BMW E30 318 Coupe (with m42 for good measure)

[Marlon]

Hello,

Thought I probably should make a car thread showing my car. This is only for clubman events for the time being combined with the odd autosolo and Nat B road event when budget permits.

I purchased the car sometime around last August (jesus, thats a long time) for a tidy sum of £200 with couple of months of Tax and Test, bog standard 318 with a hugely tappaty m40 engine, Rich will be able to describe the noise better than I will lol.

Apart from the engine, the body work is very tidy with only having rust scabs on the wheel arches and the passenger side door. Underneath it is very very clean as is the interior, bar the usual drivers seat wear.

However, in standard 318 form, it was hardly going to be a competitive car, it was horrendously barge like and the first wet roundabout I had a go at a little oversteer, I got muuuuuch more than I expected lol and ended up in a bush, luckly was doing about 10mph so I just reversed out quickly and went on my way. I nearly thought about selling it after this and going back to small fwd french cars but I decided I needed to improve my driving skills and learn this rwd thing that everyone keeps going on at me about. So I set about doing some modifications / upgrades.

Suspension
As the car was going to be mainly used for country roads, and the country roads around here are rather neglected shall we say. Therefore it needed to be relatively pliable, but still firm enough to be sharp to drive, so I thought I'd use the mtech suspension as it fits the above criteria.

I managed to get myself a pair of 51mm struts with newish boge mtech dampers, set of mtech springs, rear billie B4 dampers (as I couldn't afford new mtech items), 20mm front ARB and a 14.5mm rear ARB. I also decided to get some M3 wishbone bushes to increase the steering feel. All these are now on the car and its looking a bit swish.

Changing the rear dampers, turns out the dampers and the bushings were rather shot, so that probably added to the roundabout incident.

Steering
I treated myself to a z3 rack, probably shouldn't have as money is a bit tight, but I really like quick racks as my disability means its quite hard to turn the wheel multiple turns quickly - so this should help that significantly.

We originally fitted the rack while we had the engine out, but turned out the rod ends were seized solid so we had to remove the rack to get a blow torch on the ends to free them up. The rack is now half way back on, just needing bottom spacers fitting and the bolts to go through them. I have sourced a high pressure pipe from a e36 318 so that should sort that side, just need to get a low pressure one made up and that'll be that.

Engine
I quickly got bored of the m40 engine and its tiredness, it really didn't want to rev above 4k due to the tappets not being able to keep up and so restricting air flow (I'm assuming). I saw a m42 + box + prop complete with all ancillaries for £150 on ebay, and it was too tempting for me . Went to Cardiff to pick up the lot in my friend's pug 106, shoved it into the boot, tied it down and came back knowing that I had just brought a engine off ebay that I hadn't heard running... but ah well.

Took us about 3 days to do the swap, using the e34 m50 engine mounts as suggested on here, at first the m42 had no oil pressure, but we had just given it a new oil filter and forgot to cover it in oil so the pump could work, after doing that we got oil pressure and after reconnecting the ignition, fired up first fine, abit of a tick but that slowly died down and I'm pleased to say now that it has settled in, its running pretty sweetly.

Brakes
Brakes are still standard 318 spec, solid fronts and drumed rear with seemingly 72k mile brake fluid. When I still had the m40 in, I did a 12 car and found if I went down through the gears I could halve my braking distance . I have some vented callipers and discs to go on, fast road pads, new rear shoes, and some ATE Super Blue fluid to go in. That should help the braking issues no end.

Lighting
I have some KC 5.75" daylighters which I acquired off Rich that will go into the inner slots, I'm going to get some H4 hella/cibie 5.75" lights with side lights fittings to go into the outers. I just need to get a set of headlight buckets and grills from America, and unfortunately the shipping is kinda expensive so I think that'll have to wait a bit until my funding situation improves - graduate jobs are hard to come by in my area lol, but will get one eventually no doubt.

Interior
Interior is going to stay standard for the time being, apart from the steering wheel which is going to be replaced my a mtech 1 wheel as I like the feel of 3 prong wheels.

Photos
Photobucket Album

[rearwheelsteercompact]

An interesting read. Keep up the good work

The workshop looks very interesting - full of allsorts - I like it

[Marlon]

Yea, the workshop is a friend's of a friend's lol, and it seems the guy doesn't throw much away however, most of it is going to be scrapped as his lease is up in a few months.

But he is in the process of building himself a new one, with a 4 post lift that isn't held together with a ratchet strap, though even if it is ratchet strapped together its still damn useful.

[jonnysprinter]

I purchased the car sometime around last August (jesus, thats a long time) for a tidy sum of £200 with couple of months of Tax and Test, bog standard 318 with a hugely tappaty m40 engine, Rich will be able to describe the noise better than I will lol.

Very cheap buy every tappety sounding M40 I've come across has had a knackered camshaft due to poor sevicing and would have cost you more to fix than the £150 you spent on the M42 motor you've just fitted

[Marlon]

Yea, I'm pretty pleased tbh, and thanx to an genius call to my insurer only cost me a fiver in admin fees to put the engine on the paperwork .

[Marlon]

bit of an update...

Brakes are now fully reconditioned with new seals in the front callipers, new discs and new pads. Rears have had the same treatment with new wheel cylinders as the old ones were leaking, new shoes and I had the lip taken off the drum. Also flushed the fluid through with new ATE blue stuff, and am very pleased with the results, nice firm peddle and vastly sharper then they were before.

I've also just upgraded my light system, I managed to get what I needed from America for a reasonable price and put the loom together over the weekend. Needed an array of 4 relays in the end in order to convert the current setup (H1) to H4 plus power what I needed but its all done now and works. KC named their lights correctly, can feel the heat given off the daylighters 8ft away and that was on a hot day so can't wait to see what they're like at night.

Only thing wrong with the car at the moment is a slightly bent passenger side strut which is throwing the camber off a little and so making the car dislike uneven roads. But have located a replacement so hopefully that one isn't bent.