jrcook320’s 1981 BMW 3 Series

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project After wrecking my first E21, I made the determination that even if the damage was repairable, I didn't want to try it for fear the chassis would never be straight again. I started the search for a doner body for all my hotrod parts. The goal was to find a southern car with a clean, straight body, but with little regard to the condition of the interior or motor. I ended up with an Oklahoma ebay car with over 200,000 miles that was very, very rough for $900 (way too much). The previous owner had a sweet custom zebra skin center console, huge tach mounted on the dash, fire extinguisher on the A pillar, hood pins, and crappy graphics all over including bullet holes, stripes, and fake BMW tuner stickers that read "Speed Lab Motersports: Extreme Performance". Awesome. On the 1000 mile trip home, I had to add 2 quarts of oil every 2 hours on the highway. There was an oil fog on the back of the car, but in the spirit of the rest of the car my buddy wrote "820 HP" in the oil with his finger. Extreme Performance indeed. E21 photo shoot before tearing the junker down: From the pics you can see I didn't get the clean, straight, rust free body I was hoping for. I should have sold it and found another E21 but instead spent an entire summer sandblasting, welding, and priming just to get the body ready for paint. I had Euro rear sheet metal installed while I was at it. While the new body was in the shop I stripped down the old car and collected a few more goodies to make the new car even better. After about a year and a half in the body shop, the car was finally ready to come home, minus hood and trunk lid. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home PageEngine RebuildHenna 320iDoner BodyAssemblyVolvo Brake UpgradePoly Filled Subframe MountsTurbo ProjectOnce I realized I only had 8:1 compression since I used the 1.8L head with 2.0L flat top pistons I started collecting parts for a turbo.  The first thing I found was a brand new air flow meter and fuel distributor combo on ebay.  I initially thought that it was a Volvo 240 turbo fuel distributor mounted to a porsche 931 air flow meter, but after fighting a a lean condition about 5500 rpm for 2 years I realized that the 6 cyl volvo FD casting doesn't bolt to the 4 cylinder 931 AFM.  What I actually had was a PRV v6 AFM.  I have a Dinan turbo manifold, Volvo 240 turbo fuel distributor and warm up regulator, and a Porsche 924 turbo (931) air flow meter.I removed the large rubber bumper from the inlet side of the sensor plate and removed the mounting flanges from the bowl to improve flow. I also ported and smoothed the outlet of the air flow meter. The Porche 931 AFM is downdraft as opposed to updraft and is ideal for my application. Here you can see the Volvo fuel distributor on top of the Porche 80mm sensor plate next to a junk stock fuel distributor and 60mm sensor plate:

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project I filled my rear subframe bushings polyurethane for $30. I used 80A durometer 2 part polyurethane casting compound from Mcmaster Carr (mcmaster.com), part number 8644K11 for $26.66. I cut the stock rubber "bumpers" off the bushings. Then drilled 3 1/4" holes (to make 1 wide hole) all the way through the rubber bonded to the outer case (not the rubber connecting the case to the center piece) to have a rough area for the poly to bond better to, to get rid of more of the soft rubber, and to have 2 more through cannels for the poly to flow through to connect the top "bushing" to the bottom "bushing" better. I made my "molds" out of cardboard sealed in duct tape and things turned out very well. Make sure you don't spring a leak. Mine started to set up just in time to stop the leaking before I ran out of urethane. It made a big difference in the tightness of the whole car, and really cut down on rear body roll. There is slightly more vibration and road noise, but well worth the improvement in handling. Before, I used to get rear wheel hop and the subframe would slap the bottom of the car. This really cut down on the wheel hop and the subframe stays put. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project The Volvo/Girling front brake upgrade is the biggest bang for the buck in E21 brakes. For much less than stock 2 piston calipers you can get 4 piston calipers with about 30% more pad area. I bought my calipers brand new for about $60 each at fcpgroton.com, but prices have gone up slightly since then. I bought part #5002028X and 5002029X, a hardware kit, and metal master pads. First off, the backing plate needs to be trimmed to make room for the caliper: This is a fairly straight forward swap, but the calipers I bought overhung the rotors by exactly 7mm, not the 3mm that I often see posted. Unslotted caliper with 7mm overhang: I had to slot the mounting holes to get down to a 1mm overhang (I used a carbide bit and die grinder), and also used 1.5mm thick washers to center the calipers on the rotor. I actually went to the hardware store with measuring calipers and measured washers to make sure I had all the same thickness (washer tolerances aren't very tight). Slotted Holes: Slotting the mounting holes put the caliper so far back that I had to grind a little material off of the front strut where the caliper mounting bolt holes are for brake pad clearance, and also had to grind some material off of the pad backing plate. Note: As seen in the pic, I ran double spacers up front until I could get custum made hub centric spacers for my wheels (the wheel center bore is much larger than the E21's hub dia.). This was a temporary setup, I don't recommend this. Calipers mounted after slotting the holes, only 1mm overhang. Note: clips installed backwards in the pic, they should be over the metal backing plate on the pads. I decided to use the E21 master cylinder for now because I already had a new one. I used a metric brake "T", bought mine from Jbugs.com (a VW supplier), but its the exact same "T" that is used in the rear brake circuit of the E21. Also, If you are doing a big front brake swap and a rear disk conversion, you should consider an adjustable proportioning valve. I used a Wilwood valve (bought from summitracing.com) pretty cheap, and looks good too. I had to use a combination of metic and SAE bubble and inverted bubble flares to adapt it into the system. Summit's wilwood valve is SAE, but I have read that Ireland Engineering sells a metric version. Front brake line routing. I bought brake metric brake lines at Autozone for a few bucks (along with their rent-a-tool cutter and flare kit) and bent my lines by hand. Despite the single circuit split to 2, the brake pedal feel isn't too soft for my tastes. An E12 cylinder is the best way to go though. Proportioning valve placement. A great spot for easy adjustment. Or you can run the line up into the passenger compartment for in car adjustment. I removed and bypassed the stock proportioning valve with a female-female brake line connector. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home PageEngine RebuildHenna 320iDoner BodyAssemblyVolvo Brake UpgradePoly Filled Subframe MountsTurbo Project________________________________________________________________________________________________

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project This was my first car, an '83 320i. I bought it my senior year of High School for $650, and it was in very rough shape. I started with the brakes, an ansa muffler and some body work but over the course of the next 3 years ended up with a rebuilt the motor with 2.0L conversion, Metric Mechanic tranny and short shift kit, Bilstien shocks and Eibach springs, Recaro interior, cold air intake, header, and euro bumper conversion. I wrecked the car going around a wide turn at the intramural sports field at the Univ. of Toledo. I oversteered in the rain, went over the curb, slid backward into the pole below, then came to rest on the fence. My henna red paint is still on the cement pole base... Damn. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project The BMW M10 SOHC 4 cyl produced 101 hp in stock form. After the rebuild and mods its at an estimated 135 hp. -2.0L stroker, flat top pistons, ~8:1 compression -Ported/polished Bav Eng Exchange performance head with 280 cam and stiffer valve springs -Bosch Red coil -Bav Auto Performance Ignition wires -TEP lightened flywheel -A/C delete -14" Hayden electric cooling fan -Cold air intake, header, no cat, ansa muffler Here are the most recent pics, after rerouting the wiring harness under the intake manifold and the addition of the fuel pressure gage. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project After wrecking my first E21, I made the determination that even if the damage was repairable, I didn't want to try it for fear the chassis would never be straight again. I started the search for a doner body for all my hotrod parts. The goal was to find a southern car with a clean, straight body, but with little regard to the condition of the interior or motor. I ended up with an Oklahoma ebay car with over 200,000 miles that was very, very rough for $900 (way too much). The previous owner had a sweet custom zebra skin center console, huge tach mounted on the dash, fire extinguisher on the A pillar, hood pins, and crappy graphics all over including bullet holes, stripes, and fake BMW tuner stickers that read "Speed Lab Motersports: Extreme Performance". Awesome. On the 1000 mile trip home, I had to add 2 quarts of oil every 2 hours on the highway. There was an oil fog on the back of the car, but in the spirit of the rest of the car my buddy wrote "820 HP" in the oil with his finger. Extreme Performance indeed. E21 photo shoot before tearing the junker down: From the pics you can see I didn't get the clean, straight, rust free body I was hoping for. I should have sold it and found another E21 but instead spent an entire summer sandblasting, welding, and priming just to get the body ready for paint. I had Euro rear sheet metal installed while I was at it. While the new body was in the shop I stripped down the old car and collected a few more goodies to make the new car even better. After about a year and a half in the body shop, the car was finally ready to come home, minus hood and trunk lid. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project I filled my rear subframe bushings polyurethane for $30. I used 80A durometer 2 part polyurethane casting compound from Mcmaster Carr (mcmaster.com), part number 8644K11 for $26.66. I cut the stock rubber "bumpers" off the bushings. Then drilled 3 1/4" holes (to make 1 wide hole) all the way through the rubber bonded to the outer case (not the rubber connecting the case to the center piece) to have a rough area for the poly to bond better to, to get rid of more of the soft rubber, and to have 2 more through cannels for the poly to flow through to connect the top "bushing" to the bottom "bushing" better. I made my "molds" out of cardboard sealed in duct tape and things turned out very well. Make sure you don't spring a leak. Mine started to set up just in time to stop the leaking before I ran out of urethane. It made a big difference in the tightness of the whole car, and really cut down on rear body roll. There is slightly more vibration and road noise, but well worth the improvement in handling. Before, I used to get rear wheel hop and the subframe would slap the bottom of the car. This really cut down on the wheel hop and the subframe stays put. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project The Volvo/Girling front brake upgrade is the biggest bang for the buck in E21 brakes. For much less than stock 2 piston calipers you can get 4 piston calipers with about 30% more pad area. I bought my calipers brand new for about $60 each at fcpgroton.com, but prices have gone up slightly since then. I bought part #5002028X and 5002029X, a hardware kit, and metal master pads. First off, the backing plate needs to be trimmed to make room for the caliper: This is a fairly straight forward swap, but the calipers I bought overhung the rotors by exactly 7mm, not the 3mm that I often see posted. Unslotted caliper with 7mm overhang: I had to slot the mounting holes to get down to a 1mm overhang (I used a carbide bit and die grinder), and also used 1.5mm thick washers to center the calipers on the rotor. I actually went to the hardware store with measuring calipers and measured washers to make sure I had all the same thickness (washer tolerances aren't very tight). Slotted Holes: Slotting the mounting holes put the caliper so far back that I had to grind a little material off of the front strut where the caliper mounting bolt holes are for brake pad clearance, and also had to grind some material off of the pad backing plate. Note: As seen in the pic, I ran double spacers up front until I could get custum made hub centric spacers for my wheels (the wheel center bore is much larger than the E21's hub dia.). This was a temporary setup, I don't recommend this. Calipers mounted after slotting the holes, only 1mm overhang. Note: clips installed backwards in the pic, they should be over the metal backing plate on the pads. I decided to use the E21 master cylinder for now because I already had a new one. I used a metric brake "T", bought mine from Jbugs.com (a VW supplier), but its the exact same "T" that is used in the rear brake circuit of the E21. Also, If you are doing a big front brake swap and a rear disk conversion, you should consider an adjustable proportioning valve. I used a Wilwood valve (bought from summitracing.com) pretty cheap, and looks good too. I had to use a combination of metic and SAE bubble and inverted bubble flares to adapt it into the system. Summit's wilwood valve is SAE, but I have read that Ireland Engineering sells a metric version. Front brake line routing. I bought brake metric brake lines at Autozone for a few bucks (along with their rent-a-tool cutter and flare kit) and bent my lines by hand. Despite the single circuit split to 2, the brake pedal feel isn't too soft for my tastes. An E12 cylinder is the best way to go though. Proportioning valve placement. A great spot for easy adjustment. Or you can run the line up into the passenger compartment for in car adjustment. I removed and bypassed the stock proportioning valve with a female-female brake line connector. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

I decided to try the E12 528i throttle body to cope with the increased air flow.  The 528i TB is 65mm vs. the stock 48mm TB. Mounting the throttle body required grinding off the external coolant passages so it would sit flush on manifold, cutting a larger hole in the plenum, slotting the mounting holes in the throttle body and ultimately a custom throttle cable as the stock cable was too short.  For my application it is very well matched and gives smooth, linear throttle response. While I had the manifold off I spent a considerable amount to time grinding off all the casting lines, cleaning up the appearance of the plenum, smoothing the surface, and port matching the intake manifold.

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project The Volvo/Girling front brake upgrade is the biggest bang for the buck in E21 brakes. For much less than stock 2 piston calipers you can get 4 piston calipers with about 30% more pad area. I bought my calipers brand new for about $60 each at fcpgroton.com, but prices have gone up slightly since then. I bought part #5002028X and 5002029X, a hardware kit, and metal master pads. First off, the backing plate needs to be trimmed to make room for the caliper: This is a fairly straight forward swap, but the calipers I bought overhung the rotors by exactly 7mm, not the 3mm that I often see posted. Unslotted caliper with 7mm overhang: I had to slot the mounting holes to get down to a 1mm overhang (I used a carbide bit and die grinder), and also used 1.5mm thick washers to center the calipers on the rotor. I actually went to the hardware store with measuring calipers and measured washers to make sure I had all the same thickness (washer tolerances aren't very tight). Slotted Holes: Slotting the mounting holes put the caliper so far back that I had to grind a little material off of the front strut where the caliper mounting bolt holes are for brake pad clearance, and also had to grind some material off of the pad backing plate. Note: As seen in the pic, I ran double spacers up front until I could get custum made hub centric spacers for my wheels (the wheel center bore is much larger than the E21's hub dia.). This was a temporary setup, I don't recommend this. Calipers mounted after slotting the holes, only 1mm overhang. Note: clips installed backwards in the pic, they should be over the metal backing plate on the pads. I decided to use the E21 master cylinder for now because I already had a new one. I used a metric brake "T", bought mine from Jbugs.com (a VW supplier), but its the exact same "T" that is used in the rear brake circuit of the E21. Also, If you are doing a big front brake swap and a rear disk conversion, you should consider an adjustable proportioning valve. I used a Wilwood valve (bought from summitracing.com) pretty cheap, and looks good too. I had to use a combination of metic and SAE bubble and inverted bubble flares to adapt it into the system. Summit's wilwood valve is SAE, but I have read that Ireland Engineering sells a metric version. Front brake line routing. I bought brake metric brake lines at Autozone for a few bucks (along with their rent-a-tool cutter and flare kit) and bent my lines by hand. Despite the single circuit split to 2, the brake pedal feel isn't too soft for my tastes. An E12 cylinder is the best way to go though. Proportioning valve placement. A great spot for easy adjustment. Or you can run the line up into the passenger compartment for in car adjustment. I removed and bypassed the stock proportioning valve with a female-female brake line connector. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project This was my first car, an '83 320i. I bought it my senior year of High School for $650, and it was in very rough shape. I started with the brakes, an ansa muffler and some body work but over the course of the next 3 years ended up with a rebuilt the motor with 2.0L conversion, Metric Mechanic tranny and short shift kit, Bilstien shocks and Eibach springs, Recaro interior, cold air intake, header, and euro bumper conversion. I wrecked the car going around a wide turn at the intramural sports field at the Univ. of Toledo. I oversteered in the rain, went over the curb, slid backward into the pole below, then came to rest on the fence. My henna red paint is still on the cement pole base... Damn. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project The BMW M10 SOHC 4 cyl produced 101 hp in stock form. After the rebuild and mods its at an estimated 135 hp. -2.0L stroker, flat top pistons, ~8:1 compression -Ported/polished Bav Eng Exchange performance head with 280 cam and stiffer valve springs -Bosch Red coil -Bav Auto Performance Ignition wires -TEP lightened flywheel -A/C delete -14" Hayden electric cooling fan -Cold air intake, header, no cat, ansa muffler Here are the most recent pics, after rerouting the wiring harness under the intake manifold and the addition of the fuel pressure gage. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project After wrecking my first E21, I made the determination that even if the damage was repairable, I didn't want to try it for fear the chassis would never be straight again. I started the search for a doner body for all my hotrod parts. The goal was to find a southern car with a clean, straight body, but with little regard to the condition of the interior or motor. I ended up with an Oklahoma ebay car with over 200,000 miles that was very, very rough for $900 (way too much). The previous owner had a sweet custom zebra skin center console, huge tach mounted on the dash, fire extinguisher on the A pillar, hood pins, and crappy graphics all over including bullet holes, stripes, and fake BMW tuner stickers that read "Speed Lab Motersports: Extreme Performance". Awesome. On the 1000 mile trip home, I had to add 2 quarts of oil every 2 hours on the highway. There was an oil fog on the back of the car, but in the spirit of the rest of the car my buddy wrote "820 HP" in the oil with his finger. Extreme Performance indeed. E21 photo shoot before tearing the junker down: From the pics you can see I didn't get the clean, straight, rust free body I was hoping for. I should have sold it and found another E21 but instead spent an entire summer sandblasting, welding, and priming just to get the body ready for paint. I had Euro rear sheet metal installed while I was at it. While the new body was in the shop I stripped down the old car and collected a few more goodies to make the new car even better. After about a year and a half in the body shop, the car was finally ready to come home, minus hood and trunk lid. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project The Volvo/Girling front brake upgrade is the biggest bang for the buck in E21 brakes. For much less than stock 2 piston calipers you can get 4 piston calipers with about 30% more pad area. I bought my calipers brand new for about $60 each at fcpgroton.com, but prices have gone up slightly since then. I bought part #5002028X and 5002029X, a hardware kit, and metal master pads. First off, the backing plate needs to be trimmed to make room for the caliper: This is a fairly straight forward swap, but the calipers I bought overhung the rotors by exactly 7mm, not the 3mm that I often see posted. Unslotted caliper with 7mm overhang: I had to slot the mounting holes to get down to a 1mm overhang (I used a carbide bit and die grinder), and also used 1.5mm thick washers to center the calipers on the rotor. I actually went to the hardware store with measuring calipers and measured washers to make sure I had all the same thickness (washer tolerances aren't very tight). Slotted Holes: Slotting the mounting holes put the caliper so far back that I had to grind a little material off of the front strut where the caliper mounting bolt holes are for brake pad clearance, and also had to grind some material off of the pad backing plate. Note: As seen in the pic, I ran double spacers up front until I could get custum made hub centric spacers for my wheels (the wheel center bore is much larger than the E21's hub dia.). This was a temporary setup, I don't recommend this. Calipers mounted after slotting the holes, only 1mm overhang. Note: clips installed backwards in the pic, they should be over the metal backing plate on the pads. I decided to use the E21 master cylinder for now because I already had a new one. I used a metric brake "T", bought mine from Jbugs.com (a VW supplier), but its the exact same "T" that is used in the rear brake circuit of the E21. Also, If you are doing a big front brake swap and a rear disk conversion, you should consider an adjustable proportioning valve. I used a Wilwood valve (bought from summitracing.com) pretty cheap, and looks good too. I had to use a combination of metic and SAE bubble and inverted bubble flares to adapt it into the system. Summit's wilwood valve is SAE, but I have read that Ireland Engineering sells a metric version. Front brake line routing. I bought brake metric brake lines at Autozone for a few bucks (along with their rent-a-tool cutter and flare kit) and bent my lines by hand. Despite the single circuit split to 2, the brake pedal feel isn't too soft for my tastes. An E12 cylinder is the best way to go though. Proportioning valve placement. A great spot for easy adjustment. Or you can run the line up into the passenger compartment for in car adjustment. I removed and bypassed the stock proportioning valve with a female-female brake line connector. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

I bead blasted the housings, clocked the turbo and remounted the waste gate actuator. I cut and welded the actuator rod rather than cutting threads and using an adjusting collar to save time.  I later found that I didn't have enough tension on the rod and my wastegate was leaking, so I re-did this properly by cutting threads on the shaft and using a turnbuckle.

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project I filled my rear subframe bushings polyurethane for $30. I used 80A durometer 2 part polyurethane casting compound from Mcmaster Carr (mcmaster.com), part number 8644K11 for $26.66. I cut the stock rubber "bumpers" off the bushings. Then drilled 3 1/4" holes (to make 1 wide hole) all the way through the rubber bonded to the outer case (not the rubber connecting the case to the center piece) to have a rough area for the poly to bond better to, to get rid of more of the soft rubber, and to have 2 more through cannels for the poly to flow through to connect the top "bushing" to the bottom "bushing" better. I made my "molds" out of cardboard sealed in duct tape and things turned out very well. Make sure you don't spring a leak. Mine started to set up just in time to stop the leaking before I ran out of urethane. It made a big difference in the tightness of the whole car, and really cut down on rear body roll. There is slightly more vibration and road noise, but well worth the improvement in handling. Before, I used to get rear wheel hop and the subframe would slap the bottom of the car. This really cut down on the wheel hop and the subframe stays put. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project

Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project This was my first car, an '83 320i. I bought it my senior year of High School for $650, and it was in very rough shape. I started with the brakes, an ansa muffler and some body work but over the course of the next 3 years ended up with a rebuilt the motor with 2.0L conversion, Metric Mechanic tranny and short shift kit, Bilstien shocks and Eibach springs, Recaro interior, cold air intake, header, and euro bumper conversion. I wrecked the car going around a wide turn at the intramural sports field at the Univ. of Toledo. I oversteered in the rain, went over the curb, slid backward into the pole below, then came to rest on the fence. My henna red paint is still on the cement pole base... Damn. Home Page Engine Rebuild Henna 320i Doner Body Assembly Volvo Brake Upgrade Poly Filled Subframe Mounts Turbo Project