Feature: Going Euro With A 325i

Stean Durias, owner of a black BMW 325i, tells his story of how he transformed his car into what it is today. Growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada, he attended car shows and fell in love with Euro cars.
“By sixteen I joined the Volkswagen forum and became a part of all their events, including becoming the photographer for most of the events,” said Stean.Soon after joining, Stean bought a Euro of his own, a 2004, silver Volkswagen Jetta. “I wanted to modify it so bad,” said Stean.

“But I was still in high school and it was difficult for me to come up with money to buy parts.” “We all know how much more expensive parts are for Euros,” he said.Even with his tight budget, Stean managed to buy and install Eibach sport springs and 17’ Akita wheels. Two years after that, he upgraded the wheels to 17’ RHAG-CUP. Eventually Stean saved up enough money to buy the BMW he has today, by managing his family’s retail business. He joined the www.e90post.com forum to get better ideas on how to modify the BMW. “The parts were scarce during the first year so I put in aftermarket parts for the e90 chassis,” he said. “I started with H & R sports spri ngs and I got a bargain on used DPE R06 19’ that I found on the forum,” he said.

“With the announcement of Wustefest and Soical Mothers of all meets event up ahead I decided to go with some performance with Carbon Fiber Simota Intake, ikon Rogue Exhaust and carbon fiber mirror covers for looks,” he said.He left the car looking like this for a year until he got into concave style wheels and he put 19’ CSL wheels on. During his first MFest event, he made a friend who was Philippine, like himself and had all the connections for parts he needed. He also became friends with, Chris, the owner of DPE wheels and runs the MFest event. Chris helped me find Falken tires to put on my BMW.

“During this time I ordered DPE 20' R16 step lip from DPE, and my friend JO hooked me up the most, with Carbon 8 M3 CF hood with a front lip,” he said. He also spent a lot of money into lighting, buying led side markers, LED taillights, complete Xenon housing conversion that included specialized HID kit designed to prevent BMW errors and white halos. “That kept me satisfied until I wanted to make my exhaust louder, so I sold the Ikon rogue muffler paid one of the local muffler shops to install full custom piping with resonator delete,” he said. He also purchased newly released CSL style full carbon fiber trunks from his friend JO and added in new CF front lip splitters.

“I did not like the look of just leaving carbon fiber exposed so I got the hood painted with just the dome part left carbon fiber and painted the trunk leaving the only the edge and license plate area carbon,” he said.He ended up selling his wheels to go on a vacation with his friends to Hawaii and the Philippines. When he got back he didn’t have the money to buy new wheels. “Thankfully, my friend Jayare , part of Eurosquad (a club that Stean started called Eurosquard Car Club), from LA hooked it up big time on his old set of 19' Iforged Seneka that was just sitting around,” he said.He says he plans on re-doing the wheels and installing subs soon. This is how Stean has transformed his BMW to what it is today; any other updates or changes to his car will be updated by our website.