Spec [24/03/07] |
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Exterior
Interior
Chassis and Brakes
Engine and Driveline
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Project Build Diary 27th July '07 Front coilovers with K-Mac adjustable top-mounts fitted.   Strut brace painted satin black and fitted. I think it looks much better than when it was bright red.    An E30 24V sticker was added as a cheeky finishing touch.  31st July '07 Woke early to run the car over to Bexley Motorworks so they could sort out a few running niggles and MOT her. Putting the face back on the Alpine for the first time since I blew her up last May was an enjoyable moment. The CD I'd been playing at the time was still in the player and it started up where we'd left off. Luckily an uneventful journey and we got there nice and early with no incidents.   12th September '07 Car back from Bexley Motor Works, MOT'ed, taxed and ready for use. While it was there it was noticed the fuel filler neck was corroded so a new fuel tank was fitted too. While at Bexleys a power run was carried out and she put out 218bhp which is roughly the amount I hoped for with the current level of tune. Next step is a remap to make the most of the non standard engine components. Essentially, that's the end of the original project, the engine swap is finished and the car is back in use. I'll continue to update the project pages though as there's still a lot of work I want to do to the car, namely interior, bodywork, more engine mods etc.. I have to say I'm pleased with the 'finished' article. I've created what I set out to do - a quicker, cleaner, smoother and more modern E30. Throttle response is instantaneous compared to the M20, and using the M20 flywheel the revs climb quickly. The engine feels like an M20 that can breath properly. Whereas you drive an M20 on the torque and things get asthmatic at the top end, this engine is happy to play higher up the rev range. In fact comparing the graph of the power run from the M20 pre-swap with the post swap run is a real indication of how the two engines deliver their performance differently.  13th September '07 Leather trimmed carbon shells fitted. I've been waiting for these to arrive from the importer for a few weeks. They are Border SP-1 Carbon seats specially trimmed in black leather. I fitted them using Sparco side mounts. Weight is a fraction of the standard BMW sport seats and the position of them is practically on the floor so the driver's mass is lower, lowering the overall centre of gravity significantly.    The interior is now a much more pleasant place. Also visible in the pics are the new leather gearstick and handbrake gaitors. 23rd September '07 I decided the Ultimate BMW Shoot-out at Santa Pod would be a good way to gauge the success of the conversion as it would give me a chance to pit the car against other E30s with different routes to better performance. The car performed faultlessly throughout the day and turned in a 14.2 ET @ 96MPH which made it the quickest E30 Tourer there. It was a close run thing though with a well sorted M30b30 engined Tourer running a 14.3 ET. Scalps the project car took over the course of the day included an E34 M5 engined (S38b38) E30 Tourer and an E46 M3.  I was emailed the above pic by a friend so can't vouch for the copyright of it. If it's yours and you want it removed please email and I will do. 12th December '07 Day at Curborough circuit in conjunction with BMW Car Mag. I won't write too much here as the article will be out in the March '08 issue of the magazine. Essentially though it's a comparison on track of an E30 M3, my project, an S50b30 engined E30 Tourer and an S50b32 engined E30 Sport.  © Dameon Hill  © BMW Car Magazine  © BMW Car Magazine In the above interior pic you can also see the new removable steering wheel, column spacer. This was added to bring the steering wheel closer to the driver to attain a better driving position. 13th January '08 Motorsport 255 litre per hour fuel pump fitted. On track under hard cornering I was having fuel starvation and surge problems. Hopefully this uprated pump will cure the issues.  |