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

[blue91lx]

[rocknrace03]

yaaaaaas

[Shipman]

Daaaamn guurl

[empera]

sweet! im def. jealous!

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by rocknrace03

yaaaaaas

Originally Posted by Shipman

Daaaamn guurl

Originally Posted by empera

sweet! im def. jealous!

TST lives on!

empera, your Supra's are all beautiful, and I don't know how you find so many.
Joey, I'm so stoked that you put a trans and buttoned up the mericabimmer.

Mike, I'm glad that you have all 3 cool subaru platforms. How's the forester? Mine's a piece of ****.

[Shipman]

Noooooo not the XT!

Mine runs strong. I gave the blue one that I used to have to family and it still runs great with like 260k on it. My silver one just hit 180k and its awesome. A ****ty truck kicked up a rock and cracked my winsheild though which pisses me off.

My STi is semi up for sale, I want to pick up an E92 M3 so I think selling the STi would soften that blow a lot.

[rocknrace03]

Originally Posted by blue91lx

TST lives on!

empera, your Supra's are all beautiful, and I don't know how you find so many.
Joey, I'm so stoked that you put a trans and buttoned up the mericabimmer.

Mike, I'm glad that you have all 3 cool subaru platforms. How's the forester? Mine's a piece of ****.

tst ftw. #sonicmeet lol. We need some specs on this thing, is she another IX?

[empera]

Originally Posted by rocknrace03

tst ftw. #sonicmeet lol. We need some specs on this thing, is she another IX?

hahaha damn right...#maketstgreatagain

i miss my e30.

[DocWalt]

Man, that is pretty clean. Good find.

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by Shipman

Noooooo not the XT!

Mine runs strong. I gave the blue one that I used to have to family and it still runs great with like 260k on it. My silver one just hit 180k and its awesome. A ****ty truck kicked up a rock and cracked my winsheild though which pisses me off.

My STi is semi up for sale, I want to pick up an E92 M3 so I think selling the STi would soften that blow a lot.

It all started when a hoe at a hair salon backed into the XT. Then the head gaskets failed. Then the turbo kind of failed. And then I just put stop leak in and bought an e30. Haha. Oops. Pissed I bought the scoob.

That's awesome! That blue car kicked ass. I do so much interstate driving I have so many damn windshield chips.

As much as it'd break my heart to see you sell it, I think an E92 M3 would realllllly be well worth it. That's my "someday" car once I feel like I've arrived.

Originally Posted by rocknrace03

tst ftw. #sonicmeet lol. We need some specs on this thing, is she another IX?

Originally Posted by empera

hahaha damn right...#maketstgreatagain

i miss my e30.

I forgot the DEETS!

She's a 1990 325iS. Brilliantrot. Named Linda. Questionably lesbian, might be bi but haven't confirmed anything yet.

I have always wanted a RWD version of my red iX, but could never find a clean one up until this point.

Let alone an iS. It's the e30 that got me into e30s.

It's clean as hell, has all the nice attributes of an iS like sports seats, map light rear view, tape deck center console, 13 button OBC, limited slip diff, etc.

It runs better than any e30 I've had yet and I literally have no idea what has been done to it.

It even has the BMW foam underneath the hood perfectly intact as well as the tool kit in the trunk.

I was not even remotely wanting to buy a car, but this thing just popped up on R3V 2hrs from me for an ABSURD price, I drove down the day after I saw it online and gave the man his asking price.

My plans for it, are to just enjoy a damn car for once. I never have still to this day. I want to drive it.

I am going to do a top end towards the end of the month (not driving it in the mean time just to be safe).

As far as my plan with the car:

I'm just replacing every bushing and suspension component on the car, slowly cleaning **** up, cleaning up the bay, steaming the underside and wheel wells, doing a slight functional drop (not wasting $2500 and a month of my life building coilovers again), 16x8 ESM RS reps with a 225/45, slight roll on the fenders, RX7 front brake upgrade, and be done with it. Minus the wheels my excel spreadsheet with parts is only around $2K, with added things like trim, roundels, plastic pieces, etc.

I'm just excited to have a car. I have a mountain bike E30 road trip in the works with my brother out to the PNW down the coast and back, and would also like to start going out to Vintage every year. I'm going to put some miles on this thing. And that is my plan.

Joey is going to build me a turbo kit too. But that's not going to be for a long time.

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Man, that is pretty clean. Good find.

Thanks, man. It still hasn't hit me. Forum finds normally aren't this good.

[blue91lx]

Establishing a Game Plan

I got a chance to spend a few hours today familiarizing myself with the car a bit more.

First, I must say- I am extremely pleased with the exterior of the car. I don't want a perfect car by any means, nor is this car anywhere close, but I always find myself putting money into projects that, in the end, really need a full exterior restoration (paint and rust repair both), which is not in my immediate skill set. Thus, after much time, effort, and money is spent, I end up selling them off.

That is not the case for this car.

I am uncovering a few small dings and dents, but they feel merely characteristic- adding personality.

I am impressed with the matching body panels, all but the OE DOT replacement drivers front. The underhood insulation is in perfect condition, and the tool kit in the trunk is fully intact.

I'm trying to spend time with the car to really get a feel for what I want to do, what needs to be done, and what I will actually do.

I don't want to get overwhelmed with this car to where I don't enjoy it, so my goal will be to tackle different areas each at their own time/pace, rather than having projects within projects within projects.

One thing I have noticed with the car is that the "weather preventing elements" need to be gone through, which I think out of preservation, should be tackled first, as monotonous as it is. The door seals have shrunk a bit, the trunk seal doesn't work the best, the rear molding clips/gaskets are broken, antenna seal, sunroof seal, etc. I need to dig up the part numbers and add them to my spreadsheet.

Next on the plate is the suspension.

I am torn between doing springs/struts, or holding out and building a set of Ground Controls; my heart tells me the latter. But maintenance wise, it needs tie rods, control arms, offset CABs, endlinks, subframe and TA bushings, and a diff bushing, among other things, so I would prefer to tackle it all at once, along with brakes, wheels and tires. A used GC kit would really help my decision making, but at the same time they are hard to come by.

Wheels are going to be 16x8 ESM002s (polished lips, gunmetal faces) with 225/45 Direzza ZIIs. Square, sticky, and functional.

Brakes are in need of a refresh. If I could find a set of brackets, I would do FC RX7 calipers, but I will likely just end up doing the IE slotted/ceramic brake kit with stainless lines and rebuilding my stock calipers.

Engine wise, I have no desire for modification. Maintenance wise, it needs a timing belt, tune up, and I would like to pick up a nice cat back/M30 MAF/93oct chip to give it a bit more pep.

When I have it all apart I'm going to steam the engine bay, wrinkle/polish the valve cover and intake manifold, and generally reroute and clean things up.

Interior, she really just needs a fresh set of leather front sports seats and it will be exactly where it needs to be, other than a full cluster rebuild.

This text is more for me so I can paint a picture and have a plan for the car, so I apologize in advanced for that.

Anyway, onto pictures after I cleaned it up a bit more tonight!

[blue91lx]

Oh what have I done?!

[Shipman]

These are the greatest posts

[rocknrace03]

"do any of my friends have a truck and car trailer i can borrow, willing to pay" i knew you had good/bad intentions

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by Shipman

These are the greatest posts

Originally Posted by rocknrace03

"do any of my friends have a truck and car trailer i can borrow, willing to pay" i knew you had good/bad intentions

baha I'm glad you saw that. I was desperate, as this was a "come at this time on this day or you don't get it" type of deals, so I had to turn to facebook haha.

Why I bought it:

Ground Control Coilover Setup
Eibach F+R Swaybars
F+R Strut Tower Braces
S3.73 Diff
Mtech Wheel

It's a gutted 2200lb ex-SCCA car that was brought back up to spec and then sold.... and then sold to me.

So, I'm going to take all of these fine parts and transfer 'em over to Linda, while doing the front suspension (control arms, offset CABs, tie rods) and the rear suspension (adjustable subframe, all bushings, etc).

[blue91lx]

We're picking up some steam here, folks! My main hurdle now that I'm establishing a plan with this car is my garage space. I rent from a cool guy, but he doesn't understand that he can't fill every gap around my car with his ****, so when I go to the garage to do work, I spend more time organizing his junk than working on the ole gal.

anyway, I digress...

Progress! Started disassembling what I want off of the parts car before I give the shell away.

I snagged the Mtech 1 wheel off the car. It's a little dirty but will clean up nice and work just fine until a 370mm is in my budget.






Classic "hey man I'm just gonna fill up the space around your car without any thought whatsoever" moment.







Scored almost brand new Hawk HPS pads, fresh rotors, and stainless front brake lines off the parts car!








Front strut tower brace that I'm going to refinish in the upcoming weeks.







Rear strut tower brace that I am debating on running or not.







The shell. I am really debating on what to do with it. It's not terribly rusty, it just looks like a piece of ****. But someone has but a lot of time into gutting it and removing weight. It would make the PERFECT Lemons racecar with an M20. I have the parts to make it a roller again. I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.






Eibach front sway in good shape. Gonna grab new bushings for it.






Aaaaand this brings me to the sad part. While all of the expensive parts of the Ground Control kit are here, it irks me to see that the POPO just slapped adapters on this way. BUT that wasn't even the worst part. The front struts are blown to smithereens, but the Springs, adjusters, and camber plates are freshie fresh.

I am sending the setup to Ground Control to have their full shortening/bracing/etc done here in a little bit so I'll have a fresh setup with the shortened housings.

As opposed to the ridiculous $240ea price tag of the GC Konis, I am thinking of going with the iX inserts, but I'm not sure they'll work with the struts that I send them. $220/pair vs $240ea is a HUGE difference for the same valving, and you're then also not using a proprietary strut. I'm also not opposed to sending them elsewhere, but don't have a good second option.






List of stuff to do:

1) Place a huge order with Guten to get everything to refresh the M20, iS lip, roundels, entire suspension refresh, etc.
2) Send off Ground Controls to get them redone.
3) Decide on where to send the subframe for modification, as it pains me to pay $350 for the Garagistic setup however nice it may be.
4) Get **** done.

I can't wait to get this chassis driving buttery smooth with everything taken care of so I can enjoy the car. It's getting exciting!

[DocWalt]

Minty...

I don't understand why people spend that sort of money only to do a half-assed job and essentially waste their money.

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Minty...

I don't understand why people spend that sort of money only to do a half-assed job and essentially waste their money.

Thanks, man.

And yeah, I was thinking the same when I pulled the front end apart. It just goes to show that money doesn't always = a nice car! I couldn't believe that he spent $1600 in coilover parts and just slapped it together in that way. I'm thankful for having all of the parts, but it just made me go

[blue91lx]

And now that this build is done I can focus attention back on the car. Forgive my tiny ass apartment.

[rocknrace03]

rear suspension ?! dang mr money bags over here