E36 M3 Track car build

[Frank Furter]

Afternoon Chaps, just joined up here after a couple of years lurking.

Thought you might like to see our M3 track car. I bought this car a couple of years ago as a mint ex BMWCC 60k mile road car, and used it daily for a short while.

A good friend and I then set about turning it into a track day car for UK days and 'Ring trips. It's been a few places now, and is reasonably well developed and set up. It's always possible to go faster, or handle a little better but we're happy with it as it stands now.

This is how it started, looking at this I do regret using this particular car a little as it was properly lovely.



So, the spec of the car now is as follows;

1996 M3 Evolution

Heavily stripped - everywhere.
Cuatom Cages 12 point T45
Aluminium doors
Bilstein PSS9 Clubsport coilovers
Rogue engineering rear top mounts
OEM M3 Evo top mounts fitted in reverse up front
Adjustable rear arms
Powerflex bushes

UUC underdriven pullies
ARP Rob bolts
Gruppe M rep induction kit
Milltek cat back exhaust
Milltek hi flow cats
5 speed gearbox from 3.0 M3

Team Dynamics Pro Race wheels 8J ET20
Toyo 888 tyres in 225/45/17

AP Racing 4 pot calipers on front with Carbone Lorraine RC6 pads
EBC Yellowstuff pads out back on OE calipers

Sparco snap off steering wheel boss
OMP 300m alcantara wheel

Fibreglass bonnet
Lexan rear quarter windows
Lightened bumpers
Fibreglass GT rear spoiler
Delensed headlights (every gram counts eh?)
Washer bottle delete
Heavily stripped wiring loom
Fibreglass brake ducts to replace fog lights
Excess metalwork cut out of shell (boot area, rear quarters etc)
All redundant brackets and fixings removed
Heatshields removed
Geometry set up by Moseley Motorsport (3 degrees camber all round)
Rear arches rolled
Carbon canister delete
OBC, central locking etc modules all removed
Sparco Pro 2000 seats
Cobra 6 point harnesses
GSF 325TDS oil cooler
Odyssey 25 Gel battery
Electrical cut off
Alloy footplates
Underbody cross brace

A few pictures of the build:






Now it looks like this;













And finally a few pictures from our most recent 'Ring trip.






Plans for the future are the fitment of a 3.64 CWP in the LSD we've had lying round for a while, and also an AKG Motorsport rose jointed DTM quick shifter.

All comments welcome.

[pistonchris]

That looks ace what it is like as a track car.

[Frank Furter]

pistonchris said:

That looks ace what it is like as a track car.

Awesome. The car weighs 1250kg and has circa 310bhp so it's pretty swift. Handles great, stops fantastically thanks to the AP's and CL pads.

What else would you like to know?

[Chunkychucky]

I agree it's a bit of a shame to use a minter as a base for a track car, however on an older model like this at least you know everything should be fairly mint bodily. Looks a right weapon mate, would love a go in something like that. What kind of times were you doing round the ring?

[Frank Furter]

Chunkychucky said:

I agree it's a bit of a shame to use a minter as a base for a track car, however on an older model like this at least you know everything should be fairly mint bodily. Looks a right weapon mate, would love a go in something like that. What kind of times were you doing round the ring?

To be honest when I bought it I had no intention of doing this to it, but I got the track day bug and the rest was history. You are right in what you say though in that as it was a relatively low mileage car, there wasn't an awful lot of remedial work to carry out prior to starting the fun stuff. It's still only on 83k now, admittedly it's not in as nice conditon cosmetically as it was once, but it's only paint.

We don't tend to make a habit of timing tourist laps on the 'Ring, but a few 8.30's have been in amongst them. I personally had a very close call on the 'Ring which could have been catastrophic, so always keep a lot in reserve now.

[wackojacko]

Good work !

[pistonchris]

Frank Furter said:

pistonchris said:

That looks ace what it is like as a track car.

Awesome. The car weighs 1250kg and has circa 310bhp so it's pretty swift. Handles great, stops fantastically thanks to the AP's and CL pads.

What else would you like to know?

That sounds like a lot of fun.
Have you got any videos of it on track?

[Frank Furter]

pistonchris said:

That sounds like a lot of fun.
Have you got any videos of it on track?

Nothing worth watching sadly Chris. My co owner is threatening to get a cam to strap to the cage for our next outing though.

[Sea Demon]

Whats the front splitter? Looking for something like that for mine but usually only see the corner parts.

[V8mate]

Nice build! A few quid's worth has gone into that!

[Frank Furter]

Sea Demon said:

Whats the front splitter? Looking for something like that for mine but usually only see the corner parts.

It's a fibreglass GT replica splitter mate. I think they are from ABS Motorsport, see below;

http://www.absmotorsport.net/bmw/e36/bmw-e36-m3-ra...

It's not especially good quality, and I'm under no illusion that it provides any downforce at all. That said it finishes the front end off cosmetically.

[Frank Furter]

V8mate said:

Nice build! A few quid's worth has gone into that!

Cheers dude we're really pleased with it, yeah it stands in at about £20k including a purchase price of £6,300 a few years back.