Sunday, July 31, 2011

My First Blog, aka Project: e30

Hi. I think that's the standard greeting. Hi. Um... Yeah. Obviously I'm new to this. I never thought I'd ever blog - there was just no time and no interest in getting on a soapbox. But here I am, blogging. Here's hoping I know what I'm doing...

My posts will normally be about three things:

1. My irrational love for my project car, a 1990 BMW 325i
2. The occasional rant about motoring in
the Philippines
3. A weekly top 10 list of whatever car-related thing I feel like making Top 10 lists of

I'll start by introducing my current project car.



Project: e30

1990 BMW 325i coupe (e30)
M20 2.5l straight-six NA
over 200,000 km on the odometer

Factory specs:

Dolphin gray metallic
Beige leather
Sunroof
3.73 ratio LSD
14" "bottle cap" wheels

The e30 was meant to be a long term project. The vision: a trackable street car, with just enough amenities to make it real-world driveable.

Within the first 6 months, it got new filters and spark plugs, a top overhaul, complete front axle refurb ( shocks, springs, control arms, bushings, tie rods), electrical cleanup, and a bunch of little detail work (like new roundels and door lever surrounds).

Upgrades were also fast coming along. As always, I start with suspension and brake mods such as Brembo drilled discs, EBC Green Stuff pads, stainless brake lines, H&R springs and sway bars, Bilstein HD shocks and a set of 16" BBS RS003s wrapped in Bridgestone RE001s.


Aesthetic upgrades were next, in the form of projector lenses and HIDs and a new Alpine head unit (the car did not have a radio when I bought it). A high-pressure fuel pump and a fuel regulator were also added in preparation for some engine tweaks, but not before doing a dyne run to see the baseline figures to benchmark the mods I was planning.

Then in 2009, disaster struck - while my car was in the shop, Typhoon Ondoy swept through and counted my e30 among it's victims. The water had gone up as far as the headlights, leaving my beloved bimmer in a sorry state and all the work and hard-earned cash put into it were for naught. The silver lining here is that the water level was just below the level of the new stereo and, more importantly, the motronic unit. Still, it was painful to see.



Over the next few posts, I'll document it's progress since then. Its taken me a year to get the project started again, and hopefully - one of these days - I can report on it's clean bill of health.

Until then, drive safe, buckle up, and save the racing for the track. Happy motoring!

- frag

1 comment:

  1. needless to say, we're very excited to see the finished product! keep the updates coming!

    ReplyDelete