ShepsM3 New Project car.

Hi all,

I've had around 10 years experiance or so on and off with the E30 M3, but certainly over the past 4 years, I've been pretty involved with these cars with respect to R&D, tuning, repairing, maintaining and of course driving them.

For the past couple of years or so I've had the urge to build an S14 engine or a whole E30 M3 which is in need of some work and make it a minter as well as a stormer. But I guess money and time not being freely available has always put a stop to purchasing anymore cars. More recently I've been working more with Grant from Grant Motorsport who is much bigger in VW's. But his engine building capabilities and his approach to building race winning cars and engines re-lit my urge to build a pukka E30 M3. Recently he has built a few engines for me including a couple of S14's and they really have turned out to be very impressive and after some discussions and his enthusiasm for BMW's also, we decided to buy Simon's (thepits) early 195bhp M3.

The car certainly does drive very well. Although it feels a little vague on the front sometimes because of the incorrect standard E30 lollypop bushes fitted, but it's like putting on your favourite old slippers, it is a joy to drive.

Stock engine bay with the exception to a Sparco Strut Brace. I was pleased to see this as these cars do suffer from cracking around the front suspension top mounts and bulkhead if driven hard without the strut brace fitted. A good check around here saw there is no such issues. However, how long this engine bay will remain standard looking is anyones guess




And now the interior. Although the colour has grown on me over the past weeks of ownership, I think it does have to go, what do you guys think?



She isn't without its problems. A quick scoot round and there is already a long list of to do's:

Diff starting to get noisey - could be prop center bearing?
Clutch has seen better days,
Starter motor faulty,
3rd and 4th gears a bit nitchy and synchro's weak,
Wrong lollipop bushes have been fitted,
Front lower arm inner joints worn,Gear linkage very sloppy,
Radiator has slight leak,
List goes on... but I'll cover it all in future updates

Plans so far are a little sketchy, one part of me just wants to sort out all the issues it has and make it into a really nice car, the other part of me (and Grant) wants to modify it 300bhp+ and show what can be done to an S14. Either way, I'll be updating the journal with pictures during the transformation process

Paul.

Thanks people,

I've done some work on her already, but will update as soon as I get the pics loaded up onto my laptop.

Also, thanks to Simon for selling the car to me

dont know whether Paul told you but Grant has rebuilt my engineand Paul has unichipped it - now its run in we (grant is) changing the cams round a bit then Paul will do a propper map and then....whipeee!

i'm sure Paul has a few ideas for your one to!

Hoover wrote: .....sorry Simon, mine is an It

and always does what it is told?

HaHa - thought not

It's a She - trust me

thepits wrote: steven.seed wrote: Poor Simon, I feel for you losing the one you love

Oh come on Simon, she's only down the road