A Bavarian premium automaker with a sporty flair and a knack for building some of the best inline-six engines in the world, BMW is not exactly the most frequent target for custom engine-swap projects. But never say never, because here we have a BMW E30 325i that was treated by Touge Factory to a Honda K24 four-cylinder.
Out and about to check out the #Gridlife – Midwest Festival’s 2020 edition that took place earlier this month on the Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, Michigan, the folks behind the Hoonigan AutoFocus YouTube channel found this very interesting build.
Sitting idly on the lawn of the event – which has been forced to give up its music festival component and only keep its motorsport experience - the BMW E30 certainly looked like the perfect JDM / Euro combination, so it was a no-brainer they tried (and succeeded) in having a chat with a Touge Factory representative.
Clearly both a money-making project and of special sentimental value, the silver 325i was bought rust-free and quickly became the object of experimentation. As mentioned in the video (embedded below), this is a work in progress affair, as we also found on the Chicago company’s website that currently has on sale two swap kits for the E30.
According to the TF employee that accompanied the E30, they went for the engine swap experiment with the E30 because of its great credentials – and being of classic styling and lightweight they decided to go for a JDM build on this one as well. By the way, there’s ample experience involved, and you can jump to the 20:20 mark if you want the story of how they settled on the Honda K-series engine.
What really attracted our attention, aside from the secret hood opener (a trusty long screwdriver), was the attention to details on this custom project – as the company wanted a very clean build that would bring in just the engine and little else, so there would be no need to change the transmission or perform chassis modifications.
The car does come with a few personalization elements, aside from the body kit (that should become available for purchase sometime next year) and we especially liked the use of the Reinharte true type coilovers, the associated lowered stance with the very JDM-like SuperStar Chevlon Racing wheels that actually hide some Mazda brakes, or the OEM-like but modified instrument cluster (check out its story at the 15:30 mark).
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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