive and running nice HP

210Hp (conservative tuning for now) at the wheels, up from the stock standard 195hp at the fly from factory..

Quick calculations told me was had gained somewhere in the region of 60-80hp on the rebuild

So we had a 2.5L crank, Schrick Cams, bigger injectors, C/F airbox, mostly new engine parts and I had recently acquired some custom Recaro SR seats and BBS RS wheels..

Almost 3 years to the day since I first bought my M3 it arrived back in Wellington (on a typically windy/rainy day).

I have to say I was pretty nervous and excited to see the car again, and check out the shiny stuff.

Plus I've learned that it's NOT cool to store car parts in your house for 6 months

Finally on Sunday the car touched down in Wellington and I picked it up from the docks..

Drove it home and put on the seats and BBS RS almost straight away :D

(Sorry I didn't snap any pictures with the stock standard basket weaves etc but I may put them on again at some stage.

Hmm.. 102db at 3000rpm's might be a little too loud but the exhaust-C/F airbox combo was awesome...

3000 up to 7000rpm and the sound was louder (SOOOO swweeeeet!)

Thought I had better take some pictures so I cleaner her up and snapped a few quick shots this morning

Hope you enjoy.

Edited May 12, 2009 by Old_Skool_Bmw

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

Laurence

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

EDIT: If someone knows how to make them full size that would be pretty cool

Cheers,

Laurence

[BM WORLD 1258]

nice write up . good to see someone doing properly and moding these M engines , i too am thinking about doing my M5 engine that i have in the e28 . stroke it with a 86mm(from a e34 535i) or if i can get a 3.8L M5 90mm crank . custom light weight pistons borede out a bit on the factory rods to make about 3.66L and headers etc .

well we can all dream .

good work

Edited May 12, 2009 by Brent HARTGE535i

[darkwolf 0]

Glad to hear it all went well. I was waiting for a horror story at the end. Suspense was unreal.

[Forrest 35]

This is fantastic Laurence, a real credit to you, and you have far more patience than I would. Must be time to organise another Welly BS Cruise to celebrate, especially with my car rolling too.

- Nathan

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]

Just had a look through the pictures.. sorry they don't really do it justice (Anyone with a decent camera keen to do a photo shoot sometime ?!?!?)

Also keen to get a video w/sound of the engine revving from 2500 rpms - 7000rpms.

Anyone with a Video recorder?

Laurence

[Old_Skool_Bmw 0]