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

Two Cars

If you could have two cars in a two car garage, what would they be?

This was the question Ferds tried to answer in his earlier post. And it's something I'll attempt to answer now. Answering that question won't be easy, given that the answer depends on your mood and your mindset as of the moment you choose to answer it. So here's my answer for now.

First off, the things I will consider for my choices. I won't go all-out dream cars here. I have to consider that I have a wife and kid. I have to consider that we live in the Philippines. So that means one car would have to be a family car, and the other could be any car. I'll try to be realistic for now, we can do dream cars some other time.

The first car I'd want would be the diesel Toyota Innova with automatic transmission. It's the perfect family car. It's spacious and it's tall enough to wade through some shallow floods when storms hit.

The second car would be either a blue 2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi, or a black 2010 Subaru Impreza WRX STi hatchback. Just because I've always wanted to own a fast car.

Out.

just the two of us

Gani texted me this great idea for an ongoing topic. To paraphrase:

"What 2 cars would you want for a 2 car garage?"

Wow. What a tough question. Because its easy to list down cars that we want. But if you could only have 2? Wow. Would you just go balls to the wall and say "a Ferarri F40 and a Mercedes Benz SLS" (2 of my favorite supercars of all time). But assuming we are trying to inject some realism in here (realism with an unlimited budget), then the choices must be a bit more practical. So then we would think about ride height, fuel efficiency, etc. If its important to you, one might even go with hybrids or a hydrogen engine car.

A few years ago, an Austrian BMW test driver (his name escapes me now) answered a similar question very well. The question was "what car would you have in your garage". His answer went something like:

"I have my dream cars in my garage. I have an [BMW] e90 330i Touring (wagon) for the weekdays, and a [BMW] Z4 for the weekends".

Not a bad garage. Not bad at all.

So right now, at 10:50pm on July 26, 2011? Fighting off the itch to go with an F40 as one of my pics, lets try to be a bit more "practical" and give these 2

1967 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500

BMW F11 530d

Hmm...ok maybe those choices weren't that much more practical. At least I chose a diesel for everyday driving...