My E30 journey- Castro Motorsports

[Missedapex]

Hi fellow E30 fans,

I'm not new to BMW, but I am finally realizing my dream of owning an E30. Drove a friends E30 during college, fell in love, but didn't have a pot to piss in, let alone get an E30. So 20+ years forward, lots of cars later, and I am finally realizing my itch/dream to own and build my E30.

I live in VA, but my journey with this project started in San Diego where I found a clean E30 that already had an NA S52 swap along with the M3 5 lug suspension bits. So far so good.

Car was pretty well sorted, needed love, but it was a decent platform to start with. I knew it needed head work and figured, 'perfect', I'm going to send it up to Castro in North Hollywood before shipping it back east.

I've been a fan of Chris @ Castro Motorsports and have been stalking his work for years. So up it went for some simple head work.

I figured I'd get the head work done and then ship the car home and start wrenching on it myself. I've restored 5 cars from various stages including two LandCruisers, FJ40/V8 swap and FJ60 (still own and love), almost frame off restore on both (I know my way around a wrench and have, till now, always done my own projects. Built, not bought mentality).

Spin clock forward months and Castro has become a huge part of the build, and head work turned into adding a turbo (GT35), that slipped into a refreshed suspension, diff, trans, subframe reinforcements, etc, etc.

Unfortunately once the motor had the turbo it promptly blew apart at Castros due to an unforeseen internal issue. Most likely culprit was a pinched ring...you can figure the rest. Boom project reset....3000 miles away and my E30 was quickly becoming a much bigger project. Not a bad thing, but not exactly how Castro or I planned.

Fast forward more months and Castro built up a solid forged everything motor to handle what we wanted the car to do power wise. It has been over a year and I'm looking forward to sharing where this car finishes. Fingers crossed this build has seen the end of its hurdles and I'll be able to share finished pictures in September.

For now I wanted to share some pics of the early, mid stage and blown motor....hopefully I'll have some finished paint pics to share soon.

; - ).




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[Missedapex]

Thought I'd add some recent paint pics. She's getting there!



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[bobdavisnpf]

that is looking sweet! gonna be a blast to drive that I'm sure.

[323i E30]

Very nice!

[Missedapex]

Very nice!

Thanks for the positive replies. I can't wait to get it finished up and on the road. Look forward to sharing more pics and updates. Hopefully I'll get it on the road before winter sets in.


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[E46M3Dakar]

Welcome to VA and the E30 world - e30 are addictive. Looks like an awesome build. How much power are you hoping to get when done?

[Missedapex]

Hi E46M3Dakar. Thanks for the welcome. I'm hoping it will do 525-550hp / 525 tq on high boost tune although I expect I'll want to run lower to keep it manageable. Even with 255's I think it will be wiggling around at 450. All I know is I can't wait to find out.




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[E46M3Dakar]

Hi E46M3Dakar. Thanks for the welcome. I'm hoping it will do 525-550hp / 525 tq on high boost tune although I expect I'll want to run lower to keep it manageable. Even with 255's I think it will be wiggling around at 450. All I know is I can't wait to find out.




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Either way, she should be a blast and crazy fast.