The Evolution of an E30: Commuter to Hot Rod

I graduated in May and have since moved to Sarasota. I got out on the roadcourse a couple of times, though. It was a blast!

Lof8 wrote:

mtn wrote: Looks real good. This was a featured hot rod of the month, wasn't it?

It sure was! Back in June of 2007.

That's odd. I only have one issue of GRM at my desk right now, and it's that one. I lent it to a coworker who was interested in building a locost ("Self Help" article), but then he read the 911 SC data file and switched to one of those. Now he's shopping around for a Fiero, go figure.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: There is a point at which you say to yourself, "Have I gone too far?" I am almost there :)

Is that more Superbird or Mad Max Interceptor??? Either way, I like it.

Anyway, Lof8--

The car looks fantastic. Super tasteful and well-thought-out.

I have to say, the bronze Sportmaxes looked KILLER on there. The BBS's are nice, but the Sportmaxes looked very mean.

Props to the whole project. Great job.

awesome. Maybe I overlooked it, but what kind of transmission are your running?

plance1 wrote: awesome. Maybe I overlooked it, but what kind of transmission are your running?

The transmission is the stock getrag g260 that came in the e30. All you have to do is shave the lip on the stock flywheel and it mates up to the M3 engine nicely. It does rotate the transmission a few degrees and causes you to modify the shifter carrier, selector rod, and transmission brace.

These DOHC swaps are all over the place on r3vlimited.com. There are some members over there that sell the modified transmission bits as a kit for pretty cheap.

I wanted to share some new updates with you guys. Lately my car has started seeing mostly autocross use and last weekend was my first HPDE in this car. The DE was put on by the Porsche Club of America at Sebring. My Dad has been an instructor with this group for many years, so the organizers put us together. This was my first DE in a number of years, so I was in the "green" run group. After my first 2 runs 'Ol Dad put me in with another instructor for the sign-off to blue group. The 2nd instructor commented that I was "running this little BMW pretty close to its limit."

It felt awesome! Obviously the green group is all of the newer drivers but I was passing a lot of $100k Porsches and other cars with much higher hp. I'm pumped to get out there again.

I didn't take any pics at Sebring but I have a few of the new running gear.

I've had the e30 m3 wire harness cover sitting around for almost a year. I went to install a strut bar and found that the e36 wire cover wasn't going to leave enough room. Soooo, time to do the e30 cover. It was a bit of a pain, but the results were very much worth the effort! Before: During: After: Added strut bar:

I've always loved your car. Well done!

That car is a total piece of E36 M3...

A simple "i'm not a fan" would have sufficed.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: A simple "i'm not a fan" would have sufficed.

And much more in line with the attitude arond here.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: A simple "i'm not a fan" would have sufficed.

i get the feeling he was playing with the word filter in this case.

of course i may be wrong.

I thought it was funny anyway... I guess the joke was lost in the translation somewhere... tough crowd...

Then I am sorry.

Ohhhh.... i get it now. My bad!

My favorite is the big piece of E36 M3 under the hood...

Ok.. now I am done..

Like the car btw... very classy, understated, all business, hot rod... Love that..

ronholm wrote: My favorite is the big piece of E36 M3 under the hood... Ok.. now I am done.. Like the car btw... very classy, understated, all business, hot rod... Love that..

Worded that way, I think everybody woulda gotten it the first time.

In reply to ronholm:

I laughed righ away...

In reply to Lof8:

Sweet car!

ronholm wrote: I thought it was funny anyway... I guess the joke was lost in the translation somewhere... tough crowd...

I got the joke :)

Nice job. That's one heck of an E30!

As I was looking through the photos I started thinking that the neighborhood layout looked familiar and the waterfront shot was familiar. I had to look at your profile to see where you were from, Sarasota. Being from Venice, I almost thought they were pics of Venice. Crazy how all the neighborhoods almost look the same in Sarasota County.

Great car, no question.

Some colorful updates. I got another Sparco seat and a VSR bolt-in. Also sold the 4-points in favor of some G-force 5-points. Obviously theres a new vinyl stripe and I painted one set of TRM's to match. The blue whees have some fresh Hancook R-comps to go with them. I'm looking forward to the next auto-x! I'll probably stick to the RS-3s for Sebring days as they are a bit more economical.

And heres one of the e30 gang at the last local auto-x.

Mods, could you please move this to the build forum? I have some updates to add. Thanks.

sweet...looking forward to seeing the progress. This seems like a super fun car.

Do you have total weight and weight distribution before and after the S50 swap, taking into account any other changes such as AC delete? The reason I Ask is Tom Spangler have spent way too many hours discussing E30 engine choices and we’ve both come to the conclusion that an M20 stroker is the best overall bet from cost, complexity, power, weight overall. Yes the DOHC motor options all make more power, but they all seem heavier and more complex than building a hybrid stroker. My (limited) understanding is to get a DOHC down to the same weight as an M20 based engine is to find an alloy block. While they were standard (I think) in Europe on non M models, the only allow block I recall over here were a few early Z3’s.

Note, I have a high likelihood of being completely wrong here, hence the question.

BTW, please don’t take the above as criticism, I love the car and have said so before in other threads. It’s just me desperately trying to persuade myself it’s possible to build a quick E30 without the time or cost of an M/S50/52