Would your life be better if you had a BMW 318is?

Wondering if you need a little 318is in your life? Well, have we got a video for you: JG and Tim present a buyer guide on the E30-chassis BMW 318is.

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There was a several month period where my 318is was the best thing about my life. Do recommend ownership perfect street toy. M42 takes to boost better than people believe too. 

Yes. My 318is is one of the cars I really regret selling. 

Two years in, my answer thus far is, "Nope."  I'd probably be less annoyed if I weren't trying to rally one, but I'm still pretty annoyed.  If I could do things differently, I'd have picked a different car... Details here:  

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/e30-rally-car/190039/page1/

Heck, I just regret selling my E30s in general. 

Life sure would be a lot slower

I occasionally watch this guy on Garage 27 who always finds interesting cars. He has a string vote for the 318. 

My dad bought a 318is brand new in 1991 and gifted it to me a couple of years later. It was my first "real" car and I kept it for 20 years.

Being honest, the M42 engine is not very good for a sports car. It doesn't really want to rev and just doesn't make enough power or torque to get the chassis working. At some point (after my SECOND timing case profile gasket failure) I had enough and swapped in a complete 325is drivetrain. The car felt so much better with M20 power.

Years later, I finally got my hands on the E30 M3. I have two now: street and race. That really is the sweet spot for the E30 chassis. I also used to call my 318is a "baby M3" ... but it's really not. A 325is gets you closer to the M3 driving experience IMNSHO. 

First, it's not a street car and it will never pass a California visual inspection, , but my E30 is running a '91 325 non vanos M50.

Who built the car is lost to time, but I can attest to how sweet the combination is to drive.  I did install a high flow cat to make it social acceptable,  it is a loud motor on song.

My dad purchased in 1991 a new 318i,  he drove it for well over 150,000 miles.   It was his fifth BMW.  It did almost everything well, just slowly.  His reaction to driving the car.

LanEvo said:

My dad bought a 318is brand new in 1991 and gifted it to me a couple of years later. It was my first "real" car and I kept it for 20 years.

Being honest, the M42 engine is not very good for a sports car. It doesn't really want to rev and just doesn't make enough power or torque to get the chassis working. At some point (after my SECOND timing case profile gasket failure) I had enough and swapped in a complete 325is drivetrain. The car felt so much better with M20 power.

Years later, I finally got my hands on the E30 M3. I have two now: street and race. That really is the sweet spot for the E30 chassis. I also used to call my 318is a "baby M3" ... but it's really not. A 325is gets you closer to the M3 driving experience IMNSHO. 

That is kind of my gut feeling too... the 325is was no M3 but it definitely felt like more than the sum of its parts.  And the engine was FUN, it had a noticeable surge when it came up on cam in the midrange and it pulled right on up to redline. Definitely a better drive than an eta and felt like more power than the numbers claimed.

But that nose weight... Given a choice I would prefer the 318is strictly for that reason, horsepower be damned, and only because I don't see myself buying an M3 anytime soon, or ever.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Maybe it's because I was coming from a 2002, but the M52-swapped E30 I had suffered so much less from the effects of nose-heaviness than what it replaced... If i had it to do over I'd be after one of the aluminum Z3 engines.

 But that later engine was enough meatier everywhere without being too much... I miss that car.

I wouldn't turn up my nose at a 318is, but I'm glad the swap options mean that one doesn't have to shop for a small subset of an already diminishing chassis to get something really good.

I currently have one 318is (just finished a part out on another) one 325es, and one 325is. The M20 makes much happier noises and as others have said, the powerband just feels a bit more willing. The M42 falls off up top more than I like in a sporty car, and the stock flywheel is HEAVY. It's a car where a lightweight flywheel is completely worth the effort and money. The 325es actually feels quicker to me unless you're absolutely thrashing a stock 318is, just because there's so much more torque. 

The M42 with boost is a happy medium and retains a lot of the balance, in addition to generally being far easier to work on in the E30 chassis than the M20 or the other 6 cylinder swap options. I used to recommend this more, but as parts are starting to go NLA, it's pretty hard to discount a good M5x/S5x/K24 swap. 

I still want to see an 07K in an E30. 

318is Touring, anyone?

I don't remember the details, but maybe 20 years ago on R3V (or one of the other forums) there were a couple of guys who built S42M20 clones on the cheap. It was a combination of crank from (I think) an E46 320d diesel, pistons/rings from a Euro S50/M50, and rods from a different Euro M50/S50. Then cams and ITBs from Dbilas and engine management from (I think) megasquirt. Something like that would be very cool.