OK, so those of you who know me from the West Meon meet will know I have been banging on about getting another track car for at least the past year, so I apologies for boring you to death but I'm afraid it will continue as there have now been developments. The dilema was between an MX5 to turbo or supercharge or get an E36 BMW and tune that. Sam very kindly made the decision more difficult by allowing me to drive both of his. However the decision was kind of made for me when an X plate 318ti (Compact) with light damage was advertised very locally to me. Sam popped over and we went to have a look, this resulted in me parting with a couple of quid and the BMW is now mine. At face value it seems sound.

Plans are to repair the damage and get it MOTed, then put in a 2.8 that will shortly become surplus to requirements.

This isnt going to be a six month build, probably more like a six year build!! Things will be done as and when money becomes available, and as you can guess from the title I have already set a spending limit.

Anyway further delevopment in due course.

Sell off bits you don't want and you could be looking at a PPC £999 challenge car?

Next piece of the jigsaw acquired

M52B28? 

Yes, running almost standard for now but have a few plans for it. Was running 245bhp so I gonna try to match that spec!!

Searching the net revealed a 2000 E36 Compact in Titan Silver with the required body panels in a local salvage yard. It had been seized by the police for no insurance and taken away so I took a trip down there last weekend. Arrived at 10.30, found the car and by 12.30 it looked like this

Interesting project, are you planning to do anything with the rear suspension? IIRC the compacts have a simplified rear suspension setup in comparison to the saloons etc., as they were built to a cost and the more budget end of the market.. I don't know if its a straight swap etc..? I would imagine a bit of welding may be required for slightly different pick up points etc., that's if its really worth doing in the first place?

 

All the best with it, another proper build thread rather than the usual dirty /  clean project car story..lol.. which I'll will be watching with interest

I'm told the rear suspension is the same as the Z3 and E30. Ultimately it will have coilovers, and I think normal E36 coilover will fit as well with a bit of fettling. There is actually a racing series for the E36 Compact so I'm not too concerned about the handling.

Also another bit of an update I put the original headunit on eBay and it sold for £100, that's a third of the orignal purchase price back!

If you find a 2.0 Z3 steering rack for cheaps i would pick that up, it's a popular 'quick rack' conversion for E36 series cars.

An M50 (2.5) inlet and a large bore throttle body combined with a re-fash/chip should see comfortably over 210bhp.

 

Have a look on the bimmerforums, it's a gold mine of information and used parts. Also, driftworks and trampdrift are useful. Drifters can be surprisingly resourceful and parts can be got for cheapses.  

Interesting project, are you planning to do anything with the rear suspension? IIRC the compacts have a simplified rear suspension setup in comparison to the saloons etc., as they were built to a cost and the more budget end of the market.. I don't know if its a straight swap etc..? I would imagine a bit of welding may be required for slightly different pick up points etc., that's if its really worth doing in the first place?

 

All the best with it, another proper build thread rather than the usual dirty /  clean project car story..lol.. which I'll will be watching with interest

IIRC the "compact" used the original semi-trailing arm suspension after the saloons switched to multi-link.

 

As to handling, I've seen a 3-series give its driver an unexpected 360 degree panoramic view of the surrounding area!