I impulse-bought a pair of E30s today. I intend to keep one and sell the other. Both have unreasonably high mileage, manual transmissions and are missing the front seats.
Car 1: 1984 325e 2dr 
Car 2: 1985 318i 4dr
My plan was to put them both on the lift and see which one is less rusty, then keep that one. Anyone have any inspired ideas?
pics no worky
M10s are pretty weak. I'd keep the eta
In reply to Lof8:
They might be slow but are also pretty efficient and nigh unkillable. Count my vote towards "the less rusty one."
The two door one.
I would definitely keep the 6-cyl and the manual behind it. Put it in whichever car is better. Swap on an "i" head and enjoy. The eta engine is actually a 2.7L, so the additional cubes plus the compression bump from the "i" head makes for a little more oomph than a plain 2.5L i. The 260 manual behind the 6 is a wee bit beefier.
The rest is academic and cosmetic.
The less rusty one. Everything else is just wrenching.
Knurled wrote: The less rusty one. Everything else is just wrenching.
This. Best chassis. E30 drivetrains are totally interchangeable. And if either one has an LSD rear end, keep it. Doubtful the ETA car does. My '85 M10 car came with a 3.91 LSD stock (and they are in reasonable demand these days as a great ratio for M42 cars).
M10 in stock form can take a good bit of turbo if going fast is your goal. Plus the light engine keeps the car nicely balanced. I rallycrossed my M10 car for a season. Once you wind it up, the M10 can be reasonably fun.
ETA with an 885 head ("superEta") is torquey as hell. Also heavier. ETA in stock form is not terribly exciting, and has a very low redline. Hope you like shifting a lot. We race an ETA car in Chump and it's nothing to write home about, lol.
Both get pretty decent fuel mileage.
The 2 door shell is more attractive. Sell/part the other car and drivetrain from the 2 dr to obtain S52 goodness. It gets horrible gas mileage the whole time it's making you laugh like a fool.
The e -> i head swap only works on the '88 "super eta" cars, they have different pistons. If you head swap a normal ETA you end up with super low compression, not recommended.
The m10 car will be the harder one to engine swap.
Keep the less rusty one, unless you care about the number of doors.
mr2peak wrote: The e -> i head swap only works on the '88 "super eta" cars, they have different pistons. If you head swap a normal ETA you end up with super low compression, not recommended.
Unless you plan on forced induction.... 
I love my 4 door. The interior is still useful as a hauling device even with the roll cage in place. 
Gas mileage and number of doors don't matter to me. I want a cheap & fun to drive car with a manual transmission to practice auto crossing and, hopefully HPDE. Although I'm intending to keep whichever one I fix up, I don't want to put 1000 hours of labor into a car that's only worth $500 when I'm done. I've done that before, and when a nicer one shows up down the street for sale for under a grand, built by the factory the way I built mine, it just makes me feel dumb
For example, I once built a 2.0L 16V/5-speed Jetta out of a 1991 1.8L 8V automatic. When it was done, it was awesome & looked like VW had built it. But a few weeks later, an original 16V/5spd 1992 Jetta became available locally for $900 and, although I loved what I built, I felt a little stupid. For that reason, I may not want to do any drivetrain swaps between my crusty E30s
Keep the eta and do either an m30 or m5x swap. Both motors bolt up to the trans already in there (plus some other work). The m30 is heavier but much torquier at 3.5L which can work well with the stock 2.9ish rear end in the eta.
With the prices of e30s these days you cant go wrong if its in decent shape. I would choose the one that's in better shape.
M030 wrote: My plan was to put them both on the lift and see which one is less rusty, then keep that one. Anyone have any inspired ideas?
Solid plan. For HPDE and autox, refresh the suspension and brakes. Make sure the oiling and cooling are up to par. Basically, get it safe, then enjoy.
I still haven't gotten them both up in the air yet, but today I like the 2dr (325e) better because it runs and the 4dr(318i) still doesn't
If you don't plan on doing any engine swaps or major stuff, it's a toss-up for me. The M10 isn't terribly powerful, but the early 318s are several hundred pounds lighter than the early 325s and are plenty of fun to drive as long as drag-racing isn't your goal.
The eta car will surely be more torquey, but will also drive heavier (and with the ultra-low redline and gearing I don't find an ETA to be especially fun in stock form).
Again though, neither drivetrain will blow you out of the water. Pick the one with less rust (if there's much of a difference) and go with that one. Rust is the hardest thing to fix. Everything else is easy.
btw, do they both have rear drum brakes? I swapped rear 325 discs onto my early 318 (which had drums).
I finally got them both up on the lift and the 4dr isn't spotless underneath, but the 2dr nearly broke in half its so rusty!
So the four-door it is, then. Now the question becomes, do I bother swapping the 6cyl drivetrain from the rusty 325e 2dr in the less-rusty 318i 4dr?
I would pick everything possible off of the 2 door, sell what you don't want and swap whenever.
Nick_Comstock wrote: The two door one.
This, I hate 4 dr E30s.
M030 wrote: I finally got them both up on the lift and the 4dr isn't spotless underneath, but the 2dr nearly broke in half its so rusty! So the four-door it is, then. Now the question becomes, do I bother swapping the 6cyl drivetrain from the rusty 325e 2dr in the less-rusty 318i 4dr?
If you don't mind the work, might as well - the e motors have lots of torque, and I think the 318 shells are 300lbs lighter.
I don't mind my es at all, great driving car, though I do prefer the sound of 7K rpm in a I6 as opposed to 4800...
z31maniac wrote:Nick_Comstock wrote: The two door one.This, I hate 4 dr E30s.
easy solution is to disguise the rear doors by putting in a fixed window with no "upright divider". and you still get to keep the functionality of having them
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