Early model e30 on Broadway Static Coilovers

[seven-57]

Well I'm sitting here in my closet of an apartment in Seoul, South Korea right now bored out of my mind and figured I might as well do long-overdue Showroom/Intro thread for my e30. I've been on the forums for a while, but never really did this....at least I don't think I did.

Anyways, I currently have a 1987 BMW 325e that I purchased in April of 2012. Car is pretty much stock. Honestly, the car made very little sense to me when I bought it, but it was really clean and had virtually no rust, so I went for it.

(Sorry in advance, these photo sizes are gonna be all over the place).

Bought it from this Polish guy in Queens. He was nice enough to drive it to me in NJ so I wouldn't have to drive it without tags and insurance. Car drove like a dream, but was severely over-clutched (stage 3) and a nearly stock motor. Also came with a really tacky and disgusting DTMfiberwerkz e46 M3-look body kit. More on that later though.

Car was already lowered with D2 RS Coilovers sitting on 16x8 and 16x9 LM Reps. Like I said, overall a really clean car, but needed a makeover. The real selling point for the car was its interior for me. It had an uncracked dash, everything worked except the AC (but who needs that? #windowsdownACclub). Immaculate comfort seats with zero tears or blemishes.

Here are photos from the day it came into my possession.











Got her plated and then decided to do a little photo shoot.

[Yogi_Bear]

Looks pretty clean

[seven-57]

So my next mission, bring this car back to OEM+. Put on some diving boards, a new valance, and do some other small touches.

Honestly, I don't really remember the order I did some of these things in but I'll do my best to put them in chronological order.

Purchased a couple small things like a Nardi Woodgrain steering wheel, refreshed the shifter with some new bearings, clips, and a short shifter. Also, I'm a big Star Wars nerd and had a Force FX lightsaber laying around, so I made a gangster lightsaber shift knob for shits and giggles so I could be a super kewl drift bro. Also made a big step and ordered a set of coilovers from the guys over at Broadway Static.



D2's out.



Broadway Static 500 Series coilovers in!





Got bit by the bug and started hoarding parts like crazy. Bought 2 sets of diving boards, a set of RS's, about four different valences and a bunch of other nonsense. My goal in the beginning was to do a late model bumper conversion and then realized that 1. Fuck fabbing the rear plastic bumper 2. Early models are awesome



So I sent the wheels off to powder coating and decided that the body conversion had to wait until after H2Oi because I couldn't get it all done in time.

(Heads up, I sent my wheels to Dave @RenewedFinishes and he did an AMAZING job. He does all of the powdercoating work for CaTuned in California and Guten Parts in NJ, two premier BMW shops.)

Went to H2Oi and had some fun. You might've seen me. I was that asshole blasting the Imperial March into meet parking lots.

[Evil Panda]

I like where this is going.

[seven-57]

A lot of maintenance went in somewhere between all of these pictures, so I'm just gonna say it all at once. Cracked a couple oil pans, new rear main seal and pretty much every other damn seal, new fuel lines, new sparks, new clutch, Z3 steering rack, skid plate, rebuilt diff, new PS pump, valve adjustment, all that bullshit. More or less Bentley manualed the shit outta this car.

Anywayssssss, Winter rolled around and it was time to lock myself in my garage and do all of these things plus put the new bumpers on. This was also before I sent the wheels to powdercoating now that I think about it since I test fit them in the Winter.







Bought a set of 15x8 Diamond Racing Steelies to throw on while my RS's were gone. Fitment was horrible and had to chop up my calipers, but I got them on.



I literally finished her the day before I started class again for Spring semester at college and I had a 4-5 hour drive ahead of me, so the valance and other body work had to wait.

Eventually got the valance on and she sat like this for a couple months. Originally I was going to try and go for the '88 look and do a late model valance with diving boards, but I started to like the idea less and less as time went by. I also had a full early model Zender kit that I could have put on but sold instead. I ended up only keeping the rear valance. I kind of regret selling it now though and I feel bad that I separated the kit. Oh wells. I settled on an early model 325is valence as I liked it more than the 325es version. The 325is valance has two extra holes at the bottom for the oil cooler and I thought it looked more solid.

[seven-57]

So in between, went through a couple sets of wheels during the end of Winter into Spring of 2013.

I ***** these wheels, but I got em for a steelie (See what I did there?) I will never condone the use of Diamond Racing Steelies ever again though. They have Honda center bore and are heavy as fuuuuuu.



Also got a set of Shakotans from Marc Davis.



Got the RS's back from powder coating. They're Porsche fitment, so I ran 4x100-5x130 20mm adapters in the rear and 40mm in the front to make them fit. So with adapters the wheels are curently 16x9.5 et11 in the front and 16x10.5 et10 in the rear if I remember correctly. Idk I did this months ago haha

[seven-57]

AANNNDDDD I gotta take a break since I'm going to hang out with a lady friend. But the best is yet to come! RS's mounted and other small things that make the young boys smile

Hmm......now I think about it....this probably should have gone in the build thread section.....

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[E21uro]

more!!! cliff hanger.....

[Nick475]

oh yes. im so glad you went back to diving boards

[AMGwheelwhore]

Ghay! Post current pics ya homo. Hope all is well bro get back so we can do hood rat things!

[BMW BRAD]

we need MOAR updates.........

[kylefav21]

Dylan i've never really seen your car other than instagram pictures, with that said i'm glad I stumbled on this. Your car is so rad and when you get back from Korea you'd better drive this thing up and visit again. A- so I can see this in person and B- so we can all hang again. also are you going to H20?

[seven-57]

Ghay! Post current pics ya homo. Hope all is well bro get back so we can do hood rat things!

I'm doing well man. Korea is awesome. Ladies are even more awesome. Might come back wife'd up lololol I'll be back in a couple months!

Dylan i've never really seen your car other than instagram pictures, with that said i'm glad I stumbled on this. Your car is so rad and when you get back from Korea you'd better drive this thing up and visit again. A- so I can see this in person and B- so we can all hang again. also are you going to H20?

Dewd I totally will! I was trying to before I left for Korea, but my car took forever to come back from the body shop and I didn't have enough time :\ I'll be thurrrrrr <3

[seven-57]

So more or less, to sum up the next couple updates until I left for Korea in August. All I did was crack another oil pan, replaced the motor and trans mounts and put a plate filler in to hide that ugly gap between the rub strip.

So here are a handful of pics from when the car was in the best shape of it's known life.

I think my buddy John put it best when he said that I "took this car from hood to good". haha



When I cracked my oil pan straight through my skid plate on my way to GFest 2013. I later found out that it was because my motor mounts were shot, so my pan was sitting right on top of my skid plate and anything that made contact with that transferred straight to the pan. Patched her up at a shop up the street from the event where a guy at GFest was nice enough to let me use his lift for a bit. After a little sanding and some JB weld, we were back on the road.





This photo was taken at Brusters meet in MD by my buddy Kevin Trower. He has some great photos. Check them out on his flickr. He shot Joe Dale's 1969 Mercedes W114 250 for Stanceworks.



That's all I really have for now unless I forgot something. So if you haven't figured it out already, I'm currently in South Korea studying abroad, so I'm without my sweet baby Lorraine. My current plans are as follows:

• Possibly euro bumpers
• Mount my Zender rear valance.
• Exhaust work.
• Possibly sell the RS's and get wheels that actually fit.
• Get some smileys.
• Wire the fogs.
• Respray to a color I won't disclose.
• Mono-wiper conversion.
• Original goal was to stroke the m20 to a 3.0L, but financially I don't think I can, so the new idea is to just boost this thing, blow it up, and start over. Hopefully that will all be done by next summer.

I'm sure there are a handful of other things I've considered, but I can't remember them all right now lol Hope you guys enjoyed what I've done so far.

[keeton]

Really nice looking car man. I like that you went back to stock bumpers, but keep it black!

Actually do whatever you want to do to it.
Haha.
I just think it looks great in black.