Butters' E36 M3 Evo Track Car Build

[Butters]

Hi there all, I've been on here for years as most of you have but never actually posted up a build thread. Seeing as I'm just embarking on a new project now seems a good time. I've been a long term fan of early water-cooled VWs and BMWs plus tracked pretty much every car I have owned over the last 10 years. Two years ago myself and four other friends had been tracking our cars and thought wouldn't it be great if we built a car together for use on trackdays so that all costs of ownership and maintenance were split 5 ways. We could enjoy the car together and have the luxury of a truly focussed car without the expense. So we did...

One of the guys in our syndicate owned an Evo and had been running it for 4 years. We knew it was a solid and reliable car so all chipped in to buy it from him and added extra to change it to a more focused car.

This:



Became this:



















It's been an amazing car for us all and been so reliable for the last two years since being created. Easter last year we took her to the Nurburgring and between the 5 of us she covered 900 miles that weekend at racing speeds on the circuit with no problems at all. I drove her home and she just purred!

So you may be wondering at this point why I have just started a new build thread??? :blink:


Well you see I'm very fussy when it comes to my cars and I can't share anything (kidding) so I have decided to leave the syndicate and build my own one. This way when we go on trackdays we can have two cars on track which will be 10x more fun. :wub:

So here begins the new project! I am keen to do things this time around as I would have done them, rather than by committee so it will be interesting to see how it turns out in comparison. There will be many similarities as ultimately it has the same job to do. I think you will see some strong influences from my past projects in finish and execution but this will be built for purpose. A track car through and through but well presented like our syndicate car above.

Let us begin...

One totally original and unmolested 1996 BMW M3 Evo in Cosmos Black with Modena Natur Vader interior. It's covered 87,000 miles from new and has a full BMW service history. The car has covered 1000 miles in the last four years with it's previous owner so now it's time for her to see some action. No spoiler, no sunroof...just perfect!

Pics from the ad...









A great base car. A couple of friends have asked why I have started with such a genuine straight and low mileage example and that it's a shame to change an original car. Well I think the better the car you start with, the more affordable the project will be for two reasons. Firstly by not starting with an old nail I am more confident that this car will prove to be reliable on track (fingers crossed) and secondly...all the original parts not required for track I remove to sell will fetch a bit more money being in better condition so to a degree it will self-fund many of the track upgrades.

I bought this car two weeks before Christmas and have now just started to accumulate many of the parts for the build. It's going to happen quite quickly as I need it all done by June so let's get cracking! I hope you enjoy the thread...

James.

Edited by Butters on Tuesday 31st January 08:58

Edited by Butters on Tuesday 31st January 11:27

[Chunkychucky]

When I saw the title I thought "Great another E36 build", but your story is really interesting and I look forward to seeing it progress Nice base car btw

[Output Flange]

So what spec are you aiming for?

[Max M4X WW]

Shame to make that into a track car, I love the colour combination.

[mat205125]

Looks like a nice car, and really looking forward to seeing your progress.

I'd love to embark on a project like this with my E46 in the coming years.

[Butters]

Chunkychucky said:

When I saw the title I thought "Great another E36 build", but your story is really interesting and I look forward to seeing it progress Nice base car btw

Thanks. I guess it's a bit of a funny one as I already have access to a great track E36 already but I just love having a project and we'll have lots more fun if not sharing the one car. People often ask the question "with hindsight would you have done it differently?"… Well I guess this is one of those times where it will clearly be seen as these two cars won't be the same.

Output Flange said:

So what spec are you aiming for?

I only drive once or twice a week these days so have opted to sell my daily CLK55 AMG and build this. My Wife has a practical car so if I really need one it's there. By the end of the year I should be able to keep this in the garage as a second car for me. I really only use a car for fun stuff (PN Sunday Service, Petrolhead Nirvana Tours, Goodwood Breakfast Club, Trackdays and to nip a mile or so up the road. For this reason I am going for a Club Sport type spec as you would expect to see in a GT3. Reduced weight where possible whilst retaining enough comfort for a long drive to Spa or the Nordschleife.

As with the syndicate car my priorities are reliability, safety and chassis. This is why I'm stripping a decent M3 to start with. Weight loss within reason, coilovers, polybushes (and the other usual chassis tweaks), full cage (bolted), seats, harnesses and bigger brakes etc. Most of this is already here along with some other nice bits and pieces so the initial build will be pretty quick.

In the future if finances allow I'd love to continue developing this car and start racing but for now I would just like it to be a well presented and very capable car for me to enjoy on track as much as I can afford the time to get on one...

Max M4X WW said:

Shame to make that into a track car, I love the colour combination.

It's a great base and the Modena Natur leather a bit of a Marmite colour it seems. I didn't mind it but some people really don't seem to. Dare I say it this is a pretty rare colour so fetched a handsome sum on bay which has already been spent on a pair of Recaros. I know it seems a bit of a shame but then the car has been almost unused for the last 4 years so in a way it feels right to put it to good use plus being relatively low mileage I hope that it will be reliable.

mat205125 said:

Looks like a nice car, and really looking forward to seeing your progress. I'd love to embark on a project like this with my E46 in the coming years.

Do it! by the time you come to sell your E46 it will be a crossroad when you feel the car is worth so much more to you than it will actually be worth. Let's hope you can justify the money time and space. I've had so much fun co-owning the Grey E36 track car for the last two years that I have ended up doing this! You won't regret it...

[Scho]

Doing the right thing, I sometimes split my drive three ways and it gets frustrating, 5 must have been a mare! Loved your mk2 by the way. Good luck with it!

[VinceFox]

That looks lowered.

[Butters]

Scho said:

Doing the right thing, I sometimes split my drive three ways and it gets frustrating, 5 must have been a mare! Loved your mk2 by the way. Good luck with it!

Many thanks, yep do miss the old D11B GT but on and up hey. Yep the syndicate was never too bad as we'd generally share it two people to a track day with only the Nurburgring trip at Easter seeing all five of us as were were there for four days. We have found with closures there thought that it's been a struggle to get enough laps in!

VinceFox said:

That looks lowered.

The new car definitely isn't lowered, I think it must be uneven ground in the pic but can see what you mean. It's about to get lower that I can be sure of.


An update...

So first things first. This car had covered 1000 miles in the 4 years prior to my purchasing her (mid-December 2011) so there was a small mater of a full check over and inspection 2 service to carry out before I could put my foot down. Having bought a one way ticket to a small town near Weston-Super Mare I very carefully cruised her home to Kent not wanting to risk any damage from old oil or worn belts etc.

The next week the car went to my preferred garage locally who I can always rely on for a very honest and thorough job at a very reasonable rate. No job is too small, or too big for that matter...it's a family business and the guys are very enthusiastic being petrolheads and having built trackday BMWs for themselves over the last couple of years. Not to mention my last E30 and a top job they did on that too. Alltech Garage in Tunbridge Wells so if you are local to them and need looking after then look no further...

They carried out a thorough inspection 2 for me and looked over the whole car to find any advisories that may need attention before the fun of the build begins. Fortunately my hunch was good and this was as lovely, straight and genuine as I had thought. All service parts removed were genuine BMW and were of course replaced with genuine parts too. The only advisories were a couple of bushes being a little worn and the brakes (discs/pads) needing replacing in about 6000 miles. Great news for me as both of these areas would be addressed as part of the upgrade process anyway.

So on with the fun stuff...

First the seats had to go and boy were they heavy! I reckon the fronts were at least 30KGs each! The entire rear set up also removed along with matching door cards.



Having bought a good example to start with this was in great condition and fetched strong money on Ebay. The sale of these has pretty much covered my dream seats for the car having found a cracking deal on the exact ones that were 9 months old direct from Recaro but never actually made it into a car. :coolgleamA:

Next up was the carpet... This being a rare colour and in such good condition I decided to painstakingly remove it without slicing it up so that it can be re-sold. This will fetch £50-£80 so all helps towards the fund. As you can see certain parts are helping to self-finance the replacement parts.





No going back now! The tan interior has long gone and the carpet following suit. For the last week I've done some local commuting in the car with just a spare drivers seat. You really notice the difference in weight and ride height too!

If you look at the pics you'll see there is lots of sound deadening which is glued-in 6 or 7mm thick lead like material. It covers much of the floor, footwell, transmission tunnel and rear bench area. My next job will be to remove all of this as it's about another 15KGs or more. Being so cold at the moment I may be able to chip it straight off otherwise the heat gun will come out.

I have a black carpet which will then be going into the car although I will be trimming a little excess weight from that too. You'll also see the cables that ran under the seats as this car had heated fronts. I am going to leave this wiring in for now as having done many a winter trackday with an early start driving to the circuit, I thought it might be nice to retro fit some heating elements in the Recaros. Maybe OTT but a nice little idea so I'll roll with it for now. :thumb:

Lots of bits turning up at the moment so just waiting for a couple of key parts to arrive and to find the time to get back out there and crack on with the sound proofing removal...

James.

[Scho]

Ha ha, Heated buckets?...Soft lad.

[Butters]

Scho said:

Ha ha, Heated buckets?...Soft lad.

I know, I know.

The loom is there so why not hey. Certainly not on the priority list but might revisit this later.

James.

[Scho]

Butters said:

I know, I know.

The loom is there so why not hey. Certainly not on the priority list but might revisit this later.

James.

It's a nice idea if they don't weigh all that much.

Will you be binning the rest of the heating system?

[houlbt]

Nice... Look forward to seeing this evolve... I live in Sevenoaks and my close friend who also races an E36 lives in Tunbridge Wells. If you want any input on what does and doesn't work on these cars feel free to give a shout... I've tried most of hem good and bad in the process of getting mine to work well.

[binka1000]

To op and houlbt, I have been thinking about getting an e36 m3 evo with a budget of around £10000 to £12000, do they make a good track day car? I live in Canterbury so not too far from both of you guys, what would be the first things to modify for a decent fast road track car??

[houlbt]

They're great cars, I always loved the E36 - mechanically pretty bomb proof (although their is the VANOS debate which you can search latterly).

First step to making the road car better on track is getting the weight out.

[stoocake]

Great thread, looking forward to the progress

[mat205125]

Butters said:

mat205125 said:

Looks like a nice car, and really looking forward to seeing your progress. I'd love to embark on a project like this with my E46 in the coming years.

Do it! by the time you come to sell your E46 it will be a crossroad when you feel the car is worth so much more to you than it will actually be worth. Let's hope you can justify the money time and space. I've had so much fun co-owning the Grey E36 track car for the last two years that I have ended up doing this! You won't regret it...

Believe me, temptation is the last thing that I need

I'm resisting, however, as I'm slowly building up a dedicated race/trackday Mk2 Escort in the garage that will mean that my fun road transport will be spared too much track use. My wallet cannot support two track projects running in tandem, therefore I must prioritise the Escort even though the return on the investment in terms of being able to use it is a long long way off.

[Butters]

houlbt said:

Nice... Look forward to seeing this evolve... I live in Sevenoaks and my close friend who also races an E36 lives in Tunbridge Wells. If you want any input on what does and doesn't work on these cars feel free to give a shout... I've tried most of hem good and bad in the process of getting mine to work well.

Thank you all for the comments guys and Tom thank you for the offer. I will most likely pick your brains shortly and being so local will try to have a nose around your E36 when it is next out at Brands. I was hoping to make some progress this weekend but the snow scuppered that for me so I hope to have some updates shortly... weather permitting.

James.

[noosh]

Love the syndicate M3, especially the interior.
I'm sure the new one will be just as sorted.

[BJT]

[Bookmarked] Look forward to seeing how you get on. I'm slowly doing the same to my Evo and will probably see you on some track days.