m42b32

Slow progress is still progress!
 
After some extensive measuring I decided on some Polk DB+ 6.5" component speakers for the front and 5x7" coaxial speakers for the rear. While I had the front all pulled apart for the amp I decided to start there with the speaker upgrades. My car originally came with the basic 4 speaker sound system so I did not have the tweeter housings in the doors. The Polk tweeters have a nice basic black grill but are an odd rounded shape on the outside so they wouldn't necessarily be an easy fit in stock e30 tweeter pods. I didn't want to just surface mount the tweeters on the stock blanks so I decided to design and print some mounts of my own. I started with a basic model of a tweeter blank I found online and modified it to be mounted with a screw and perfectly fit the Polk tweeter at an angle that matched the stock ones. After a bit of trial and error I printed the final parts in ASA. To finish them up I sanded them down, sprayed with filler primer and sanded again to completely smooth them out, then a coat of texture paint followed by a final pass with SEM trim black. I mounted the tweeters from the back with hot glue so that they wouldn't be impossible to remove if needed, we'll see how that holds up in a hot car. 



 
Good news for me is that cars with the base sound system still have the tweeter wiring going into the door, so these just plugged directly into that and fit perfectly! I'm super happy with how they turned out. 

 
I also got the 6.5" woofers mounted in the kick panels. The speakers have the normal 4 mounting holes as well as an inner circle of holes that turn out to line up perfectly with the 5.25" speaker pattern (which I would assume is intentional). Because they'll be tight under the kick panels I printed a ~3mm spacer to keep the mounting screw heads off the speaker surround as well as keep the kick panel from interfering with speaker cone movement. 

 
These Polk 6.5's are pretty shallow and also don't protrude too much beyond the mounting surface so zero modification to the chassis was required to fit them. I did however, have to modify the kick panel trim. I removed the sound insulation/speaker mesh and trimmed away the plastic ring around the speaker grill and the back side of the one screw hole. I also used a heat gun to flatten them out a bit as they had warped into a concave shape over time. The speaker sticks out maybe 5mm further than the original so these have to flex around them a little bit, but once installed they look completely stock and don't have any gaps. I may go back and replace the sound insulation at some point, but going to try without for now. 

I don't have a pic of the kick panels installed but it looks completely stock. No need to space out the hood release on the driver's side and zero clearance issues with anything there. I am still working on the passenger side but so far it looks like the glovebox will clear without issues as well. 
 
Next job is wiring in both crossovers and finding places to mount those!
 

Slow progress is still progress!
 
After some extensive measuring I decided on some Polk DB+ 6.5" component speakers for the front and 5x7" coaxial speakers for the rear. While I had the front all pulled apart for the amp I decided to start there with the speaker upgrades. My car originally came with the basic 4 speaker sound system so I did not have the tweeter housings in the doors. The Polk tweeters have a nice basic black grill but are an odd rounded shape on the outside so they wouldn't necessarily be an easy fit in stock e30 tweeter pods. I didn't want to just surface mount the tweeters on the stock blanks so I decided to design and print some mounts of my own. I started with a basic model of a tweeter blank I found online and modified it to be mounted with a screw and perfectly fit the Polk tweeter at an angle that matched the stock ones. After a bit of trial and error I printed the final parts in ASA. To finish them up I sanded them down, sprayed with filler primer and sanded again to completely smooth them out, then a coat of texture paint followed by a final pass with SEM trim black. I mounted the tweeters from the back with hot glue so that they wouldn't be impossible to remove if needed, we'll see how that holds up in a hot car. 



 
Good news for me is that cars with the base sound system still have the tweeter wiring going into the door, so these just plugged directly into that and fit perfectly! I'm super happy with how they turned out. 

 
I also got the 6.5" woofers mounted in the kick panels. The speakers have the normal 4 mounting holes as well as an inner circle of holes that turn out to line up perfectly with the 5.25" speaker pattern (which I would assume is intentional). Because they'll be tight under the kick panels I printed a ~3mm spacer to keep the mounting screw heads off the speaker surround as well as keep the kick panel from interfering with speaker cone movement. 

 
These Polk 6.5's are pretty shallow and also don't protrude too much beyond the mounting surface so zero modification to the chassis was required to fit them. I did however, have to modify the kick panel trim. I removed the sound insulation/speaker mesh and trimmed away the plastic ring around the speaker grill and the back side of the one screw hole. I also used a heat gun to flatten them out a bit as they had warped into a concave shape over time. The speaker sticks out maybe 5mm further than the original so these have to flex around them a little bit, but once installed they look completely stock and don't have any gaps. I may go back and replace the sound insulation at some point, but going to try without for now. 

I don't have a pic of the kick panels installed but it looks completely stock. No need to space out the hood release on the driver's side and zero clearance issues with anything there. I am still working on the passenger side but so far it looks like the glovebox will clear without issues as well. 
 
Next job is wiring in both crossovers and finding places to mount those!
 

After couple of weeks of engine bay paint prep. I am ready to paint it. I build a beautiful spray booth in my garage with two box fans and shoot some epoxy primer followed by some seam sealer and more epoxy. Today i will finish it with single stage urethane in original safari beige.
 
 
I got the intercooler figured out. Wiring is next on the list.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Last week I had a customer come into my work and they asked me if we worked on foreign vehicles. I said "Yeah, I dont think theres really anything were afraid to work on." After talking to him a little while longer I found out that he wanted to schedule getting a radiator replaced in his 96 318ti so he could list the car for sale. I told him that I might be interested and asked how much he'd be looking to get out of it as it sits with a bad radiator, and he told me he was looking to get $2750 for it as is. I then asked him to bring it by so I could take a peak.

The car shows up and it is pretty beautiful, one of the best condition 318ti's that I have seen. At only 120k miles, the boston green glistened, the dove leather interior was damn near spotless, and the A/C was ice cold. It was a southern car almost its an entire life, and was a one owner vehicle until the PO bought it a little over a year ago. It has a small rust spot on the rear quarter and one of the jack pad areas, but the rest of the car was extremely clean. I took it out for a spin and aside from the coolant leak the car drove phenomenal. We shook on $2700 (including a new radiator and hoses), and I drained my bank account and brought her home.

 

Drove the car around for a couple days and so far I have been pretty happy with it. The car is currently under the knife in my garage at the moment waiting on some new intake hoses that ripped during disassembly, and it turned out the radiator hoses he supplied were some cheap bright red ebay silicone hoses that fit horribly so I am also waiting on a set of all new OEM rubber hoses from FCP.

Current plans arent anything crazy, just want to get the car squared away so I can have a comfortable and quirky summer daily!

Bumper repair.
Could I have left this alone? Yes. Does it look better than before? Yes. Does it still bother me? Yes.
Just a temporary fix until I get an M Tech bumper next year and don't have a roached out bumper.
What it started as:

Disassembly:
 
As this being a temporary fix, I did what I could to make it look presentable, but not have this take multiple days. Used 220, 400, and 600 grit sand paper.






I chose not to use body filler with how flimsy these bumpers are and didn't want it to crack. And once again, temporary fix.

Needs wet sand and polish, but looks decent.


Polished up the side markers using the headlight restore kit.

M3 style trunk lip added.


Replaced the angel eye bulbs with LUX V4 ones. Tried my best to polish up the headlights, but they are still kind of pitted. Passenger side is cracked in the top, top corner. So it needs to be replaced anyway. Lenses look much worse in this picture than in person.

 

The E90 platform has never really crossed my mind as one that I would seriously consider getting into until I’ve started to live with this car. I love the way it looks inside and out, the way it drives, the size of it, etc.
I thought I’d always be a slow boy in the old car, but this is really trying me in terms of my future involvement with the E30. I want my E30 to be a forever car, but it’s hard to ignore the value it holds and the risks involved with driving it, both safety wise and insurance payout if it were ever totaled(I know I could get hagerty or some other policy to insure it for its value).
It really hit me driving home from RA on Friday in the E30, and then the following day in the E90. Some of the modern creature comforts and general engineering improvements are nice to be in. Because it’s old, I’m also a little more constricted in terms of how and when I am using it, but that’s my own issue(even though it just had a significant amount of maintenance done).
I also can’t leave good and well enough alone so I’m always chasing something(or my own tail) in terms of what’s next.

Starter update, Started the job on Saturday. It took 2 hours to disassemble and remove the starter. (1 of those hours was just fucking with the intake manifold clamps) Finished the job up today as I had to wait for the proper intake manifold clamp tool. Took an hour to put everything back together and 3 minutes to re-install the manifold clamps with the proper tool. Way better then struggling for an hour.
While the intake manifold was off I took time to remove the ICV and spray it out with some carb cleaner so the flap could move freely. Wasn't an issue more just a while I was in there type deal. I did the same by also cleaning the throttle bodies. They weren't too dirty but now they are fresh and clean. I also lubed up the throttle body springs + long metal thing with white lithium grease spray.

AFE calls to re-oil your filter every 30k miles. The filter was no longer blue. So while it was out sitting I cleaned it with the supplied cleaner. Hosed it out, waited for it to dry and re-oiled the filter.

 
I 100% credit how fast I did this to the new tools I purchased. Got an awesome deal on a Milwaukee fuel mini impact, ratchet and impact drill. The proper tool to remove and install the manifold clamps. And this crazy harbor freight T handle ratchet so I could reach the starter from on top of the engine bay.

Besides looking like crap there was no visible failure on the old starter. Even the gear was solid, Just inconsistent. But took it on a test run today and the car started right up 90 degrees out and engine hot like it wouldn't have in the past.



Muffler brackets will be here tomorrow. Will tackle that and my X pipe when I get back from San Diego.

Fastest interior swap after buying a car I’ve ever seen (love the natty brown). Silver looks great by the way, classy, shows off the body lines, hides dirt etc.
My E90 was also a factory halogen car and now has LEDs in aftermarket projectors. It looks pretty close to the real deal at a fraction of the cost… great light output too. I’ll have to try and dig up the link. Here’s a pic for reference!

This thread is where I found that. Having OE xenons on my E46, upgrading the lights in my F30 and F150, I really do not like halogens. I know you can buy brighter, better halogen bulbs, but they last significantly less amount of time and the cut off is not great.
 
Need to do more research.

After selling my F30, I bought an F150.  Drove my parents for a little bit and loved it, so I bought my own. Well after 8 months, I decided to move on from the truck and sell it. Loved the vehicle, just didn't love paying for it(economic crisis on the door step as well). MPG wasn't actually too bad, averaged like 17ish even with the bigger tires. On top of that, I wasn't doing anything to justify having a truck and just felt wasteful. 

Day before it sold.
2 weeks before the truck sold, I made a trip down to Chicago to pick up my brothers 2011 328xi. The car was having starting issues and he was unsure what to do with the vehicle. We figured it would be best if we brought it back to the Appleton area for further diagnosis and repair. Car made the 3 hour straight drive back to Wisconsin with out a hitch. It was around this time that I was looking for other vehicle options. I wanted to reduce my payment significantly or not have one at all, so I was looking at E46's, E70 X5's and E90s. My brother decided he wanted to find something newer so would be selling the E90. So I bought it.
2011 328xi Titanium Silver, Black Dakota leather, and Burlwood with 99,863 miles. No iDrive.
Car was running lean on both banks. After some research found it likely to be the valve cover with the built in CCV. VCG was leaking anyway so it was time for it to come off regardless. I also had the OFHG replaced along with the power steering fluid reservoir to address any immediate concern areas. Next will be cabin and intake filter, along with wiper blades.
The car is in very good condition minus a few minor things. Was a 1 owner vehicle up to 72k miles when my family bought it. Has always been garaged kept. 
Silver wasn't my first choice, but the color has really grown on me. I also can't say enough about how much I am enjoying the E90 platform.
Only two things this doesn't have which I want; Xenon projectors and comfort access. Comfort access is nightmare to add, so passing on that dream. I have been reading about being able to use the Euro Bi Xenon projectors and having to make only a few modifications to the harness for them to work as opposed to US which have leveling units.


My brother hit a construction barrel. I am going to do my best to get this looking presentable, but I plan to replace the bumper next year with an M Tech/M Sport one.


(Ignore my dinner)
 
If it's not going to be the weekend car, it has to look good and be enjoyable to be in. I have a fair number of things on the way to address both of those. But will remain largely stock( I say that now).
To start, the steering wheel. The stock one is fine, but we can do better.
Purchased this heated Sport wheel that I have some plans for. But first to clean it. I used Griot's leather 3 in 1 and leather conditioner in conjunction with a Colourlock leather brush, short hair detail brush, and a tooth brush.


You can see how much dirt is caked into the grain.

This was after one pass with the first brush.

This was after the whole wheel. Clean your steering wheels.


Grain clean, nice semi gloss matte finish.
More updates to follow.

I am. I was a little worried by the identical car ending two days after mine, but it seems like that didn't impact my auction much at all. I watched that one end today and none of the bidders were the same individuals that were bidding on my auction, which I found odd.
 
The winner is actually a local guy, so Im sure we will see the car around.

Was fun watching the end of the auction yesterday, happy with the result?? 

159.6k
Well, that lasted long. New head unit is awesome but I did exactly what I always do and jumped head first down the rabbit hole. I've decided to go for a total rework of the stereo system to try and get some good sound volume/quality while remaining as stealth and original looking as possible. I'm not going for trim rattling bass or audiophile sound quality, just something enjoyable while cruising around. 
 
First project is a temporary solution until I figure out the rear speakers. When I pulled the existing speakers out last time I noticed that the speaker surround was being crushed by the factory speaker grille and probably preventing it from moving freely (you can see the wrinkles in the picture in my last post). I designed and printed some 5mm spacers that go between the speaker and grille to give it the appropriate clearance. I printed them in ASA to get some good heat and UV resistance. 


Reassembled and you'd never know its there, fits the grille profile perfectly. 
 
With that done I moved on to an amplifier. The biggest issue with the Continental head unit is that it has no RCA output or signal wire ouput for an amp. Fortunately, there are amplifiers that can work off "high level inputs", which is a fancy way of saying the speaker outputs from the head unit. I came across this Sony XMS400D amp that is intended to integrate with factory stereo systems and can work with high level inputs. To get around not having an amp signal wire, it can sense incoming audio signals and turn on automatically. 
 
The only things remaining from the ABS system is the wiring and the computer. Turns out, the amp is smaller than the ABS computer and can be made to fit perfectly into it's mount! I whipped up a piece of aluminum flat stock to adapt the amp mounting tabs to the ABS computer mounts. Worked perfectly!

 
Had to basically cut out 90% of the wiring I just did with the head unit to integrate the amp but in doing that I was also able to sort out a mistake I had made. I had the constant 12v and switched 12v sources swapped, the head unit worked fine but wouldn't save the time/some settings. The amp basically just splices into the speaker wiring and has a few extra inputs for power/ground and a switched ignition source. It comes with ~40" of wire on each harness which is more than enough, I only needed to lengthen the 12v power wire to get over to the passenger side and through the firewall to reach the positive battery terminal. I also did twisted pairs on each of the speaker channels to help combat any noise. This is how the factory speaker wiring is done so I figured it wouldn't hurt. The only problem I ran into is that I broke the locking tab on one of the connectors which was annoying, but a few zip ties later it shouldn't be able to work itself out. Mounted the amp, routed/wrapped the wire harnesses in tesa tape like factory, and it's ready to go! I'm stoked that it will be totally hidden. I still need to gut the ABS wiring, but for now it's zip tied out of the way with the unplugged airbag module wiring lol. 

 
The continental head unit can put out about 25W RMS per channel, which is actually pretty decent for a head unit, but this amp can do 45W RMS on each channel (with 100W peak), so nearly double the output. Even with the old 5.25" coaxial speakers in the car the sound is very noticeably improved. Much clearer/louder at the same volume number, and definitely has a bit more bass. Really happy with the improvement so far... speakers are next. 

Awesome! I'm in the process of making an enclosure from ikea lack tables for my maker select V2. I need to be able to print with ABS and ASA pronto! Lol. Can I ask where you got your plexiglass from?

110,657
Oil change and filter, just received all the VANOS rebuilt parts, valve cover gasket and a few other odds and ends so I can take care of a few leaks and the VANOS system all at once. Replaced all 6 coils with Bremi units and solved an idle misfire/stumble when pulling away from lights.
Planned on replacing rear brakes due to the “low brake pad squeal” noise starting and had all the parts necessary in hand, but pulled the rear wheels and had decent pad left. Probably going to take care of them later this summer when I have more time. New giubo is also in hand, the old one is a bit cracked and provides a good excuse to replace the shift shaft and input shaft seals on the transmission as well. Also going to be a “when I get to it” project, probably slated for this fall.
 
112,8xx
Took a ~800 mile round trip to the boundary waters over Memorial Day weekend, not a single hiccup and averaged something like 23-24mpg even with a big ass canoe on the roof the whole way. Had awesome weather, great fishing, and an overall good time. Got to bomb a total of around 40 miles of forest roads to and from the entry point too, which was a riot.

In other news, I finally picked up the M-Systems! Not overjoyed with how they turned out and I think I’m going to polish them out further myself, but the bulk of the work is done. The shop that did it was unable to get into the sharp corners of the lips to fully polish them out, and also managed to round over the corners of the valve stem openings so probably wouldn’t go back, but after the 2 months that I waited I was just happy to have them back.
Pics:

 

Great turnout, About 70-90 cars showed up throughout the day. Seemed that the raffle was rigged as 85% of the winners are active chat/forum members. 
@Jdesigninstantly flipped his win for somecash. Honestly I expected no less from him.  

Just driving it an enjoying it.



As soon as the 850 is done, I have a small to-do list for it: 
Remove amp and subwoofer and put back in the "underseat" powered subwoofer.  O2 sensor.  Investigate intermittent clunk from rear. I believe it's tied to the sway bars. Either the mounts or the unsealed heim joints on the aftermarket sway bar endlinks.  That's really about it right now. 
Took the car to Green Bay and back on Wednseday and it did great. It was wet and humid and then cool at night and the headlights stayed completely dry the whole time.
My only complaint is the car sitting at 3500 RPM while doing 70 on the highway with the 4.10 diff. But as I looked more into the 3.73, it sits at about the same if I were to go 80. I also read of a significant difference in feel of the car between the two, with the 4.10 being quite a bit snappier. I mean, it makes sense, I just didn't realize it would be as noticeable as others describe.
So, I will probably save $1,000 and just go 10mph slower.

158.4k
4/27/1991 - 10/08/2020

 

We'll, this is definitely going to be a yearly event for us! The drive isn't bad and certainly part of the adventure.
The people and cars were amazing.... Even participated installing a turbo in a 2002 I the hotel parking lot the night before the show. 
 

That's awesome! How is it lifted? 

I updated the post. It has spacers and Bilstein's.

That was a professional mess 🙄

Anything to keep it interesting. I cant wait till he finally logs in again and has 847 notifications about the most random stuff on his build thread. 
So what did you guys do this weekend? 

Some cars just have a weird way of finding me. I was not looking for an F30, but then again, I am always looking for cars to buy and sell. After buying a 2008 Tahoe hybrid on a whim to tow my boat, I came across a listing for a unique Alpine white over Saddle brown fully loaded 2014 BMW 328D Xdrive that was lifted, deleted, and tuned. The listing stated that the owner was looking for a truck or Tahoe to trade. I messaged him thinking how dumb I would be to get rid of all of my tow vehicles (after just selling my other Tahoe), but at the same time smart because of the value difference and the possibility of finally retiring my civic hybrid of 327k miles. 
Fast forward a week later and I am a proud owner of another diesel BMW, and what better way to really prove a new cars "worth" other than to take it on a 3K mile road trip through the smoky mountain's.  I did some preparation, fixed some things, and fully inspected the car before I left, but safe to say I made it there and back without an issue.  I was thoroughly impressed by the cars capability by not only climbing up the side of a mountain with a bunch of heavily modded trucks, but keeping up with some other newer BMWs on the tail of the dragon.

For now, Im not really sure what the future may hold for the car, but I plan on keeping it for awhile. I have some thoughts in my head of lowering it back down, but for now, Im just going to do some preventative maintenance and fix some of the odds and ends that it needs. This thread will probably be more of a log for me to keep track of such.
Here is what is done to the car:
Center Line Wheels 18x8 +35 (1 of 1) TOYO TIRES 225/55/18 Open Country Black Label Lighting 30" Single Row Light Bar D.H. VinylWorx Graphics Buzzken - 328d DPF/SCR delete JR Auto Stage 3 Tune Rising Tuning lift & level kit black kidneys trunk spoiler  

Fixed. Get this man some door cards!