2 BMW E36 328's in to 1 Track/Fast road car
Discussion
Hi All,
So this is a thread about the merging of two E36’s in to one
Firstly a Disclaimer:
I’m going to say that I am no car mechanic, I am a bike mechanic but do not claim to have any real in depth knowledge relating to working on cars. All the work will be carried out by the same Specialist that looked after the E30, however this may mean I’ll struggle to get photographs of the work being done. These cars are not mine; they belong to my father and his friend who split the costs 50:50 to make it more affordable, although I do join them for track days when I can. I’m writing this thread as I have read a lot of them on Piston Heads and fancied making my own, also thought a few others may find this interesting (I’ve never written one before). Finally I’m at university in York and the cars are in the south so I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be able to update this but will do my best!
Anyway this story starts with a sad day at the Nurburgring in 2012, when my dad and his friend went into a barrier in his E30 M3 Evo 2. While it was easily repaired they decided that the E30 was too valuable to track anymore and a new track toy needed to be sourced to carry out such duties.
So a few months later the specialist that looked after the E30 came across an E36 328 SE with a 3.0 M3 engine, StopTech brakes, Bilstein coil overs, Momo steering wheel and Team Dynamic wheels. We went over to have a look and test drive, safe to say we were convinced and arranged to purchase the car. Here’s a picture of it when we went to view it.
Anyway A few track days were done with it, you can imagine how they went, car was very good although not as balanced as the E30 it went well and the brakes were awesome! Overall we were very happy with it.
Then on a track day at Castle Coombe the engine mounts decided to let go under braking resulting in the fan going through the radiator and water being dropped straight out of the front of the car. After a long AA ride home the car went in to the garage had new engine mounts put in, new fan and radiator put in.
The next issue was the Brakes, we were getting huge vibration under heavy braking, the cause was warped front discs so these were replaced and the problem was solved!
The next thing to go was the gearbox and clutch, we sourced a second hand gear box and fitted a new clutch, but on the way to Cadwell park the clutch started to slip straight . We did the track day but couldn’t really push the car under acceleration until it had been running a while, appeared to burn off the oil on the clutch. Afterwards the gearbox was taken out and the front seal was found to be leaking, a new first motion shaft seal was installed and the problem was resolved. We also had a short shift fitted at this point too.
Here is a video link of a friend following us with me driving with the slipping clutch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdxRCWgNSkc
Seats were the next area for attention having now got what we believed to a be a fairly sorted car, so a couple of Sparco Bucket seats were purchased on Ebay and then fitted in the car, these made a huge difference compared to the Standard SE seats and enabled us to push the car harder on track.
Following on from the seats we came across the problem of the car smoking after heavy braking and cornering. Speaking to a few people we figured that it was due to the car having a standard sump, suffering from oil surge under heavy braking and sharp right hand corners which starved the engine of oil . The solution was to fit an e36 M50 dual pick up sump or fit a baffle kit in the existing sump., we went for the dual pick up sump and ta da! more smoky cornering.
Now the only smoke on corners was coming from the tyres rubbing on the arches! Probably because the 8.5J team dynamic wheels either had the wrong offset or were too wide. We found a few alternative wheels on eBay but none would fit over the front brakes, the cleanest option was a new set of 7.5J Team Dynamic wheels with the offset reduced by 10mm these fitted well and didn’t rub like before. We now have two sets of wheels as the 8.5’s fit on the rear with 7.5’s on the front without heavily affecting tyre width, normally run 215/225’s.
On the new wheels:
Might have added some novelty stripes for a bit of a laugh
So now we’re pretty much at the beginning of 2015 in terms of the cars life, the main goal of this year was to do a Ring/Spa trip with our driving crew. Anyway with the car in its current state we were quite confident that it would get us through. So on an early morning at the start of July we headed to Germany on a set of £60 part worn tyres (Will touch on this later). Overall we had a fantastic trip, went with about 20 other cars and had a magnificent time. I popped my Ring cherry and we got to nail the car around Spa too which was equally awesome. The car was faultless although the tyres were by far the limiting factor which was a shame on such a great trip.
Me on the Carousel with dad in the passenger seat
Anyway back home and with time on our hands we began re-evaluating the car overall. My dad’s mate has never been a fan of the cars looks or colour which is a fair point; no matter how hard I try to ‘detail’ it it’s never going to be a looker… I even repainted the front bumper:
Probably the best it ever looked:
At some time in it past the car had a major OSF front impact that was poorly repaired hence the front of the car is bent, the OSF wheel sits far closer to the wheel arch than the NSF. So where do we go from here?
To another 328 obviously!!!! This time it’s a late coupe in sport guise, again its green (DOH!) but rather than being Boston it’s "rare" Fern green instead, actually quite close to British racing green in my opinion. Found it on Gumtree but it was up in Middlesbrough so I drove up from York to give the car a look over before making an offer, after which my dad came up on the train to York and I drove him up to collect it, Nothing like father son bonding over petrol is there… Anyway this car is not bent; it needs a bit of touching up on the arches and boot lid but otherwise is in rather good condition. Plus this is only surface rust and will be sorted out in January by a local garage that will roll the rear arches for us at the same time. Otherwise it’s very solid and seems like a great buy!!
Picture from day of viewing:
The plan is to take all the good bits from Growler (the previous car) and fit them to the G2 (The new car…). So the first step of this process is going to be the transfer of the Suspension, brakes, Seats, Steering wheel and wheels which should be carried out in the last week of December. Then it will go in to have the body work sorted out, part of the reason for the change is that it needs to look good. We plan on using the car as it is for a few track days to see if we really miss the extra power of the M3 engine. This 328 has had the M50 manifold fitted, K&N air filter, Brembo discs and yellow stuff pads(Both end of life) and a racing clutch so it’s no slouch but certainly not the same acceleration of the M3, although the cost of transferring the engine is rather large. But will probably happen later in the year if we decide we want the power.
Some pictures of the two together when we got it home and cleaned up:
The overall aim is to end up with a fast road/track car that can still comfortably be driven to the track, ragged all day and then be driven back. We don’t intend on caging it or stripping out the interior as this is currently too hard core for what we need and the car is still used on the road for the occasional hoon. If anyone has any suggestions as to upgrades to help us achieve this then please feel free to contribute!
Anyway, the final note I’d like to add is about tyres, during our time with the car we’ve tried various different tyre strategies; initially buying a set of Khumo 888’s which lasted all of two track days:
so in the interest of saving costs we’ve moved to part worns which cost on average a tenth of the cost, however we want to find some tyres that provide more performance than this but without the huge cost to wear ratio of the khumo’s. If anyone has any suggestions they’d be greatly appreciated. We’re thinking about giving Federal 595 RS-R’s a go.
Also whilst trying to trial fit the wheels I sheered the locking wheel nut so that will be the first challenge of the transfer.
Will update with results of the first part of the transformation very soon
Thanks for reading!
Monty
So this is a thread about the merging of two E36’s in to one
Firstly a Disclaimer:
I’m going to say that I am no car mechanic, I am a bike mechanic but do not claim to have any real in depth knowledge relating to working on cars. All the work will be carried out by the same Specialist that looked after the E30, however this may mean I’ll struggle to get photographs of the work being done. These cars are not mine; they belong to my father and his friend who split the costs 50:50 to make it more affordable, although I do join them for track days when I can. I’m writing this thread as I have read a lot of them on Piston Heads and fancied making my own, also thought a few others may find this interesting (I’ve never written one before). Finally I’m at university in York and the cars are in the south so I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be able to update this but will do my best!
Anyway this story starts with a sad day at the Nurburgring in 2012, when my dad and his friend went into a barrier in his E30 M3 Evo 2. While it was easily repaired they decided that the E30 was too valuable to track anymore and a new track toy needed to be sourced to carry out such duties.
So a few months later the specialist that looked after the E30 came across an E36 328 SE with a 3.0 M3 engine, StopTech brakes, Bilstein coil overs, Momo steering wheel and Team Dynamic wheels. We went over to have a look and test drive, safe to say we were convinced and arranged to purchase the car. Here’s a picture of it when we went to view it.
Anyway A few track days were done with it, you can imagine how they went, car was very good although not as balanced as the E30 it went well and the brakes were awesome! Overall we were very happy with it.
Then on a track day at Castle Coombe the engine mounts decided to let go under braking resulting in the fan going through the radiator and water being dropped straight out of the front of the car. After a long AA ride home the car went in to the garage had new engine mounts put in, new fan and radiator put in.
The next issue was the Brakes, we were getting huge vibration under heavy braking, the cause was warped front discs so these were replaced and the problem was solved!
The next thing to go was the gearbox and clutch, we sourced a second hand gear box and fitted a new clutch, but on the way to Cadwell park the clutch started to slip straight . We did the track day but couldn’t really push the car under acceleration until it had been running a while, appeared to burn off the oil on the clutch. Afterwards the gearbox was taken out and the front seal was found to be leaking, a new first motion shaft seal was installed and the problem was resolved. We also had a short shift fitted at this point too.
Here is a video link of a friend following us with me driving with the slipping clutch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdxRCWgNSkc
Seats were the next area for attention having now got what we believed to a be a fairly sorted car, so a couple of Sparco Bucket seats were purchased on Ebay and then fitted in the car, these made a huge difference compared to the Standard SE seats and enabled us to push the car harder on track.
Following on from the seats we came across the problem of the car smoking after heavy braking and cornering. Speaking to a few people we figured that it was due to the car having a standard sump, suffering from oil surge under heavy braking and sharp right hand corners which starved the engine of oil . The solution was to fit an e36 M50 dual pick up sump or fit a baffle kit in the existing sump., we went for the dual pick up sump and ta da! more smoky cornering.
Now the only smoke on corners was coming from the tyres rubbing on the arches! Probably because the 8.5J team dynamic wheels either had the wrong offset or were too wide. We found a few alternative wheels on eBay but none would fit over the front brakes, the cleanest option was a new set of 7.5J Team Dynamic wheels with the offset reduced by 10mm these fitted well and didn’t rub like before. We now have two sets of wheels as the 8.5’s fit on the rear with 7.5’s on the front without heavily affecting tyre width, normally run 215/225’s.
On the new wheels:
Might have added some novelty stripes for a bit of a laugh
So now we’re pretty much at the beginning of 2015 in terms of the cars life, the main goal of this year was to do a Ring/Spa trip with our driving crew. Anyway with the car in its current state we were quite confident that it would get us through. So on an early morning at the start of July we headed to Germany on a set of £60 part worn tyres (Will touch on this later). Overall we had a fantastic trip, went with about 20 other cars and had a magnificent time. I popped my Ring cherry and we got to nail the car around Spa too which was equally awesome. The car was faultless although the tyres were by far the limiting factor which was a shame on such a great trip.
Me on the Carousel with dad in the passenger seat
Anyway back home and with time on our hands we began re-evaluating the car overall. My dad’s mate has never been a fan of the cars looks or colour which is a fair point; no matter how hard I try to ‘detail’ it it’s never going to be a looker… I even repainted the front bumper:
Probably the best it ever looked:
At some time in it past the car had a major OSF front impact that was poorly repaired hence the front of the car is bent, the OSF wheel sits far closer to the wheel arch than the NSF. So where do we go from here?
To another 328 obviously!!!! This time it’s a late coupe in sport guise, again its green (DOH!) but rather than being Boston it’s "rare" Fern green instead, actually quite close to British racing green in my opinion. Found it on Gumtree but it was up in Middlesbrough so I drove up from York to give the car a look over before making an offer, after which my dad came up on the train to York and I drove him up to collect it, Nothing like father son bonding over petrol is there… Anyway this car is not bent; it needs a bit of touching up on the arches and boot lid but otherwise is in rather good condition. Plus this is only surface rust and will be sorted out in January by a local garage that will roll the rear arches for us at the same time. Otherwise it’s very solid and seems like a great buy!!
Picture from day of viewing:
The plan is to take all the good bits from Growler (the previous car) and fit them to the G2 (The new car…). So the first step of this process is going to be the transfer of the Suspension, brakes, Seats, Steering wheel and wheels which should be carried out in the last week of December. Then it will go in to have the body work sorted out, part of the reason for the change is that it needs to look good. We plan on using the car as it is for a few track days to see if we really miss the extra power of the M3 engine. This 328 has had the M50 manifold fitted, K&N air filter, Brembo discs and yellow stuff pads(Both end of life) and a racing clutch so it’s no slouch but certainly not the same acceleration of the M3, although the cost of transferring the engine is rather large. But will probably happen later in the year if we decide we want the power.
Some pictures of the two together when we got it home and cleaned up:
The overall aim is to end up with a fast road/track car that can still comfortably be driven to the track, ragged all day and then be driven back. We don’t intend on caging it or stripping out the interior as this is currently too hard core for what we need and the car is still used on the road for the occasional hoon. If anyone has any suggestions as to upgrades to help us achieve this then please feel free to contribute!
Anyway, the final note I’d like to add is about tyres, during our time with the car we’ve tried various different tyre strategies; initially buying a set of Khumo 888’s which lasted all of two track days:
so in the interest of saving costs we’ve moved to part worns which cost on average a tenth of the cost, however we want to find some tyres that provide more performance than this but without the huge cost to wear ratio of the khumo’s. If anyone has any suggestions they’d be greatly appreciated. We’re thinking about giving Federal 595 RS-R’s a go.
Also whilst trying to trial fit the wheels I sheered the locking wheel nut so that will be the first challenge of the transfer.
Will update with results of the first part of the transformation very soon
Thanks for reading!
Monty
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