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Time for me to do this I suppose! Before you read any further, I want to give MattAvino the biggest possible thank you, because without his help, this car would still be dead in a single car garage in the middle of January in two feet of snow.
So, to make a long story really short, a friend of mine had a shitty e30 a few years ago that we caught air and and did all sorts of other stupid shit. This was a REAL western New York car... you could pull the carpet up and burn your shoes off on the throughway if you wanted too. It had about 3 motors in it, and finally blew the trans to pieces all over the thruway if I remember the story correctly. We called that e30 Felix.
Despite being a piece of trash, I fell in love. I knew I had to have one at some point. Jump to this time (Early october), last year (2013). My truck was on the fritz, and I was looking to dump it on someone else before it was a huge issue on my end. A friend of mine told me his roommate was selling an e30. The time had come. Felix 2.0 was going to be a thing. With more floorboards and less rust.
Here he is the day I picked him up. While the original Felix was an m20, auto car (maybe a 325i?), Felix 2.0 was a 1984 318i. Racelands (I KNOW), momo wheel, and magnaflow catback were pretty much the only upgrades. But it had seen only two winters, had almost every single piece of paperwork, and had very limited rust for a WNY car, and it's Henna. If I would have known a little better, I may have waited for a m20, later model car, but it's all in the past now.
Side view for stance reference.
One of my favorite pictures of him from early on.
AND THEN: The m10 started to poop on me at about 135k, I had owned the car for about 3 months at this point. Not 100% sure what the issue was, honestly didn't care. I had already planned to do a swap on the car, and this just gave me a reason to do it.
A good friend of mine from High School who is also really into e30's saved my ass though, he had a fully rebuilt and cammed motor (272 shrick before you ask) that he pulled from another one of his projects (it's getting a twin turbo'd, bored and stroked 5.0 from a mid 80's foxbody). But he gave me a stupid good deal on the motor, a manual trans, and every single piece we thought we were gonna need to swap the car, including some newer parts. AND he helped me for weekends on end of minimal sleep so I could get the car back on the road, and stop stealing my girlfriend's car.
This also happened at a perfect time in WNY... luckily not having a car wasn't a huge issue for most of the time because I was on break from school, but I still had to work.
30k on this motor, bingo.
Perfectly timed around Miley's hit song... (MattAvino does his best impression)
Early model wiring
One of the rare, somewhat warm days, conveniently when we were ready to put the m20 in the car.
I actually don't have a picture of the motor in the car after we finished the swap, or at least I can't find one right now. But I now had the second brake pedal added that I had been missing!
Now there's a boring gap time where I'm currently poor, but my friend also hooked me up with a set of euro bumpers from a car he (again) parted out a few months ago. They're not perfect, but I'm gonna clean them up and get everything mint when we go to repaint the car (maybe next summer?). Got a dumb europlate at Bimmerfest East. I love it, and people love taking pictures of it at local shows, so it's worth it.
So that's all I currently have for you guys!
This car right now is more a cruiser than anything, because of the raceland it handles like a sack of potatoes. However, I plan to autocross the hell out of it after the work I want to do this winter, and eventually get it on the track and beat the shit out of it. He's not just going to be a show car, that's why I am not currently worried about the outside of the car at all.
Future plans to keep people interested include:
- Full resto of the underside over the winter, including new undercoating and rust repair
- Ground control full coilovers, maybe camber plates
- ST swaybars front and rear
- Condor bushing kit
- Custom stainless exhaust
- 3.73lsd swap. (4.10 open currently).
- Any other underside general maintenance
Far future plans that are not set in stone:
- KA turbo kit, APR head studs, tuned to around 17psi or so. New clutch
- Mishimoto radiator
- Exterior paint, same henna color, but repair a few tiny rust spots and pull tons of dents.
- Corbeau FX driver's seat, A4 passanger (don't want to loose the back seat, and girlfriend likes to recline and sleep during longer show runs).
- Bolt in half cage (my friend is building a full cage for his 302 Turbo car, so we're going to make a bolt in version of the rear hoop and bars, so I can use it for track days.
Another friend of mine also has euro grills and headlight washers/wipers that I'm getting from him,. After I grab some Smiley headlights for them.
So, to make a long story really short, a friend of mine had a shitty e30 a few years ago that we caught air and and did all sorts of other stupid shit. This was a REAL western New York car... you could pull the carpet up and burn your shoes off on the throughway if you wanted too. It had about 3 motors in it, and finally blew the trans to pieces all over the thruway if I remember the story correctly. We called that e30 Felix.
Despite being a piece of trash, I fell in love. I knew I had to have one at some point. Jump to this time (Early october), last year (2013). My truck was on the fritz, and I was looking to dump it on someone else before it was a huge issue on my end. A friend of mine told me his roommate was selling an e30. The time had come. Felix 2.0 was going to be a thing. With more floorboards and less rust.
Here he is the day I picked him up. While the original Felix was an m20, auto car (maybe a 325i?), Felix 2.0 was a 1984 318i. Racelands (I KNOW), momo wheel, and magnaflow catback were pretty much the only upgrades. But it had seen only two winters, had almost every single piece of paperwork, and had very limited rust for a WNY car, and it's Henna. If I would have known a little better, I may have waited for a m20, later model car, but it's all in the past now.
Side view for stance reference.
One of my favorite pictures of him from early on.
AND THEN: The m10 started to poop on me at about 135k, I had owned the car for about 3 months at this point. Not 100% sure what the issue was, honestly didn't care. I had already planned to do a swap on the car, and this just gave me a reason to do it.
A good friend of mine from High School who is also really into e30's saved my ass though, he had a fully rebuilt and cammed motor (272 shrick before you ask) that he pulled from another one of his projects (it's getting a twin turbo'd, bored and stroked 5.0 from a mid 80's foxbody). But he gave me a stupid good deal on the motor, a manual trans, and every single piece we thought we were gonna need to swap the car, including some newer parts. AND he helped me for weekends on end of minimal sleep so I could get the car back on the road, and stop stealing my girlfriend's car.
This also happened at a perfect time in WNY... luckily not having a car wasn't a huge issue for most of the time because I was on break from school, but I still had to work.
30k on this motor, bingo.
Perfectly timed around Miley's hit song... (MattAvino does his best impression)
Early model wiring
One of the rare, somewhat warm days, conveniently when we were ready to put the m20 in the car.
I actually don't have a picture of the motor in the car after we finished the swap, or at least I can't find one right now. But I now had the second brake pedal added that I had been missing!
Now there's a boring gap time where I'm currently poor, but my friend also hooked me up with a set of euro bumpers from a car he (again) parted out a few months ago. They're not perfect, but I'm gonna clean them up and get everything mint when we go to repaint the car (maybe next summer?). Got a dumb europlate at Bimmerfest East. I love it, and people love taking pictures of it at local shows, so it's worth it.
So that's all I currently have for you guys!
This car right now is more a cruiser than anything, because of the raceland it handles like a sack of potatoes. However, I plan to autocross the hell out of it after the work I want to do this winter, and eventually get it on the track and beat the shit out of it. He's not just going to be a show car, that's why I am not currently worried about the outside of the car at all.
Future plans to keep people interested include:
- Full resto of the underside over the winter, including new undercoating and rust repair
- Ground control full coilovers, maybe camber plates
- ST swaybars front and rear
- Condor bushing kit
- Custom stainless exhaust
- 3.73lsd swap. (4.10 open currently).
- Any other underside general maintenance
Far future plans that are not set in stone:
- KA turbo kit, APR head studs, tuned to around 17psi or so. New clutch
- Mishimoto radiator
- Exterior paint, same henna color, but repair a few tiny rust spots and pull tons of dents.
- Corbeau FX driver's seat, A4 passanger (don't want to loose the back seat, and girlfriend likes to recline and sleep during longer show runs).
- Bolt in half cage (my friend is building a full cage for his 302 Turbo car, so we're going to make a bolt in version of the rear hoop and bars, so I can use it for track days.
Another friend of mine also has euro grills and headlight washers/wipers that I'm getting from him,. After I grab some Smiley headlights for them.
Can't wait to see how it progresses!
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