M50 Swapped E21 320i

Description

The car started out as a 1982/3 320i 5-speed in safari-beige. The car now has a single VANOS M50 (mileage now ~240k) with the ZF 5-Speed. All motor electronics have been replaced within 15k miles (small sensors, MAF, O2 sensor, etc). I've driven this car for roughly two years mainly as a DD year round in Denver, Colorado (~15k miles since the swap). Car has successfully passed emissions test in Denver. The 3 inch exhaust is very loud, it's reasonable on a short drive, but extended journeys you'd likely want headphones/earplugslargelydue to rasp.

• Motor Mounts - Classic Daily M50 E21 Swap mounts.
• Cooling - Behr S54 M-Coupe track day radiator (thicker than stock) with Spal 16".
• Exhaust - Stainless headers to full stainless dual 2.25" to single 3" exhaust with high flow Vibrant cat, center resonator style Vibrant muffler, and rear baffled Magnaflow muffler.
• Suspension - Bilstien Sport with Eibach Springs.
• Bushings - Eurometric Poly Bushings throughout (front and rear sway bar mounts, front and rear control arms, rear-subframe mounts, steering rack bushings, rear strut mounts).
• Wheels & Tires - Riken Mesh 15" with new Dunlop DZ102 205-50R15.
• Spare Wheels & Tires - I have some E21 Mahle spoke in 13"x5.5" with Firestone Winterforce tires (well used, but I have two new tires ready for mounting).
• Additional Parts/Maintenance - New Bosch 044 external fuel pump with new in-tank feed pump. Rebuilt injectors.

Most items on the car have been replaced and I have reliably put roughly 15k miles on it. It's extremely fun to drive. The car's light weight and poise make it extremely fun to drive. The car is very unique, and should be solid given how much work has gone into it. As a project, the car is very close to completion.Drivability andreliability were my main concerns, so remaining project tasks focus largely on refinement. The remaining plans I had include, a speed sensor delete ECU chip (E21 diff doesn't have a speed sensor, so the M50 ECU limits to 6k RPM as a failsafe for afailed speed sensor), revised speedometer (I have a speedhut unit that may be fixable), and Limited Slip installed.
The car has some rust, sheet metal below the drivers side tail light, surface rust under paint cracks, and a small but isolated hole in thefront left of the drivers footwell.
I also have tons of spare parts that can be included.Spares include: used alternator, spare M50 with warped or cracked head (torn down), rebuilt VANOS unit, new wheel bearings, and new brake system parts.
I have a set of non-sport E21 seats, and center console parts in storage. These were in pretty poor condition when I bought the car and will need some work, so I left them out of the initial build.
I'm only selling this because I have too many cars and need to focus time and space on the others.