I bought the car in 2007 for $1,100 and kept it in storage for a while. In 2011 I got it back on the road full time with a little help from ECS Tuning.  After approx a year and a half, I decided to do the swap I had always wanted to do since back in 2001 when I fell in love with e30’s.  Euro S50 swap for daily driver duties.

My brother and I swapped the car in his garage in Oct 2013. It took 4 weekends and included the entire driveline, exhaust, rebuilding and modifying the brakes and rebuilding the rear suspension in whole. It was our first attempt at something like this and it went off pretty well. I was really lucky to have my brother help me as he has a natural gift for wrenching and getting things done correctly the first time.

I’ve been daily driving it since and it’s been a ton of fun. We learned a lot during the process including how to service AC as we had to build a custom e30/e36 hybrid system to get the AC going. We used OEM whenever possible with the exception of suspension bits and brakes as they are very underwhelming when stock. Especially since we had to eliminate the brake booster.

ECS Tuning has been great during the process as well as you have a great selection of OEM parts that are needed for the swap and maintaining a 27-year-old car and even for the fairly rare euro S50.

3.15 Torsen lsd from 98 z3 3.0

CA Tuned Chromoly axles

OEM e30 oil cooler with custom adapters and lines to work with the S50

Mix and match of OEM coolant/heater lines

Ground Control coilover with

Touring camber plates

Solid front Control Arm Bushings (clears factory headers, adds caster)

12mm riser Urethane Rear Subframe bushings (corrects some rear suspension geometry)

25mm front sway bar, stock rear

OEM E30 M3 rear sat recovered locally

Wilwood 6pot front calipers, BP-10 pads

Original paint

Painted lower rockers

Factory headers