1985 E30 318i 5-speed coupe

[gjm 3258]

i'm curious - what benefits are to be had from the Motronic conversion? One imagines that if there are any improvements in torque and power they'd be incremental at best?

On it's own, it gives more accurate fueling and timing, so the car should (in theory) respond better and be more economical. Performance... A little better.

It does mean that any other changes down the line can be better exploited. Cams, exhaust, inlet - that sort of thing.

For me though, I enjoy the journey. There's a little madness involved, no doubt, but it's there, so let's do it!

[hotwire 352]

Ok, I stand corrected. I thought the issue would be the Motronic dizzy into the front of the M10 cam, & cover. Along with the fitting of the CPS.

you saying that late M10's blocks came with provision for?

Edit - carpet I would make a cut under the heater & remove. Will never notice once back in place

Edited October 6, 2015 by hotwire

[gjm 3258]

Ok, I stand corrected. I thought the issue would be the Motronic dizzy into the front of the M10 cam, & cover. Along with the fitting of the CPS.

you saying that late M10's blocks came with provision for?

I think it was the '87 & '88 M10s that had the CPS mounting holes in the block. With our car being an '85, that may prove a problem. I wasn't aware of and don't recall any problems with the dizzy, but maybe rose-tinted hindsight is fooling me.

Edit - carpet I would make a cut under the heater & remove. Will never notice once back in place

That was my thought. It'll certainly make all the other checks a lot easier, especially if any floor welding is needed. That said, I suspect the heater matrix could require replacing as at some point the heater has been disconnected from the cooling system - there are two pipes visible in the engine bay with no hoses attached to them.,

[Allanw 1071]

You're mental.

I like it.

I have 4 cans of bog you can have Fill in the moulding channels on the doors etc - make it "custom". You can even make a mean bodykit with enough bog and polystyrene

Nah - I reckon it's one of those cars you have to make an effort to not overcapitalise on, so some stuff ends up "custom", because it cheap Great first cat for miss M

[aja540i 1906]

On it's own, it gives more accurate fueling and timing, so the car should (in theory) respond better and be more economical. Performance... A little better.

It does mean that any other changes down the line can be better exploited. Cams, exhaust, inlet - that sort of thing.

For me though, I enjoy the journey. There's a little madness involved, no doubt, but it's there, so let's do it!

Cough turbocharging cough!

[gjm 3258]

Cough turbocharging cough!

<Cough!> NO! <Cough!>

Lol

My aim is to make it as easy to drive as possible, while still being fun. Mrs M learned to drive in a 1979 Opel Kadett C2 12S coupe, a stunningly wonderful little car, now with a cult following in Europe even with it's 1.2 engine. At least it didn't get the rattly POS 1256cc boat anchor that Vauxhall manufactured. Holden and Isuzu marketed something very similar here, called the Gemini. It was a GM 'World Car.'

Today I cut the carpet, attack the rust around the top of the rear light panel (I gained access to a handheld sandblaster yesterday) and get the whole thing properly up in the air so I can see just what else is needed.

[kulgan 1042]

Cool project and I'm liking the Marine blue interior. It grows on you. I hated it when I saw the pics of my 750i but now I have it I wouldn't change it for anything.

Lot's of work to keep you very busy.

Have you got a time frame to have all this done by?

I'm going to enjoy watching you progress on this.

[gjm 3258]

Time frame... Well, Miss M turns 16 next June. I'd like to have it on the road before then to check everything is working as it should.

[kulgan 1042]

8 months. Plenty of time..lol

[gjm 3258]

Carpet and sound deadening stuff out. The carpet had dried, but what was underneath was soggy, particularly in the passenger front footwell. Green staining shows the source of at least some of this - heater matrix has let go at some point. (Need to check with Miss M whether she feels she really needs a heater!)

A little more rust found, but still nothing that looks disastrous.

Time to dry it out and see what gives.

[will 169]

Keen, blind, silly, over-enthusiastic... Hopefully I'm not deceiving myself too much and haven't simply convinced myself "it's not too bad!"

There's a fair bit of work to do, but it can be done - we did it back in the UK. You can run a lambda sensor, fancy ECU programming, use a MAF instead of an AFM, fault finding is better, less components... Lots of parts needed:

• ECU
• CPS and mounting bracket
• Toothed crank wheel
• Engine bay loom including injector loom
• Cylinder ID sensor
• Oil level sender
• Oil pressure switch (although the loom can be adapted to use the existing one)
• Dizzy cap & rotor arm
• Temperature gauge sender
• Cam dust cover
• Cam rotor adapter
• Injectors
• AFM

These parts all come from a car already fitted with the Motronic 1.3 set up.

It's some way down the road. Bodywork first - that'll be the deciding factor in whether or not this goes any further. Then wiring and getting it running as well as possible while still using the L-Jet set up. Interior, and then, maybe, the Motronic conversion. The CPS bracket could be the biggest issue: later L-Jet engines had the holes in the block to have the bracket mounted, while some earlier engines do not.

For now I'm deliberating whether to cut the carpet around the heater box to get it out, or leave it in and work around it.

You essentially need all the bits off an M40 1.8 motor (wiring loom, ECU, injectors, AFM etc..) to make this work without too much hunting for bits like a custom ECU, MAF etc. Mounting the CPS should not be much of a problem even if the mounting point you refer to is not there. Mounting the bits like TPS, throttle body etc involves quite a bit of fabrication. It would definitely be a far easier exercise to drop in a M40 with 'box ( the m10 'box will not bolt up properly to the m40), but not half as much fun to do/get the m10 working with motronic electronics though.. I have not personally done this conversion, but I know how it has been done by others, and don't consider it to be too difficult to do if you have reasonable spanner, electrical and fabrication skills.

Ok, I stand corrected. I thought the issue would be the Motronic dizzy into the front of the M10 cam, & cover. Along with the fitting of the CPS.

you saying that late M10's blocks came with provision for?

Edit - carpet I would make a cut under the heater & remove. Will never notice once back in place

You don't need to use the front mounted dizzy, the m10 one is utilised purely as a 'distributor' of the spark, all the electrical internals are abandoned and the vacuum/centrifugal timing is locked. You just need to ensure that it is timed so that the rotor is facing the correct pin in the cap when the motronic fires the spark. You can also utilise a wasted spark system and ditch the distributor altogether, or use a m42 ECU with individual coils and other associated wiring and hardware... too many options...

Edited October 7, 2015 by will

[gjm 3258]

This drying out malarky is taking a while. Fortunately, just this once, the weather is on my side.

While I was waiting, I got the outside all wet again and cleaned a lot of muck off. It looks a lot better than it did. Long way to go, and having washed it I can tell it has had paint on at least two occasions in the past.

At the moment I'm fighting an urge to completely strip it and do a ground-up job. No! Must not...

Couple more things that may/will be needed: a glove box, and a bonnet release cable. Using mole grips wears a bit thin after a while.

[hotwire 352]

You don't need to use the front mounted dizzy, the m10 one is utilised purely as a 'distributor' of the spark, all the electrical internals are abandoned and the vacuum/centrifugal timing is locked. You just need to ensure that it is timed so that the rotor is facing the correct pin in the cap when the motronic fires the spark. You can also utilise a wasted spark system and ditch the distributor altogether, or use a m42 ECU with individual coils and other associated wiring and hardware... too many options...

Yep, realize that, I was merely thinking of "complete" Motronic conversion.

[gjm 3258]

Just verified the rego is on hold. One less hurdle to overcome.

The drying is going well - fingers crossed for a fine weekend so I can get some more work done.

[Olaf 3320]

you were joking about the heater, right?! safety item for winter driving in NZ.

cool project, Graham. Is your daughter pitching in?

[gjm 3258]

you were joking about the heater, right?! safety item for winter driving in NZ.

cool project, Graham. Is your daughter pitching in?

I've an idea what is involved in replacing the heater...

Edit: I've just done some research and it looks as though I was led astray by the many 'dashboard out' assumptions for doing this. I've found several reports of replacing the core and valve in under 2 hours.

My daughter said she'd be doing some work. Strangely, the entire interior is stripped out, the exterior has been cleaned, and the carpets and underlay dried, but I've not seen her near the car yet...

Edited October 10, 2015 by gjm

[Young Thrash Driver 1020]

Good grief, how did I miss this thread? Great to see you (finally) found something! Good luck- looks like you may need a little bit Very interested to watch this projects progress.

[gjm 3258]

Thanks Colin.

All being well, I pick up another E30 coupe rolling shell this afternoon (black, no engine, box or... Well, pretty much anything else!) and will then evaluate the two shells and decide which one to use. The white one unsurprisingly does have rust but nothing too serious, but starting with a bare shell would give an opportunity to do a 'proper' job. Perhaps.

And... I may be taking delivery of a E21 320 auto before Christmas. More on that another time.

[Young Thrash Driver 1020]

Graham, have you gone mad??? Haha sounds like you are having way too much fun, good on you

[gjm 3258]

The 'other' car is on the drive now... (Pics to follow). It had been stripped in prep for a drift project, but that's as far as it got. The PO had sandblasted all the rust he could find and primed, and cut a rusty area out of the firewall (which will obviously require replacing).

It's another 318i automatic (the white one has been converted) made in the same month and year as the white coupe.

This one does not have a sunroof, but does have a rear bumper and both opening rear quarter lights (which we were looking for).

The question now is whether to use the black car to make the white one good, or t'other way about!

[gjm 3258]

OK. Pics of the black 318i coupe. Incidentally, the white and black cars were manufactured in the same month and year. Only significant from-the-factory difference is that the black car does not have a sunroof. (Of course, the white car has since been converted to manual, while the black car hasn't [yet] got that far.) Both cars are from Japan.

The black coupe has the opening coupe rear windows that are missing from the white car, most of the chrome trims, and a rear bumper. (Still need a front one, if anyone has one?) There's also a big pile of parts - heater, drivers and rear seat (rear seat is really nice!), the loom, dash (some cracks), auto pedal box, rubber seals, front lights and mounts, +++. No engine, gearbox or radiator, and certainly other parts missing too.

So - we now have two July 1985 E30 318i automatic coupes. Questions is: do I transfer parts from the white car to the black one? If we were to do a proper job, there's still a lot of parts to come off either for a respray, but the black car does have a head start.

There's been lots of sandblasting - here's a bucket or so of spent material.

Insignificant surface rust, provided it's treated soon - a finger wipe removes it.

Something missing. Can't quite put my finger on what...

Firewall was rusty as, so a piece has been removed and the area cleaned and primed, ready for repair.

Little bit of tin worm in the rear right quarter.

Similar, rear left corner. There's also a very small amount in the centre (not pictured).

More little nibbles under the battery tray.

[eliongater 718]

I saw that black car on face book, not a bad deal at all.

[gjm 3258]

I saw that black car on face book, not a bad deal at all.

It actually looks better than the white one - Rick had spent some time on it.

It'd retain it's M10 status, but I'm checking the re-reg reqs before making any decisions.

[gjm 3258]

Will came over today and cast an eye over the brace of coupes, and we're agreed - the black one is the better bet (for me). The white is easily sorted, certainly for track, but the black one presents a better option for a road car.

So... More stripping of the black shell to be done. I'll confess - this is getting more involved than I had originally planned, but hopefully it'll not all be bad and I can get down to enjoying doing something constructive!

This won't be any sort of attempt at creating a concours car. It'll be tidy, solid, and safe. It should be fun to drive, and easy to maintain.

I hope!

[duvey 245]

Awesome stuff Graham.