bmwe21.net forums

About time I put some pictures up of one of the projects I'm doing

Bought a few e21 lately as daily drivers but all ended up being sheds and just wasn't worth spending any time or money on. Hope of finding a decent one was getting slim, But after a few phone calls one afternoon I took delivery Of a one owner 1976 320 Auto.

Car was solid no rust apart from the 2 doors but structually solid and has never been welded. An old boy in 1976 was given the car as a company vehicle and later passed it on to his daughter it only has 1 owner and 54,000 miles. Interior is in very good condition and original again!

Unfortunately the engine was seized but that didn't bother me

Car has been off road since 1990 and was laid up in a barn whilst in storage birds decided to decorate it and due to that the paint has burnt through and caused blisters all over the body.

Any how I didn't hang around first thing to do was get the engine out and prepare it for my almost newly build 2.7 which i have had sitting in the corner for almost 2 years waiting for the right car to fit it in. Getting the donk out didn't take long at all

After removing the engine I was not happy with the paint work in the bay as it was flaking and the seam sealer was splitting so decided to prep it up and paint it all up, looks nice and fresh now

So far I have changed the front wishbones,sub frame,arb all with 323i items. Engine is in with a 323i manual gearbox but having a bit of problems with the clearance in the gearbox tunnel.

Have converted it to a manual cant believe how easy it was

Fuel tank is of ready for one of a 323i.

Some pictures of the progress so far








The old engine and box out



Empty engine bay



And the new donk ready for action



Engine Originaly lived in E30PARTZ car Yellow Mellow was magazine featured a few years ago. It ended up getting wrote off and I got hold of it and fragged it.



Solid jacking points and floor pans











Engine bay in progress









2.7 mated with 323i gearbox ready to go in



and its in





Will hopefully have the gearbox tunnel issue sorted out tomorrow and have everything connected up ready for the wiring action

Will keep the pictures coming

looks lovely does that!

Woah, good work!

Thanks for the comments guys.



Right bit of an update got all the running gear in and secured, Prop,323i tank with 325i pump, gearbox all mounted up.

I have got all the wiring through including the battery cable etc.

Fuel pump is wired up and works fine with the ignition.

The fun part:

I have temporarily connected the wires from the e21 loom to the e30 loom via block connectors as sujested following the diagrams but the statrter is not turning over with the ignition.

The E21 black wire is connected to the E30 black/yellow but it does not seem to have any live coming through.

I have traced the Ignition wire back to the Ignition point and it is the same story there no live to the black wire?

Any suggestions of what it can be?

Quite a bit of progress made in the last few days as I had some spare time

All the wiring has been done only needs wrapping up now, was all tested with block connectors as suggested by a few members. After being tried and tested Out came the soldering iron and heat wrap looks much better and gives a good connection.

Electric fan from a e28 is being used for cooling as I didn't have much space for a viscous. Has all been wired up correctly has the temp switch and works with the ignition so no dodgy switches .

The fuel pump all wired up and again works correctly with the ignition. In the fuse box there was four dead fuses, so I have used one of them for the fuse on the fuel pump looks factory fitted

As the car was an auto the relay under the steering column had to be bridged for it to fire up this was fairly straight forward (took me a little while to figure this out and a post on the technical section )

All the plumbing is done and tightend up. Used various BMW Coolant pipes and a 323i rad. Had to mod a bracket for the coolant bottle on the strut and a bracket for the AFM.

Battery in boot has all been done used a E39 battery cable to the rear along with a quick release plug. Have also made terminal in the engine bay using a e30 sport battery kit terminal and e39 battery terminal. (Well happy with the end result as it looks very neat)

Engine had been fired up for a few seconds and it worked

All thats left to do in the engine bay now is wrap up the last few loose wires and tighten a few things up. The exhaust needs fitting and I need to make a clutch pipe.

Hopefully will have the car up and running over the weekend as long as everything goes to plan.

Here are some poor pictures I have taken

Testing the wiring


Coolant bottle mounted


Electric fan temp control switch and coil pack mounted


Electric fan


Ecu through and some waxoyl applied


Fuse box back in place after the fuel/fuse mod


Getting some soldering done


Wires soldered and covered


Battery in boot


And the Engine bay almost done


Thats all for now will hopefully update it over the weeked

what car was the washer bottle from??

all looks good to me. welcome to an easy 170bhp......

murran wrote:all looks good to me. welcome to an easy 170bhp......

Thanks cant wait to get the exhaust on and a few other bits and take it for a run

While I'm at what throttle cable is used as the 320 one was no good and a e30 one don't work either

Mine ran a regular 323 cable.

you can use a 323i cable but its a tad long i think?

my personal favorite mod is to chop the pedal end off the e21 cable with a couple of inch left on the loop and remove the rest of the outer and inner cable and throw it away....
next chop pedal end off the e30 cable and pull it out of the outer cable. measure how long it needs to be to reach from the little bracket on the baulhead to the throttle body bracket. chop outer cable to correct length then slide the inner cable back in, refit it.
cut the two ends so they over lap by an inch, join the two cables with one your spare plastic wiring things!
like so.......
i also had to re-drilled and move the bracket along the balkhead, as you can see in this pic, as i found there wasnt room to overlap the cables in this way.

mines been like this 3 years now with no problems whatsoever!

one tip if you do this tho..... sharp side cuts!

murran wrote:you can use a 323i cable but its a tad long i think?

my personal favorite mod is to chop the pedal end off the e21 cable with a couple of inch left on the loop and remove the rest of the outer and inner cable and throw it away....
next chop pedal end off the e30 cable and pull it out of the outer cable. measure how long it needs to be to reach from the little bracket on the baulhead to the throttle body bracket. chop outer cable to correct length then slide the inner cable back in, refit it.
cut the two ends so they over lap by an inch, join the two cables with one your spare plastic wiring things!
like so.......
i also had to re-drilled and move the bracket along the balkhead, as you can see in this pic, as i found there wasnt room to overlap the cables in this way.

mines been like this 3 years now with no problems whatsoever!

one tip if you do this tho..... sharp side cuts!

I have actually tried this but it just wasn't working for me kept popping out the connection.

I cant find a new 323i throttle cable either

you must be doing it wrong.

solder them side by side insted?

murran wrote:you must be doing it wrong.

solder them side by side insted?

Tried that too

Going to give it ago with a better electrical connection thingy

I used my standard 320 cable, works fine. Its a tad long but that makes no difference if you just route it without any sharp bends.

Bit more progress made but no where near what I was hoping

tried to fire the car up but it didn't want to know was turning over but thats all. Checked a few things and everything was fine went to the coil pack and I have no live there though it might be a dodgy wire but this is not the case. I have checked the wires coming from the engine and again no live on the the 2 wires to the coil.

Any Ideas?

On the upside I have got my 6 branch to fit and well chuffed about it.

have topped up fluids and and bled the clutch.

Is booked in for a full custom stainless steel exhaust system next week. Cant Wait!

Just need to get it running again now!