Guy swaps a M30B35, adds ITBs, then... recants

[Foonfer]

Check out this video (well, it's really the last of a series of videos, all of them worth watching until this anticlimactic end):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62ePyth ... nameisjosh

Guy took an E28 and did a nice M30B35 swap, added a good looking set of individual throttle bodies (ITBs), got stand-alone engine management, etc. A not-insignificant amount of work, seemingly honest, apparently well done and fairly well documented. Some time after the project is finished, he puts out the above video - he decided to remove the whole drivetrain. Turns out that "the car wasn't nice enough", or that he "decided to look for a really special car to put this drivetrain in", because as everyone knows, "E28s aren't that special anyway".

And here I was, thinking that he was onto something, that ITBs would help improve throttle response, would help move the intake stream of the M30B35 from the "hot" to the "cool" side of the engine, would open up visuals into some beautiful Supersprint headers, and would sound amazing and look slick AF. But what am I saying, after all Josh from the video sentenced it already, "E28s aren't that special anyway"... sorry but this whole story reeks of something we are not being told.

[turbodan]

ITBs would not be my choice for the M30. The stock intake makes great midrange torque where the rest of the M30 is reasonably efficient. ITBs would move the power up much higher.

In conjunction with a hot cam and head work it could make good horsepower. I don't know how reliable it would be though while making power at 7k+ RPM.

[Foonfer]

I thought the "sweet spot" and the bandwidth for power delivery with ITBs could be calibrated primarily (the fluid mechanics part) with trumpet length / diameter / shape, and then with standalone programming to fill the gaps at the ends, but I really know nothing about these things. Also, HP gains is not what I would seek with a piece of kit like this.

My point with the story in the videos is that there's something that doesn't sit quite right with me, with that ending. Feels like the key piece of information is being withheld from us.

[turbodan]

I wouldn't be surprised if it just wasn't what the guy was hoping for. Hard to say though.

ITBs are always going to end up shorter than the original runners. This works great for high revving NA motors but it will necessarily trade off low end and midrange. No tuning around that, it's just a matter of volumetric efficiency. HP gains are by far the primary benefit, at the expense of fuel economy and a much higher RPM power range. Significant power loss below, say 5000 RPM, significant gains from there up. Overall it is likely that the ITBs have less area under the curve and the car will be quite sluggish unless it's wound out.

[Tiit]

I think his main regret is spending $10k on. 2K car turning it in to 4K car. I don't remember exactly how much he spent. Possibly more than 10K.
RHD itb runners look fairly long. Not much shorter than stock runners. With a proper tune I wouldn't be surprised to see gains across the entire rev range.

[gadget73]

I guess I've never really made car choices based on value. That seems entirely too logical. Half the fun is doing things that don't make sense to most people just because you can or want to.

so its a 10k powertrain in a car not worth that much. Have fun with it and maybe later swap it into something more financially worthy. If all the effort and money has already been spent its kind of a waste to not make use of it.

[tschultz]

My assessment was that he is tying to run a business and was not able to sell the car above breakeven so he realized it would be worth more in parts...

Not much more to it than he is in a rush to gather funds for his other projects and efforts.

[szacsi72]

Check out this video (well, it's really the last of a series of videos, all of them worth watching until this anticlimactic end):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62ePyth ... nameisjosh

Guy took an E28 and did a nice M30B35 swap, added a good looking set of individual throttle bodies (ITBs), got stand-alone engine management, etc. A not-insignificant amount of work, seemingly honest, apparently well done and fairly well documented. Some time after the project is finished, he puts out the above video - he decided to remove the whole drivetrain. Turns out that "the car wasn't nice enough", or that he "decided to look for a really special car to put this drivetrain in", because as everyone knows, "E28s aren't that special anyway".

And here I was, thinking that he was onto something, that ITBs would help improve throttle response, would help move the intake stream of the M30B35 from the "hot" to the "cool" side of the engine, would open up visuals into some beautiful Supersprint headers, and would sound amazing and look slick AF. But what am I saying, after all Josh from the video sentenced it already, "E28s aren't that special anyway"... sorry but this whole story reeks of something we are not being told.

Meanwhile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thy8mEwTVxI&t=1192s
"I genuinely believe the E28 5-series is the best BMW ever built." 8)

[szacsi72]

My point with the story in the videos is that there's something that doesn't sit quite right with me, with that ending. Feels like the key piece of information is being withheld from us.

This car was for sale for some time. As you can see, nobody bought it for the price he was asking. That may - or may not - played a role.

[Foonfer]

My point with the story in the videos is that there's something that doesn't sit quite right with me, with that ending. Feels like the key piece of information is being withheld from us.

This car was for sale for some time. As you can see, nobody bought it for the price he was asking. That may - or may not - played a role.

I suspect that's what happened, but then again, the guy says the car was for sale "for months and months and months, not a single interested party". These days, it's pretty universal knowledge that if you have a mildly interesting car and want to sell it OR get immediate feedback on your expectations as a seller, few things work better than Facebook Marketplace (for feedback), Ebay (for exposure), Bring a Trailer (for a fairly well informed enthusiast community), or here which is the ultimate insider circuit. In all of them you can get feedback and/or results within days. And yet, none of these spaces was mentioned by the guy in his "months long" effort to sell the car. ALSO- He has a substantial platform in his Youtube channel, but he never mentioned any intention of unloading the car. It was all articulated as "oops, this was one year of work I that lost, woe is me..." etc etc

I don't know if the car was ever listed here on mye28.com (I would have noticed); I know it was not listed on BaT.

Not to go all conspiracy theorist, but I am starting to find that a reasonable explanation could be that something went very very wrong with the build. some stupid human error that could hurt his popularity within Youtube, or the reputation of the manufacturer of the ITBs, or something lurid and lawyerly along those lines, and the best path out of the mess is to give it a luxury funeral. BUT HEY- I could be wrong. I could be just imagining things...

[gadget73]

My assessment was that he is tying to run a business and was not able to sell the car above breakeven so he realized it would be worth more in parts...

Not much more to it than he is in a rush to gather funds for his other projects and efforts.

old old story. How many car ads have we seen over the years that are like "40k invested, 15k or best offer" type things. Seems like most anything involving extensive mods is not going to sell for what it cost to build. Can find that same story with almost anything. I could strip my lathe for parts and make several times as much as I could sell the complete running machine for.

[Foonfer]

My assessment was that he is tying to run a business and was not able to sell the car above breakeven so he realized it would be worth more in parts...

Not much more to it than he is in a rush to gather funds for his other projects and efforts.

old old story. How many car ads have we seen over the years that are like "40k invested, 15k or best offer" type things. Seems like most anything involving extensive mods is not going to sell for what it cost to build. Can find that same story with almost anything. I could strip my lathe for parts and make several times as much as I could sell the complete running machine for.

I know, I know. The money, the effort, the time, the realization that the flip will not work out as planned. My beef is 1) There was never a reveal, an a priori disclaimer that this was all part of a flip plan, and 2) there was zero, none, no need whatsoever to disparage the condition of the car or the desirability of E28s in general as a way to justify him not getting the kind of offers he was expecting.

Anyway, if anyone is interested, it seems like the M30B35 with ITBs is going into a formerly carburetted E9:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS7aERD ... nameisjosh

I guess that's either a very good move or a way to piss both E28 and E9 purists...

[GH0S7]

This car was for sale for some time. As you can see, nobody bought it for the price he was asking. That may - or may not - played a role.

I suspect that's what happened, but then again, the guy says the car was for sale "for months and months and months, not a single interested party". These days, it's pretty universal knowledge that if you have a mildly interesting car and want to sell it OR get immediate feedback on your expectations as a seller, few things work better than Facebook Marketplace (for feedback), Ebay (for exposure), Bring a Trailer (for a fairly well informed enthusiast community), or here which is the ultimate insider circuit. In all of them you can get feedback and/or results within days. And yet, none of these spaces was mentioned by the guy in his "months long" effort to sell the car. ALSO- He has a substantial platform in his Youtube channel, but he never mentioned any intention of unloading the car. It was all articulated as "oops, this was one year of work I that lost, woe is me..." etc etc

I don't know if the car was ever listed here on mye28.com (I would have noticed); I know it was not listed on BaT.

Not to go all conspiracy theorist, but I am starting to find that a reasonable explanation could be that something went very very wrong with the build. some stupid human error that could hurt his popularity within Youtube, or the reputation of the manufacturer of the ITBs, or something lurid and lawyerly along those lines, and the best path out of the mess is to give it a luxury funeral. BUT HEY- I could be wrong. I could be just imagining things...

Pretty late response but I found the speculation in this thread pretty weird. Josh was not happy with body and in fact believed the motor and drivetrain was far too nice for the shell ($10k motor). Also from the time he started the build to after finishing, his business completely took off. He’s in the space of high-end mint imports now. If you check his IG you will likely see that a e28 with a $10k B35 is one of least significant vehicles in his collection. He now imports straight from Europe.

That’s pretty much all there is to it. He wasn’t happy having a $10k motor in a clapped out shell, couldn’t justify spending more on it after investing (20k total), and his business became successful to the point where space became essential and far nicer cars more accessible.

[dsw99a]

Looks like just another poser with too much money from daddy and im bored now.

[dcski]

Looks like just another poser with too much money from daddy and im bored now.

What a lazy take and a perfect representation of the weird animosity and speculation in this thread, as GH0S7 pointed out. Seemed like a good business decision to me, and seems like he has built that business primarily through reviving or parting out forgotten 80s and 90s bmws for the last several years.

[dsw99a]

Actually it is a bit of a vetted take.
I have and, im a bit embarrased to say, i subscribed to this guys videos for quite a while( and in full disclosure, I still do!). I was really taken by a youngER guy taking to the older vintage bmws that we here all love. Was really impressed with the e12 buy (maybe it was a BAT auction-cant really recall) unseen and driven back across country, kinda reminded me of one of the shows on MotorTrend where they find a car sitting in a field for 20 years and they get it going and drive outta there.

And i STILL admire this guy, but in "my opinion" it sorta devolved into how many rare euro bmws can i fit in my new shop.

Again more power to him and if i had unlimited money, id probably have a garage similar to his.

just my take.

ive been wrong many times and this could be another, never had a conversation with the young man.