Dlux BMW E21 build

[Erik D_lux]

I have been working on this build for a couple of months now. I have posted on FB and bimmerforums but I kinda feel out of place there. I feel like most of those people insist on a stockish type of car on 13" wheels. Maybe not insist but rather what they prefer. I prefer heavily modified and I really enjoy the look of a stance car so I figured maybe I will post on here in hopes of finding more like minded people.

I will copy and paste what I have so far. I hope you guys like it.

[Erik D_lux]

After searching for over 6 months, I finally picked up a 1983 BMW 320i or E21.
To say I am stoked is to put it lightly. This was my first car ever. 22yrs ago, when I got my other car, it had nothing but problems so I had to get rid of it as it was just not practical for a high school kid who knew nothing about cars. 6 months ago, I looked thru some pictures to try and remember what the interior looked like and when I did, I couldnt get the car out of my head after that.
This car has its issues for sure. It will be a fun project car to work on. It also has some nice parts.
Rust free
Euro bumpers front and rear
Turbo M10 motor that actually goes pretty good. Lots of oil leaks though.
BC coilovers

[Erik D_lux]

The most important thing to me about my e21 is a comfortable interior. I also wanted black where as this one came in tan.
I found a local guy this weekend that was willing to part out his 1977. The door cards are almost perfect condition and the carpet is good enough for now unless I can find a pristine one. I already had the rear seats which are in great shape.

[Erik D_lux]

I have always loved Corbeau seats! I have been a dealer for them for some years now so it was a given that I would be putting some in this car. I got some A4 seats with seat heaters and lumbar. I cant comment on the heaters since its summer but the lumbar is so good! I need a lot for my back. These seats turned out perfect IMO.
The only regret is that I wish I would have gone full leather instead of suede. I also made my stock seat brackets work so that saved me some money. I will put up in a different post how I did that. It was pretty easy.

[Erik D_lux]

"How to make stock seat brackets work with Corbeau seats?"

Corbeau had finished my seats for awhile but they were still waiting on the brackets. Being the impatient person I am, I got the seats anyway and then looked into how to do my own brackets. Turned out, it was fairly easy.

Make note, I have no idea how the Corbeau brackets install. A couple of issues I dont understand is how Corbeau sells a bracket for all years of the E21. The problem with that idea is that early e21's had the mounts on the chassis being the same side to side where as the later e21's had the same mount on the door side but then on the inner mount, it drops like 1" or so. I dont see how they can provide a bracket that suits both, maybe they have this figured out? Another issue is that on the later e21, the seat belt is built into the stock seat bracket where as the early e21's have it bolted to the chassis. These are the biggest reasons I see to use the stock brackets over the Corbeau brackets. I could be wrong though.

#1, you need to make the bracket for the corbeau seats to mount to the stock bracket. I used some 1x.250" flat bar cut to 18.75".

#2 You then need to drill 4 holes in 4 of these bars. Starting from the edge, you drill a 1/4" hole .594" from edge, 21/64" hole 3.688" from edge, 21/64" hole 15.063" from edge, and a 1/4" hole 18.157" from edge. This will complete all the brackets going from the Corbeau seat to the factory brackets.

#3 Now you need to drill the factory brackets so they are inline with the flat bars you just made. These holes need to be 13" on center where as the stock holes are 13.375" on center. This part can be tricky because you need to make a hole that is close to the other holes. I did a 3/8" hole for these and if you do the math, they need to be .187" closer than the existing holes, which can be a pain since your new hole will want to walk into the old holes. I used a mill for this so it was not a problem for me, you might need to mess with this for a bit though?

#4 now you just get to bolt everything up. Pretty straight forward. See pictures.

#5 To fix my seat belt issue, I took the stock seat belt parts off and welded them to the stock parts. It looks a bit strange with the loop in the mount but when these seats are mounted, you cant even see them and I am not worried about strength.

[Erik D_lux]

Momo steering wheel installed. I love it!

[Erik D_lux]

I went to Home Depot to try my hand at some light upholstery, which is not my thing but turned out OK.
For $17, I got a lot of carpet and did the trunk area and the rear deck area. Lots left over so I can park on top of it, which is actually nice. I think it turned out pretty good.
I also installed a stereo. Alpine 73BT head unit, Pioneer TS-A4676R 4x6 speakers, Audison SR1dk amp and 2 Alpine SWR-10d4 10" subs. It satisfies my ears very much.

[Erik D_lux]

All I have ever heard about the dash covers are that they are horrible. I can not stand a cracked dash and taking the dash out to send it off for weeks at a time was not feasible either so I bought a cover to try it out.

All I can say is "Wow"! I really like this cover! It snapped into place with no trimming at all, literally snapped. The fitment is perfect and the look is hard to tell that its not factory. I dont see the downside.

I did park it in the very hot sun and there is one spot where I did not glue down that bubbled up a touch, like maybe 1/16 of an inch. The only reason I noticed is because it was new and I wanted to see how it did with the sun. If I didnt touch it, I would have not known.

Maybe I have not seen the downside to this cover but right now, I am MORE than pleased with it and I am pretty picky about how it looks. For $130 shipped, that really cant be beat either.

Oh, BTW, its Accuform brand and not Coverlay, maybe thats the difference? I found that Coverlay makes them for pre 80 where Accuform makes them for post 80

[Erik D_lux]

Dear M10,



I wish I could say you have disappointed me but this was my expectation from you. I really just wanted you to survive 6mths to a year. I guess that was just too much and I should be happy with the 3 weeks or 200ish miles I got? Either way, I am going to have to ask you to pack your bags and GTFO. I have a new, hotter girl moving in.

[Erik D_lux]

Finally, most of the planning and gathering parts is done. Now the fun part, the build.

I got a donor E28, got to work and pulled the front and rear out of it. With a bit more work, I will have this under the E21.

[Erik D_lux]

Hey, I finally get to post some progress pics! Its really nice to finally get something done on this car.

I got the front end put together for the most part. I swapped in the E28 (528e) front end. This is not a direct swap in as there are a couple issues to get around.

First issue is that the control arm from the e21 will not work with the E28 spindles and the E28 control arm will not bolt into the E21. So, I had to figure out how to do that. My fix was to fabricate a control arm.

I went with a 3/4 x 5/8 rod end at the sub frame, I will have a poly bushing at the sway bar and then I went back to my crawling roots and I put in a 1 ton tie rod end at the spindle. LOL. I think that should be plenty strong?

I machined all DOM tubing to accomplish this.

The 1 ton tie rod end was a pretty close fit taper wise but I did have to ream out the hole for the correct taper on that end.

[Erik D_lux]

The other problem on the E28 swap other than the control arm is the strut or shock mount. It will depend on what type of strut youre running on what fix you need to do. Luckily, I have coilovers. Coilovers allow me to adjust the top mount to bring them out towards the fender. Being as the E28 will make me wider, I need to bring the top of the shock out too so my camber stays in check.

I made some adapters so the coilovers will weld onto the e28 strut housings. They are a different size than the e21 struts.

I left a good bit of strut housing but in hindsight, I think I could have cut off more to get the car even lower. No biggie. I think I am about 1/4" taller with this setup than with my e21 setup because of this.

[Erik D_lux]

Other than the adapters to fit the coilover on the strut housing, I also did a couple other mods.

I shortened the coilover bottom housing almost .8" to bring the ride height down. This was just wasted space and added unnecessary ride height.

I also saw that they left a bit of extra meat on the top bracket where I can machine that out and get about .250" of extra adjustment on the camber. I might be able to get even a touch more, I am not sure if I will need it though, we will see.

Last thing I did was add an extra brace between the strut housing and the shock body. I dont think this was necessary but it was fun to make and adds a bit of coolness to the build.

[bwwaaaa]

I really like where this is going, nice work keep it up! I'm with you on Bimmerforums being a bunch of grumps. I'm banned there anyways, haven't been back in years haha.

Keep the updates coming, I feel like E21s are finally starting to get the spotlight they deserve. They just look so cool sitting low.

[Beemernut]

I think the e21 and e30 are tied for the best looking BMWs. I'd love to get my hands on a clean one...alas, I live in Michigan's North Pole.