RE: My New to Me 1990 BMW 325i E30
Nice car, from a fellow E30 driver I gotta say: Have fuuuun! If you wanna see how deep the rabbit hole can get, feel free to check out my (yet unfinished) never ending E30 story:
Oh and I gotta disagree with your comment regarding the power. First of all your engine most likely has around 150hp left in it max. Second these old 2-valve R6 engines need some kicking, below 3500 there's no power at all. A healthy 2.5 kicks in at 3500 and again at around 4700. When it's healthy it can easily keep up with a 335i around a track given all peripherals are in top shape so it ain't slow.
Then again you can always use more power right? A friend put a 360hp 3.8L M5 engine in one of these, that had 'melt your face off' acceleration. 50-180 in 3rd gear less than 3.5 seconds. So if you like a challenge there's a million ways to go about it.
Looking forward to see your progress and the metaphor regarding the clear coat was priceless!
Good reply man! I see a lot of steemit users post up meaningless replies that have no real point (but that's the story with any platform that offers $ for content right?)
That's a sick post you got there, followed! Im digging that car, its super clean and tastfully restored. What was your work schedule like for that vehicle? I'm struggling to find time between work and life to get cranking on the car. I wanted to drop the motor and do a full restoration like you, but there just isn't enough time to spend searching the internet for the right parts and to learn about the car to that level of detail and summer is here. I'll enjoy the car for what it is now, and spend time looking for the right motor to drop in.
Regards to the power, I can't say that 150HP is all that much, even with the E30's relatively low weight in mind. I come from a background of riding motorcycles, so cars (that I can afford at least) will never be "fast" enough for me! However, the E30 is such a fun car to drive that power doesn't become the driving point of it, rather its the fact that it is a relatively compact RWD car that is very well balanced and handles like its on rails. With that said, "melt your face off" acceleration is universally welcomed, as long as the car is still driveable. I've never driven anything but a stock E30, so I don't know where that point comes in.
I just started editing another video and blog so look out for that soon!
Thanks man, glad you like it!
As for work schedule I constantly struggle with exactly the same 'real life' obligations as you do so to cut a long story short it took around 18 months to do the research and source parts for the engine (had to buy many parts twice or even three times until I got what I wanted), another 6 months to build and finalize the engine. Installation of drivetrain and replacing worn suspension parts etc. took maybe 2-3 days at most. Disassembly of the old one took 3 days in total. As for the new one I'll get to that in my next blog but it's not really a good showcase cuz pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Agreed with your approach to what driving E30 is all about. That said you will appreciate a healthy 2.5L in there. Trust me 98% or all 325i drivers have no idea how smooth and fast the car originally was cuz all they do is drive around with worn out engines so a simple rebuilt of what you got plus a cam and some intake work is already gonna go a long way!
If you want to save some time in removing that dash, I'll provide a step-by-step how-to in my blog. I've done it around 10 times by now so...
And yeah people upvote, comment, resteem etc out of a profit making calculation which as far as I can see works for maybe 2% of all who are taking that approach :). If we can build some kind of car culture here, call it #PETROSTEEM, I'm happy!
Petrosteem! HA! If you follow Kickboxing.. Petrostyeem. :P
My motor only has 127k on the odo. Assuming the odo hasn't been abused, it should be relatively fresh motor given how low compression it is. I'm not going to lie though, when I take the car out of the city (I live in NYC) and out to the somewhat decent roads that you can find out here, I let her rip. So perhaps the previous owners have done the same and worn out the motor, but I don't have something to compare to. Maybe I need a dyno pull!
When you are talking about a rebuild, are we talking about top end only, rings and valves? Now were talking about changing the cams out.....sounds like its almost cheaper to do a M50 swap! I really wish there was a way to squeeze more MPG out of this little 2v motor.
Ha...good question. No I mean rebuilt as in EVERYTHING new and yes M50/M52 probably even V8 swap is cheaper in fact.
It's like with the S14 if you want an original era specific motor it piles up pretty quickly. In the end a matter of taste I guess. I can tell you some day why it has such poor gas mileage and I guarantee you won't believe it :). It's not cuz of the 2 valves though.