Hi all!
This is my first time posting on a forum so bear with me. I was old enough to be able to get a taste of the old thread days and get absolutely obsessed by all of the old builds, but young enough to never have anything post worthy.
I'm 24 now, and have had this E30 and Corolla wagon since 2017,
Originally, I wanted to drift the e30, but when I realized that was too nice, and having sentimental value attached I didn't ever really risk it that bad. Regardless I did do one two day event with it in 2020, and realized I needed a dedicated car if I wanted to drive how I wanted. Corolla wagon is a whole other story I bought that to drift after I realized E30 wasn't it, that wasn't a good choice of a drift car, but I've got a love for wagons, so now it sits without a motor waiting on the back burner.
I ended up moving to date my now girlfriend, and started going to school for Mech Engineering that winter, so all car plans got put on hold.
Skip ahead in time to March of 2023 (this year) and this pops up in local classifieds for parts,
I asked how much for the rest of it and I got quoted 300 bucks, I was sold. The chassis is rust free, has had a couple accidents but the quarters were straight and untouched, nothing that won't make it drive straight. The shell came with front suspension and a big block m54 (b30). Being the car came automatic, and would need to be reinforced in the rear, guy math told me that someone already did half my work for me with pulling the rear suspension and trans.
Now let me just say, I dont love E46's. They're ugly, usually sound bad, and are usually done real poorly. That's been my stance. Up until I realized that there is not many other places you can get yourself a motor and fresh chassis for under $500.
Then I couldn't stop thinking how perfect it actually is, being I don't love the looks, doesn't matter if it gets stuffed in a wall. Since they're cheap and almost 2 million (yes) were made, you can find 3 or 4 at pretty much every junkyard, if not being parted on marketplace. Being built for motorsports, I've heard it's suspension design is an animal. I've become extremely excited to get this car going.
Went to the local pull n save and got an entire rear subframe assembly with 3.46 diff for $400
Started ordering parts, got a complete chassis 95a garagistic bushing kit, Cmp performance lower and subframe mount reinforcements, driftech high toe trailing arm mounts, x3 upper control arms, bc extreme low coilovers, everything to restore handbrake, brakes, fuel tank, and rear suspension back to new.
This may be the most annoying job I've done to date, I'd do straight subframe bushings 10 times over in an E30 before being on my back claustrophobic swallowing and inhaling seam sealer. That being said, I will do this job again if I have to with a smile, and I'll help my buds do it if it'll get them on track. I am so excited to have a dedicated car to drive as if it's already written off. I'm already addicted.
I want this car to be a street car, it's not going to be crazy, but it needs to be able to be thrown around and be able to handle it. So I decided to on top of the reinforcement plates, stitch weld the entire RACP panel in (sheet metal that the subframe bolts to (in e46 land (come to find out) they used too thin of metal to mount the subframe, and too little spot welds so the subframe and trialing bracket mounts rip themselves out)). I spent the last couple months stripping seam sealer off of the underside and inside the car in weekend spurts, being I live 4 hours away from where the car is being stored, it doesn't make it easy to get progress done steadily. At any rate, she (racp panel) ain't goin nowhere now.
I did end up finding one crack on the rear driver side, about 4" long, but drilled and welded it shut (documenting now for when the rear driver side catastrophically fails)
Another thing I've been dabbling with is CAD while in school, which turns out to be pretty handy. Recently, I've been playing around with body kit designs and styling aspects that I would like to see brought to these chassis. Kit options are limited, and very late model BMW inspired. I don't know necessarily what I am doing with the designs or if they will ever see the light of day. I have access to large 3D printers and CNC mills through my school, so I dont necessarily see why I couldn't at least get a slight prototype or something of the sort.
I like the bumper design I have so far, need to make some final tweak. I'm curious to see if anyone else would be interested in another alternative to E46 body kits, or what you think on bumper design! I've never done any sort of fiberglass work of the sort, so I have truly no idea what I'm doing, mostly just really wanted to see if I could create a kit I really enjoy looking at.
Which brings us to today, I've just finished welding what I think should be sufficient on the rear end of the car, it's not perfect, some/most of the welds are infected boogers and aren't completely even, but I'm not entirely sure how long this chassis will last so it'll do.
I plan to update this thread throughout the build to document the progress and life of this car, I'm currently in the beginning stages so I'm excited to watch the progress come along. Shoutout the drift club for creating an organized space for this community again!