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There is a guy who autocrosses with us with that exact same car. I love that thing, Lloyd is pretty cool too.
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I almost bought a stock pristine e36 M3 coupe about a decade ago. 20k miles and as new for around 15k I believe, the market has certainly changed a bit.
Anyways, I was really let down by the driving experience. It seemed completely mundane and relatively soft. I think my expectations were too high. I know they can be turned into great performance cars with a bit of suspension work. e46 m3 is a much more exciting drive IMHO, the motor is much more fun and it doesn't feel as much of a big as you might expect. Even those seem to be getting a bit more expensive and hard to find these days. Shame about the rear uni-body fragility. Of course if you don't mind auto or vert you can have a nice example for cheap. Its the MT coupes that are a bit tougher
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Team California
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I actually don't have a sports car or hot sedan at the moment. I've been peeping 2008-10 BMW M3 manual trans cars and found myself drifting into looking at ads for older ones. I loved the V-8 M3 when it came out, a friend had one and I drove it a couple times. Talk about a great weekend track car. ![]()
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I think they are pretty cool cars. My youngest son has an E46 to complement his '68 911 and, I have to say, the M3 is every bit as much fun to drive.
So, I don't know much about these, but I have to ask - did the E36 have the same rear sub frame mount issues that the E46 had? My son told me which series had this problem, and I can't remember if it was the predecessor or successor to the E46. We fixed this problem on his car. The tub cracks where the rear sub frame mounts. BMW had a recall on it, but apparently is was kind of a half-assed "fix", and you are better off starting without it. Let me tell you, this little repair is not for the faint of heart. If it has not been done, and done properly, it needs to be. This isn't like the IMS bearing thing where a small fraction were affected - this is apparently all of them. So, again - I dunno if E36's are affected. Please, if anyone knows for sure, let us know.
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They don't have the same problem as the E46 cars but they do have their own issues. The factory installed some reinforcements in most of the cars but the early cars may not have them. Most of the aftermarket companies dedicated to those cars offer a variety of reinforcement kits.
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E36s did not have the rear subframe issue that E46s had. Later E46s (like my 2004) are not prone to the problem.
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I know that these little projects can get carried away but still, compared to 911 hotrod money these days, it would be a bargain. Please elaborate, JR or anyone else who knows these beasts. ![]()
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I chose to use the 3.2 engine used in the Euro market E36. I used a group N ECU to run it. It might be a little tough now to find one of those without a bunch of mileage on it, so a 3.2 from a domestic E46 might be an easier choice.
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Cool. Did you track it or just a street hotrod?
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Street hot rod. I quit doing track events in 1987. Cars that are drivable on the street make lousy track tools.
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Team California
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Here is an example of a cheap, schitwagon M3 for sale in L.A. They are really plentiful here: https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/cto/d/1996-bmw-m3-coupe-e36-5spd/6471983315.html Are 1995 models hugely more desirable because of the lack of OBDII? I always thought that OBDII was a good thing but not for modding? ![]()
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And here is what looks like a pretty decent '95 for a little more but clean title and half the miles. I've always heard that non-thrashed M3s are hard to come by but there seems to be a few offered:
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/cto/d/1995-bmw-m3/6479763413.html
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BMW did not make it easy in those days to swap engines. I preferred the pre-OBD2 models, and in other brands as well, because there was less crap you had to deal with. l ended up changing the engine, exhaust, intake, radiator, radiator ducting, ECU, evaporative emissions crap, plus all sorts of random things to accommodate the different engine.
If you plan to swap out a bunch of parts, it may be worth buying something that's not worn out, so the parts that you don't use will have some value to others and can defray the costs of the build. I don't know that I would go much beyond 100,000 miles, because you'll end up where everything is pretty beat. It won't be a simple motor swap, you'll be into the tranny, the suspension and who knows what else. I still think you need to drive one, before you even seriously consider any of this. Last edited by javadog; 01-31-2018 at 05:59 PM.. |
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By that point you could easily have just bought an E46 M3 instead. Unless you just love the E36, I think the E46 is better in just about every way.
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You don't need to ride the wave to own an E36 M3. My Brother In Law picked this one up about a year ago for $2800 from a guy on CL, who just didn't care about it anymore.
Car his high mileage but is CLEAN and was always mechanically maintained with an open check book. And you really do need to drive one before knocking it. They're GREAT (imho of course ![]()
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My interest skips those and jumps straight to the E90 M3. I like those and a good one is virtually the same price as a good e46. 414 stock hp and an 8k rpm V-8 that is lighter than the e46 6-banger. Anyone have any real world experience w those? ![]()
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I have no experience with an E90 M3. Having said that, everyone that I know that had a "modern" BMW has gotten rid of it and will never own another BMW again. I've owned 7 BMW's, granted that all of them were older, and I have zero interest in their cars and bikes at this point.
I don't know if that helps, but it is an opinion, of sorts... |
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No real e90 experience, but friends that have had them have all jumped ship before they ran out of extended warranty.
This thread took a quick turn, from a turnkey driver car to a tub that will be built out as a Mulholand carver.
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Good point. I'll have to poke around the web a little on those.
A couple people in my life had them new but switched out of them within a year or so, not because of reliability issues at that point, though. I drove both and holy schit, what a great driving car. ![]()
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I dont know much about the e90s reliability, but man are they relatively cheap and plentiful in these parts.
I have driven one quite a bit. The car is decent. The engine, however is fantastic, amazing, orgasmic.......any superlative fits really. It is a real treat to wind out that v8.
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