Another Boring E36 318i Touring..... Or Is It???
Discussion
Evening 
For the last few months I haven't owned a (running) car. I've been using my Mums old TDi Polo as my daily driver for about 3 months but it's been a hateful thing to drive and I decided to eBay it for her last week. I figured it would take at least a week to sell but it sold within 10 minutes of me advertising it and was collected the next day! That wasn't too much of an issue as I own an old van too so I used that for the rest of the week. I also have a Mini One D that I'm in the process of sprucing up - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Now, for the last 5 years a mate of mine has been racing in the Kumho BMW Championship in Class D 318is. After the first season the badgering started whenever I saw him that I should build a car and come racing. I have always wanted to go racing but just haven't had the money to build a car. Last year he came 2nd in the championship and once again tried to coerce me into going racing. Well, the idea just got stuck in my head this time and I hatched a plan to start building a car at some point this year to race next year.
Originally the plan was to buy a nice 318i saloon later this year, swap the motor for an M44 16v and then spend the rest of the year turning it into a race car. That was of course, until I decided to sell the Polo last week. Seeing as the Mini isn't ready yet I thought I may as well see what was out there in my very low price range that was E36 shaped. Now there are plenty of E36's out there still but plenty of them are rotten and plenty of them have been turned into the poniest looking "drift cars" you've ever seen! I didn't want anything that fell into either of those categories which significantly narrowed my search results. Now something that had been discussed when my mate was trying to convince me a couple of years ago was to turn my 318i Touring into a race car. There weren't (and still aren't) any Tourers in the Kumho Championship, so being one to try and buck the trend whenever I can I decided to extend my search to Tourers as well. As it turns out that doesn't really make much difference when your max budget is £500 hehe! However I persisted and eventually something caught my eye. It was solid. It was local. It had 24 hours left on its eBay auction but most importantly it had only been bid to £60 so far! I saved the auction into my watch list and awaited the last 10 seconds of the auction where I would pounce and (hopefully) win the car! Now annoyingly the last 10 seconds occurred at 16.17 on Wednesday, while I was at work and really busy. I'd done as much forward planning as I could and pre warned my Boss that I would have eBay open and might become preoccupied for a few minutes in the afternoon. He was fine with that so at 16.15 I stopped working and proceeded to watch the end of the auction. In the last 10 seconds I put in my maximum bid and then sat back to see what was going to happen. Good news! I won! I managed to pick it up for £225! Bargain! Now all I needed to do was collect it
Oh, now something I forgot to mention was that this car was cheap for a reason. It was a non runner! The seller had been driving it when the water pump s
t out its bearing and the aux belt fell off. He didn't have the first clue how to replace the pump and didn't have the money to get it fixed so decided to sell it. I went out running on Wednesday evening and then went to the guys house to pay him for the car. I let him know that my mate (who's a recovery driver) would call him on Thursday morning to arrange collection Thursday evening and that was that. The next I knew about the car was when my mate called me on Thursday evening to say he was outside. I wandered out and this is what greeted me.
We unloaded it and pushed it up to the back of my van. I had a quick wander round it and then left it there. Fast forward to today and my Sister was looking after my Daughter so I went out and changed the water pump. Thankfully it's pretty simple to do and it didn't put up too much of a fight so I was all done in just over an hour. After that I took it out for its first drive. I can honestly say it drives really nicely! You would never know it had done 134,000 miles and I can only assume that it's had most of its suspension and steering components replaced at some stage.
It's now 11pm and I'm off to bed. I'll leave you with the pictures from the eBay advert but I'm going to be back out there tomorrow fitting a stereo to the car so I'll take some better pics and then I'll go into more details on what's going to be happening.
If you've made it this far then thanks for reading
Sammo
For the last few months I haven't owned a (running) car. I've been using my Mums old TDi Polo as my daily driver for about 3 months but it's been a hateful thing to drive and I decided to eBay it for her last week. I figured it would take at least a week to sell but it sold within 10 minutes of me advertising it and was collected the next day! That wasn't too much of an issue as I own an old van too so I used that for the rest of the week. I also have a Mini One D that I'm in the process of sprucing up - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Now, for the last 5 years a mate of mine has been racing in the Kumho BMW Championship in Class D 318is. After the first season the badgering started whenever I saw him that I should build a car and come racing. I have always wanted to go racing but just haven't had the money to build a car. Last year he came 2nd in the championship and once again tried to coerce me into going racing. Well, the idea just got stuck in my head this time and I hatched a plan to start building a car at some point this year to race next year.
Originally the plan was to buy a nice 318i saloon later this year, swap the motor for an M44 16v and then spend the rest of the year turning it into a race car. That was of course, until I decided to sell the Polo last week. Seeing as the Mini isn't ready yet I thought I may as well see what was out there in my very low price range that was E36 shaped. Now there are plenty of E36's out there still but plenty of them are rotten and plenty of them have been turned into the poniest looking "drift cars" you've ever seen! I didn't want anything that fell into either of those categories which significantly narrowed my search results. Now something that had been discussed when my mate was trying to convince me a couple of years ago was to turn my 318i Touring into a race car. There weren't (and still aren't) any Tourers in the Kumho Championship, so being one to try and buck the trend whenever I can I decided to extend my search to Tourers as well. As it turns out that doesn't really make much difference when your max budget is £500 hehe! However I persisted and eventually something caught my eye. It was solid. It was local. It had 24 hours left on its eBay auction but most importantly it had only been bid to £60 so far! I saved the auction into my watch list and awaited the last 10 seconds of the auction where I would pounce and (hopefully) win the car! Now annoyingly the last 10 seconds occurred at 16.17 on Wednesday, while I was at work and really busy. I'd done as much forward planning as I could and pre warned my Boss that I would have eBay open and might become preoccupied for a few minutes in the afternoon. He was fine with that so at 16.15 I stopped working and proceeded to watch the end of the auction. In the last 10 seconds I put in my maximum bid and then sat back to see what was going to happen. Good news! I won! I managed to pick it up for £225! Bargain! Now all I needed to do was collect it
Oh, now something I forgot to mention was that this car was cheap for a reason. It was a non runner! The seller had been driving it when the water pump s
t out its bearing and the aux belt fell off. He didn't have the first clue how to replace the pump and didn't have the money to get it fixed so decided to sell it. I went out running on Wednesday evening and then went to the guys house to pay him for the car. I let him know that my mate (who's a recovery driver) would call him on Thursday morning to arrange collection Thursday evening and that was that. The next I knew about the car was when my mate called me on Thursday evening to say he was outside. I wandered out and this is what greeted me. We unloaded it and pushed it up to the back of my van. I had a quick wander round it and then left it there. Fast forward to today and my Sister was looking after my Daughter so I went out and changed the water pump. Thankfully it's pretty simple to do and it didn't put up too much of a fight so I was all done in just over an hour. After that I took it out for its first drive. I can honestly say it drives really nicely! You would never know it had done 134,000 miles and I can only assume that it's had most of its suspension and steering components replaced at some stage.
It's now 11pm and I'm off to bed. I'll leave you with the pictures from the eBay advert but I'm going to be back out there tomorrow fitting a stereo to the car so I'll take some better pics and then I'll go into more details on what's going to be happening.
If you've made it this far then thanks for reading
Sammo
Ok, I suppose I should update this. I'm still using the BMW as my daily and I'm on the verge of buying an already race prepped XR2! I went along to a couple of the Kumho races and just decided it wasn't the championship for me after all. Someone at work races in the BOSS series and that seems much more suited to me.
Anyway the BMW has been doing its job perfectly and I've decided it's a keeper. This meant spending some money on it in the way of tyres. The tyres that it had when I bought it were the cheapest nastiest ditch finders I'd ever seen! They had absolutely no grip in the wet or dry and were frankly lethal! I couldn't afford a new set so was keeping an eye out on the BMW groups on Facebook for any tyres coming up. Lo and behold a set of 15inch wheels with part worn Toyo T1R's fitted came up for £65! Just to make the deal slightly better, the guy lives 5 mins from me. I collected them a couple of days later and got them fitted that weekend. Now it hadn't occurred to me beforehand that the wheels were still 15's but which much lower profile tyres. So once they were fitted I lowered the car down to discover it looked ridiculous on its tiny looking wheels haha!
Anyway the BMW has been doing its job perfectly and I've decided it's a keeper. This meant spending some money on it in the way of tyres. The tyres that it had when I bought it were the cheapest nastiest ditch finders I'd ever seen! They had absolutely no grip in the wet or dry and were frankly lethal! I couldn't afford a new set so was keeping an eye out on the BMW groups on Facebook for any tyres coming up. Lo and behold a set of 15inch wheels with part worn Toyo T1R's fitted came up for £65! Just to make the deal slightly better, the guy lives 5 mins from me. I collected them a couple of days later and got them fitted that weekend. Now it hadn't occurred to me beforehand that the wheels were still 15's but which much lower profile tyres. So once they were fitted I lowered the car down to discover it looked ridiculous on its tiny looking wheels haha!
Cheap tyres are cheap tyres, I managed to score some decent part worns (basically new) and a set of alloys for my Passat for £50 last month.
I do rather fancy an e36 tourer myself, very cool cars I think - you don't see many of them now, the passat isn't exactly an inspiring drive either. What's the insurance like, just out of interest?
I do rather fancy an e36 tourer myself, very cool cars I think - you don't see many of them now, the passat isn't exactly an inspiring drive either. What's the insurance like, just out of interest?
Seeing as I'm now keeping the car as a road car I figured I wanted to make it look a bit smarter. Now I've always liked the look of banded steels on an E36 so decided this was the way to go. I had a look on eBay and found a set with brand new tyres for a very agreeable price! A quick phone call to the seller and off I went to collect them. They are in excellent condition and the tyres are new.
When I got home I fitted them to the car and decided they didn't look quite right!
Now obviously the car needs lowering a tad to fill the arches. The arches also need rolling and pulling slightly to clear the tyres, but I'm not sure if the colour is right either. Black maybe???
When I got home I fitted them to the car and decided they didn't look quite right!
Now obviously the car needs lowering a tad to fill the arches. The arches also need rolling and pulling slightly to clear the tyres, but I'm not sure if the colour is right either. Black maybe???
Hi, first post.
I also own an E36 Touring 323i Auto.
Mine had been helped through the last MOT by a specialist in Leavenheath, Suffolk who chucked on some 16" E46 wheels. The tyres were pretty rubbish so i found a set of 17s off an E92 for £150 with good Bridgestone Turanzas! Unfortunately covered in over-spray. I think the car looks great - though like you i think it could do with lowering at the front - but has made the front end very susceptible to tramlining I think because of the width more than anything. I guess i need to do bottom arms etc etc but will try the lollypops first to see if i can get a cheap fix.
Anyway, i was also looking at 16" steels - the Z3 had some winter steels which would probably suit. I wouldn't go black, find some Z3 centre caps or modify the Mini clubman centres (assume that's what the wheels were originally) to take a BMW badge.
Reportedly, and to some extent i can confirm, the E36 handles better on 16s or even 15s.
Here's mine parked opposite a compact with the E46 style wheels it previously had. You can pick up the E46 wheels for £100 a set.
Apologies for quality.
I also own an E36 Touring 323i Auto.
Mine had been helped through the last MOT by a specialist in Leavenheath, Suffolk who chucked on some 16" E46 wheels. The tyres were pretty rubbish so i found a set of 17s off an E92 for £150 with good Bridgestone Turanzas! Unfortunately covered in over-spray. I think the car looks great - though like you i think it could do with lowering at the front - but has made the front end very susceptible to tramlining I think because of the width more than anything. I guess i need to do bottom arms etc etc but will try the lollypops first to see if i can get a cheap fix.
Anyway, i was also looking at 16" steels - the Z3 had some winter steels which would probably suit. I wouldn't go black, find some Z3 centre caps or modify the Mini clubman centres (assume that's what the wheels were originally) to take a BMW badge.
Reportedly, and to some extent i can confirm, the E36 handles better on 16s or even 15s.
Here's mine parked opposite a compact with the E46 style wheels it previously had. You can pick up the E46 wheels for £100 a set.
Apologies for quality.
Maty said:
Be interested to see the XR2 race car
Well that's now a sore subject! I rang the seller yesterday afternoon to let him know what time I was collecting this weekend and he proudly announced that someone else had collected it that afternoon! That's after us having had a few long conversations regarding the car and agreeing that I would be having it. Anyway, I went and looked at another one last night which needs some work to get it back to race readiness but is reasonably priced and was once a race winning car.
Seeing as it's a year to the day I figured I should do a little update on this. It's gone through a couple of wheel changes over the last year or so.
The car arrived on these E46 rims with the biggest tyres known to man!
I picked up a different set of E46 rims with the smallest tyres known to man!
Then a set of banded steels came up for sale locally, so I decided they would be a good idea. Until I fitted them and decided I didn't like them!
Then a couple of weeks ago I picked up a set of Turbine style rims from an E39 5 series. Finally fitted them today and although they're an improvement over the banded steels they're lacking a bit of sidewall and they've highlighted the enormous arch gap at the front! For some reason this car has always had masses of arch gap at the front. None of my other E36's have suffered with so much excess air! I'll have a look into dropping it down a little.
Now when the plan was for this to be my race car I actually bought the M44B19 engine and squirrelled it away safely in the back of my van. Seeing as I'm hanging onto the car I will be fitting this engine in the not too distant future and then letting my friend Bruno @ BDS Performance have a bit of a play around with it to liberate a little more oomph out of it! He sets up my friends E36 race cars and loves tuning the M44 lumps to make silly HP!
The car arrived on these E46 rims with the biggest tyres known to man!
I picked up a different set of E46 rims with the smallest tyres known to man!
Then a set of banded steels came up for sale locally, so I decided they would be a good idea. Until I fitted them and decided I didn't like them!
Then a couple of weeks ago I picked up a set of Turbine style rims from an E39 5 series. Finally fitted them today and although they're an improvement over the banded steels they're lacking a bit of sidewall and they've highlighted the enormous arch gap at the front! For some reason this car has always had masses of arch gap at the front. None of my other E36's have suffered with so much excess air! I'll have a look into dropping it down a little.
Now when the plan was for this to be my race car I actually bought the M44B19 engine and squirrelled it away safely in the back of my van. Seeing as I'm hanging onto the car I will be fitting this engine in the not too distant future and then letting my friend Bruno @ BDS Performance have a bit of a play around with it to liberate a little more oomph out of it! He sets up my friends E36 race cars and loves tuning the M44 lumps to make silly HP!
Cheap FK Automotive ones I bought off amazon, they were really cheap but very well made. I only had them wound half the way down and the ride was firm but not unbearable. I went through a stage of liking low e36's, my Mrs hated the fact it scraped on every speed bump but I soon learnt to choose my routes wisely and remembered where the majority of crater like pot holes were lurking in Cheshire.
I wish I'd never sold this car, I often see it pop up on my instagram feed and its now owned by some spotty scallywag who has plastered the windscreen in scene stickers, wound the coils down and boasts of regularly cracking sumps.
RIP Barry the beamer
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