As of of you know, I won an auction for this E30 in May for $320. Only caveat was that it had no key:
Dug through the car; couldn't find a key. Ended up taking the driver door lock out and to a locksmith where a few days and $35 later, I had one in my hand.
The trunk lock is busted, so I had to use all my extensions in order to reach the two bolts that hold the latch through the throughload. Found a busted laptop, two jump start packs, and a bunch of clothes. After a week or more of the battery trickle charging, it finally had enough juice to turn the car over. It starts, but it likes to idle at around 2k; my google-fu says that I likely have a vacuum leak.
Here's the plain jane M20B27 in all it's slow and boring glory.
First step, in my eyes, was finding some seats to replace those nasty things currently in there. So I scoured the local junkyards looking at every import car available that could possibly have a comfy, lightish, and manual seat in it.
Ended up picking up a set of manual E46 sport seats in pretty damn good condition. Didn't even know they offered them in a manual version, so I immediately grabbed them. Paid $50 for the pair. They're heavier than stock seats, but the stock seats were already ~38lbs, so nothing too bad gained. Even sold the driver seat trim for $25 after shipping and fees; just need to sell the headrests, the passenger trim, and the gas struts and I'll be golden.
Here, I yanked the seats out and test fitted some awesome 1/8" steel "brackets." I'm gonna clean them up a lot more, I promise! Likely trim what I don't need to a much slimmer profile while also rounding off the corners.
And here's the test fit. It's tight. Very tight. But it fits! The seat brackets have a slim, maybe 1-2mm, step at each mounting hole held in w/ a rivet that I'll need to drill and remove in order for me to actually secure the seat to the original mounting locations.
Plus it'll bring my head that much closer to not hitting the roof. I'm only 5'11, but my hair was brushing the top...
That's where I'm at so far. Once I get the seat(s) installed and the idle settled, it'll likely be the car I take to the gym before work while the wagon remains my true daily.
In the meantime, I ordered NGK plugs, a Sparco front strut bar, some totally awesome eBay fiberglass reps of the MTech 2 bumpers, and three extra keys.
Also scoured the junkyards for some bigger brakes because why not? I knew Mercedes typically came stock with Brembos, so off I went.
Yesterday morning, I found an S430. Saw the Brembo brakes. Paid my $40 and went home. Removed the surpisingly decent brake pads to find out that these were only 2 pots...Not my picture, but these are the exact ones...
Large two pistons and indeed Brembos, but not the ever amazing 4 pots.
Hopped back on to Row52 looking for more Mercedes. Saw a yard had a ML500 but this time, I was smart and checked the VIN on a parts diagram website before I left.
Lo and Behold:
True four piston Brembos. Paid my $40 (again) happily.
I'm hoping either set will fit one of the BMWs as they'd both be a huge improvement. Worst case scenario is I flip the two pistons on eBay and figure out a way to get a bracket for the 4 pistons.
As you can tell, this'll be one slow and likely not all that exciting build. Tax is coming up and I need to pay the tax man, so likely nothing crazy big will be ordered until after that unless I sell more parts off the E30.
