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

[Shipman]

And we’re back

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by Shipman

And we’re back

Shipman has entered the chat!!!!

[blue91lx]

It appears TST is still hanging on by a thread, and it's Christmas which means I was home to work on the M3.

I had the interior redone by a great upholstery guy back in 2017 or so who dropped off the face of the earth shortly after. The interior has since been sitting in boxes, so I deemed it time to reassemble it now that the car is coming out to me in the midwest soon. I hoped to transport the car back on thanksgiving, but that didn't end up happening, so here we are.

My dad is a highly detailed individual, so when I first bought the car and had it shipped back to PA for safe keeping I gave him the go ahead to do whatever he pleased to the interior. He was bored at the time and thought it'd be fun to spend my money on a car he doesn't have to own.

Many, many things have been done but the highlights are:

-Jordan Greer german leather seat reupholstery
-Rebuilt all seat mechanics (refurb'd sliders, trim, etc. My brother was even kind enough to reinforce the hinge tabs that commonly fail)
-Custom Color matched carpet parcel shelf recovering
-Custom Color matched vinyl paint for the map pockets and door pulls
-Nice pop out window latches
-Crack free dash
-Refurbished Cluster
-New (old style) heater valve and heater core
-Dash vent refurbishment, new foam, etc
-Refurbished 5908 with Aux added
-57k mile F&R center console and ash trays with the original M3 foam transferred over
-New sunroof motor cover
-New one piece genuine M3 shifter boot/knob/emblem
-New genuine under dash panel from when BMW still made them
-Refurb'd stock steering wheel
-My brother's map light mirror windshield bumper
-Various seals, bolts, trim etc

This is the first car I have fully refurb'd seats on, and while expensive, it was worth every penny. The lighting in his garage is weird, the color looks great in person.

The only interior item left on the docket is to have the sunroof headliner recovered, which will be done in PA before the car gets shipped.

Despite the magnitude of the project, I am very excited to finally get the car out here and begin the process of getting it running and driving!

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[DocWalt]

Man, that is looking absolutely stunning! Nice work by the fam!

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Man, that is looking absolutely stunning! Nice work by the fam!

Thank you!! Felt good to finally turn a wrench on it after all this time. They were a huge help. Not having to worry about the interior and just getting to focus on mechanicals will be a real treat when the car comes out to me.

[blue91lx]

I spent '24 mostly ignoring Hooptie after having the header built. I am hoping to start '25 off on the right foot, so I tried to tie up some loose ends tonight.

I bought new quarter window seals but the headliner started to disintegrate upon removal of the old seals, so they stayed in.

I bought that mini sub that goes behind the drivers rear door card and ran an RCA for it, but realized that the class d inside of my new head unit won't run the sub and thus I'll need an additional monoblock to run it in addition to it's own speaker lead. Ordered an NVC VADM1 compact amp that I can hopefully fit where the airbag module sits on 90+ cars to avoid pulling the interior apart again.


While visiting family over Christmas I retrieved the rear E30 M3 seat I bought for hooptie. It has a "kustom" upper seat half that was "modified" for an armrest. It is the perfect M3 seat for this car. I need to figure out a center belt receptacle solution since the buckle clips are centered vs offset like the old seat, but until then I can flex on internet people with my rear center arm rest.

I had seat assembly on my mind, so I finally pulled apart hoopties driver seat to replace the side hinges for a set with good tabs. So glad this is fixed.

The pop out latches exploded recently so I bought the billet latch repair kit. I exploded all of my 1/8" allen sockets trying to flare the pins, got some freshies today and added some grease on the pins and got them flared without casualty.

It's hilarious that hoopty has a billet door handle and billet pop out latches.

Things I still need to do for optimal hooptying:

-Convert to Jake's standalone
-A/B dyno with the header vs stock exhaust
-Redo the exhaust so it sits under the factory heat shields for more ground clearance
-Figure out why the fancy r134 A/C system stopped working last year
-Install updated curved blade aux fan and wire on high speed

I honestly wish I just had a stock motor and exhaust in the car at this point as I just want to drive it without the extra complications of the current setup, but alas.

Happy new year tst!

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[DocWalt]

Love the billet upgrades for ****ty old German plastic that always breaks, haha. Armrest rear seat is dope too!

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Love the billet upgrades for ****ty old German plastic that always breaks, haha. Armrest rear seat is dope too!

Couldn't agree more. Adding these touch points really makes the car feel more personalized and upgrades the driving experience IMO. Some think it's silly to spend money on this stuff (door handle, shift knob, steering wheel, etc) but it can really make a car feel at home!

M3 is finally in Indiana. People were angry it was dusty so I may leave it on for its first outing, whenever that may be.

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[DocWalt]

I *love* all of the small touches. It's when they're all well thought out and look OEM+ that it's even better

I love the dust, haha

[Shipman]

Where are the updates sir?!

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

I *love* all of the small touches. It's when they're all well thought out and look OEM+ that it's even better

I love the dust, haha

It's just a box o' metal after all!

Originally Posted by Shipman

Where are the updates sir?!

Would you be surprised if I told you I was burnt out and haven't been working on anything? To contradict that statement, I also rebuilt most of an '87 325i 4dr recently that I failed to post on here.

The new shop space is coming along though, and I've been able to buy quite a few hard to find M3 parts recently! What's another year at this point

Lift is moved!

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[blue91lx]

A brief 87 325i 4dr revival for the people

I bought this car from the farm feller I bought 7 other cars from, this was the last one he wasn't going to sell! Factory euroweave 15" wheels, 5sp, a super cool dealer installed body kit, and every dealer option available in the accessory catalog.

Was supposed ran well, not too rusty, we all know how that goes.

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I got the car and promptly sold most of the cool stuff off of it to my buddy who put it all on his patina early model E30.

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My car got a matched patina same color trunk lid with bonus iS spoiler!

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Then it got some H&Rs, KYB fronts, Billy B8 rears, control arms, bushings, etc etc.

Engine-wise I did a timing belt, water pump, cam seal, valve cover gasket, etc etc.

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Hillbilly but safe fixed the rear brake lines that rotted out above the fuel tank and rear subframe. I also replaced all the other brake lines on the car with stainless braided ones I had in the stash. Threw on some lightly used but surface rusted slotted rotors and HPS pads. Converted a ton of rust to slow it down using ospho, mastercoat and seam sealer.

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Per usual, the plot thickens. Pulled carpet to convert more rust and fix more broken stuff. Wired a new radio in, installed my brothers OBC phone mount. Fixed/installed working license plate lights using my brothers rusted license plate light repair kit.

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Fresh tires on some straight 14" basketweaves, car back on the ground! Even hoopties get a factory lip and undertray

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Installed some sport seats, momo cavaillino, and wood mushroom knob

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Rebuilt driveshaft, shift linkage, mounts, guibo etc etc

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Gut said to check tie rods, luckily I did as they were backing off of the rack. Also fixed bluetooth engine mounts, new fuel filter w/ lines

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Replaced cam seal for a second time due to the first seal failing prematurely

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It was at this moment when I discovered terminal rust under the master cylinder from someone letting it leak for many years. I also found a bunch of very bad firewall rust. I inspected the car very thoroughly for rust when I first got it, but this area is super difficult to see and is an uncommon rust spot unless you have a reason to be in there. Very very unfortunate as I had a TON of time into this revival, but it became a parts car like all of the others that aren't safe for road duty.

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Then a few days later I was doing a windshield on my silver hoopty that I drive everywhere and found some nasty cowl rust. These two things combined has led me to take an E30 sabbatical.

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[blue91lx]

After finding that cowl rust on OG hooptie I took a week off from E30s and focused on our 05 Outback 2.5i Limited that needed love.

I put a rebuilt engine in the car a few years ago, not realizing the car was a "Cali spec" chassis. In 05 this means that the car was pretty substantially different to adhere to Cali emissions specs.

This means it has different:
-Single port "Z25 cylinder heads" vs standard dual port non AVCS Q25 heads on federal emissions cars
-3 stage intake manifold w different engine harness and extra BS
-5 02 sensors vs 2 on federal cars
-Totally different two bank exhaust with 3 catalysts
-Different ECU

I got the car running with cali spec ancillaries and the federal spec motor a few years ago but it never ran right and had a perma CEL which drove me nuts because that disables cruise control on a Subaru.

I looked into converting the car from cali to federal emissions when I discovered all of this but it was a gray area on whether or not it could be done.

I spent last week diving into wiring diagrams and ecu pinouts for federal vs cali emissions 05 outbacks and found inconclusive data regarding ECU/chassis harness pinouts being the same between both cars.

I bought a $500 federal 05 and decided to put all of the federal stuff on our car sans exhaust to see what codes I got.

I installed the federal intake, engine harness, ecu, and 02 sensors, and the only code I got was a front AF 02 sensor low voltage since the cali AF 02s ran through the engine harness and federal does not. So, without the cali engine harness, there was no 02 sensor plug.

Then I found the motherload, deep in a searchable factory manual, which was an I/O signal chart for both cali and federal ecus.

Much to my surprise, Right Hand Front AF Cali 02 perfectly matched the pins for the Front AF Federal 02, and the 5th Cali Rear 02 perfectly matched the pins for the Rear Federal 02.

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This meant that all I had to do was find these wires in the chassis harness behind the engine harness connector, chop them and make my own front AF 02 sensor harness.

Got all of that done today and have no codes for the first time in two years after installing a new engine and am STOKED, considering I was swimming in mostly uncharted waters.

<1% will care about any of this, but I was excited enough to post it here.

Before I cleaned it all up.

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[blue91lx]

duplicate

[blue91lx]

It's been a while TST... at this point I got fully moved out of my old shop and mechanically refreshed the '87 4dr that I said I was going to let die and have been daily driving it since my last update. I did so much work to it, some of which was: full r134 a/c conversion/rebuild, blower motor, ebay alloy rad, added cruise control, replaced a bad booster and MC with good late model parts, H4 low beams and new high beams, euro grills, redid fuel filter, both lift/external pumps, rebuilt injectors, swapped FPR, Continental head unit/redid wiring, and i'm sure 25 other things I'm missing. It drives really nice and has been a treat to daily! Also had a hitch made for my bike rack.

I had the cowl rust fixed on the 2dr '89 hoopty with the stroker M20, found an E30 M3 back seat for it, upgraded aux fan for better a/c function (this car has a Sanden compressor conversion), and other odds and ends.

Also finally got my injector machine up and running. Xterra got another new leaf, front Billys, fully clutch hydro line replacement, upper/lower ball joints/tie rods, and motor mounts, among other things.

Pics for proof

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[blue91lx]

I went on quite the adventure this week and typed something up, figured I'd share here.

This past weekend was extremely busy from a friends wedding, birthdays, SOS fixing inlaws vehicles, you name it.

On Friday or Saturday I started to get bombarded with friends sending me a FB link to a vintage BMW collection being sold off in Cincinnati. The listing details showed some poorly lit photos of a few E30s in a moldy warehouse and said something like "50 year vintage BMW collection, over 100 parts cars". Cinci is only 2hrs away. Knowing I couldn't make anything happen that weekend, I saw how much traction the listing was getting and caught a serious case of FOMO knowing it'd all be gone by then. I said I'd reach out Sunday night to see what's left.

On a whim I messaged my buddy Chris in Dayton who runs a BMW bizz similar to what I do with his friend Timon. They bought the 27 cars in southern IN last year, so I was sure they were already on their way to check out this stash. I said.... save me a couple E30s. I had 20mins free on the way to a wedding so he called me and told me what was there.

Later that day he said he arranged a buyout for all of the cars- 17 to be exact. They all had to be moved due to the building selling.

I'm not sure I ever really said I'll take all of them or knew what I was getting myself into, but come Monday morning I had a Uhaul reserved and was headed there to assess the 6 E30s my name was marked next to on a spreadsheet.

Before I left I did a once over on the Xterra before I towed cars for 3 days straight and found a snapped inner leaf on the drivers side. So I found myself swapping a leaf out at 6am before I had to be in Cinci by 10:30. I found out later that this was but an initiation to the chaos.

The building was downtown Lockland. It was next to a river, and the cars were stored in the basement of said building. No lights, mold on every surface. I walked the cars and started noticing what looked to be a different type of Lichen in the shape of a line on the cars and realized that the cars closest to the river were under water when the river would flood.

We were tasked with getting 17 cars out of said basement. Perpetually flooded cars means nasty rust, locked up wheels, etc. Animals/humans had also been using the cars as their latrine for what I assume was the better part of two decades.

I started by taking home a wrecked by otherwise nice condition '87 325e 4dr with black houndstooth interior, crack free dash, 5sp, etc.

I unloaded the car and immediately realized I had space for.... that one car only. And panic followed.

I was responsible for 6 cars, with space for one, on a 7 figure commercial real estate sale timeframe........

Didn't sleep a wink, extended the Uhaul reservation, headed back to Cinci at sun up and it was a brutal day of breaking wheels loose via snapping drums in half with a sledge and yanking them with an old beat up camry to get them outside.

I got a call the night before from a customer and finally had a chance to call him back. His auto trans blew and needed a manual swap..... all 6 of my parts cars were manual. Two down.

There was a really nice flood line 325eS that another buddy wanted to save..... three down.

An 84 318 was so rusty we couldn't even get the car jacked up, so I pleaded with the liaison of the sale to allow me to part out the 318 and a different wrecked '87 325e out on site since we had a local scrap guy handling the cars that were fully submerged and thus had nothing of value on them and thus he could take those carcasses...... 5 down

That leaves me with the initial car that I took home and a completely rust free cosmoblau 87 325 that I was able to stash at a buddies for now.

What a wild past few days it has been, but it was a really neat experience and felt cool to be a part of.

Chris/Timon got a manual E34 535i and several E32s including a few V12 cars. Ben of Obscure Euro Parts (Cinci based) was the 3rd leg in the deal and ended up with a 750 with individual interior and a 745 turbo E23.

Fast forward to the next day, I had a full day of pulling parts off of the 318 and wrecked 325 until I couldn't fit anything else into the Xterra.

Titanic rust 318 ready for scrap. Actually had a lot of really nice stuff on it. The rust was caused by flood damage, so everything above the Lichen was solid.

I don't care for social media these days so I wanted to type this up to serve as more of a long form calendar event for me to look back on.

TLDR: chaos


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[DocWalt]

That's freaking incredible. But also, man, what a horrible place to store cars, haha

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

That's freaking incredible. But also, man, what a horrible place to store cars, haha

It was a super cool experience, but yes you're 100% right. I went into it thinking I'd have 6 viable parts cars, but they were under water so frequently it ended up being more like 3 cars (that were stored the furthest away from the river)

[blue91lx]

Put the car on the dyno to get some a/b data on the header. Had a balancer bolt fly over my head that cut the session short. Converting to standalone soon and will finish the testing.

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While the car was at my buddies shop I got his body guy excited about fixing the black quarter panel on the car and doing a faux patina blend. He shadowlined the drip mouldings and redid the chip guard all around. Looks so much better.

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Got new wheels/tires to put on the M3 for rollers while I get the stock wheels refinished. These wheels will go on the silver hoopty e30 once I'm done 5 lug swapping it. M3 engine is coming out within the next few weeks.

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[blue91lx]

Car is on standalone, A/B header vs stock exhaust dyno is complete, and the car is back home, where over winter I will get to install the E30 M3 5 lug components I have been working towards acquiring for years.

Header didn't do much of anything unfortunately. He grouped the header wrong, and made the primaries way too big.

I originally wanted a TriY setup, aka 6-3-1, combining cylinders 1&6, 5&2, 3&4.

He built a 6-2-1 header and split the firing order in half, combining pulses 120* apart (cylinders 1, 5, 3 grouped, and then 6, 2, 4 grouped), which is not correct.

On an inline 6 with a 6-2-1 header design, the grouped cylinders need to be 240* apart, grouping 1-3 and 4-6. Easier packaging this way too.

I spoke with two guys in upside down land that have been building M20 headers and collecting data for over a decade and they were kind enough to give me data to help get the header correct this time around.

For my displacement/powerband, I need equal length, 28" long, 1.5" primaries stepped to 1 5/8" for future headroom, 1 7/8" collectors, merged 63"-71" from end of primaries.

The 6-3-1 idea should still work, but now that it has to get remade, I'm going to do something that I know will work vs another experiment.

Car should be making ~165-175whp. Both 2.7s I've dyno'd now have made around 155whp. Need to run on a local dynojet for comparision, but it'll be a while.

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