91 e30 318is rally/x build

Last June I bought a turbo outback and 900 miles later it needed a new short block. After spending a while tearing it down and rebuilding it, I decided I enjoyed the work quite a bit and enjoyed driving it. In the interest of keeping the outback as a normal use car and not putting it into a tree, I started thinking about a dedicated racing car.
 

Well I finally did it after a few failed attempts. A completely terrible e30.

The good. It runs! Manual transmission. It was owned by a wash bay guy at the local bmw dealer, who bought it from one of the mechanics, who had it as a parts car and then started turning it into a "canyon racer." Two sets of wheels with 10 tires, Z3 manual steering rack, h&r race springs (appears to be), euro ellipsoid lights. Initial inspection is rust free. New cv axles, new rubber diff mount, new front control arms with rubber bushings. $2k

The mediocre. Body has some major damage and poor body work. Interior is trashed and half gutted. Claimed the compression was good, could be lying. No a/c.

The bad. Input shaft bearing is very loud. Claims the horrible squeal from the water pump is "just the pulley." No history on water pump or timing chain. Rebuilt in 04, odometer rollback in 13 so it has like 265k, title washed in 15 when it went from SoCal to utah.

I decided that these things balanced out in the end and the price was right. But after blowing one engine I decided to tow this one home.

Plans are to rallyx this car and hopefully one day (years from now) stage rally it. I've never owned a rwd car and always wanted a bmw so I'm pretty excited. Since I'd have to add things back in, more than I care to bother with, to run in prepared, I'm just going to finish gutting the interior and run in modified. Bottle caps will be rally x and the black 15" Konig will get to be summer tires.

First thing will be replacing the water pump and pulley, and getting the radiator mounted not with zip ties. Then maybe I can get a better thought on the timing chain as I can't tell if it's making noise right now. I've been reading about the timing case failures and not really itching to pull the head, but not excited to break the engine either so not sure what to do there.

I've read a bunch on this forum about rally, rallyx, and cars in general. Along with being partway through the grm project car build, I've also been reading artur1808's build and will eventually work through irish44j's build as well. I'm hoping I can learn from everyone here, beg for help on occasion (frequently), and maybe make a cool car.

Well I was thinking of ordering some parts while I was at work. Water pump and that stuff mostly, but felt uncomfortable. Something didn't feel right. So when I got home I opened the hood. Staring at the engine long enough and I'm convinced that is a distributor and there are no coil packs like the m42 supposedly has.

So I look up the Bosch part number stamped on it, sure enough it's a distributor. When I try looking up what appears the be on the block, 1706 937, the only thing that comes up is the Wikipedia page for the m40. More searching and it looks just like an m40. However supposedly the m40 was never sold state side.

Certainly doesn't look like an m42 that I see in any photos. Thoughts?

I'm thinking the next step is going to be to get fully under the car and really inspect the chassis. There's a 94 318i in the pick n pull that I imagine already has its engine removed. But if it doesn't, that is supposedly an m42. Going to go get it. If not I'll be hopefully pulling the springs from it at least.

Welcome to the club!

And that is certainly interesting. That is definitely not an M42, as they use coils and have plenty of other differences. Oddly, on your car I don't see the bracket that holds the coil packs, which mount on the passenger side front wheel well front side. That's definitely an M40, and the lack of that bracket indicates its original to the car - so my bet is that your car came from overseas (maybe brough home by a military person or something).  The 318i in Europe was sold with both the M40 and M42 for like 5 or 6 years. The M40 didn't have a traditional distributor I don't think, I think was early EFI (my guess is that the EFI module is at the front there where the plug wires go into). But I could be wrong. 

In any case, swapping to an M42 should be cheap and easy (not sure what transmission you have but I *think* M40-42-44 all have the same bellhousing). M42s can be found pretty cheap - I've sold three of them for like $200 each, all running. The only hard part is actually finding them, since they only came in one year of the e30 (the e36 ones work too, of course).

Alternately, it might just be worth running the M40 (if it runs, maybe just run it til it dies - I don't know how easy it is to get parts for here in the US) and think about going directly to something more modern like an M50, depending on your plans. As you probably know, I ran 2 seasons with an M10 (even wimpier than an M40), then 7 years with the M42, and now M50. The M42 is a fun engine and makes the car light and well-balanced for rallycross, but having more power is really a plus for stage rally if you go that route eventually. My thread talks about the tradeoffs a lot, so I won't rehash all that here if you plan to read it. 

In any case, you're on the right track. Arthur's build is good, mine obviously is very long and detailed if you have the time, and i think there are two other e30 rally build threads on here as well (kevin brolin and dan downey).  If you're on FB, look up dirty e-thirties and join - that's where almost all the people rally/rallycrossing  e30's  here in the US hang out, and everyone is very helpful.  Hit me up on messenger there if you have any questions (Josh Hickey), or you can always ask in my thread as well, since I check it pretty regularly. 

also.....input shaft bearing has always made noise on mine, even with brand-new ones. With a fully soundproofed car you wouldn't notice it much, but if the car is gutted, noises like that are heavily magnified. And if the P/O put in solid or urethane transmission mounts, that will really transmit NVH from things like that. 

Timing case failures were mostly on M42s due to one of the tensioner rails falling apart, causing chain slap, and eventually jamming one of the idler gears. On an M42 the upgraded chain guide and a new tensioner pretty much gets rid of this danger in most cases.  Just by looking at it, that M40 looks like it's SOHC (M42 is DOHC), so it's not going to have the same timing components, so may not have the same issues as the M42. Honestly, it looks more like an M20 minus two cylinders. 

z3 rack is the best one for these cars, so that's a plus. I would recommend if you engine swap, you get all the power steering stuff. manual steering SUCKS on any e30 for rallycross and rally, in my opinion (it is nice for smooth tracks). The local guys who have run manual steering for years are finally adding PS this winter because they're tired of getting sore wrists and heavy kickback on the wheel. e30 PS isn't too overpowered, but it does damp out big "hits" on the wheel on rough surfaces. Driving their car with manual steering, I had the wheel ripped from my hands on several occasions while on course, and I have reasonably strong hands :)

That's interesting about the M40, if it is a euro car and left hand drive I'd expect the writing on the under hood stickers (like the orange one visible), fuse box etc. to all be in the language for the original market (my 525i is in German for example). BMW Canada was still a thing then and our model range was different than in the US (as an example, we got the real E36 M3 in 1994 with the S50 before the Americans put up a stink and ended that), maybe it is a Canadian car originally but wikipedia claims our E30's were the same as in the US.

Put your last 7 digits into one of the free online BMW VIN decoders and see what comes up. You can also do the same at Realoem.com which will give you all the factory part diagrams and part numbers (you can also cross reference those part numbers to see what other BMW's they came on), it's a really handy resource. 

adam525i said:

That's interesting about the M40, if it is a euro car and left hand drive I'd expect the writing on the under hood stickers (like the orange one visible), fuse box etc. to all be in the language for the original market (my 525i is in German for example).

That made me think that I hadn't actually verified the vin that I'd run on Carfax and realOEM. Well the dash, both doors, and the b pillar all match and everything is in english. I noticed a sticker on the other side from Utah emissions stating the engine had been changed, odd since I didn't even know that was a thing here. No idea where they got an m40 engine. Ebay? Emissions sticker claims it is a 3.0L but it's a 4 cylinder. So definitely from California and not imported, although that woulda been cool.

From what I can find, parts are a little harder to find on the m40. But it is indeed SOHC and it's belt driven timing. I'm going to call FCP Euro tomorrow and see if they can get me parts for a timing belt and water pump. If they can, then I'll just order the basic stuff, refresh everything and run it. The water pump from the M42 is apparently different from what I've read.

I have no real attachment to running any specific engine. I had planned to keep the m42 because they seem kinda neat and reliable but for now I'm going to try to run the m40 until it breaks or it's time to move to something else. Glad I didn't buy a lightweight flywheel for the m42. 

I'm guessing I'll get to do some trial and error as to finding parts that fit, or making parts fit. But in some ways that is half the fun. Plan will be to add power steering back to it based on reading that about the big hits in a few different places. Planning to hook the heater core back up too but not going to add A/c back in. The track out here does winter laps without removing snow and I think that could be a lot of fun.

I actually rejoined facebook since the local rallyx and idaho rally are all mostly scheduled and discussed there. Just one of those things that's hard to avoid sometimes.

Nonamedude said:

adam525i said:

That's interesting about the M40, if it is a euro car and left hand drive I'd expect the writing on the under hood stickers (like the orange one visible), fuse box etc. to all be in the language for the original market (my 525i is in German for example).

That made me think that I hadn't actually verified the vin that I'd run on Carfax and realOEM. Well the dash, both doors, and the b pillar all match and everything is in english. I noticed a sticker on the other side from Utah emissions stating the engine had been changed, odd since I didn't even know that was a thing here. No idea where they got an m40 engine. Ebay? Emissions sticker claims it is a 3.0L but it's a 4 cylinder. So definitely from California and not imported, although that woulda been cool.

That's even odder, since no e30s were ever sold with a 3.0L engine. 

Side note: I wouldn't bother with a "lightweight" flywheel in any case. Just use a single-mass M20 flywheel for whatever engine you end up using (I should fit all of them). If you go too light, it just makes it harder to drive. 

For the M40 specific parts (and OEM BMW parts in general) I've had good luck ordering through https://www.schmiedmann.com/ out of Denmark.

FCP Euro should be able to get you everything too but if they are euro specific it might take them longer to come in.

So finally got to do my first stuff today. Got a trip in to the pick and pull where they had an e36 318i. Engine was still in it but caked in oil leaks so I left it. Transmission was gone. But I got the front struts and rear springs. A little more than I thought it would be but some cleaning and painting and they'll be good to go. Front springs will go into bilstein b6 with all new rubber bits. Maybe with camber plates? Not sure yet.

Got home and pulled the valve cover off. E30zone has a lot of info on the m40 and apparently the main problem is cam wear which prevents the engine getting above 5k rpm. Figured I would check that out before ordering any repairs parts. Checked it with a finger nail and everything felt good. Valve cover is obviously leaking but that's OK. Inside of the valve cover didn't look great but I can't imagine the engine has been run well.

Also started removing interior stuff. Most of it is in bad shape so I don't really worry about saving it. Rear seat back, rear belts, parcel shelf, and head liner are all pulled out. I can't figure out how to unclip the window switches though. Hoping someone will trade my working electric windows for manual ones so trying to save all that.

Overall a good day.

Thanks to real oem, and some searching, it looks like ecs tuning has most of the m40 parts and I think they are us based. If not, schiedmann is good to know about.

I think the plan right now is going to be raise the car, do water pump and timing belt, and then drive it and see what it feels like. Going to probably put off pulling the transmission right away. At least until I have a garage. So it'll keep whatever flywheel it's got for now.

I'd read there was some issue with finding m20 starters but maybe that was someone not in the US? I've never really used a light flywheel so I'm not sure what even counts as light. I see you can get them in the 7lb range. Either way, for right now it's low priority.

Well a bunch of parts showed up today. I find it funny that the stuff from Denmark got here at the same time as the stuff from Connecticut, considering they were both ordered Sunday night (my time.)

Also finally got the schedule for the first three events. Test n tune will be 4 weeks from now but I also have to move in the time frame so hopefully I'll have the bmw ready to go by then. 

A local is also selling some lightly used Dunlop sport rally tires. Might pick them up. 175/65r14 but from what I can tell they should just fit on bottlecaps. The guy is switching up his wheels but still racing so I'm thinking they'll be good for our track. Almost certainly better than super cheap all seasons I have now.

1. I would pass on camber plates. I put some on for an event or two and took them off because they basically eliminated the "bite" of the outer edge of teh front tires, killing turn-in and causing understeer. I do have the offset top hats, which provide about 1/2* of negative camber IIRC, which is about right. As I recall, even sitting a couple inches higher than stock, I'm around 1.5* negative camber at static.

2. Will be interesting to see what FW you have. The M42 has a heavy dual-mass, but I suspect the M40 may have a single-mass one like the M10. If that's the case, it may be worth keeping and using if the stack height matches the M42 dual-mass setup. 

3. That's a good (pretty much perfect) size tire for rallycross for a lower-power e30.  Small diamter and skinny-ish are the way to go unless your venue is a ton of hardpack. Man, IDK anyone who has used Dunlop gravels in many years, so double-check the date on them before buying. If they're really old they may not hold up all that well. Dunlop still makes gravels, and maybe they still make 14" sizes, but I haven't seen anyone using 14" Dunlop gravels here in the US for well....as long as I've been rallying. So they may be really old (or not). 

IDK what your surface there is, but cheap snow tires (Altimax Arctics are the most popular) do well on most surfaces other than really muddy stuff.  A set of new MaxSport RB3's can be had for around $500 shipped these days and are probably the best affordable rallycross tire out there - it's what most of us use locally (not for stage rally). Depends on how much the guy is selling the Dunlops for. If it's more than about $200 for a set, I'd probably pass. If less, go for it. 

From what I can find, the M40 is using a very heavy single mass flywheel. Same starter as the M42 and supposedly can use any flywheel an M42 can. Hopefully I can avoid taking it apart for a bit but I noticed my extremely small parts box does have some seals and I think a TOB in it.

Dunlop is actually still making that tire. It's the SP85r. I hadn't thought about the age issue. How long do old tires hold up? Street tires are usually fine past 5 years is my understanding. They are about the same price as new Altimax arctics but he claims they are at 90% tread life. We are racing on the inside of a horse track. So hard pack dirt and sometimes mud. We do get rain and when we do the mud puddles stay. The cover photo for utah rally group is someone slinging through mud.

I unfortunately didn't get the offset tophats. Didn't realize they were a thing. I have no concept of how to align so I was thinking of just getting the lifetime alignment at firestone, for the price, I'll just go every time I change a part. I haven't talked to them yet, but supposedly depending on the location, they are more than happy to handle the racing crowd.

I'll keep all that in mind when looking for tires. At the moment, I just got in my suspension and was thinking that's what I'd try for this weekend. Although we will see how well I get on with that in the parking spot at my apartment complex. I can't wait to move.

Also there's a meet and greet for the group tomorrow night. So I'm going to go meet the other racers and kinda get the low down both on what the courses are like and what I need to be allowed to race. Chances are this month I'll end up with a loaner helmet and my outback.

Doing 7 things at once and had another thought. In cyclocross, mud becomes an issue, especially here because even if there is only one little patch of it, it sticks to your tires, fills the tread, and weighs down your wheels. We won't have total mudfests here but we will likely have the ocassional mud hole, as is common in the cx races. Is that when the snow tires run into issues or is it more a rainy mud fest no dry spot on the course problem?

I'd love to have multiple sets of tires but it's not likely in the cards this year. Maybe next.

Our course is on clay which is extremely slick when wet but it's amazing the grip difference from corner to corner when some are wetter than others. Other mud can be different though and if it is sticky enough could plug up tires on you. If the price is right on the Dunlops and they aren't too chewed up they look like they should make a good dry to intermediate tire and be a lot better than any all season. If it is properly muddy then mud tires are the only ones to be on but you'll destroy tires like that in the dry. I've only run snows (and not great snows), I could always compete in the dry but really suffered on them in the wet, very slick conditions.

I come from a cycling background too and have raced quite a bit of cyclocross in the past (and plan to again in the future). I think rally (and pretty much any other motorsports) and cyclocross guys share a similar love for debating tires and tire pressures.

Adam

Haha I've never cared too much about tires until my first season of cyclocross. We have a course that runs across a horse track and just destroys tires with mud, whole rest is hard pack grass so it's a difficult choice. I just decided to run that section.

Well I do everything on my phone and without grm being on tapatalk I forget to browse or post here.

Last weekend got the valve cover off and cleaned and painted. Definitely not worth the effort but it looks real good from not too close. I'll probably do the upper intake part alternating colors but didn't want to mess with everything under the intake.

Also got the new timing belt on and new water pump. All the old tensioners were fairly worn feeling, but the old water pump feels decent. I'll keep it as a just in case since I can't get them in the US. Profile gaskets must not be great because it was super dirty underneath. Cleaned it and the outer timing covers but it's in rough shape and didn't care to go over board on it. I think it took me like two hours to find the hole for the flywheel lock, but finally got it. 

When I pulled off the distributor cap it was shot, so ordered a new cap and rotor and new plugs as well. They didn't look great either. Didn't order wires since they are like $150. Going to try to see if non bmw wires will work.

This is where I left it. I'll get the new thermostat in and everything buttoned up later. Once I get the new intake elbow, plugs, rotor and cap on, I'll fire it up and see how it runs. Also got a new adjuster for the alternator and viscous fan coupling as mine was seized. We've gone way over budget but oh well.

Trying to find a place to live starting next month ate up all day today and is getting pretty frustrating and stressful. Hopefully I'll get parts this week and can get it going, but I'm not sure if it'll be ready for test n tune. I'm currently planning to drive it half disassembled inside on the slammed set up until I get time for that, just to see how the rest of it feels.

Also had a meet and greet with the rally x group. I think it'll be pretty fun. Fairly laid back. Looks like I'm currently the only one in MR so I guess myself and my co drivers will compete for the championship, assuming races don't get canceled. For now they are go.

While MR is empty. PR has last year's national champion and there are a few crazy MA vehicles. One a supercharged civic hatch and the other some sort of bastard Isuzu group A car with a Deville engine and the radiator in the trunk. 

A few of the guys also run stage rally. So I'm hoping I'll learn a lot along the way.

Well it's done. At least the initial parts. Ultimately the car got new timing belt, timing belt bits, water pump, thermostat, rotor, distributor, plugs, viscous fan coupling, alternator belt, alternator tensioner bits, intake boot, some vacuum hoses that were torn in taking things off. I also swapped on what will be my street wheels along with 75mm lug studs. After the hood fell on me a few times, it got a new hood prop. Replaced a number of bolts. Feeling pretty good about it.

Went to start it yesterday and no good. Battery was dead. Too dead to jump with my little jump pack. Too dead to jump with my outback. Pull the battery and take it to autozone for charging. Get it installed tonight and... still won't start. Battery is good now so that's not the issue but I've never really diagnosed a no start.

Thoughts. I hear it click when I turn to the on position. I'm pretty sure that's the fuel pump. I can also smell unburnt fuel if I hold the ignition long enough. I think the fuel is priming. It tries turning over a bit and then makes a giving up noise. I don't really know how to describe it but maybe like the starter is tired? I think the timing should be good. It's pretty straight forward. Put the rod in the flywheel hole and that is tdc. I was fairly meticulous as I've never timed and engine, so maybe that's messed up. And I guess the last thing is spark. I'm not entirely sure how to test spark so some google is needed. I'm not hearing or feeling it really "try" to run. So I'm guessing no spark. The other thing would be crank position sensor but that was never touched and the crank pulley is keyed so only goes on one way.

R3vlimited looks to be doing a forum migration so I'll try there tomorrow. But at the moment I guess it's checking spark first? Crank position sensor next. Maybe swapping the old cap and rotor back on? I don't have a multimeter or volt meter.

Forgot to mention. No CEL code. As in the only code is 1444 which means there are no codes.

Well r3vlimited is still down, which is a huge resource of information. But I found a troubleshooting guide from bavauto's old blog. I'm getting spark but when I try using a screwdriver or socket extension on the injectors, I'm hearing nothing. 

One of the reasons I wanted something like an e30 was for all the resources that come along with it. Neither the e30 or the e36 bentley have a pinout for a motronic 1.3 but I still found one online. Guess it's time to learn to use a multimeter!

Have you pulled a spark plug or just the cables to check the spark? If you did have one out was it dry or wet with fuel? If you've got spark that tells you the ECU is working along with the crank position sensor. I'd be checking fuel and main relays and making sure they are coming on. Like you said though, you should be able to hear the injectors clicking open so that is something to dig into.

Good luck.

Yea I pulled the plug on cylinder 2. New plugs I just put in as I didn't have any spares. Good strong spark. End smelled like fuel but it wasn't "wet." 

I've been reading up and I think I'm going to pull the ecu plug and check continuity of the injectors and fuel pump per the pin out charts I found and listen for anything at the fuel pump and injectors. Waiting in line for a pick up at the hardware store now.

Well I've got spark. The fuel pump runs if I jump the relay. And that's about all I've got.

I found a trouble shooting guide and pin out for the motronic 1.3 ECU but don't really understand what I'm doing. Kinda just jamming the multimeter into the holes and touching the other end to the seat bolt for ground. Going to try to look at it more tomorrow.