This car is a land rocket! I couldn't resist buying it. Anyone ever own or driven one of these things?

here's the damaged side.

Damage? you call that damage? Geeez.. How much (if I may ask) did you get it for? looks like a fun project! Any more pics?

Plan on a F1 engine conversion? hehehe

Nah, he's gonna do a E39 M5 engine drop in there. hehe. These are fun cars. Bit underpowered IMO for the car you get. I would like to see around 280 stock from that. Aren't they 240hp stock? Dinan blower would be a fun project.

Are you going to track this car?
JOHN

My friends wife was one. 5.7 or so 0-60 seems pretty quick to me.

I have more pic's on another computer. I'll post them later. The car went off road and ripped off the front cover, took out the coolers, dented the sway bar mount on the rail, bent the 18"X8" 1/2 Hamann wheel, bent the left lower control arm, tire hit the front fender, and it must have landed on top of a boulder. That's what caused the damage you see on the quarter panel. When the floor went up the quarter popped out. I think I can repair all the factory sheet metal. I changed the lower control arm and replaced the radiator and drove the car around. It was like the county fair around here. I had people (mostly my 16 yr old son's friends) stopping over for a ride all day.
The previous owner spared no expense on this car. 18"X 81/2" Hamann's with Toyo Proxies, strut bar, carbon valve cover trim & cold air intake, carbon interior trim, Borla exhaust, hidden K40 radar detector, etc. The way this car pulls I'm sure it has a chip. The car is Daytonaviolett. Looks like grape koolaid. I'm not going to track the car except for BMW CCA events, track days, ect.

The same production Euro M3 puts down 320hp. US emissions and regulations suck. Nice car.. how much?

i'm glad you you did not get the 91 m3 the guy got the self inflicted screwing on ebay. (there is another name for that?)

carefull with the downshifts. the early m3's would develop a driveline vibration from bent pressure plate fingers.

i snag my brothers rondells ( sp ) for some good reading material and those ukraine girls in the beckers import catalog. well. you'll just have to see for yourself.

Yarin, the US motors and Euro motors have about as much in common as a GT3 street car and a GT3RS. The Euro motor has a completely different block, intake, cams, head porting and injection system.

-Tony

Yep...I had a 97 (from 97-99) which was essentially the same car, but 3.2L OBD-II vs 3.0L OBD-I and minor suspension & wheel diffs.

It was a very nice driving car. Not "omigod" fast but it could certainly get out of its own way and get you into plenty of trouble with the law if you were too much of a leadfoot. The E36 inline sixes are very smooth, tractable, and reliable powerplants -- "best of breed" definitely.

Had I kept the car longer, I would have done some modest suspension mods as the car felt a bit soft/floaty for my taste. I would have also swapped to an exhaust like the AA (Active Autowerks) one - not a lot of power to be gained, but weight savings and WAY better sound.

I contemplated a Dinan supercharger but couldn't justify $7+ K in mods on a car I hadn't finished paying for yet...

Best mods I did were the factory M-Coupe shifter, which gets you a short shifter with all factory parts, and the factory X-brace from the M3 Lightweight and convertible, which stiffens up the lower chassis structure noticably.

The 95's are usually considered better for hot-rodding/racing because you can get away with a lot more w/o the OBD-II big-brother computer to wrangle with.

Oh yeah...the car was absolutely -pristine- when I sold it; not a single ding, chip or problem. 14K miles. The first guy who looked at it bought it the same day.

by coincidence, I just spent most the day with a real BMW guy. He has 3 including 2 M5s. He was saying that they are having problems with M3 engines blowing up. Check out BMW BBs like this one -- where he was getting this info. He also said something about using 10W-60 oil.

Wow, that's scary...maybe it's a good thing I sold the car back then.

I ran Mobil1 in mined and change the oil pretty aggressively, probably 4 times in 14k miles, because I did almost all stop-and-go city driving. I had an ECU (Motronic brain) failure but no mechanical issues at all in the brief 2 yrs I owned my E36.

I would love to have a new M5...maybe when they drop a bit more on the used market. Nice daily driver. (I'd rather have an RS6 though).

This exactly why people say "take what you read on the internet with a grain of salt." The E46 M3 had some failures of rods/cranks. This was traced to one batch of parts that were purchased from one supplier. The problem has sinced been eliminated since there have been zero failures outside of that batch without MAJOR missed shifts. This has never been a problem in the E36 cars that Rich just purchased.

-Tony

BE very careful tracking this car. Being the head Instuctor for the bmw club here I have seen many E36 M3's crashIf you want details email me at
jemorgan@wi.rr.com

Hope Montoya wasn't lurking!!!
bruce

What? I thought that if it was on the internet it was a fact

Chris, once again read three posts up????

Morgan, no disrepect, but what does an E36 M3 do that is so different than any other car on the track. If you don't know my racing background do a Yahoo search for Tony Colicchio. I have driven 30+ E36's on the track over the years and have instructed at 200+ events.

-Tony

Maybe it's the drivers and not the car. What I mean by that is a particular car may attract a large number of drivers with a similar manner about them.
In the aviation community the Beachcraft Bonanza is known as "the Dr. killer", not because there is anything wrong with the plane, but rather because it is frequently flown for status by wealthy pilots marginally qualified to handle it. Take lots of money and arrogance, add a high performance airplane, and the result is frequently a large crater in the earth.
Maybe the M3 crashes are something simmilar? (overconfident, under-experienced drivers?)
-Ben M.

I never actually took my former M3 on the track (that's what Porsches are for ) but from my daily-driving and canyon-carving experiences, plus everything I read on the E36 web boards, it sure seemed like a very forgiving and capable car in the handling department. I don't actually remember a single "oh sh!t" experience in that car.

I'd be curious to hear more about the problems/crashes mentioned above...

I can think of ten cars that crash a Road America in the past Six years. All have been driver as you said " ah sh*%$#@" The Car in stock state will over load the front wheel in a turn, the outside wheel in the turn. If you, lets say miss your turn in, and force the car to the apex the back end will walk out. Most drivers will in turn will make a recovery turn of the wheel and the car will snap back. The car will go off track. At the exit of the turn you run out of track and you turn the wheel to keep yourself on the track, guess what you will crash the car.The e36 M3 is a nice car, but if you remeber the day of the press reless, the pro driver crash by rolling it in front of the press when he did a quick side to side turn.
What to know more .
John

Cool, Tell us all more.. I managed to get the rear to drift on a test drive. I can see how the car could out horse power the drivers ability real fast!

You should come to the badge brimmers school in oct. with the car. Can give you a Great insrtuctor that know what though cars can and can't do
John

John, You have to be kiddding, right???

There were 15 E36 cars at this weekends DE that I was the lead instructor for, guess what NONE of them crashed! I think you really need to drive one of these cars a little more. The cars are completely safe in stock form and you are really spreading a lot of mis information. A car is a car and physics happen to all of them. Any car will crash when you make a mistake as a driver.

-tony

No I'm not. These cars AT Road Amerca crash more then others. Is it drivers making mistakes, yes. But on high speed tracks you better be carefull That what I'm saying
John