Hi Darky,
All your frustrations will pay off once you have your engine back together and she is screaming towards redline.... You will have that silly ear to ear grin then!!
As for the M3, most of my neighbours appreciate it - Ive schooled them on its history and rarity and they think its cool I'd rather spend my money on e30's than paying down my mortgage or buying clothes for my kids!! LOL
Ive promised a few of them rides but I always seem to not want any witnesses when I go for a drive!!

As for the iS "plan" its easy at this stage to have one because I cant really do much more until the car is painted. There is NOTHING left to take apart!! The next step would be installing the engine and as I said - I
hope it all comes together as planned...
As for the m42 engine rebuild I have dramatically reduced my plans for it.. I simply cant spend the thousands necessary to bring it up to M3 power levels..And since I have an M3 there doesnt seem any point in doing so... I may swap pistons to up compression and chip it but Im not planning anymore than that.. Obviously if parts need replacing due to wear I will do so but Im aiming for a fairly straightforward rebuild. Hopefully I can get her near 150HP. Not very exciting I know but I have 3 of these babies to take care of...
The paint on the M3 is actually really good - just some small chips on the front of the hood... The red tape is cheap electrical tape - cost me 1$... I kinda like it but Im not sure it will stay as I don't think it was OEM with our e30's... The front plate is purely decorative - here we only require a plate in the back... The decorative plate came with my resto 318iS and I found it cool that "M3" are the last two digits - never even noticed until I decided to put it on the M3!! I admit, it looks like crap and eventually I will get a nicer one...
I think the idea of a video is cool.. I think I will give it a try... but it will be a while as Im off to work for a few days....
Cheers,
Norm