Kowalski

[kowalski]

my name is Mike,

I'v been working on cars since i was 14, i'm now 21. I'v restored a 1968 chevelle, and am currently restoring a 1956 belair with my brother. I'v owned my e30 m42 for 4 years now, and i still love it.


Car: 1991 318is
color: diamond shwarze

engine Mods:

Haltech E8 engine management system w/ wide band 02.
rebuilt head (minor headwork done at this time)
Custom ground cams @ .388 lift, and 264* rotation
Chip
polished valve cover (+5 hp for the shine;))
electric fan conversion
removed a/c and p/s


current engine mods:

stroker in the works

Suspension

Boge gas shocks
Suspension tech. custom springs
rebuilt full rear suspension with all urethane bushings
solid rear shock mounts
rebuilt front rear suspension

Planned mods to susp.

eyeball CAB's
bigger sway bars

General mods to car

short shifter kit Z3 3.0L

SS teflon coated brake lines
cross drilled and slotted rotors
super blue ate brake fluid

Racing Dynamics kit waiting to be installed (early style)
fabricated front bumper using early style RD valence with plastic bumper. Removed trim flush mount blinkers and put brake ducts into the RD valence and removed the fog lights.

smoked tails, and all marker lights

blacked out kidneys

17" MR7 wheels, saving up for the wheels i want.... after the new motor of course...

H4 headlight conversion 100 watt high's, 80 watt lows i think it is. (I have tint smilies waiting to go in)

black carpet

Sound system

JBL 3 way 6x9 power serries speakers in the back
6.5 inch 3 way power serries speakers in the front
2 aftermarket tweeters (forget the brand) in the tweeter pods
450 watt amp for the speakers (forget brand, id check but the subs are hiding it)
2 Alpine type S 10's in a ported box with an alpine 800 watt amp.
the deck is nothing special, JVC KD SX 8350. i bought it cause it was cheap, had 3 pre outs for amps, and an MP3 input for my ipod on the front, and it doesn't look tacky.

[kowalski]

i will have pics of the car up as soon as we get a streak of nice weather so i can get some decent pictures.

[Choking Hazard]

I'm gussing there is a mopar interest too? The name is from Vanishing Point, right?

[1991318is]

Sweet stuff, sounds like a nice car, throw up a pic of the belair while ur at it, 56 wuz my favorite year for those things.

[kowalski]

haha your the first person to know where my name comes from!
yes i love the challenger RT, i also like old chevs, i had a 68 chevelle before this, but i'd really like a 69 yenko camaro... but i'll always have my 318is:)

ill post up a couple pics of the 56, but its not yet at a very presentable stage.

[kowalski]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/IMG_3248.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/IMG_3247_1.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/IMG_3246.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/IMG_1880.jpg
my dads 57 vette, and the guy who bought our old house, thats his ferrari

[kowalski]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/IMG_1890.jpg
this baby just needs some interior before shes finished, that pic is old, but it gives you an idea of what it looks like. its got a custom milled billet shifter knob&handle made by my brother, custom centerconsol, audi leather interior, grant wood steering wheel, custom autometer gauge cluster (we built everything on that, everything but the headliner was done by us (me and my bro)
its also sitting quite a bit lower then that now, its got about 500hp, and front discs, soon to be rear discs as well if all goes to plan.

[kowalski]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/wOTAzNDU0NnM0MTNkZmQzMXk1NDE3D.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/47b5db23b3127cce913a85a12f5c0000001.jpg

a couple of us local e30'ers.

[Febi Guibo]

holy shit that 57 corvette is friggin H-O-T... all the cars look incredible!

[kowalski]

yeah, the vette is PERFECT, like PERFECT. and believe me... it hauls, and it looks pretty sweet with the belair wheels on it:)

[Choking Hazard]

oh...duh...



I love all those cars! What moter is in the Belair? Manual trans or auto?

[kowalski]

its a 350 bored out, balanced and blue printed. 12:1 compression, and a wild cam, edelbrock alluminum heads. it gets about 2 miles per gallon.... not exactly efficient. its got a 4 spd manual.

[twinpop171]

The m42 looks great. D-S is my 2nd favorite e30 color next to brillantrot of course:D . I've never seen that many e30's together around here...got to love that.
Kowalski when I was your age a buddy of mine had a '56 Bel Aire with the stock 6 cyl. and 3 on the tree. Beat the snot out of that car and it always wanted more. We drank a lot of beer riding around in that car. We used to heckle prostitutes in downtown Pittsburgh while cruising/boozing. Of course that was a different era.
Get some pics posted when the '56 is done. Some more of the m42 would be cool too.
Is your i-pod hard wired or playing through the radio?
Dan.

[D. Clay]

1957 has to be the best year ever. Especially the dual 4 barrel 270 HP 283 CI motor and 4 Speed manual. They didn't handle for shit. TR3's and especially 6 cyl. Healy's shamed them in the corners, but they could fly in a straight line.
Best year, best color, best motor.

[kowalski]

yeah, the motor is sweet, its all stock except its balanced and blueprinted.

the ipod just plugs into the faceplate, i had an mp3 out on the front otherwise i woulda wired it to the cdchanger hookup... on second thought perhaps you thought i was using the broadcaster? those things don't work for shit. i can also plug in my laptop which is kinda cool as well. the weather here has been to shits lately, and i'm painting my sideskirts hopfully this week and putting them on so it should look a little better. then ill take her for a photoshoot.

as for the handling, on the stock wheels its garbage, but we put the wheels that are on the belair onto the vette and it handled pretty nice after that...:)

[1991318is]

Way to be rockin a 4 speed in the belair, is it a muncie I'm guessin, if so which one? I've got an m21 in my pickup but am looking for an m22 rock crusher for the hell of it. Belair looks gorgeous, awesome colors and all. Quite the compression you've got there w/ the belair, how's it run w/ all that, I bet pretty freakin fast w/ the sounds of it.

Brendan

[kowalski]

oh its hella fast!!! when we bought it it was supposed to have a rock crusher in it, but the day we bought it (it was an x-drag car, all rusted out with holes cut in it everywhere...) i was driving it to the shop:) all it had was a seat a shifter and a steering wheel and i was naturaly doing a burn out, and it blew the tranny out of it... it was some piece of crap tranny out of an old camaro. but now its a t-10 with the super t-10 internals in it. as for how it runs, it runs beautifuly, it sounds... well i can't describe it, you can only hear it, dual 2.5 inch mendral bent exhaust with dual 40 serries flowmasters. shorty headers, i had some nice hookers on there but with the hookers it only had like 2 inches of clearance... the colors turned out quite nice, its a pearl white with a custom blue with a tad of purple, pearl, and metalics. it really shines in the sun! the engine is also done in baseclear (blue) to match the car. i'd like to track down a 5spd for it tho, but its not a big deal because its not really a DD...

[1991318is]

as for how it runs, it runs beautifuly, it sounds... well i can't describe it, you can only hear it, dual 2.5 inch mendral bent exhaust with dual 40 serries flowmasters. shorty headers, i had some nice hookers on there but with the hookers it only had like 2 inches of clearance... the colors turned out quite nice, its a pearl white with a custom blue with a tad of purple, pearl, and metalics. it really shines in the sun! the engine is also done in baseclear (blue) to match the car. i'd like to track down a 5spd for it tho, but its not a big deal because its not really a DD...
Ya, I know wutcha mean w/ ground clearance. I got super comp hooker headers and full airride setup so everytime I hit a speedbump I hit the exhaust on the piping and it jars the header loose from the block. Kinda why I stopped driving it cuz I wanna get it all fixed up and redone. I thought about doing a 5 speed but decided that I would never be able to do a 5 speed within my budget since I got my m21 for 300 dollars then I threw a rebuild on it so I'm workin on doing everything on the cheap side right now. Good luck finishin the car.

[kowalski]

yeah, so ya do know what im talking about with the headers, the only unfortunate thing is my dad threw them out:( when i left for thailand theywere going to do an engine swap on the suberban work truck, and i gave him those to put on, but they threw them out instead.... ??? do you have any pics of your truck? what kind of airride settup are you running, i wanted to do airride on the belair but its not feasable right now with the $$ situation, and me trying to build my engine...

[1991318is]

yeah, so ya do know what im talking about with the headers, the only unfortunate thing is my dad threw them out:( when i left for thailand theywere going to do an engine swap on the suberban work truck, and i gave him those to put on, but they threw them out instead.... ??? do you have any pics of your truck? what kind of airride settup are you running, i wanted to do airride on the belair but its not feasable right now with the $$ situation, and me trying to build my engine...
Moneywise, the airride can be reasonable if you go through the right sources. Check www.gravity-werx.com if you want cheap prices on really good stuff, and gc valves are the best if you do airride, and gc are way cheaper than parker which are expensive but same quality as gc. Crappy pic, but here's the truck
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c113/318isbmw/PB220035.jpg
The airride is a Master Image Customs FBSS setup with 1/4" manual valves. These are super simple and look good so you could use the valves for show as well as the airride. I've got Firestone 2500's in the front w/ Firestone 2600 in the back w/ 1 5 gallon tank and so far I used some dropped spindles w/ a 5 lug conversion I setup using caprice 3 inch lowered spindles and caprice disc brakes and all that. Got Wilwood master cylinder to match so it stops really well.

[kowalski]

thanks ill have to look into that airride settup after im done my engine! i like the flat black, if and when i do another car its gona be flat black with some tastefull ghost flames. as of right now were just working on building a custom 4 link for it as it snapped axle supports and the diff did a 360 poped the car off the ground and broke a few things:( it wasn't pretty, and that was only a half throttle burnout!!! so needless to say a 4link is in demand...

[mikesjo]

Mike check your pm on bimmerclassics.

[kowalski]

replied.

[1991318is]

thanks ill have to look into that airride settup after im done my engine! i like the flat black, if and when i do another car its gona be flat black with some tastefull ghost flames. as of right now were just working on building a custom 4 link for it as it snapped axle supports and the diff did a 360 poped the car off the ground and broke a few things:( it wasn't pretty, and that was only a half throttle burnout!!! so needless to say a 4link is in demand...
Ya, 4 links do wonders. check out devious customs for ideas on a 4 link. They usually do hella good work on lowered trucks and cars so their designs should be pretty darn good. I got lucky nad have a 3 link from factory on my pickup. Stupidly chevy only did the 3 link for like 7 or so years so not many people got to see how great of an idea links are.

[kowalski]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/IMG_3602.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/IMG_3603.jpg

its dark, but see if you can spot whats different, and "not supposed to be on a plastic bumper car":)

[asubimmer]

87 RD air dam?

[kowalski]

i got the full kit, but i put the airdam on that night.

[kowalski]

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f300/Mkroeker/Image028.jpg

since i realized that i have never put a new picture of the car up since i put up those last pics almost a year ago. Here is an updated picture with the new front bumper installed. Still havn't painted my skirts or rear apron tho... or installed my new lights... or finished my motor.... F too many projects not enough time... Sorry for the crappy pic but i lost the cord for my camera and i don't have a card reader.