The “i”- The E30 I Should Have Never Bought
Oh to be seventeen and dumb. This 325i is one of two e30s I have owned since I was seventeen. The main reason why I ended up with this car was because it was cirrus blue, the same color as the mint 1989 325i that sixteen year old me had crashed 8 months earlier. I thought I would be starting back at square one with this “new” cirrus e30, turns out I was starting at square negative 25. The car had a very rough life when 17 year old me bought it for $3200 (which in 2008 a clean e30 was going for that.) The list of things that needed to be addressed was almost as long as the US tax code but some of the highlights were, the Guibo (the flex disc between the transmission and driveshaft) only had 2 of 6 the bolts that were supposed to be there on the verge of catastrophic failure. The i had cosmo coil overs on it, think eBay spectacular to the max. Within a week of owning it the rear brake pressure regulator started leaking, this car had issues that I have not seen on an e30 since!
Over the next five or so years all of these issues and many more issues would be fixed to make it one of my favorite cars to drive this day. The first thing that had to make the car actually semi reliable, this took about the first year of ownership. We did everything from the brakes, to the timing belt, to even changing the fusible link to the battery because it was bad. Thankfully I had my dad there guiding me through this process, mostly by using his favorite word “No” when I would try and do something dumb to the car.
Out of pure luck, the first real upgrade the car got was a nearly perfect sport interior off of the old Baye30 forum from a guy building a track car. The next thing on the upgrade list to be addressed was saying goodbye to the Cosmo coil overs and saying hello to a basic Ground Control Coilovers, touring camber plates, and standard Koni shocks. During this period it also got a steering rack from an E36. To cap it all off 15 inch BMW Euro weaves replaced that spray painted black 14 inch weaves.
The next couple of years had its ups and downs like the car losing the water pump on my yearly thanksgiving drive an hour from home. Let's just say my family was not thrilled. This was one of the last straws for the stock m20 engine.
Swaps, swaps, and more swaps.
Almost since the first day of ownership of the i I wanted to swap it with another BMW straight six. Little did I know at that time that this would be the first of many swaps that would happen in the years to come. The m20 was getting a little long in the tooth, of course the logical course of action here was to rebuild the m20, nahh that ain’t me. The first motor swap into the i was a m50 out of an e34. That motor was completely gone through before it was put in and was mated but to the stock g260 transmission. It made the i very bullet proof and a bit quicker but, it was not a monumental shift in power, seeing as it was only a 20 horsepower jump give or take. The car resides in California, so it got bar’d, or it went through the smog legalization process to get the m50 swap smog legal.
The i when we first got the m50 running
Two days after Christmas my dad woke me up and said, “I was driving your car this morning and why is it still so slow after you have that fancy m50 in it” by this point he was reading the E30 forum everyday. AfterI tried to defend the m50 for about 5 minutes he said,“ I am going to split an S52 with you, merry Christmas.” and that is how the car got an S52 m3 motor put in it. Not long after that a matching zf transmission from an e36 was installed as well.
By this point the i was becoming to be a pretty nice example of a swapped E30 however it did not look it whatsoever. The clear coat was 80 percent gone on every flat surface. 2016 someone was nice enough to pull out in front of the i and crack the bumper and bend the valence. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! That was the perfect opportunity to get the car fully painted.
The i and I have grown up together. It has taught me almost everything I know about cars. Took my friends and I to places we would have not been otherwise. It has been an adventure with this car since day one and I wouldn't trade it or the memories for the world.
