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Introducing our E30 M3 Jun 14, 2000
Our newest project car is a 1988 BMW M3. We have had the hots for these cars since we first tested one as our cover story in the January 1988 issue of GRM (then called Auto-X). With a curb weight of well under 2800 pounds, 192 horsepower on tap from a true race-inspired 16-valve, 2.3-liter, four-cylinder engine and flared "boy racer" body work and a chassis to back up the look, you know why we wanted one of these cars.
The market for an E30 M3 has been all over the place, with asking prices ranging from around $5000 for a worn-out rat or a car needing an engine overall to more than $15,000 for a low-mileage cream puff. Normal cars in decent shape, but with the typical needs of a 10-year-old car with 100,000 miles hover in the $8000 to $12,000 mark, depending on year, condition and desperation or optimism of the seller.
We looked at several cars before settling on the silver with black interior 1988 model shown here. While most of the cars we looked at were closer to the high end of the $8000 to $12,000 figure we mentioned above, they should have been at the low end. What most sellers described as cream puffs usually needed thousands of dollars of work.
The car we chose was actually purchased from an old college buddy of Tim's. He asked that we make him a fair offer, as his new Audi TT had just come into the dealer, and he needed to sell his M3. We decided, in the interest of research for a series of stories on these cars planned for upcoming issues of GRM, that we would take a look at his car scientifically and determine the car's value.
Despite having been housed in downtown Boston for the last three years, on initial inspection the car looked very nice. There was no rust and only a few minor dings and scratches. The mileage was at 110,000, and the car drove and ran very nicely, except for a very bad clunk in the front and a buzzy shifter at high rpm.
With the help of BMW experts Rennie Bryant of Redline BMW Performance (http://www.redline-racing.com) and Will Turner Of Turner Motorsports (http://www.turnermotorsports.com), and the use of the lift at Shine Racing, we made a list of what was wrong with this car and what a fair price should be for the car.
Assuming that a fairly decent M3 with a few dings and scratches inside and out is worth about $12,000, we used this as a baseline. Yes, some M3s sell for more than this, but it is our professional opinion that only extremely well cared for, low-mileage, original cars or incredibly well-restored or highly modified cars are worth more than $12,000.
Once on the lift, we quickly discovered the source of the bad clunk in the front end. Fearing the worst, we were pleasantly surprised to find only that the left front anti-roll bar mounting bracket was missing. Apparently the bolt holding the anti-roll bar had fallen out, and the bracket lies some where in a pothole on some back street in Boston.
A quick trip to a junkyard yielded us the same mounting bracket from a E30 325 BMW, and this problem was solved. The next immediate problem we found was a an oil pan drain plug that was leaking and only hand tight. As expected, the threads were stripped; the result of some over zealous oil change jockey. The folks at Shine fixed us up with a helicoil, and that problem was quickly fixed.
In addition to the oil pan, the rear transmission seal was also leaking, a common problem on E30 M3s. This will need to be fixed when we get the car back to Florida. The exhaust system was also improperly repaired. It wasn't leaking, but in our opinion, to be a $12,000 car, an M3 should not have a poorly done $20 patch on the factory exhaust system. Naturally, with 110,000 miles on the car, the subframe bushings, engine mounts (the cause of the buzzing shifter) and transmission mounts are all tired. The shocks, front end and most of the brake components are also in need of a little love and attention. So what we found is that we had a $12,000 car that needs about $1000 worth of paint and body and interior work and about $4000 of mechanical work at retail prices.
On the plus side, the rubber and interior were all good, except for the typical stress cracks and one rip on the seats, and the car came with a high-end 10 CD-changer. One plus was that the car was 100 percent original except for the tires, which are Dunlop D40M2s in decent shape.
We told our buddy that the fair wholesale price for the car was about $8500 and that if he put an ad in GRM, he would have no trouble getting this money. We also told him that he would have to do a few hundred dollars of work immediately to sell it at this price, and that he would have to count on losing a few hundred more dollars in the haggling process that is a part of used car sales. He was in a hurry to get rid of the car, didn't want to pay Boston BMW dealer prices to fix anything else, and gladly accepted our offer of $7500 for the car, as-is, where-is.
So, thus we now have our M3 project car. We feel we got a very favorable price for the car, but that we did it fairly. As we have said before, knowledge is power. Since we had an expert show us exactly what was wrong with the car and tell us how much it would cost to fix it, we had the knowledge to buy the car at a favorable price. Again, the timing was also favorable, as the seller needed to quickly get the car out of his life so he could pick up his new car.
Home sweet home Aug 25, 2000
Our M3 is now safely in the GRM world headquarters workshop after a long trailer ride from the Boston area to our Florida home. As always, our first job was to thoroughly clean and inspect our find--we carefully cleaned the car and pressure-washed the underside and the engine compartment. Years of accumulated filth were blasted off in an afternoon.
The black seats were right on the edge of being unusable, with stress cracks from being not cared for properly. They received our immediate attention. First, we vacuumed and cleaned them with CRC Chemical's Tannery All Purpose Leather Cleaner.
Next, we went to Wal-mart (America's sophisticated center for high-class auto repair) and bought every type of shoe polish and coloring agent they had. Fortunately, our seats were black, so matching the color was easy. We found what worked best was a $2 bottle of Kiwi Elite Premium Liquid Shoe Polish. We liberally doused the seats with this black liquid goop, let it dry overnight, and went back over the seats with CRC's Tannery Vintage Leather Cleaner and Conditioner. Unbelievable--the seats that we thought we were going to replace now look almost new. A month later, they still look just as good. We will just have to keep after them with leather treatment.
From there is was off to Rennie Land. We made an appointment at Redline BMW to get the air conditioning fixed and to do a general tuneup and look-see. When we got the car up on Rennie's lift and he really looked over the car, he was genuinely impressed.
The car wasn't as bad as we had first thought. Yes, the car still needs shocks and a host of other minor service items, but all in all we got a nice rust-free, accident-free 1988 M3.
After doing a complete, professional tuneup with new wires, cap, rotors, plugs, valve adjustment, fuel filter and so on, we are still having a problem with an off-idle stumbling problem. At idle, the car runs perfectly. It also runs well from 5000 rpm to redline. When trying to cruise at 3000 to 3500 rpm, the car bucks and stumbles. We know the M3 is known to be a little rough and buzzy, but we don't remember them running this badly. We are sure we can find the problem, and will report back when we figure it out.We have also ordered tires and wheels from The Tire Rack and a short-shift kit from Automotive Solutions as well as a few goodies from Turner Motorsports including adjustable cam gears and a chip.
Once we fix our stumbling problem and get some good baseline numbers on the new Black Forest Tuning chassis dyno, we will begin to make some mods and see just how nice we can make an old M3.
Look for another update soon, and this car's public coming out party is scheduled for the BMW CCA Oktoberfest the first week in October in Greenville, S.C.
BMW Blur of Activity Oct 20, 2000
Our newest project car, a 1988 BMW M3 is coming along in a blur of activity. Since our last update early this summer, when we first bought the car, a lot has been done. In fact, our M3 is now pretty much finished, and made its public debut in early October at BMW CCA's Oktoberfest (http://www.bmwcca.org) in Greenville, S.C. Once we got our surging problem fixed, (adjustment of the flapper door in the airflow meter), we began to hot rod our little M3.
The first modification was the installation of a Turner Motorsports performance chip. While we have honestly always doubted the claims made by most chip manufacturers, the Turner Motorsports chip (http://www.turnermotorsport.com) is amazing. On an early M3, it is like adding two more cylinders! Next we installed a Kirban cold air intake, Turner Motorsports cam gear and Supersprint exhaust.
Next, we installed new Boge TurboGas struts and shocks, Diversified Cryogenics rotors (http://www.frozenrotors.com) and a Sachs clutch. An Autosolutions quick shift kit finishes off this round of modifications.
The Body Werks of Holly Hill, Fla., has done an expert job of repairing the bumpers, rear quarter panel and hood before matching all the paint.
The car is now thoroughly enjoyable to drive and looks great. We are very pleased with our modifications so far and will bring you the full report and dyno numbers soon in Grassroots Motorsports magazine.
E30 M3 Clutch Replacement Time Feb 14, 2001
Our Project M3 starts in Grassroots Motorsports this month. As part of our grande M-car comparison cover story in the April issue (available late February) we have officially announced and begun our Project M3 build-up series. The stories will contain much more detail than what you see on the Web site (a good reason to subscribe!).
The M3, like most BMWs (and for that matter, most other German cars) uses a Sachs clutch. A stock Sachs clutch is as good as most anybody needs in an M3. By design it is heavy duty in nature and we have used standard Sachs clutches in all our BMW project cars with absolutely no problems. We would be hesitant to put a lesser brand or no name brand in any project car, primarily because of the difficulty involved in replacement. We say difficulty, although replacing a clutch is really pretty straightforward. The difficulty is in getting to it.
In any vehicle we have ever worked on you must first remove the transmission to replace a clutch. Obviously, a lift sure makes this job easier. Once you remove the exhaust system, driveshaft, heat shields and transmission, the job is quite easy (except for putting everything back together again). You simply pull the old clutch disc, pressure plate and throwout bearing out and put new ones in. The pressure plate just bolts to the flywheel and the throwout bearing just slides over the input shaft of the transmission on a sleeve and sits in the clutch release fork.
A few notes when you do this job though... first, always have the flywheel resurfaced. Even if it looks good, you can't tell how straight it is. Resurfacing a flywheel is cheap and easy at any good machine shop. This would also be a good time to lighten and balance the flywheel if your class rules allow it. Careful on lightening a flywheel too much, as it can effect driveability. You also want to always replace the throwout bearing or bushing and pilot bearing (found inside the crank shaft at the end of the input shaft on the transmission). These items may not be bad, but they cost so little to replace, it is stupid to get all the way in there and not service these items.
Heavy duty clutch kits are also available from Sachs. These items are perfect for club racing or serious school or autocross work. They offer increased clamping force as well as more durable organic racing linings. The Sachs M3 part number for the Sport pressure plate is #88 3082 999 618. The disc is #18 1862 168 132. The heavy duty throwout bearing is part number 05 3151 047 231. This bearing has an aluminum carrier rather than the stock plastic one, so it takes more heat.
As is unfortunately a little too common with big powerful four cylinder engines, the drivetrain in the E30 M3s has an annoying vibration that manifests itself as a terrible shifter buzz between 4000 and 5000 rpm. All M3s have this buzz, it just ranges from barely noticeable to downright annoying. We have had several M3 experts drive our car and all have said that ours has the worst shifter buzz ever seen.
While we were putting in the new Sachs clutch and while we had the transmission out we went to work on the buzz. The problem is so prominent in M3s that BMW has even done warranty work and issued service bulletins in this area. What is odd on these cars is that some M3s do it way worse than others with no rhyme or reason.
Our first attempt at a solution came in the form of installing an Autosolutions shift kit. We have known Autosolutions owner Ronald Aractingi for years and have found him to be very helpful and a great guy when it comes to BMW technical questions. Please understand, that putting a quick shift kit in a car does not by itself fix a shifter buzz problem. But, many of the replacement bushings in a quick shift kit also are needed to fix the buzz. We also do not like the sloppy way that most BMWs, especially when they get older, shift, so we figured we could kill two birds with one stone.
Well, we killed one bird, as once everything was tightened up in the shifter department the car shifted well, but it buzzed worse than ever. Someone on the M3 users group (Bimmers.com) suggested we check out UUC's web page (http://www.uucmotorwerks.com/), as they have a good technical article on the subject of E30 M3 shifter buzz. We went through all of their recommendations, and just for kicks and comparison's sake tried one of their UUC shift kits. We liked their shifter kit even a little better than the Autosolutions kit, but still we had the shifter buzz.
Next, we talked to M3 expert Mario Langsten, who made a few recommendations and is letting us experiment with some of his parts. We are almost done experimenting and can happily say that with a combination of all three experts opinions and a lot of help from Rennie at Redline BMW we have this problem about solved.
Our next project will be the fitting of a Mass Air Conversion kit. Designed by Split Second , and sourced from BMP Design, this product replaces the highly restrictive air flow meter. We will be doing before and after dyno runs to see if this innovative product lives up to expectations.
M3 hit the Magazine May 10, 2001
The first official segment of our M3 installment has just appeared in our June 2001 issue. You can order this issue from our back issues page.
The second installment on dyno testing is scheduled to appear in our August issue. If you order a subscription by July 1, you will receive this issue as your first issue.
After we play around with the Split Second Mass/Air conversion kit we will turn our attention to our car's suspension. We have just ordered Koni adjustable shocks, Eibach Springs and Suspension Techniques anti-roll bars. Stay tuned as we make this car handle as well as it goes in a straight line.