Slowly but Surely- 325iX, 325iS, and E30M3 resurrection

[blue91lx]

broke ground on the pole barn, found out the hard way that i used to have septic, and did some reassembly on the white car!

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[blue91lx]

Operation turn my entire backyard into a pole barn is underway

For reference, those two center beams on the sides are over 20'

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



I also made some more progress on the TXholdem

I used the AFM that came with the car, and had a miss under load. Surprise, that AFM was bad.

I used the radiator that I got with the car, went to bleed the coolant and it leaked through the end tanks. Replaced with a nissens.

New PS lines STILL LEAKED so I ordered alloy crush washers instead of copper. NO MORE PS LEAKS

Got the Ansa Sport aligned a little better.

Tail lights that came with the car looked fine in photos but were all sorts of cracked. Replaced with a good set.

The front valence and trunk lid that came with the car were in awful shape, so I had a straight valence, air ducts, trunk lid, and iS spoiler painted. I did another buyout last weekend, and it came with a genuine alpine II iS lip, so I threw that on the car. Shoutout to @E30bastard for the smoked fogs!!!! What a legend

Installed good fender liners, splash shields, under tray, and air ducts to finish it off.

Blower motor works well, needs resistor which I'll install soon. Wipers work as intended, shockingly. This thing is almost over the finish line!

I'm going to plate it and give it a good shake down once the weather breaks.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
​​​​​​​Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[blue91lx]

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[DocWalt]

Wow, making quick progress!

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Wow, making quick progress!

The crew has been killing it! The color matches nicely with the house. It's intimidating making such a big decision based on a 1"x1" swatch, but really worked out. Went with a burgundy and a charcoal.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



Also, Hoopty is done! Header V2 is finished up. Once I'm done spending every waking moment moving shops for the next 3mo, I'm going to do a stock exhaust/header dyno comparison to get some data. The primaries are HUGE. They step to 2" before hitting the collector. This is what the data said it wanted, but real life I'm sure will tell a different tale. It's straight piped with a Magnaflow 14815 muffler. Not too loud, sounds glorious.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[blue91lx]

maaaaan the stoke is high today. I drove the white car for the first time a few hours ago and it feels fantastic. Apparently replacing everything mechanical on a car will cause it to drive quite well.

I have to get it aligned and then have the paint guy finish going over a few things and I'll start driving the car!

It's also disgustingly dirty, but can't really fix that with all the construction at my house so it'll have to wait.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[blue91lx]

duplicate, delete

[blue91lx]

duplicate, delete

[blue91lx]

duplicate, delete

[blue91lx]

Barn has concrete, and a 12'x30' mezzanine! Still trying to figure out electric and insulation.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr




I also finally got hoopty back from the fab shop and knocked out some neglected maintenance. I relashed the valves, changed out the break in oil on the new stroker motor, replaced fuel hoses/filter, repaired the drivers seat hinge that was stuck open, nut and bolted the car, rebuilt the passenger rear ebrake assembly that exploded, and it's pretty happy now. I have about 200mi on the new motor. I need to convert it to standalone and do an A/B dyno with the header to prove it works after I'm done moving into the new shop.

I need to add a vibrant ultra quiet to the exhaust, swap out the wiper motor, and fix the oil cooler mounting, and i'm sure by the time I do that something else will have failed.

The header is coloring up nicely. I didn't realize how loud a big primary header is- the header by itself generates a good amount of noise, which I didn't anticipate. Wondering if that is in part due to the scavenged/clocked/stepped nature of the header, or if it's just a result of huge primaries.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



Oh, and the white car successfully completed a 60mi drive to the paint shop to have a few things addressed.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[DocWalt]

In my experience, headers are just "tinny" and noisy, unless they're thick wall which is wildly overkill for most NA engines. It's a unique noise and kinda fun when you get used to how different it is, especially if you're coming from cast manifolds.

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

In my experience, headers are just "tinny" and noisy, unless they're thick wall which is wildly overkill for most NA engines. It's a unique noise and kinda fun when you get used to how different it is, especially if you're coming from cast manifolds.

I've done my fair share of headers, but this tick is LOUD. We used thicker gauge stainless. Sounds like a massive exhaust leak, but there are none.

I am assuming it is due to what you said, but further amplified by the giant primaries.

[blue91lx]

The last time I tried to update this the site crashed lol.

White car sold!! Didn't get much out of it, but it went to a good home. Hooptie went back to the fab shop and they found a leak at cyl 6 on the flange, a leak at the collector, and a leak at a slip fit further down the exhaust. The car is exhaust leak free and sounds great! It'll be a while before I do an A/B on the dyno, but am excited for that to happen.

M3 is finally coming out once I'm fully moved out of the warehouse! I have tons of parts stashed for it that I'll update when the time comes.

The barn is coming along too! Got the ceiling closed in, wired, insulated with post frame specific r19, stuffed all the cracks with spare fiberglass and put some closed cell foam against the floor for a moisture barrier under the fiberglass, and started putting shelving up and moving stuff in!

I built a storage rack for 50 27gal totes which each hold 4 smaller boxes which really helped clean things up.

Very happy with space utilization thus far, and am excited to see it all come together!

My buddy who helped with the ceiling
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr
Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[blue91lx]

Made a big purchase over the weekend to hopefully make my life easier whenever I finally get to the M3 project

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[DocWalt]

Oh hell yeah, that will make things way easier.

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Oh hell yeah, that will make things way easier.

Sure will- this motor leaked down at 8% cold which is great. Typically these things do 10-15% warm. The S14 in my car has a blown HG and 180k miles.

I'm debating whether or not I do the head gasket and chain guide$ now while it's on the stand, or just fixing the VC gasket leak and throwing it in the car.

Rod bearings are a maintenance item on these too, which is the other recommended "while on the stand" service.

Chain guides alone are $1200ish.

It adds up.... quick

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[DocWalt]

Man, it's wild how pricey the M tax is, hahah

It's gotta be tempting to just do it up right now so you don't have to pull it back out!

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Man, it's wild how pricey the M tax is, hahah

It's gotta be tempting to just do it up right now so you don't have to pull it back out!

/////M tax is real indeed- i spoke with the now retired yoda machinist that did all of my M20s over the years and he said he'd do the S14 over winter, so that solves that, which means no one gets Christmas presents .



I just saw the note about the site retiring- thanks to Troll and everyone else who made it happen over the years.

I've had this member journal for over 10yrs. Crazy to think back on how much has happened over that time.

I'm not on social media much but my IG handle is shishkabobbb should you desire to link up before the site goes down for good.

It's been a good run!

[DocWalt]

That sounds like a big win! Always good to have someone with that level of experience!

Added you on IG to follow over there, I rarely post anything of value, haha.

[Shipman]

And we’re back