Forum 4Tuning - *Style

The fact that the E30 M3 was never sold in Australia did not stop Dave Ross from acquiring one. Long story short, Dave’s search for an E36 M3 in 2004 ended up with the purchase of a 1988 E30 M3. The E36 M3’s he found were either overpriced garage queens or cars that had poor maintenance. In the search progress, he met Greg Lee who had imported two E30 M3’s from Japan into Australia. Greg Lee would go on and become a very good friend as well as a pair of helpful hands in Dave’s car. At that point, Dave decided to purchase one from Greg. With a choice of black or silver, Dave decided on the black one because it had a mileage of only 46,000 miles.

All E30 M3 were produced as LHD from the factory so work began to covert it to RHD using the dash, steering rack, and few other pieces from a E30 325is donor car. The entire harness had to be extended and this is where Greg Lee put his electrical engineering degree to good use.

The shiny and wet paint that you see in the pictures is the original paint job that came from factory 20 years ago. The exterior has been accentuated pieces from the Sport Evolution including the Evo II front chin sporter, Evo III front splitter, and the Evo II rear wing. The red bumper tape completes the mimicked look of the Sport Evolution III.

The wheels are the AC Schnitzer Type I, which measure 17 x 7.5 in the front and 17 x 8.5 in the rear. The factory suspension has been replaced by Ground Control coilovers with Bilstein shocks and Eibach 475 lb. and 650 lb. springs in the front and rear respectively.

A few months after the car was on the road, on it’s first outing at the track, the unthinkable happened. A failing oil pump led to a spun bearing and just like that, the car was out of commission. With the help of a few beer, Dave was determined to rebuild the S14B23 engine with the goal of going force induction route. The next year was spent researching and gathering parts from all over the world for the rebuild. The car made it’s new home at RX Automotive in Cooper Plains where Simon Harrex will be working on it.

A long 2 years later, the car was resurrected. From the factory 2.3 L, the engine has been stroked to 2.5 L with the compression lowered to 8:1. Boost is supplied by a Garret GT3076R with a 0.82 A/R and to keep the boost in check are a TiAL 48 mm wastegate and a Turbosmart Plumb Back. To keep everything running cool, the radiator and intercooler are from PWR and the oil cooler is from Setrab. When it was time to get the car tuned, it made 270 rwhp @ 9 psi on a Dyno Dyamics. It was time to turn up the boost to 14 psi but unfortunately, the banjo bolt on the back of the wastegate blew off. However, Dave couldn’t be any happier to finally get the car running properly again. Keeping in mind that a Dyno Dynamics is on the conservative end with readings generally 10~15% lower than a Dynojet and coupled with the facts that the car weights less than 2,700 lb and boost coming on at 1900 rpm, makes this E30 M3 one quick and enjoyable machine.

A side note - I was inspired to write this article because BMW was the feature marquee for Speedhunters. Unfortunately I lagged on the article and never got the opportunity to try to submit the article after I have completed it. Nonetheless, I am glad that I was able to write about Dave’s immaculate E30 M3 and get the article up on here. This is also my first full-length car feature that I have written and it has been a new experience. Thank you Dave for the opportunity and be sure to visit his site at http:// w w w . d c r 6 2 . n e t / for more pictures and info.

ENJOY !