January 2011 - Nissan Engine in!

Poor old Nissan 200SX donor car's engine bay - 11th January 2011.

The Thai engine mounts I had custom made finally arrived on Christmas Eve 2010. Andrew, Peter and Gerallt at A&P Services have since been very busy. They have now fitted the Nissan SR20DET engine into the BMW E30 shell. Thanks boys!

The next stage of the project will be to plumb the intercooler/radiator/fuel lines/etc in and sort the wiring.

Christmas 2010 Update - A package from Thailand!

Nothing much has happened in the last couple of months. We're waiting for the custom engine/gearbox mounts to arrive from Thailand. As I type this, the Thai Post Office parcel tracker tells me that my mounts are sitting in the Suvarnabhumi Mailing Centre awaiting dispatch! It takes 5 days for mail to arrive from Thailand normally, but many British airports are shut due to the poor weather at the moment! It's anyone's guess when they might arrive:(

The 2011 Trident Welsh Sprint and Hillclimb Championship starts in April 2011, so it'll be a tight schedule to get everything done in time, but not impossible. As soon as there's any more progress, I'll do a proper update. Merry Christmas/Nadolig Llawen.

October 2010 Update

We plan to put this motor into this shell...

The car is now at A&P Services and work on the engine transplant has started. Out with the 140bhp BMW M42 engine and in with the Nissan SR20DET motor. This engine conversion is quite common in Australia and should double the car's power output. Notice the rear arches are now M3 Evo items.Here is the old BMW motor/box. The Nissan 200SX donor car is in the background.

Photos of project - July 2010

Rear arches cut off and inner arches tubbed and welded to the outer arch - now we're ready to bound the fibreglass M3 style rear arches over the top. There will be lots of room for some very wide rear wheels.

Seat rails welded into the floor ready to accept the seat mounts - after I've painted them.

Electronic ignition cut out device - thanks Wyn!

Two gallon fuel tank - which will probably give the car a tank range of about ten miles!

Restarting the project...

Since my daughter was born 4 months ago, very little has gone on in the garage and the E30 hasn't progressed at all. All I've really done is buy more parts ready to fit when I've got a little more time. Over the past few months, I've bought...

• 2 gallon alloy fuel tank
• Electronic ignition cut out device
• A set of 17X7 alloy wheels (that I don't like on the car and will go back on eBay)
• A tuned Nissan SR20DET 2 litre turbo charged engine and gearbox (as fitted to the 200SX/Nissan Sunny GTiR) for transplant into my E30 shell
• Intercooler/ECU/loom to match the above
• Complete set of 4mm Polycarbonate windows from Plastics for Performance

As I type this, the car is at http://www.oldskwlfords.com having the rear arches cut off and tubbed and rails welded into the floor to accept the racing bucket seat mounts. The car is due back from there at the beginning of July and will then be ready for the fitting of the new M3 style rear arches, external respray in BMW Alpine White and polycarbonate window fitting. Pictures to follow soon...

March 2010 - Engine plan hatched

http://www.e30tech.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42079&highlight=sr20det

Project comes to temporary halt!

No tools or long nights in the garage for a little while... project E30 on hold. Can you guess why?

February 17th Update - New rear arches.

I've decided to cut off the rear wings I had made and fitted to the car. I'm going to fit these E30 M3 fibreglass replica wings in their place. There's something not quite right about the car's stance with the current flared rear wings - hopefully this will improve the look.

February 2010 - additional pictures

Sorry about the quality of the pictures. They were taken very late after I'd finished putting the new rear suspension on.

I'm beginning to have second thoughts about the look of the arches - especially the rear ones. I was hoping that when the car was lowered (as it is now), they would look better. Something isn't quite right about them. I'm seriously contemplating cutting them off and fitting fibreglass M3 replica ones instead.

This picture shows how the wiring has been tidied behind a stainless cowling I made. It now sits where the glovebox would be and hides loads of messy relays and wiring. An Escort Mk1 centre console has also been dummy fitted. I read in some car magazine that the Escort item fitted the E30 perfectly, and they do! The console will house light and electrical cut out switches, etc.

I have a matching pair of these side mounting Cobra bucket seats (thanks Santa). The driver's one is dummy fitted in this photo. I need to weld some mounting bars across the floor before it can go in for real. I need help here because:

a) I don't own a welder

b) Even if I did, I have no idea how to weld



330mm OMP steering wheel - again dummy fitted. I'm waiting for Screwfix direct to deliver the m5X20 bolts that were missing from the wheel/boss kit I bought. And yes, the horn button in on a squiff! :)

The clocks are the ones I salvaged from the car's original road dash. They plug straight into the existing loom. Now, I need to figure out how to mount them properly.

February Update

Having recently spent days and weeks preparing the inside of the car for painting, it is now returned from Kevin the Painters garage with a shiney top coat of BMW Alpine White. I'm now battling with the wiring loom. Cutting out what's not needed, tidying up the loom wrap and trying to figure out what the hell all the wires do. Truth be known, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing so I'm being very cautious. A good sparky would probably be a lot more brutal with the snippers.

January 2010 - New Suspension

The 318is came with non-adjustable 51mm front struts. They were well past their sell by date and just not suitable for racing, so off they came.

New Year - New Spax Adjustable Coilover Suspension. Thanks to Richard at Vision Racing Developments for hooking me up with Spax.

It's blinking cold out in the garage at this time of year, but the new Spax Adjustable Coilovers went onto the front of the car today. I took the old suspension apart myself as I had to send the struts away to be turned into the bright yellow coilovers I received back for Spax. Gareth, my brother in law, helped me put them on. Now I can measure the distance between the hub face and the spring/wheel arch extensions and pass on the dimentions to Revolution Wheels who are going to make some wider wheels with the correct offsets. Hopefully we can get a suitable wide track for the car without putting too much strain on the wheel bearings.

Next up is fitting the new rear suspension - also by Spax. I also have two new Cobra Monacco Pro racing seats (that Santa brought) and a 330mm OMP racing steering wheel that need putting in. At last! Nice jobs!

November '09 Update

Before

After

I've spent the last few weeks sanding and painting the rough interior of the car. It's now in primer (like the outside of the car) and ready to be sprayed BMW Alpine White. The Yamaha R1 you can see in the background is now sold and the money will finance the next steps for the Beemer - coilover suspension, lightweight wheels and the final paint job.

Some better pictures

New arches - some quick pics

Rear valance cut away, old petrol tank removed and disgarded - huge weight saving! Holes cut for the look more than anything else. We've discussed fabbing some sort of aluminium rear air diffuser like you get on modern sports cars to fill the gap that's left in the valance.

The car has been sprayed in white primer and is more or less ready for a flatting off and top coat of BMW Alpine White.

Front valance cut away to ape the look of a WRC car. Front wings now blend into the valance - meaning a bit more repair work if I smack into something. Notice that the rollcage is now in place and bolted in. Bonnet wasn't sprayed as it's going to be replaced by a lightweight GRP one.

Looking a bit funny with the original skinny 14 by 5.5 inch wheel fitted. A nine inch wide rear wheel should easily fit under the new arch.

Front wing rolled out easily . All the arch work is in steel and completely unique to my car. Brian kept all the cardboard templates in case I damage them in the future.

Quick update

The car is back at Brian's garage for some metal fabrication. We looked at fitting fibreglass Mk2 Escort arches, but they didn't suit the car. So, the arches were returned to West Wales Rally Spares and Brian is now fabricating some bespoke ones from mild steel. Whilst she's there, Brian will weld in the cage mouting points and strip back the parts of the wiring loom that I wasn't confident enough to have a go at. Pictures to follow soon.

Some photos of progress thus far.

Here are a few pics of where the car is at. I decided to remove the dash to save weight - I still have the heater matrix to remove. Also I made a start at removing weight from the rear of the car by cutting the spare wheel well out.

Slight change of plan...

I've spent the last week scraping glue-like sound deadening out of the car's interior. It was well worth the effort as I've ended up with a bin bag full of the stuff - approximately 7kgs of weight saved.





The car was due to go for paint last Monday, but Kev my painter has had the builders in and he isn't quite ready at his end. Just as well, because after a long discussion with my brother in law, Gareth, I've decided to send the car the car back to Brian for some more surgery. Weight is the first emeny of acceleration and I knew that the Beemer would need to go on a serious diet. After a good look around for more weight saving, I'm going to ask Brian to cut out the spare wheel well in the boot floor and plate it over. This should save a few more kilos and will also create a space underneath the car into which we can fabricate an air diffuser out of ally. The photo below shows the space created by getting rid of the spare wheel well and the rear valance cut away in prep for a rear air diffuser. Whilst the car is with Brian, we'll also look into the possibility of flaring the exhisting wheel arches.

Roll Cage Arrives!

Finally, I'm beginning to feel that I'm getting somewhere. Demon Tweeks might not be cheap, but their service is very good. I ordered this OMP 6 point bolt in cage at 4pm on a Thursday afternoon and it arrived at my work address 22hrs later!

The car is to go's to Kev Morgan my painter next Monday. He and I are going to prep the interior for paint before the roll cage is installed. Once in, the cage and the interior will be painted BMW Alpine white at the same time.

Keep Smiling!

Two months in and I'm still smiling- just! I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but not this much. I've decided not to use the fibreglass M3 replica wide arch bodykit. I've based my decision on:

1) The car is being built for sprinting and hillclimbing, which means driving at high speed inbetween trees/hedges/gatepost/etc. Should I hit anything (inevitable if I'm being realistic), there'd be shards of fibreglass everywhere and a lot more to fix.

2) The kit I bought was cheap and needed TLC to bring it back - at least 10-15 hours work to spruce it up and fit it. Time better spent elsewhere. Plus the money I got for it will help pay for the next major step ... the roll cage. An OMP 6 point bolt in has been ordered from Demon Twix for a pricey £467 delivered. It should arrive in the next few days.

So, for the time being, she'll remain un-arched. I am going to investigate the possiblity of modifying fibreglass Escort Mk2 arches to fit before she go's for paint...

Which brings me onto what's I'm doing right now. Kev, my painter has been up to see the car and we've discussed what I want. We've agreed on a solid BMW white with light blue/dark blue/red stripes. He's going to spray inside and outside the car and is going to wait until the cage is in before starting. In the meantime, I'm sanding and filing for hours and hours and hours...

Sneak Peek

I bid on a fibreglass widearch kit for my BMW recently. I set myself a limit and lost the auction. Hey - Ho, nevermind. I was about ot travel up to Peter Lloyd Rallying to measure up a set of Mk2 Escort fibreglass tarmac arches to see if they could be altered to fit ther E30, when I received an email from the the guy auctioning the M3 kit. Turns out the person who won the auction was full of B.S. and didn't have any intention of buying them. A quick Sunday morning trip up to Shrewsbury and the M3 replica widebody kit is mine. A brand new one from Smith and Deakin is £1000. I didn't pay anywhere near that, but f*ck all fits as it should on the one I bought - yet! Here's couple of sneak peek pics of the NSF arch with fibreglass wide arch kit fitted (one screw holding it).