E30 Touring resto - Pic heavy

[Night Colors]

dang :/ the feeling driving this car is going to be awesome i bet

[Jozi]

dang :/ the feeling driving this car is going to be awesome i bet

I'm going to be to scared to drive it in case I have a miss hap I hope it will drive as good as, if not better, than it did when new. Different engine is sure to be the most noticeable improvement and a 40% locking diff

[Jozi]

Slow progress shot of the last 3 afternoons painstakingly clearing dried out deox-gel from the body and coating it with zinc primer



Getting there slowly! Half the top arch is done, bottom one got another coat of gel earlier, few bits to do around the battery tray when I flip the car round, then it's pretty much chassis legs forward that need doing.

[Jozi]

Very slowly tipping away at the underside, finally all done!


Front Arches, chassis legs and engine bay left to do. All the brown stuff is caked on deox gel which is a pain to get of cause it dried out and went hard.

Have been calling around and chatting to a few painters the last few weeks, have 2 guys that I think will deliver a paint job I'll be happy with. Going to have a look at some of their work tomorrow and probably decide then who to go with.

[Rob&co]

nice! kEEP UP!

[Jozi]

Little bit done today, got the front arch cleaned up and re-applied some deox gel, I should have this primered Monday. Also realised I already did the other front arch so next up the engine bay.

Decided to mock up my intake system and see what will/won't work, with all silicone hoses, alloy pipe and my cardboard cone filter this is what I roughly get




Which doesn't really work in either case. The cone will be enclosed in a heatshield that I have yet to make up, just need to figure out how/where to mount the cone so it doesn't hit the lights or body work and isn't to close to the AFM.

[Jozi]

Got a painter sorted, he's to get back to me with a date, will prob be more or less 3 weeks from now before he can pick it up.

Engine bay and a few bits I missed are being treated with deox gel, will start clearing it of this week and get started on the bay.

[Jozi]

Had a hose delivered this morning, sun was out, got busy trying to make the airbox fit in the bay. It fits but it's very tight! Can't decide if it's to close for comfort and I should do a cone setup or stick with this for the OEM look.






Painter was meant to colelct last Sat, but I was away for a week + lazyness + massive to-do list so been pushed back another week or two to give me time to finish the last bits.

[Bra1nl3ss]

For sound you can't beat a cone setup on a m52b28 with m50 intake. I haven't had the radio on in ages.

[Jozi]

I know what you mean, think I prefer oem look though. Have heard bmw's don't take to well to cones, suck in hot air, unless you make up a good heatshield. Had an idea in mind for a shield.

[Bra1nl3ss]

In my case the cone is placed at the oem airinlet behind the lights and has a heatshield made of alu diamondplate that doubles as a mounting point for the intake tubing. I still need to put some insulation on the shield but i never noticed any problems with heat. Probably the e30,e32 and e34 have less heat build-up because of the open structure around the lights.

[Jozi]

That sounds like the right way to go about it. Google "castros" and E30 or something and you will find something that I was going to loosely copy. For now the standard airbox is winning if I can make it fit.

[99sil-teg]

Makes me so mad that these didn't come to the states bc I'd love an e30 touring. Great work so far, can't wait to see more!

[Bra1nl3ss]

The oem box looks like it will fit very nice if you find a way to mount it rattle free.
I like the castro intake i'll probably base the next version of my intake on that one, looks a lot cleaner then mine.

[Jozi]

The castro box does look good, I though of something similar with a feed coming in from the frotn valance to the underside of the box and possible another hole on the inner wing into the arch. Plan is to make up a bracket to fix the box and a little rubber pad for the footing.