Purchasing My Second e30 (1991 BMW 318is)

October 2010

Soon after losing my first e30 to Turn 10 at Mosport, I started looking for another one. Given that I was starting from scratch, I thought it would be nice to find a car with some performance work (e.g., an engine swap) already done to it. I found one on maxbimmer.com's classified forums, for sale by a nice guy who had done a ton of great work to a '91 318is. I was actually hoping to find an older 4-door model that I could put my seats into, but the 318 was so nicely set up that I couldn't turn it down. My original purchase cost was around $4500, including the car, a safety, emissions test, new rad, new electric rad fan, and licence fees. For the record, here is the original classified ad by the seller:

Body

450,000 on body (swapped clusters because of bad speedo and ODO gears (says 30x,xxx)
Replaced front fenders (flat black)
Replaced sunroof (Dark blue)
Replaced trunk lid
Minor rust on body, all repairable.
Underside is super clean and solid
Car would need a paint job and some body work.
Volvo front lip
iS rear spoiler.
Passenger door is dented pretty bad (Person before me rode a lamp post or something but is fixable and not very noticeable from 20 feet)

Engine

M50Nv
200,000km on the engine
Fresh rebuilt head.
ARP Head studs
Minor port on head
New valve stem seals
New valve guides
Head was hot tanked and cleaned
Always run synthetic since I've owned it
Every single gasket was changed when I did the swap and head rebuild.
New rear main seal
Engine doesn't drop one bit of any fluid
New cam sensor
New coolant temp sensor
Newer MAF
318is engine wiring covers
Dinan 91 octane ECU
14" E-fan, wired to stock wiring. (You can turn it on, or it comes on automatically)
80 degree T-stat (brand new with the head)

Top end rebuild has about 2000km on it, and when I say every gasket was changed, I mean EVERY gasket was changed.

Exhaust

Superspring replica stainless long tube headers
2.5" Stainless single mandrel bent piping
Vibrant Cat
18" stainless resonator
Vibrant 2.5" in/out Street power sleeper muffler
Brand new O2 sensor

Exhaust was done 2 weeks ago at JPG, cost me about 700$, I have the reciepts for it.

Engine pulls hard, I've been told that with 19lbs injectors and a Millar W.A.R tune it should make 200whp, but realistically 190whp is possible. (Which would put you in the 13's in an E30 and would be pretty quick but not overpowered). I have a set of 19lbs injectors I'll include. I had them in the car and it pulled like a mother, but I reset the ECU and had to put all the stock ones back in.

Transmission

Euro 323i M20 flywheel, lightened to 11lbs
M20 friction disk
Sachs pressure plate (I think it's a HD one, I bought it off someone who didn't know what it was, I never checked the part number, but it is pretty stiff and is impossible to slip)
New TOB and Pilot bearing with the swap
Z3 1.9 short shifter
Solid bushings on the shift carrier and all other bushings replaced
New CSB
4.10 LSD (Works well)

Suspension and Brakes

H&R Sport springs
Tokico HP struts (Fronts have maybe 5000km on them)
Ireland Engineering poly urethane rear subframe bushing
Sparco front upper strut bar (Red and beefy)
Has a newer steering rack that doesn't leak
Brembo blank rotors
PBR pads with lots of life left
Stainless steel and coated brake lines.
All new ball joints

Interior

Nardi leather wrapped wheel
Sparco shift knob
E30 sport interior with no real major flaws except some wear on the driver seat, but no rips.
Autometer AFR gauge (Narrow band, not very accurate but looks cool)
Has a deck in it, wired to the premium stereo with a 12" MTX sub and amp, but that would cost extra as I can use it in a new car. I would put a Panasonic MP3 deck with aux in if you didn't want it.
Sunroof was converted to Electric, but just needs to be wires

Oh, and super dooper rare (I've heard and been told) OEM black headliner.

Wheels and tires

The car comes with stock 14" weaves, 2 tires are shot.
Also comes with a set of 16x7.5 TSW Hockenheims with BRAND NEW (500km on them) Goodyear Eagle F1 gt's (Expensive and awesome tire) 215/40/16. Wheels are a FWD offset, so I have a set of T6061 aluminum 20mm front/15mm rear hubcentric spacers, that are fairly new.

Overall the car is mechanically solid, the only thing I think it needs is a Diff bushing (Which is a 20 minute job) and front LCAB's (Which I will include and possibly do before it's sold) and body work. I'm asking $4500, but am open to reasonable offers. If you're going to offer me $2000, don't even bother. If you come to look at it, I'll take you for a ride, you're not driving unless you have cash in hand (It's not because I think it's a Ferarri, it's just because I don't trust you.)

Pics

Here is what the car looked like on purchase day. You can see the cash I paid laid out on the roof after we counted it. : )