E30 318is track car build!

[mkodama]

Ok, a bit of an intro...

I have a neighbor I'm pretty close with who does a lot of Motorsports stuff.  Right after I was in a car accident with my E46, we started arranging to repair and register one of the cars he had that he was going to make into a spec E30 car.  The only problems with this car were no radio, some exterior blemishes, and the original owner drove the car onto curb and totally messed up the lower oil pan, upper oil pan, and timing cover.











Well, business wasn't doing so great for my neighbor with this economy and motorsports and car tuning being primarily an expensive hobby for a lot of people, he closed down his business and got a job elsewhere.  In the process of moving around all this stuff, the 318is got kinda messed up, so my neighbor just gave it to me.  Completely free.

[mkodama]

The car sat in a parking lot for over a year since I was busy fixing up my E46.  Recently the car had to be moved from that parking lot so now it is at the warehouse with my E46 and is close enough to my house so that I can work on it on a daily basis.

First picture I've ever taken with all 3 of my cars in the same picture:


After my first time washing my car, haha:













At this point I pretty much decided the interior is beyond repair so I might as well make a track car out of what I have!

[mkodama]

Building this car for driving events seems like the best option, especially when my money is too limited for competition(college student).  I also get freedom to do pretty much whatever I want since there are just about no rules to follow other than basic safety.

So easiest and cheapest things first!  Stripping down the car, getting ride of all the stuff I don't need, and fixing any damage.







And a little more...









I then decided to just take out the entire chassis wiring harness.  I felt like more than half of the chassis wiring harness was for random little extras that aren't necessary on a street car and are of no use on a track car, such as ceiling lights and electric door locking motors.  So I decided to take out the entire wiring harness as a "fun" project.

This turned out to be a much bigger project than I expected. Including dealing with bad engineering/layout of certain things by BMW, such as squishing the fuel pump and fuel level sensor wires between the body and gas tank.  That was probably the most annoying part.  So overall a very slow process.



So I finally got the wiring harness out of the car, took all the trim pieces out of it, and cleaned it up a little more.  The car is a lot cleaner now, and a lot less cluttered with "stuff".











The engine is also disconnected now so I can take it out soon and begin to work on this M42.  A lot of parts are off the engine and I have them somewhere else.







Also it's pretty easy to see how much lighter the car is now.  The car has lowering springs but looks just like like OEM ride height now, haha.



And here is an example of how much the wiring in just a simple little E30 weighs.

Just me on the scale:


Me holding a bag with the wiring:


196.7-169.3=27.4 lbs of wiring.  This includes the tachometer, ABS computer (I think), and most of the wiring.  This excludes the engine wiring harness and ECU, climate control wiring, radio wiring, and factory alarm wiring.

[mkodama]

I took over an entire room in my house just to lay out this wiring harness, haha.  And man, what pain this wiring harness is.  Every fuse is used for multiple things and so many parts of the car tap power off other things.  Pretty badly organized electrical.  Also the car is pre-wired for sooo many options.  I've already thinned out a bunch of stuff at this point, but after the picture things still got thinned out even more.

[mkodama]

Now for the "new" wiring harness with all unnecessary items removed.

Just me:


Me holding wiring harness, instrument cluster, ABS computer, and fuse and relay box:


191.1-171.7=19.4lbs

So 19.4 pounds now vs. the 27.4+ pounds before

So probably around 10 lbs in wiring removed when I include all the speaker, radio, and antenna wiring that I left out.  Hopefully this will get me a little bit closer to my 2000 pound goal for this car.

Today comes the real test. Putting power to the wiring tomorrow and seeing if all the lighting and stuff like electric windows still work... :eek:

And here is some engine stuff I have planned.

Stock cooling system setup:


My cooling system setup(well, the heater core hoses are just going to be looped):


Stock vacuum system setup:


My vacuum system setup(vacuum lines obviously aren't all going to be T'ed together):


I'm amazed.  This is my first time powering up the car, and for the most part, everything runs just fine.  

My wiring harness thinning didn't kill the lighting at least. :rofl:  First time turning on the high beams and low beams.




even the license plate light works:


Night time lights and turn indicator works:


Third brake light works:




Here is the light control module, with working control illuimation and dimming:


Brake pad sensors, hand brake, turn indicator/hazzards, high beam, and even the service interval counter work:


woot, working hazzard button:


my tail lights work!


well, one tail light works.  I need to replace the other, lol.


Interior as it sits right now.  Wiring harness is going to be removed again for wrapping so that's why it is only loosely lying about.  Sound deadening inside the car has also been removed.  I just need to find something to clean up the last little bits to make everything nice and clean.




Only thing I messed up on to my knowledge are the electric mirrors.  Apparently I removed the power wire.  They still have all the control wires, and ground wires, just no power going to them...  I'm not sure on whether I should keep the electric ones or find something manual.  If I did find manually adjustable mirrors, this would eliminate the last bit of wiring going to my doors.

The sunroof was removed today as well.  The brackets and what not are going to be cut and removed as well, and the hole plugged up with either the old sunroof welded in or a carbon fiber plug glued in, bondo'ed smooth, and painted.

[iamcreepingdeath]

cool!  i am anxious to see some progress!

[mkodama]

Things are on pause for now.  I'm trying to finish up stuff on my e46 330 before I start dumping all my time in money into this car.