The can of worms 318i

[Byron]

I brought back the suspension from the black car, but the strut housings were rusty from living life in New England, and I couldn't have that, so I had to track down a set of good ones out here. I couldn't use the stock 318i ones because BMW in their infinite wisdom made the diameter a few mm smaller, probably to save weight since it's a racecar, and my strut inserts wouldn't fit. Once I found a good set, I started by cutting them into pieces.









The eagle eyed nerds out there might notice the mounting tab for the sway bar links on the strut tubes. I somehow ended up with the top halves of some e30 M3 strut tubes earlier in the year and I wanted those tabs, so I combined the M3 top halves with the lower halves of the stock 325i housings.









I shortened the housings 2" for good measure while I was in there.

I've seen people and companies brace the hub to the strut tube before and it seemed like a good idea, so I made some gussets and welded them in







Even though I shortened the housings 2" over stock, the strut inserts I had made are 3" shorter than factory, so I needed spacers for the bottom of the strut insert. Find some pipe



And make spacers



Simple


Then since I cut the stock spring seats off, I needed some new ones. I found these decorative thingys at the metal store that would work perfect.



Just open them up slightly



Line them up



And stick them on



Then paint the housings all pretty with a spray can at night



Assemble and compare to stock



I had my camber plates rebuilt sometime during this as well, which was a story in itself, but here they are before. Open raceplate design used for 3 years in New England means they weren't pretty





Of course I didn't take pictures afterwards.


But back to the struts



I just put the stock 318i front brakes on the new housings for now since the rear is still drum and my new housings didn't come with the vented rotor calipers.



I got these new sway bar links from a friend to use in those swanky new tabs



But they're from a mustang so they're nowhere close to working. I'm going to cut and sleeve them in order to extend and rotate them, but I still need to get material. I'm still using the stock control arm mounts for now.



Laugh at how much lower it is before moving on to the rear suspension



Then pull the rear apart and put the new stuff in.







Then pull it outside and think about how you just ruined a nice car









The suspension is very stiff since I originally built it for the black car that was 1/4" off the ground, so it rides quite a bit different. The suspension is basically all tire at the moment. It handles so much better than it did before, but now I'm gonna need some new wheels so I can get better tires. I have all new bushings for the rear end, but I'm waiting on some new trailing arms for the brake swap before I put them in.

[mikey G]

Awesome progression. Love the color, can't wait to see more detail!

[hinrichs]

I love this build, cars so clean

[Miroteknik]

^this

[SnazzyQ]

I dont know why but I LOVE the way the car looks like this. keep it on the bottle caps.

[Earl]

Very nice job so far=) It is nice seeing a well done simple e30 for once

[_e90]

Nice 325i.

[white out]

Great build.

[wwwdotwhip17]

so rad dude. I sold my civic sedan the other night and ive been considering the e30, e36, e39, and s13 hatch or coupe or volvo 240s. but this is inspiring how well rounded of a job your doing man!

[Miles.]

Q's right. The bottle caps are awesome, with a bumper tuck it'd look as oem+ perfect as a USDM e30 will get.

[Khalil]

Bump for wheels

[Markus]

3 piece bottlecaps and it will be killer Doesnt need any other wheels

[Brainfood]

Very nice, clean build. Mine started out as a 84 m10 car as well, so I know the struggle all too well at this point. I'm just stuck doing a ton of rust repair and s50 swapping.

[Byron]

Damn, it's been forever since I've updated this. So, where did we leave off.


Bought some Brock B1's



***** them and took them off a week later





I brought them to get refinished so I could sell them and told the shop I wasn't in a hurry. This was apparently the wrong thing to say because they still have them nearly 6 months later.

Got some new window switches since mine were working intermittently



Before



After



Beautiful shift boot, right?

Found and fixed a squeaking from the engine





Found a large vacuum leak



What was left of the #4 intake gasket





Fixed some more cooling system problems while I was in there









Exhaust snapped off at the manifold



A month after fixing the coolant leaks under the manifold the next weakest spot gave up



This is the hose from the back of the waterpump to the heater pipe, which is a real pita to get to, so I finally bit the bullet and just replaced what was left of the cooling system at the same time. S/O to squishy for the parts, I'll pay you for them one of these days.



Gross



But of course, it wouldn't be a can of worms build if nothing went wrong. Someone had replaced the waterpump at some point and used shitty bolts that corroded themselves into the timing case and snapped off while I was taking everything apart.



I tried vice grips, heat, welding, etc. nothing worked, so I had to drill them out. I was lazy and didn't want to take the radiator and condenser out, which made the job even worse. The drill kept walking it's way into the aluminum timing case, so I had our machinist make me a guide plate.









Drilled and tapped



Helicoiled





And done. All bolts replaced and coated in anti-seize for the next muppet



My girlfriend bought me new window trim for Christmas and I finally installed it 5 months later. It was the wonderful yellow before.







And now it's nice luxurious chromed plastic. I figure it'll last to winter before it turns yellow again







And we're back up to date. So to sum up what you've just read, I've been fixing the same things I've been fixing since day 1.

I need (want) some wheels but I can't find what I want for what I want to pay. I also want some euro bumpers and a new interior, but, once again, I don't want to pay for them. Stuff usually ends up dropping into my lap if I wait long enough though, so I'm just waiting it out.

[Byron]

Decided it was time to tackle the exhaust. It had been giving me trouble since the beginning of my ownership, it hung low and hit a lot, it was a big mismatch of parts and was poorly assembled, and one of the hangers had broke a while back and I was using a hose clamp to hold it up so it rattled. If it wasn't for the rattle I'd probably be leaving it alone.

So I ordered some pieces from Summit. Got a 1 3/4" U bend, a 2 1/4" U bend, 2 4' sections of 2 1/4", and 2 glasspacks. I wanted to try to fit the 18" underneath the car and run just that, but I got the 14" too in case the 18" was too large.



Took the old crap off. What was there was a combination of 1 3/4, 1 7/8, 2, and 2 1/4 tubing, not in that order.



Started with this to make a Y for the downpipe



Measure and cut



Weld together



Cut the end off





And attach to the old flange. I put the Y at a slight angle to help with routing the rest of the system





Used part of the 2 1/4 U bend and some straight to get it under the floor



Couple more bends to attach it to my existing converter.



This was the inside of my "constant radius mandrel bent" tubing.



The 18" had zero possibility of fitting under the floor, so I attempted to fit the 14" under there



But once I had it all welded up it was way too low and I wasn't happy with it. So I cut it off and progressed into plan C, which was run the 18" in the stock muffler location. I ran out of bends from the U bend at this point, so cut up a bunch of 20* pie cuts instead. The muffler I left hanging in the car because it's a pain to get off. I made a couple hangers too





Mig pie cuts, max weldporn bro



Painted it all black since I just used regular steel and black is more racecar



Made a tip



And back up in the car for the final time





Nice and unobtrusive. I swear that's just dirt and not overspray



It sits nice and high now: it's flush with the frame rails up front and only hangs down under the rear subframe, which is unavoidable unless I used [$]oval tubing[/$]





But I'm not in love with the sound. It has the sound I wanted above like 4500rpm, but down low it's slightly diesel-like, and it's a bit louder than I would have liked. I might try a different muffler later on, but for now I'm going to see if it grows on me.