T DOT TI - The whole story
 

So I have been looking into buying a Ti for a while, I just sold my e30 as it was beginning to fall apart. Im from Toronto canada, I have a place up north of toronto where I work on my car... Ive built many cars there and I enjoy the time spent in the garage more than i can explain so..

anyways Im such a picture whore its not even funny! most of my pics will be crappy cell phone pics from my HTC phone as I dont have a digital camera. hey thats what cell phones are for!

here goes

Ive had lots of interest in these cars for a while and I want to make a thread for my car this time around because I always try to fix er up and nobody ever gets to see what I do to my cars. SO I guess this is my chance to document it all..

i bought this, Its a 1995 black Ti and i dont know what model. I have lots of questions and I was hoping to make a nice thread showing my love for working on my car.

heres my car the first shot i have of it..

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0974.jpg

I had been doing research of wheels in this thread here
http://www.318ti.org/forum/showthrea...686#post296686


The day i added a set of wheels and tires.

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0975.jpg

I put style 5's from the 540I - I had been looking for these for a while, When I finally came across them they were in good shape and I just said ahh screw it I snatched them up. they cost me a bit much but then again to hell with it.. wheels Ill only buy once..
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0982.jpg

I had to get some tires because when i bought the wheels they didnt have any rubber, I was unsure of the tread size to get and i wanted to check a few fitment things out so i decided to just try these not so expensive tires out till I got all my suspension and other issues sorted out.

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0981.jpg

205 40 17

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0983.jpg

Getting my balancing done

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0984.jpg




taking off the stock wheels
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0976.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0977.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0978.jpg

finally got them on,,, im sooo excited
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0987.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0986.jpg

so back at home where I do all my work, I got a few shots of the car before I begin doing all my work.. There are plenty of things I need to fix on the car

many things are from lack of care on the previous owners behalf.

Tho she is what she is

I gave the car a quick wash and took some shots for the first time at my place.

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1012.jpg
Look at that reverse rake, I hate reverse rake with a passion. that has to be one of the next things I get to..

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1000.jpg

my wheel - was thinking of refinishing them next season and just enjoying them for now
Im not sure yet what colour to refinsh them yet
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1003.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1004.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1015.jpg

When I bought the car it had one broken fog light and they didnt work when I pulled the swich, i guess the previous owner ran into something, so I figured Ill just have to get down and pull them

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1052.jpg

well I couldnt stand the broken fog lights in my damn car any longer, Im not sure what the previous owner did here but One of them was broken right in half

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1043.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1046.jpg

and the left one was totaly painted over.. when I was removing it all the wiring was totaly mangled. He must have tried to remove the connector and totaly ripped the wires out as the back portion of the light was all busted! Oh well but why was it painted??

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1049.jpg

Here is the fog light I removed. wow he really broke this right light bad..

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1056.jpg

tomorrow ill be doing more work.. and ordering some new fog lights
stay tuned

the wheels look awesome they will look better once you drop it
but its looking good man

vin decoder
 

I sent ____________ at ________ a email with my vin today and he replied with the details of the car. kinda neat being able to see 15 years later what was ordered at the time of sale on day one.

I was surprised as I didnt know some of these things like suspension and diff.
cool..

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/scan0001.jpg

I bagan working on the headliner Pulled it out of the car as it was in serious need of repair.. I couldnt even drive the car

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...IMAG1042-1.jpg

Im not sure what I want to put on it yet, I wish I had someone helping because I just cant decide. My seats are Stoff/Anthrazit (c7at) according to the vin decoder
Its the sport seats with black leather on the boltsers and the material with whiteblack colour designs in the center...

So I am stuck choosing what I think would look good on the headliner

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...IMAG1037-1.jpg

as you can see by the pics, I really need to figure something out for this.. thats how bad it was peeling before I began taking it off

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1032.jpg

I found this on anther site while researching suspension.. I really couldnt help but think of my situation, I must fix my wheel gap. Im thinking of getting some springs and maybe a small spacer
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/wheelgap.jpg

This is what im dealing with, Reverse rake...at its worst - Personally I cannot stand a car with reverse rake even on airbags where you can fix it in the flick of a switch, Im so close to just cutting the front springs. Does anyone know how bad cut springs ride>?

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG0998.jpg

Im tempted to just chop them untill I come to a decission on springs...or coils.

I dont really need to change the ride height as I figure im not going to drive the car over the winter months. I think I will go for paint once I get all the details sorted out!

What suspension do you recomend If I dont have very much money?

The springs are unlikely to work if cut, they need to fit the spring pocket correctly...
Honestly, H&R's are not that expensive. Turner has the full strut and spring kits for $579.

These cars are high strung enough that I'd recommend do it right. 2lbs of air pressure on my car can put you in the ditch if your driving hard. I can't imagine bad springs.

Dave

Credit was due above and I forgot to add that into the text before I pressed submit! Later I realized that I couldnt update whats been submitted already!

The guy that helped me find the info about my vin was from http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum....php?t=1546113 AND HIS NAME WAS MIKE KENT. SUPER COOL GUY, THANKS MIKE...
thanks to Tifreak for helping to find that link.

Grill refresh today
 

Im just joking I dont plan on cutting my springs tho I really hate the look of reverse rake cars. It really makes me mad when I look at the car.. Ill just have to wait untill the funds are free'd to get some coils..

Today I did some messing about in the garage. when I bought the car It had some flaking grills, I guess the previous owner painted them and it all started to go to ****z so
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1047.jpg
I took them out and made them look a bit better with the acetone..
http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1071.jpg

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1077.jpg

i think the chrome looks much nicer on the black cars, but if i had say a silver car i would paint them black!

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1080.jpg

depends on the car colour.. But im much more happy looking at the front of the car with the chrome grills. It gives it a bit more class! They stand out nicly! I am sure that many people think otherwise, I guess Ill get bored of them before long and switch them back to black but fornow its chrome for me.

http://i1125.photobucket.com/albums/...I/IMAG1089.jpg

I must say tho I really am happy with the outcome as I was sure the acetone was going to take the chrome finish off with the paint.

no problem, also to the left of the buttons at the bottom of your posts there's an "edit" button

The progress looks good. Wish I had shop space.

Keep up the good work.

really at turner motorsports?
I thought it was around $700?

Thanks for the good words, I built a whole corrado from nothing outside in the snow. i even had to put a garbage bag taped over the missing door for 2 months untill i sourced a door. I know what its like not having shop space... It can be hard sometimes, its only recently that ive been lucky enough to have space!

ive been reading up on rokkors from this and other threads

http://www.318ti.org/forum/showthread.php?t=30236

seems to be a good choice, bluebimmer sure seems to know his Ti's

anyone on here strongly agenst them>? I mean for that price its hard to beat...