Doigal's dirte30 318i Diary

[Doigal]

Doigal's dirte30 318i




Well with so many different things going on with my car, i thought that it would be time to keep a little diary of all the stuff happening.

For those that don’t know, the e30 318i is still my first car (over 4 years now). Doesn’t matter what breaks on it (lots) or how much it costs (lots) I can never bring myself to be angry at it, let alone get rid of it. Being the m40, it’s defiantly under powered, but has always does me well, despite being abused as a test stand for each and every little wacky idea I've had. I'll gloss over to what’s there at the moment:

Engine
Stock m40b18

Suspension
Eibach Pro Springs
Bilstin Shocks
Whiteline Tower Brace

Exterior
Genuine Mtech 2 Rear wing
Passenger Hi-Beam removed

Interior
LED interior lights replacing standard ones
Power window Retrofit (Passenger side only at the moment)

Stereo
Clarion Head Unit (Radio and CD player)
Audison LRx 2.500 2 channel amp (2x200WRMS)
Fronts:

Hertz 8" Mid Bass
Hertz 5" Mid Range
Hertz 1" Tweeter

Hertz Passive 3way crossover
No Rear stage (removed)
Sony PSone 6" LCD Screen
Ipod Link and Charger
Wiring for computer in boot

So as you can see, it’s mostly show at the moment. Hopefully this year things will change a little! The engine is in dire need of some major work, and so the current plan is to lift an e36 m42 or m44 (1.8 or 1.9) and all of their parts to take care of the power, but in the mean time I’m working on the suspension setup a little more. (Blindly hoping my m40 lasts another couple of months!)

Longer term 'goals'
e36 318is Engine Transplant
Dowling Atlanta Supercharger (i am more likly to be dead of old age though)
LSD diff (not sure on ratio yet)
Full Upgrade of front suspension
Upgrade of rear suspension
OBC retrofit (computer, Stalk, temperature gauge, no relay module though)
Lighted Mirror Retrofit
Colour code bumpers front and rear
Get the computer back in

[Doigal]

Plans for May: (Funds Permitting)

Finish off Electric Window retrofit (Drivers side)
Noltec Non-offset control arm bushings
Replace control arms (Standard, no upgrade)
Noltec Front strut top mount with Adjustable Camber plates (Urethane)
Ireland Engineering or E46 M3 Rear shock mount upgrade (unsure which one yet - post on them is here)

Will try to take pics of it all and post it up here soon after its done...

[DiVaN]

Nice car mate!
The future sounds promising for your e30! i will be keeping a close eye!

My e36 318i (m40) is taking a very similar path as yours im trying to source a m42 or m44 to transplant into my car at the moment.

Hope it all goes well! Keep up the good work!

[Doigal]

From what i've read Divan, theres nothing good about the OBD2 manegment systems of the m44 (actually all i hear about OBD2 is mods to get rid of it!) I'd love to get the m44 but realistically i think that the e36 m42 (knock sensors and better belt setup) is the go.

[DiVaN]

your right on the money there!

have you found any places that have the m42 engine? one place i went to had one in stock but sold it the day before i called them! im going for a "half cut" i think it will be a lot easier and a better choice than buying the engine by itself.. hopefully i should get mine up and running soon.... im just collecting parts atm

[Windy]

Get an M10 up ya

[STREETSPEC_iS]

4cyls and High Heels.

make sure you document that m40-m42 swap when you do it!

[Doigal]

when its done, dont worry i'll be trying to snap as much as possible for the write up! But sadly its still a while off.... mmm future power!

[Doigal]

Well a little progress on the car. After a little bit of fiddling, I finally got both of the power windows in and working. Still have the habit of reaching for a now non-existant window winder, but i'm sure that will go sooner or later!

For a while now theres been a slight clunking sound from the back after letting off the throttle in some of the lower gears. I suspected the Rear shock mounts after reading up on it and thought that in any case it would be good to get one of the ones that has the reinforcement plate for the top. In the end, I got the Ireland engineering ones, mostly because they were probably going to be cheaper than the e46 BMW ones.

Installation of these isnt very hard at all. There are write ups of this already, but essentially it consists of jacking up the back of the car, taking the wheels off, removing the main shock bolt (19mm), and undoing the two bolts that hold the old rear shock mount in place. Took me about an hour with lots of looking under the car at other things, so i'm sure that it could be done in 20~30 minutes if need be.

Whilst they didnt fix the clunking noise (which is now suspected to be the subframe bushings, but that can wait), it did tighten the rear a little bit. Mostly though, its for the peace of mind that the RSMs are now reinforced and happy for a while.

Sub total for this month:
Ireland Engeering RSMs ~$150 Landed

Next is the front control arms and bushings, when i get the time to do it. Also hunting around for an OBC and Loom on fleabay, but there arnt that many up there these days...

[Doigal]

Write up on noltec front install is here, hopefully i'll have a verdict on them after the wheel alignment. From the short drive that i've done on them, there is a clear improvement in turning, and all of the front end problems have been sorted. Finally the strut brace sits on well!

Some pics:

Parts to go in


New strut top


New bushing and control arm


That brings the total for May to:
Rear shock mounts $150 landed from IE
OEM Front control arms $242 from Bav spares
Noltec adjustable strut mounts $400 from GT suspension
Noltec concentric bushes $115 from GT suspension

[Doigal]

Got some more bits in the post!



Cant install the OBC until i find a loom, but hopefully one will pop up on ebay sooner or later.... With any luck the diff bushing should go in sometime within the next week or two.

[Doigal]

Installed the OBC and its LED display last night. Definatly enjoying all the new features! Got to go back in and replace some of the other lights though, just waiting on some more LEDs to come in...

[DCR]

Coming along nicely.

[peterz]

What wheels do you have on your car?
Looks nice

[Doigal]

Speedy Hyperfang II's