325TI - Project Mpact

[amc_adam]

Each 'Reinforcement Plate' was then fully TIG welded, this takes a lot longer than MIG welding but you don't get covered in horrible weld splatter, the fitment of the plates needs to be as tight as possible with no gaps. A very neat and small weld can be achieved, and if all goes well no grinding will be needed either (no sparks and mess).

Edited by amc_adam on Friday 20th December 16:32

[anonymous-user]

Great work, loving it!
How do the reinforcement plates affect the rear end geometry given you are lowering the subframe by a small amount?

[J4CKO]

amc_adam said:

J4CKO said:

Love the idea, but it seems a bit mad (unless I have missed something) hacking up an E46 M3 that is worth a few quid, dodgy respray or not to use the running gear in a Compact which isnt worth much ?

I was waiting for someone to say this! I can see what you're saying, and to be honest you are not the only one who has that opinion.

I had been looking into the conversion for a few years, the price of the S54 engines alone are £2000-3000+, plus looms, gearbox, prop, subframe, diff, clocks etc. I then went on to Copart Auctions and bidding on written off cars, these were selling in excess of £7000 for a heavy side impact car with around 80,000 miles on them (most of the cars were then collected and taken to poland).

Which got me thinking, If i could find an undamaged road legal car and use it for 6 months to make sure everything worked i could then take off what i needed, break the car for parts and sell the body shell.

Then the perfect opportunity came up on Ebay for the Grey M3, it was on a long auction and i nearly forgot about it. Last minute i put a bid in and the M3 was mine for less than the price of a written off M3 on Copart Auctions.

Yes, i could of kept the M3 on the road and spent £5000-6000+ on making a nice example of it, but after all that it would be exactly the same as every other M3 on the road. The M3 would be worth more money to someone else if it was a nice example, but i'm not willing to spend an extra £5000-6000 on top of the price i payed for the car to make it worth more to someone else.

I'm the second owner of the 325TI. If i can buy a cheap M3, break it to make money back and build a Compact to a high standard with M3 performance for half the cost of a tidy M3 and it be the only BMW Compact like it, i'd choose to do that.

Asa build it made sense before to me, it cool, end of, but i was puzzled by the economics of it but now you have explained it (you didnt have to) I see where you are coming from, no shortage of E46 M3's out there, nice cars but this is a lot more interesting, the Compact was long forgoteen but it seems to have aquired a bit of a cult status/following of late.

Amazing skills and cant wait to see the end result.

[Nunga]

Excellent fabrication and welding skills. Following with keen interest, and also now filled with some trepidation about what lies under the plastic under panels of my M3...

[Rtig]

Very interesting project and love the fact you're fabricating everything properly rather than going in with a gasless mig like you see on most builds!

Edited by Rtig on Monday 25th June 07:51

[d6dph]

I've loved this idea for as long as I've known about it.
Having seen the previous builds you've done I know this will be epic!

Do you still have the caddy too Adam?

[Dr G]

You're clearly quite a skilled fabricator, it's fascinating to see!

Bookmarked.

[E36Dan]

Following with interest, never seen an Estoril Blue compact before.

[Andy OH]

Fantastic fabrication skills and looking forward to see how this turns out.

[geeks]

Bonkers! I love it!

Have seen this done with an E36 Compact Cup car and it was just mental. Keep up the good work OP, love the fact that your "knocked up" axle stand plates look neater than most rollcage wealds I see

[amc_adam]

Nanook said:

Beautiful work.

Wish our guys could weld like that. Then, we're asking them to TIG 5mm Aluminium, overhead.

Very cool project, looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Thank you, yes i can imagine welding 5mm aluminium upside down is difficult, especially when you can't lean on it to support yourself due to the heat displacement across the material.

[amc_adam]

Nunga said:

Excellent fabrication and welding skills. Following with keen interest, and also now filled with some trepidation about what lies under the plastic under panels of my M3...

Thank you, i know how you feel! I've looked over a few M3's now. It's quite hard to see the extent of what damage has been caused until the under side has been cleaned. Usually there is a couple of little fractures you can spot before hand, maybe worth putting it on some ramps and having a look.

[amc_adam]

Rtig said:

Very interesting project and love the fact you're fabricating everything properly rather than going in with a gasless mig like you see on most builds!

Edited by Rtig on Monday 25th June 07:51

Gasless MIG

[amc_adam]

d6dph said:

I've loved this idea for as long as I've known about it.
Having seen the previous builds you've done I know this will be epic!

Do you still have the caddy too Adam?

It's certainly been long awaited!. Yes i still have the caddy, it's in the garage collecting dust waiting for an engine in that too

[amc_adam]

Dr G said:

You're clearly quite a skilled fabricator, it's fascinating to see!

Bookmarked.

Thank you, lots more bits to be made yet.... it's very time consuming!

[ShampooEfficient]

Pure welding and fabrication porn. Love it.

[amc_adam]

geeks said:

Bonkers! I love it!

Have seen this done with an E36 Compact Cup car and it was just mental. Keep up the good work OP, love the fact that your "knocked up" axle stand plates look neater than most rollcage wealds I see

There's a few E36's compacts I've seen now with S54's in them, mainly in America! they love the 318ti out there. Haha, i know what you mean, I'm always checking out the welds on roll cages

[amc_adam]

Escy said:

That's brilliant fabrication. How long did it take you to make those plates?

At a guess probably 2 days just in fabricating them, very time consuming but worth it.

[B'stard Child]

amc_adam said:

Rtig said:

Very interesting project and love the fact you're fabricating everything properly rather than going in with a gasless mig like you see on most builds!

Edited by Rtig on Monday 25th June 07:51

Gasless MIG

I think he was joking - or being a little dramatic.........

I tried flux cored wire on a MIG when I ran out of gas once - only had a small bracket to weld - took ages for the smoke in the garage to clear The weld was pretty rubbish too but it passed the MOT inspection

[amc_adam]

The Fuel Tank mounts and brake line brackets were then puddle welded back in there original places, the puddle welds were then cleaned up with a power file.



With one last going over using a grinder/wire wheel to remove any loose rust that i had missed previously, i then blew the car down with an air line to remove any dust and metal filings.

Using POR15 Metal Prep on all the bare metal, leaving it for 20mins and then washing it down with water. After it had time to dry, again with an air line i blew everything over to make sure no water was trapped in any nook and cranny.

Next, Using POR15 Rust Preventive Paint i painted not only the rusty/pitted areas but every bare metal bit in sight.......



This stuff is seriously good, it dries so hard that even to key it ready for paint took a good 5 hours with scotch brite pads.

Future reference, use the POR15 Rust Preventative Paint sparingly on rust, unless you want numb finger tips.

Edited by amc_adam on Friday 20th December 16:44