H&S BMW 325is

Day 1
There will be plenty more to come, but here is what we have to start with.

Known Plusses:
- Extremely little body rust and underbody rust that i could see
- Valvetrain sounded reasonably tight, still pulled really strong past 6000rpm
- Trans shifts smoothly (needs Throwout Bearing)
- Recent starter motor, o2 sensor, and AFM, new shiftknob
- Limited slip seems to work nicely.

LONG way to go...

Status as of 1/3/2006:

Carpet pulled, trunk emptied (water soaked, with mold), floor a bit rusty but mostly just surface rust.

Status as of 1/9/2006:

Compression test showed good numbers on cylinders # 1-4 and 6. Unfortunately, cylinder 5 was about 25psi less. At this mileage it is not a big surprise to find that the rings are a bit tired. We will run a heavier weight oil to try to combate this.

We also need lots of rubber. Most rubber in the suspension needs to be replaced. We may just go with poly bushings instead. The list is growing...

Status as of 2/5/2006:

Well we've done the first real work to the car. Until now only the damp interior has been removed to get rid of the musty odor. Yesterday we replaced two of the three most critical parts: Throw out bearing and front control arm bushings. We also modified an old E30 M3 short shift kit for this car, and change the unknown tranny fluid in favor of Redline MTL. What a difference!
Once the subframe bushings come in we'll do those. Unfortunately we also found the motor mounts were separated, and we found a bad leak at the rear of the engine. Easy stuff though. The car is on its way...

Status as of 3/24/2006:

It has been slow lately, we've done all the easy stuff. The subframe mounts are in, so are 320i motor mounts (a bit stiffer). We are at the point where we need to decide what we are going to do with the suspension. Do we want "race" springs over our struts, or do we want to piece together a cheapo eBay coil-over setup? Not sure yet...but we should have some more updates now that the temps are warming up!

Status as of 8/5/2006:

Ya ok so we took a few months off...boy do we need to catch up on lost time! Well the motor is out. We need to clean it up, clean up the engine bay, replace the timing set and check the bearings and replace if needed. Here are a few goofy shots of the latest.

And it's out!

Status as of 9/15/2006:

Well we are still way behind schedule, but at least it is coming back together! Engine went in after a little internal and external refreshing. Bolted the tranny, exhaust, and driveshaft last night. Starting to look like a car again!

Status as of 9/19/2006:

Time is getting tight, only 5 weeks to go! AHHH
Only thing that prevented us from starting her last night was distilled water! Go figure!
Hopefully we will have our suspension by the end of next week and we can get this rat on the road.

Status as of 10/11/2006:

In two weeks we will be on the road to Florida! AHHHHHH!
We have a lot still to do, wish us luck!
Here is our latest addition:

It is cheap...yup, and you get what you pay for! haha To be fair it is a workable kit, but it isn't as good as say GC for twice the price or a proper setup like Tein offers for 6 times the price. Spring rates are too soft, but we are working on that!
I hope to have a completed update one week from now, but somehow I don't see that happening.

Status as of 10/18/2006:

In one week we will be on the road to Florida!!! No words...

The car looks like a car again. The wheels are on, the headlights and grill is back in, and it drives around under its own power. The last 6 days are for making it perrty.

Well, it is over for $2006

The event is over and it was a total blast! Check out the feature created by Car Domain at $2006 Challenge

We'd like to thank Flying Brick Performance , Schneller Motorsports, and Car Domain for their support. We will see you next year!