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I bought my first car, an '83 320i, my senior year of High School for $650. It was in very rough shape. Its top speed flat out was 65mph in 4th, the exhaust was rotted off, interior was in shreds, and only 1 brake caliper worked. Body wise the front valance was crumpled behind the bumper on the passenger side, the passenger side fender was crumpled, the driver's side door was a different color, and the paint was oxydized badly. I started with an Ansa muffler and simply detailing the car, then did a simple brake job including pagid pads, shoes and a master cylinder. I moved on to pounding the dents out, removing the rust, bondo, and used a rattle can to paint the damaged areas. Sadly I never took pictures of the car as it sat when I bought it, but here are the earliest pictures I have after much of the repair:
I decided to pull the motor for a rebuild after having the car for only 3 months. The engine bay was burried under 1/4" of grease. After hours of scraping, degreasing and repainting the areas that were etched by splattered battery acid it was pretty clean.
It took me about 1 year to rebuild the motor. This was partly due to my total inexperience, lack of tools, going away to college in the middle of the project, and learning the ropes on where to buy parts and what would work. I was by myself on my first engine rebuild with nothing but a haynes manual, so it turned out pretty good. See my engine rebuild page for more details.
By the time I was ready to install the motor it was January in an uninsulated garage. It was cold but I got it in with the help of some contracted labor (my dad). That first crank over and hearing a motor run for the first time is one of the most rewarding experiences in the world. Along with rebuilding the motor I replaced all hoses, belts, fuel injectors, cold start injector, alternator, and starter to name a few components. It was stroked to 2.0L with a ported/polished head & 280 cam with Bavarian Autosport 8mm plug wires and power flow kit.
Over the next year I added a header, cold air intake, bosch red coil and an electric cooling fan which all added up to quite a noticable performance increase. The really felt strong (especially compare to the old tired 1.8L) with plenty of torque and it pulled well all the way to redline.
I also pulled the AC and did a front euro bumper conversion.
The next year the car got a Metric Mechanic getrag 240, bavauto short shift kit, eibachs, bilstiens, a new interior, I painted the front valance body color, and did a euro rear bumper conversion. I spent all my money on car parts but ran out before I could put tires on the car. I didn't want to spend money on 13" tires because I was looking for a set of 15" wheels. Thanks to bald tires and the characteristic e21 oversteer I ended up fishtailing off the road in the rain and sliding backwards into a pole and sideways into a chain link fence. Sadly I never got around to taking any pics of the car before I wrecked it. I have vowed to never make that mistake again, so I am somewhat picture happy now. Below you can see the final engine setup and the damage done to the car after I wrecked it. The driver's side shock tower was shoved in from the chain link fence post and the whole trunk floor was shifted over as well. I decided that I didn't want to try to have it fixed because I was worried it would never be the same, so I started searching for a donor car to swap all my parts into.
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