Clementine

[akagan]

I bought "Clemmie" in August 2008 from a local guy, who was on the forum as well. It was a pretty decent car, but it had some issues that he didn't feel comfortable dealing with, and I thought I could handle them. The previous previous owner had put in a 85 318i engine including all the efi. Unfortunately it seems his wiring skills left much to be desired. My first step was to clean up the interior wiring that was a mess and get the fuel gauge working. At that point I also replaced the center console with one from Parker Performance. With that done I started doing lots of little maintenance things as well as welding in a new piece of metal into one of the frame rails that had started to rust away at one of the drain holes. I ended up doing this at a friends shop in LA and it was actually nice to drive the car there and back and we fortunately didn't run into any problems. Sadly shortly there after I decided to flush the brake system since the fluid looked really dirty. That whole process went ok, but as I was going for the initial test drive I saw the brake light come on and immediately stopped. I opened the hood to find that the rubber hose to the clutch hard line had cracked open and deposited lots of brake fluid on the fender well and all the wiring underneath. So I nursed it back home and quickly realized that all those rubber lines were in fact fuel lines. Now a smart person would replace the lines, try to clean up the brake fluid and deal with the paint as best as possible. Me being not so smart I decided that it was time to tear out all the EFI wiring and replace it with a megasquirt system. So I tore everything out, built myself a megasquirt and got about 90% of the way and then basically stopped working on it for 2 months. But I finally got my motivation to finish and spent a couple more days getting it running, then a couple days of driving it around getting the tune decent. That was last February and the engine has been running great, much better than before. I also replaced the distributor at that time, but instead of using EDIS I used coil packs from an LS2 engine. They were cheap, and work great.

Since then I've tried to spend my time focusing on fixing all the little things that were wrong with the car. Seals that were dead or missing all together, replacing engine mounts and all the suspension bushings. I also put on 15" Rota's and put on Suspension Technique springs to lower the car. I also put in some e21 Recaro's and put on some cover's on them since they were completely messed up(still have to do the drivers sdie).

Next on my list is to replace the transmission mounting bracket(which is some scary home made concoction that I think is limiting my ability to line up the driveshaft). I'm also planning a brake system overhaul which includes going to the Volvo big brake system. I also have some sound deadening to put in to hopefully kill some of the noise, especially in the back. But there are about 100 other things to do as well. Once the brakes are decent I plan to start down the turbo path. Which should be an adventure.

Anyway I've included some before and after pictures for your enjoyment. I'll try to update stuff as it goes along.

Avi

[rover1]

looks pretty cool im interested in the center consul. Never heard of Parker performance. How are they?

[akagan]

The center console is pretty good. It's laser cut steel and covered in a black leather in my case. The fit is pretty good and it's super sturdy and I don't think its outrageously expensive, at least compared to a lot of parts for these cars. He also seems to have a ton of different varieties to choose from.

http://www.parkerperformance.com/

Avi

[justinevert]

I've used Parker Performance before, really a great guy, very helpful, bought his 3 gauge VDO wire set up, plug and play.