mikebontoft

At least my engine bay is somewhat neat now.

It's OK, I know my 02's are the bastard children hiding in the cracks that no one wants to see. I'm working on it But if I may just once, share two of my favorite E30 photos I took yesterday.

From this weekend. She's been sitting there all winter. Doesn't matter anyway. <br /><br /><br />

Would love to know more about the side skirts.

That's too nice.

Not sure of the exact name, but something along the lines of shrouded/shielded male or female spade connector comes to mind.

I'm curious as well. Usually what I do is cut a harness from a car in the junkard and use those wires... but that has its own set of problems.

Geez even that's in considerably better condition though. ^^ and wow, if my after ever looks like that I'd be more than happy. I do like this shot though... as horrible as it looks.

^^ that is quite the odd coincidence, no? I have yet to finish it... haven't had the chance lately. BUT the good news is I'm still 21, so I believe there's significantly more for me to take from this as compared to a few others. Probably.

Actually this is how it showed up, the above was just a few days ago. It's so low that it got caught on the trailer several times. I was also told the custom coilovers would go up to nearly stock height. If 3" lower is near stock height I guess so.

I would say I'm definitely doing it wrong. The Malaga donor I also bought sight unseen. I was offered the engine for $800 or the whole car for $1000 and he would tow it an hour away to my shop. Only one or two poor pictures of it I found here on an old classifieds ad. The engine came partially disassembled and looked like it hadn't run for a few years (also true). It took me a weekend to find all the parts and figure it out. Started right up. Nothing like the other one...nearly took thirty minutes of cranking and playing with the throttle to run. Not too much salvageable from the Malaga. I took the whole drivetrain and front subframe (now wishing I had just done engine swaps. Less broken bolts that way). I had planned on using the 328i radiator but found it welded to the nose. Really?? I think it was still worth it though. I got some wheels the Miata guys will probably love to buy, the drivers door is much better than the other and a few various trim pieces are great.

I would certainly say so! I'm already into mine about the same amount and now I have two non running cars (broke the shift rod somehow, and the manifold needs to be drilled for the top mount linkage). Oh and of course 3 of the 6 strut bolts that go through the pitman arms broke off. I have those welded together for a short term (not driving it)

So true though! Makes each one incredibly unique.

And on that note, I paid $1200 (asking!) For my '75 generic-red-once-polaris with a (found out later) very tired, very dead engine. (Lesson learned here is to be weary of buying vehicles that the owner just finished driving). -outer rockers are also trash -rusty front floor pans -general crappiness -excellent front seats My story is that I wanted to beat out several other potential buyers the same day I found out 2002's even existed (yes really). I thought it would be cool to show up in a Z3 so I took that to look at the car. normally the drive to Provo would take about 30 minutes... except this was a Friday at 5pm. Big mistake. I couldn't put the top up on the Z. I had also neglected to charge the AC. AND I showed up to the guy's house cash-in-hand about two hours later. Did I mention it was about 95*F out? Honestly it was probably heat stroke. But I made that horrible drive there and I sure as hell wasn't going home empty handed. I actually asked the guy for a drink because I was so dehydrated. I didn't even negotiate - I just wanted to leave. So I bought it. He probably would have taken $800 easily. Oh well. So then I bought another '75 beyond repairable condition with what you guys call a "stage 3" engine. For only $1k. More worth it at least. Except now I have 5 cars. Man... all I can say is I REALLY wish I had taken Rob's advice, you know? Knew a bit more? I guess sometimes you just jump right in.

I looked up "how much did you pay" among a few other terms. Maybe tapatalk messes it up. I usually jump straight to Google with a search term and it takes me exactly where I want to go. Even with the Google based forum searches. Maybe they just hate me. Hah. Oh well. You can be as little or as much detailed as you'd like for this thread. Someone probably has some interesting stories here.

Seriously... I'd have had better luck googling the topic. I searched through three pages of results before making this thread (using the site's search button). It's OK though. It's not just this forum. Every forum's search function is horrible.

Just curious to see what everyone paid for their 2002s. I imagine there's probably both sides of the spending spectrum here. I'll post in later, but it could be fun. Share your stories!

Just happened to come across this... good choice. They can slap whatever name they want on the Evoque, it's still a Freelander (which turned into an LR2 and then the Evoque). Freelander = avoid at all costs.

Everything's so pretty and then there's my pile of junk.

I know it has a long way to go, but here are my two favorite I think (verona and one of the donor) DSC_0139-1 by mikebontoft, on Flickr DSC_0098-1 by mikebontoft, on Flickr

OK yeah I figured that. Think I'll have to wait a couple weeks though. Let me know if you still have em though (shouldn't have bought that camera!)

Yeah it could definitely just be oil from the rings. I'd just hit it with some brake cleaner and leave what's there alone. It will eventually burn off when she's running well. You know the rings are upside down, so fix that and just take a peek behind the valves for evidence of oil and make sure the guides are whatever they're supposed to be. Would hate to get it all back together only to have missed something else and have to tear it all down again. Done that before. And yes, even the tiniest drop of oil will make a ton of smoke. It may take a few days to burn off depending on where the oil is.

Can't edit for some reason... would also like to mention the crosshatching in the cylinder bores looks fine. If you still wish to verify proper ring position, just make sure the clearances are still good (probably are). It does appear the oil is coming in through one or both valves. But that's all I can say from here.

Wow. Haven't seen a combustion chamber that black with so little miles in.. ever. Think it's time to inspect the valve guides/seals. As for the rings, it's either oil coming up around them and keeping the pistons clean or the center of the pistons are getting burnt oil on them as well.

Wow neat. Yes sorry, forgot to take pics. Here's one from my new camera!