bmwe21.net forums

Hi all. New owner of an E21 323i which I purchased through this very forum

The car was originally a 323i but some of the former owners had already transplanted the E30 M42 318is engine and gearbox into the car along with some other mods including the Volvo 4-pot conversion and E30 rear brake upgrade along with some home made coilovers up front (which will be replaced). Generally the body condition of the car wasn't too bad compared to some I'd viewed, requiring the drivers floor pan, boot floor and odd pieces here and there to be rectified.

Plan for the car is a ground up full recondition/restoration/modification approach. Currently I plan to keep the M42 engine but increase the performance where possible, I don't need the car to be fast (got a V8 AMG Merc for going fast), just fun and nice to handle. I did consider swapping to the S14 but after speaking to various "experts" the M42 if done right will be just as much fun for less money.

Here's some pics of how she was before I started:







The car was a daily driver I believe up until early this year but was taken off the road for a number of reasons. As such I needed to get the car transported:



Safely in the garage, waiting for the strip down to start, along with my son photo bombing me :




So I've had the car less than a week and time has been tight but so far I've got the following done:

The biggest patch/area of rust I've found so far

Interior taken out


Dash being stripped

Front window out


Worst spot of rust on the front window surround

Rear window out

Rust on rear window surround

Bumpers off

Rear subframe dropped

Stripped some of the factory sound deadening material



Next steps in the process (hopefully this weekend) are going to be:

1. Finish dash removal
2. Finish sound deadening removal
3. Remove front door cards & glass
4. Remove rear windows

Very soon I want to get started on the bodywork so need to get myself a decent MIG welder so any suggestions/recommendations would be great.

Speak to GKD Sportscars in Kent and fit their 'off the shelf' supercharger kit. Used all stock BMW injection and ECU but you'll have 200 bhp! M42's are tough to tune otherwise. Schrick cams and ITB's give a little but not enough for the money they'll cost you.

Close ratio box and 4:11 diff help with acceleration but you'll top out at about 100'ish. My old track e21 ran that set up and I managed a 59 sec lap of Brands. Given I'm a mediocre driver and fat bastard, that's not too bad.

Thanks Mark, I'll take a look at that kit.

Considering all the hard work has been done on fitting the M42 already, is there another conversion I could do that would now be easier due to mods required for the M42?

M52/2.8

Engine's are pretty cheap and 220+bhp is easily achievable.

https://youtu.be/cX7UP8ql1cQ?t=29s

OK cool. I know the engine pretty well, had one in an E36 328is years ago. Remember some of them having the nikasil issue.

Would the M52 engine mate straight up to the E30 box I already have fitted or would that need to be changed too, along with the diff? Still coming up to speed on these E21's

(Note to Mods. Think I put this thread in the wrong section, please can you move to the modified section please.)

Cool project! I hope the rust look panels are getting panted!

As far as welders, I have a Clarke 160te which is a cracking little welder, I think the 160tm has superceeded it but it looks identical to me. Mine was ok, but I found welding thicker stuff it was a bit iffy, so I wired it into a 30amp supply with a nice big plug, and it's been a monster since then. Pound for pound probably the best welder on the market. https://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/prod ... 0tm-welder.

Welcome here! Looks like a thorough approach to preserve the car, and not taking it easy! Keep us posted!

Cheers for the comments guys. Don't worry, all of the rust will be gone when I'm finished

Itching to get the engine, gearbox and front assembly all out, will have to wait a little while longer as running out of space now. Had a bit of a result though as managed to snag myself a decent Cebora MIG welder on fleabay this week so welding can begin this weekend

Right, some more progress on the strip down in between work, family and training:

Dashboard and heater matrix finally out along with the sound proofing on transmission tunnel

Door cards and locks removed

Sunroof out - what a pig that was. Not looking forward to the refit

Doors now removed and front wings off



And finally front grille and valance

Bit more work done over the past few days. Fuel tank and fuel ancillaries are all removed and now starting to tackle the real problem.... RUST!!

Appears the rust in the drivers floor pan/foot well is worse than I thought. Looks like water has seeped down from the scuttle panel to top of the firewall and eaten downwards whilst pooling in the footwell and rotting upwards. To top that off it would seem that the drain tube from roof has leaked into the inner/middle sill (piss poor design BMW) and rusted out the front section of the sill. I've cut off sections of the outer sill/rocker panel for inspection and there is one real bad piece which has eaten through the middle sill. I've cut most of the bad stuff out of the footwell to begin with, the piece at the top of the firewall will be tough to replace but actually feels very solid after grinding back so might treat that with rust converter from both sides:








Also cut out the section where the previous owner had installed a side exit exhaust which partially intruded into the cabin behind drivers seat. The exhaust exit meant the sill had been cut through!! At this rate I will need to replace the whole drivers side floor pan:


This is the bit I'm worried by and not decided how best to tackle this? Either remove the outer and inner sills completely and rectify the middle sill (somehow) or I repair the middle sill with stronger, thicker (2-3mm) steel. The majority of the outer rocker/sill is fine as is most of the inner sill, some surface corrosion and most would be OK with rust converter. You can also see where the side exit exhaust was and appears to be an existing weld line a few inches to the left of the sill corrosion. Is this original or a repair job?
Any advice or recommendations on how to tackle this problem?

Love a thread like this
Looks like your doing it properly, well done
How good are your welding skills

Cheers. Trying to do it properly, tough when you don't have a clue lol.

Welding is average but improving

Nice updates I'll be watching this one

white spirit will lift the yellow glue a treat.

looks like your at the point I was at in 2012, i had a lot of similar issues and learning the body work was the fun part.
see my old thread.
viewtopic.php?t=18581

might be a few pointers in there.

Cheers guys for comments. Cracking build Panda, some real similar challenges for sure.

Made some good progress yesterday and tonight on reengineering the drivers sills. Really happy with rigidity so far.

Pics to follow...