E30 Mods

[theSMELSINATOR]

I have recently purchased an E30 (1990 325iX) and was wondering what mods you would recommend. here's what i already plan on:

[x]///M shift knob
[x]shortshifter kit
[x]infinity speaker system
[x]chin spoiler (iS)
[x]HELLA lights
[x]blacked out grill
[x]rear spoiler (m-tech ii)
[x]strut bar
[x]bilstein struts
[x]red side signals
[x]EAT chip
[x]euro white turn signals
[ ]carbon fiber roundel decals
[ ]european license plate (with something like "AWD E30" on it)
[ ]all-red tails
[ ]shadowlining?


Here's the car. tell me what you would recommend (please include brand names). show off pics of your mods (again, with descriptions and brands).


what do you think? what would you change?

[nick_318is]

Lower it, Best thing you can do to improve the look. I can't give a recomendation because i beieve the shock towers are different then the RWD cars. Look into some Bilstiens or Konis and some decent springs.

For the Short shifter you have some options but you can do it cheaper by swaping your lever with some other bmw parts, I have a z3 1.9 shift lever and I like it, you can also do a couple other z3/z4 levers but you will have to bend the selector rod. Let me know if you want more info and I will try to find the link to the different ones available.

By chin spoiler i assume you mean the lip, just get an iS lip (like mine) and it will look great, I have always liked the little iS spoiler on the trunk or some of the Mtech ones are cool too and a little larger but still no wing. The Mtech 2 spoiler/wing is by far the sexiest though.

[theSMELSINATOR]

Originally Posted by nick_318is

Lower it, Best thing you can do to improve the look...

hmmm, haven't even thought of lowering it. i'll see. i'd really like to put some 17" rims on it but from what i hear rims are hard to find and are expensive for an iX.

Originally Posted by nick_318is

For the Short shifter you have some options but you can do it cheaper by swaping your lever with some other bmw parts...

my mechanic, one of the most knowledgable people in regard to BMWs that i know (in fact he has a 318iS), was saying that most people he knows use old z3 levers like you were saying. in any case, he knows what he's doing and is already taking care of it.

Originally Posted by nick_318is

By chin spoiler i assume you mean the lip, just get an iS lip (like mine) and it will look great, I have always liked the little iS spoiler on the trunk or some of the Mtech ones are cool too and a little larger but still no wing. The Mtech 2 spoiler/wing is by far the sexiest though.

yeah, chin/lip w/e. i've seen and heard it both ways. i have been looking at both the iS and M-tech spoilers on bavauto.com but can't really decide. the spoiler is one of the last things on my to-do list, though, so i've got time.

[theSMELSINATOR]

SWEET! i just put in an infinity sound system!

[Akuma]

lower it, nice tech 2 kit would go with it and some bigger wheels or some deep dish wheels like Borbet A's or Azev A's or some nice BBS splitties

[dinan540]

Congrats. I like the idea of lowering it. E30s look great with an aggressive stance. My buddy has an e30 M3 slammed on 15s that looks amazing. It isn't the size of the wheel that is important.

[elsabor67]

Lower it, Just like Nick and Dinan said. I love the way mine (the German One) sits and plan on doing the same with the american one when I swap the diff and tranny on both.

I've been told to stay away from Eibach springs but was recommended Koni's or H&R.

[GreenTourer]

Congrats on the purchase of your E30!

I agree that lowering straight away improves the look of most cars, and the E30 in particular. The old-skool BBS wheels are cool, but I like the sound of some deep-dish wheels, as that's what I'm after for mine.

So, lowering, rims and a lip added to the front is a project that would give it mean looks. Oh, go with the black grill and logo too!

As for power, the 325 has it all, doesn't it? I'm not sure about chips. I have recently seen some that are supposed to increase the BHP from 5-7, but am not too sure if this is true.........I'm not even sure that if it did work, how noticeable it would be....???

One question, I know that in Europe, in my home country of the UK especially, those speakers would be gone on the morning. What we used to do back home was mount them under a custom shelf fashioned from MDF and then cover it with acoustic cloth to keep it hidden. I have a touring, so perhaps that's not possible with the saloon version.

Anyway, sure you know what you're doing and nice sound system by the way!

[theSMELSINATOR]

as some might have noticed from my sig, i got a lot of work done this week. i blacked out the grill, repainted the plastic on the bumpers, got an iS chin spoiler and painted that, installed a new air filter, installed some hella headlights, tinted the windows (30%), and played with my pathetic dome lights. pics below. only the pic my sig is taken from has the iS chin spoiler; my camera ran out of memory by then.






as for rims, i just got new tires a few weeks ago so i'm gonna keep my 15" baskets for now. i' thinking of getting them painted black. good idea? awful idea?

Originally Posted by GreenTourer

As for power, the 325 has it all, doesn't it? I'm not sure about chips. I have recently seen some that are supposed to increase the BHP from 5-7, but am not too sure if this is true.........I'm not even sure that if it did work, how noticeable it would be....???

no, the M3 has it all!

its got quite a bit of power, especially for being such a light car. i'm planning on getting an EAT chip for it. the increase in bhp sounds about right - this chip may do a bit more. the difference isn't as noticable in the bhp as it is in how it fixes any lag in the rpms. even though the bhp doesn't increase by a ton, it feels more powerful due to the lack of lag.

Originally Posted by GreenTourer

One question, I know that in Europe, in my home country of the UK especially, those speakers would be gone on the morning. What we used to do back home was mount them under a custom shelf fashioned from MDF and then cover it with acoustic cloth to keep it hidden. I have a touring, so perhaps that's not possible with the saloon version.

i should be fine as long as i stay out of the really bad parts of big cities. my tint should help with that, too. if anything does happen, i might hafta try your trick. thanks.

Edit: Resized
-Rooz

[MTurboPower3]

nice 325 you should lower and put nice rims on it not BBS's bbs's are made for like mitsus and cheap cars like that not bimmers bbs's just make the car look worse

[theSMELSINATOR]

i like BBS rims. but i'd be more interested in some ///M replicas. besides, like i said, i just got new tires so i'm not looking to get new rims right now.

[nick_318is]

Originally Posted by MTurboPower3

nice 325 you should lower and put nice rims on it not BBS's bbs's are made for like mitsus and cheap cars like that not bimmers bbs's just make the car look worse

Are you stupid? BBS are german wheels and great wheels, they are original equipment for the weaves on the e30 and probably many other bmws, how can that be rice on a german car? They are also not cheap and rice wheels are cheap!

Smels, the car is looking great, as far as blacking out the wheels it might look good but I think you need a different color to add some contrast to the car. But black might look great. Car is looking great and some point in the future with a drop it would be a very badd ass mofo.

[theSMELSINATOR]

Originally Posted by nick_318is

Smels, the car is looking great, as far as blacking out the wheels it might look good but I think you need a different color to add some contrast to the car. But black might look great. Car is looking great and some point in the future with a drop it would be a very badd ass mofo.

thanks! yeah, i think i'll probably leave the rims the way they are. i'm also probably leaving the chrome window trim for the contrast, too.

the basis of my plan is to limit the car to as few colors as possible - hence the planned euro signals and red tails (i originally thought i wanted smoked tails but i did need some color). in the end it should be black, white, chrome (just the window trim), and red. depending on which style euro plate i get i might keep the roundels blue, but i really like the way the carbon fiber style ones look. i'll figure that out later.

edit: oh yeah, the drop is definitely planned. after being around some dropped E30's there's no question that's what i want. just worried about clearance

[theSMELSINATOR]

TEASER, MORE TO COME!

I guess I've kinda turned this into my own thread about my car. So now that I've acknowledged that, I have no problem using it as such.

NEW MODS:
strut bar
bilstein struts
new make-shift strut housings
m-tech ii spoiler


I got the strut bar straight from Germany courtesy of elsabor (thanks again!)

The Bilstein struts were a necessity due to my failing stock ones, and while my mechanic friend was replacing them, the strut housings crumbled from rust (thanks a lot, CHI-town salt!) so that meant new strut housings.

DOES ANYONE REALIZE HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND iX STRUT HOUSINGS!?

new ones are about $700 each. We thought we found some for $500 but the company hadn't updated their site since they raised the price back up to $700. Used ones are nonexistent. Do you know how much used normal i strut housings are? Around $75! So we decided to remove the knuckles from my old iX strut housing and weld them onto some regular i strut housings. If this works, it will have saved me over $1k.

At least this update has a happy ending. I just ordered an M-Tech II wing and it should be here in a week or so. It needs painting, but I'm going to paint it with a new sunroof i ordered (to replace my old one which had bubbling paint and rust) so it won't cost too much.

ANYWAY, pics of the strut bar tomorrow (hopefully) and then pics of the M-Tech II wing coming in a couple weeks. Next up is white euro signals, red side signals, euro plate, and all-red tails.

[GreenTourer]

Here's a cheap and cheerful little mod to improve the look of your engine bay. It took a couple of days sanding down and preping, then the spraying of the heat paint was over pretty quick.

Have lots of detailing planned for my Tourer, including a nice polished strut brace, the K&N which is on its way, and may chip it at some point, too. I have discs all round, but may put drilled versions on with Green Stuff pads. Also looking for a 60mm lowering kit; think I found the one for me at a very reasonable cost.