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

[blue91lx]

I found a local upholster that seemed willing/capable to take on a pair of sports seats, so I let him do Linda's seats. It was less for him to do both seats including hand making the upholstery with material/labor that it was to buy the LSeat covers which don't have a good match for natur.

Got some seat shocks from my brother, and we were good to go!

Very happy with how they turned out. Perfect? No. Perfect for a car that you plan to drive and enjoy? Yep.

Don't mind the messy xterra, it is my 'work truck', haha.

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

[Shipman]

I’m going to need to buy one of these off you eventually.

[PAdutch]

Seat look great. Anyone buying a 30 year old BMW should be more than pleased with them.

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by Shipman

I’m going to need to buy one of these off you eventually.

You need to do so before things get totally out of reach!

A car just like Linda with none of the fun mods sold for $36K, and a non-running e30m3 project with bad paint just sold for $56K.

Things were already crazy, and they've only gotten worse.

There have been worse times to be a hoarder of all things old BMW

The 325iS:

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1989-bmw-325is-70/

The M3:

https://carsandbids.com/auctions/9lm4q0oO/1988-bmw-m3

Originally Posted by PAdutch

Seat look great. Anyone buying a 30 year old BMW should be more than pleased with them.

Thanks- I felt the same way. Like sure, they're not perfect, but they're also going in a car that's not perfect. I paid $2K to have the M3 interior done. These were $650 haha. I'll take $650 and imperfect all day long.

[blue91lx]

Dropping in to share my latest terrible decision.... an '84 318 DE car, set up for an m42. Originally sold by Zionsville many moons ago, and is back in Indiana now after spending most of its life in Ohio.

It's set up pretty well re: suspension and whatnot. Got a nice set of GCs, several chassis mods. He blew the motor and tore the car down for various repairs and that's where we're at now!

The trick is going to be beating the cold in getting things together.

This car screams spec e30 to me.

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

[blue91lx]

Parted/sent another car off to the yard to make some room.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



Much better


Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr




So, if you have ever spent more than 30 seconds in a build thread of mine, you are aware of my debilitating habit of taking on new projects for no reason that effectively completely distract me from the other missions at hand. I have done it again.

I purchased the track car because it was claimed to have a nice set of GCs and a slew of other good parts. I couldn't get the rear GC adjusters off of the TAs and noticed it had eccentric TA bushings and new powerflex subframe bushings, which led me to swap the entire subframe assembly (incl small case s4.1) into hoopte just to get the rear coils, further justified by the fact that I had a new old stock ANSA catback to replace the rotted one, so I had to "drop the exhaust anyway". I then noticed the rear axles were non-abs so i had to swap those out, rebuild ebrake assemblies, etc etc. Getting the d/s on the diff was a huge pain, and ended up converting the diff to studs and macgyver-ing it in the subframe whilst lining up d/s studs so I didn't have to collapse the d/s.

It was at this point that I realized I shouldn't have done any of this and should've left hoopte well enough alone that I wanted to just pull the front GCs off of the track car and toss them on hoopte and be done, so I went to do so and found out that the "nice GCs" were trash heaps built on 45mm non-abs strut housings and needed to be totally redone. So now hoopte is low in the back and high in the front, the brakes won't bleed right, and the other 95 projects that I have are left untouched as usual. If I said "lesson learned", I'd just be lying.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr



Pulling a subframe in the rain was super fun:

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ABS axles courtesy of mjweimer's old stuff he donated.

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Almost there:


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Lowrider. I adjusted it 6 turns up from this height and may still go higher once I see how front clearance is after I finish rebuilding the front coils on 51mm housings.
​​​​​​​

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[blue91lx]

Got the NOS (free and beat up) ansa catback on and went for a spin. I think these Ronals look quite nice with the studs, without the caps. Not for every application, but no caps and studs feels at home here.... goes with the vibe.

I'm going to have to roll the rear fenders, but I think it looks good! I broke down and ordered front Konis so I can do the front GCs right, do it once, and be done.

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

[DocWalt]

"do it right and you only have to do it once"

I've learned this lesson more times than I care to admit.

Loving the progress, car is looking good even with the wonky ride heights

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

"do it right and you only have to do it once"

I've learned this lesson more times than I care to admit.

Loving the progress, car is looking good even with the wonky ride heights

Yep, it's just so funny to see how many parts come through the stable that have been totally hacked. The hacked coils this time around were on a DE car nonetheless

Prepped hoopte #5's original housings to get welded for the front coilover conversion! Came apart like buttah. I love working on cars that haven't been showered in brine all of their life.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr




Gettin' hoopte #4's new M42 together! Prepped a bunch of small stuff, mapped out all of my new hoses for the "mess under intake" simplification, etc. The new M42 had some head work done recently and also has a coil on plug conversion. I hate to admit this because #m20life but I feel like an M42 stroker would be a really neat motor with how light these things are. There is just so much room for activities, and the weight difference between m20 and m42 is more noticeable than I thought. The more I work on this car, the more it seems like it doesn't have many miles. Lots of small things are very clean/pliable/etc that I didn't notice initially. I didn't get a cluster with the car, so it's TMU, but it shows better than all of the 100-150k mile cars I've had.

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

[PAdutch]

I really appreciate your attention to detail. Seems like you take care of the little things that pay dividends later.

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by PAdutch

I really appreciate your attention to detail. Seems like you take care of the little things that pay dividends later.

Thanks, man. I personally feel like my attention to detail is a$$ compared to the guys I hang around with, but I have come to terms with my abilities in relation to my capacity with having so many cars going at once.

On the m3 I’d love to have it be my only project car and really nut and bolt, zinc plate, refinish things on a mechanical level, but time will tell in that regard.

[Shipman]

Is the M still at your parents place?

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by Shipman

Is the M still at your parents place?

Yep! Still sitting pretty (dusty) inside, blocked in by my brothers iX E30 project.

My yoda machinist is talking about retiring, so I am officially on a time crunch to get the car out to me and get the engine over to him before he retires.

I am honestly glad I have put it off as long as I have, as the car has increased in value an insane amount and thus will allow me to take a different course of action when I build it.

[blue91lx]

The racecar went on to live a new life in Detroit with a first time E30 owner. He is going to keep me in the loop as he builds the car.

With the racecar gone, I finally got time to finish building/installing Hoopte's coilovers. Found a new set of front rotors in the parts stash, so I threw them on along with a nice set of caliper brackets. The calipers themselves were just rebuilt, but the brackets used were pretty blown out. Also bled the brakes with Bosch ESI6-32N which has a good boiling point for the price. This seems to have solved my spongey pedal feel, but time will tell.

I forgot bump stops, will get some and put them on when time allows.

I also took a chance on a $75 "open 3.73" FB marketplace diff, and hit the jackpot. I found this SRS concepts Diff Gearset ID link, and opened it up to find an "H35" marking and a "25S" marking on the carrier indicating 25% lockup and 3.73 ring and pinion ratio. So Hoopty has a limited slip 3.73 diff for the manual swap (factory ratio for manual 325i/iS cars)! This led me down a diff identification rabbit hole for diffs I had without tags, and found out that I had two med case S2.93s and a small case S3.45 that I'm pretty stoked about. Screenshot provided below in case that link ever goes down.

I have an alignment scheduled for Monday, so I'm trying to decide on a ride height! I think I will raise the rear a bit since she's going to get all of the miles. I reaaaallly like this car.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

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

[DocWalt]

Raise the rear a bit! level it out and make it comfy

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Raise the rear a bit! level it out and make it comfy

That was my thought as well! Raised the rear all the way up and it's still very crashy, and ride height still slammed. I think the rear shocks are out of travel. These kits come with a 5" rear spring which I've always thought was too short. May try to find a 6" spring and some shorter Mustang Koni Sports.

Got the car back from alignment and realized I probably should've just left it alone with the KYBs and H&Rs The added NVH from the Powerflex subframe bushings plus the ride quality decrease makes the car feel like it's literally falling apart driving down the road. Steering feels nice though, and the rear end tightened up a good bit from the poly bushes.

Also..... apparently only two bolts fit in the camber plates when he was aligning it. Have to figure that one out.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr

[blue91lx]

And with one odd problem fixed, another is revealed......driving it in the winter has me using the heat which led to the realization that there is still a mouse nest.... inside the dash vents, and I assume, also trapped in the HVAC box. It's restricting flow so much that it is blowing the blower motor fuse after a few minutes of operation. I don't know if I have it in me to do another dash out job, but I'm headed up to MI next week and will need the heat functioning..... we'll see.


The car was feeling very crashy in the rear over bumps so I assumed the "claimed good" rear shocks I got with the racecar were shot and...... they were shot. I opted for some new Konis to match the fronts, and went with a 6" rear coilover spring since I don't want to go very low with the car. The car sits just right, and gives me a ton of room to go higher if needed for winter, rally cross, etc.

The best part of it all is not having the rear coilover springs fall out of their perch when the rear of the car is jacked up! It's the small things.

I also assembled a lot of the small manual swap items here so we can just focus on the business when I get up to Jakes. A flywheel came in a box with racecar parts, and it turns out it's an M20 flywheel that's been lightened a good bit. Going to use a Sachs Clutch/PP. My tool box has become my work bench and became a catch all. I've been saying I'm going to get organized, but it hasn't happened yet.

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




Gained way more than 1" going from from 5" springs and blown shocks to 6" springs and good shocks.

Untitled by Bobbie Morrone, on Flickr


Down to a suitable ride height.


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

[DocWalt]

Looks perfect now!

Any chance in hell of running a drain snake through the vents and yanking that crap out?

[blue91lx]

Originally Posted by DocWalt

Looks perfect now!

Any chance in hell of running a drain snake through the vents and yanking that crap out?

The current plan is:

Because I have to do the heater valve (leaking), I will have the heater core almost completely removed, so I’m going to pull the heater core and see how much I can’t get out of the heater box that way! Hoping it works out. My trip up to MI is postponed so I have some extra time to tinker, but my GFs outback motor came in, so I have that to get to as well. We shall see!

I’m beginning to see why people buy new cars as opposed to keeping hoopties on the road

[rocknrace03]

Originally Posted by blue91lx

I’m beginning to see why people buy new cars as opposed to keeping hoopties on the road

the key is to not care.

should i care that my fozzy requires 2-3 quarts of both oil and coolant between fuel fill ups.... yes, but do i really?.... no, not at all. not enough to pull a motor anyway...