conrod

it has its own sender which is wired in series with the main unit. I have a complete tank setup if you are looking for one.

They are reliable if built properly, steel crank is standard, and the rest of it will cope easily. As you know I was originally building a track car with an S50. 321hp standard, for a weight increase of around 30kgs, you do the math! I still think it would be an excellent combination for open class. There is an E30 being built with an S38B36 (very similar power and weight to S50) and another about to be built with an S50. Once sorted they will be very fast cars I am sure.

E36 M3 3.2+6 speed.321hp out of the box, and can be "tweaked" to about 340 without pulling apart. About $10K for a full package,(engine box loom computer etc.) will rev to 8000, and last forever doing it. E30 six will cost you a lot more, you won't get to this level, and it won't last forever.BMW V8 not much heavier than the six.

more like 20 hours!

A group A 2.3 will make around 300+ hp, and cost you at least $20K+. I have a Gp.A 2.3 short block I could sell you. But it is not the right engine for what you want to do. My 2.5 makes power from 7000-9000 rpm, and takes a lot of shifting and a very close ratio gearbox to keep in the powerband. I can get them easily enough, but they are not for the light of wallet!

I have the side airbags and sensors from a 98 M3 coupe in my boxes of bits.

No it is not. That looks like the Schnitzer car that won the 1989 Wellington street race, which is now owned bysomeone in Chch. It will probably be here for our Pukekohe round in January, along with a bunch of other very special (BMW) cars.

If you are doing it for fuel economy, you might be disappointed! Yes it won't have to work as hard, but that is 3 litres of engine to feed with fuel, and not two! While it is true that sometimes a higher capacity/higher torque engine fitted along with a taller diff ratio can give better fuel economy, it is not always the case. Having said that I think you will find the guys on this board get really good mpg figures from their 540i's etc. You will probably pay a bit less for a 3 litre than a 3.5,4.0 or 4.4 but if you are going to the trouble of fitting one of these engines (and it is a fair bit of work!) then you may as well go the whole hog and fit the 4.0 or 4.4 and give it some real grunt! In my humble opinion of course!!!!!

Hmmmm, let me see, I am pretty sure it was YOU who started this thread/advertisement with the header "Fancy 800BHP out of your E36?? " was it not??!!!!!! Oh I get it now, you were saying that you probably COULD get 800hp out of this conversion, if you spend a further umpteen megabucks on it, and buy a truck load of go faster bits! Which has just given me a REALLY BRILLIANT idea. My mum wants me to sell her 1989 Mitsubishi Galant. I could advertise it as "Fancy a 600 hp fire breathing Mitsi Galant for just $2000?" (600 hp turbo engine not included- but the point is that you CAN have a 600hp Galant with this setup!) As the Americans say, sell the sizzle, not the sausage!

"Fancy 800BHP out of your E36?? Supra TT engine conversion" We seem to have lost 400hp somewhere along the way- not a good start?!!!!!!!Sorry dude, you MIGHT be a genuine seller, but I don't think anyone is going to give you a 50% deposit on a bunch of bits, sight unseen, in the hope that you are trustworthy and will send them as you promise. The only way you will get a purchaser here is if you freight them over here to someone you know, who can then show them to potential buyers and act as your selling agent. Either that, or you are operating a well know tuning company with a reputable name, and given that no mention was made of this then it is probably safe to assume that you don't.

That sounds naughty! And we haven't even met!

Okay, I didn't realise they had a lot of Alpina bits on them, and were so rare. Maybe I was being a bit harsh pricewise. The two 325is I know of were bought for $9K and $12K respectively, and that is what I was basing my guess on. I recently sold a car (an Escort Cosworth) of which there are only a handful in the country. It was the second one I had owned and sold. They both took ages to sell, and this was not because I was asking silly money for them. It is because the market of BUYERS for them is so small. I think these cars we are talking about here fall into that category- how many people are going to cut a cheque for over $10K on any given day, for an E30 that is NOT an M3? You can be over-priced or under-priced but if there is not a buyer out there it will not sell. Back to what I said about it being only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it on any given day. The 325is was five stud, I would guess the 333i is too? P/S and A/C were an option, but you could only choose one because they couldn't squeeze them both on!

Just to give the reasons behind my guess as to what they are worth- it was just that, a "guess." I am not a car dealer, and the range I quoted of $6K to $12K I would have thought reasonable . $6K for a scruffy one needing some work, and $12K for something tidy, maybe even $15K or a bit more for a mint one. I agree with Rick James about them being similar in value to a 325is, they are very similar cars after all. Because there will be only a handful in NZ it becomes one of those "what is somebody prepared to pay for it" type of cars, because you will unlikely get two for sale at the same time to gauge against each other. At the end of the day it is just an E30 with an M30 engine shoved into it,nothing that special about it apart from the fact that it was built in the factory and is relatively rare. It is not like an M3 which had so many unique parts and pedigree to make it collectable, so I don't think it will ever get M3 money.And after all, although the straight line performance will be good, the handling of these things will always be below that of an M20 engined car for obvious reasons. I would rather have a 325is over one of these- I think that would be a better all round car. Out of curiousity, what would you be prepared to pay for one?

I remember a red one many many years ago, not sure if it is still around though. I would guess similar money to a 325is, maybe $6K to $12K.

Glad to hear it is not because you are unhappy with the series Mark. But as you are a front running competitor (the "benchmark" some would say), a clean racer and a pretty much all round good guy I would be very sorry to see you leave us! Just change your job instead!!!!! cheers Conrad

just heard that his wife and kids might be coming over to join him! What the hell, just send an open invitation to his whole country, I am sure the good hearted taxpayers of NZ would put them up in NZ's finest hotels!

I am not sure I believe this theory to be honest. Take it for a test drive with the clips removed to confirm, they don't do that much apart from stopping the pads wearing into a taper and the caliper rattling around a bit.Possibly not legal to run without them, but at least you will prove a point. As TMS said, check free play on the pushrod to the master cylinder- this is critical! Also, if your calipers have been overhauled with the incorrect size seals this can happen too. They come in very small increments of size sometimes, and fitting one that is too tight will cause this to happen.

I would say that is $40K well spent! And 24mpg is good, the 850i auto I was driving for a month couldn't do that, and the manual JUST would achieve that on a good day, and that was "just" the ordinary 5l V12. The VR4 sounds like a drain on the pocket! Keeping them both, or flicking the Mitsi?

I am sure it will be just fine! (apart from annoying check lights that stay on, expensive services, heavy fuel consumption etc) And if you ever get sick of it, let me know, I would love one of these!

850 CSi is a 5.6 380hp no? There are as far as I can tell only one or two other 850 CSi's in NZ, which would probably explain why you have been having problems finding one! One of them (black) was for sale 4 or 5 years ago, around $80K from memory. I saw this car about two years ago in Kumeu in a carpark. I "restored" a fire damaged 850i about 10 years ago, this one was a 6 speed (which is very rare in any of the V12 engined cars) and it was so much more fun to drive than the auto- turn of the traction control and it would happily haze the bags! You must only be about 23 if you have wanted one since you were six, which will probably make you the youngest owner of an 8 series in NZ! Very cool car you have, post up some more pics when you get it.

That was pretty much all we did on the rear. Solid bushes on the diff housing as well, and replaced the outer lower bush on the Z link with a nylon part, with the centre offset to allow more camber. Camber adjustment taken care of by the standard inner adjusters. Spring platforms made adjustable(we weren't allowed to run coilover) but would run coilovers if allowed as it is much easier. Which means you could probably ditch the upper arm and replace with a fabricated one, as you wouldn't need the spring platform. Also used to strengthen the bottom arms, but again would bin them and fabricate some, they are very weak.

The guy I know is making them for drift cars, so they might be "D2" brand? Both of the "old" E36 (coupe) tourers will be racing in the open class, Mike Tubbs car is one of them, and Brett Cowan owns the other (Aaron Harris car) Both now running 3.2 M3/6 speeds. Yep I remember them well. I ran Jason Richards car for two years.

Hah, costs were never in check on these cars! It was actually the method used to correct the bump steer that the "roll centre pins" created, that was deemed illegal, not the pins themselves, but thats another story...... Yep, they are on file. But at just over $1000 a pair, I don't think people will be lining up to buy them!

2.7 engine is only 125hp from memory,(and really soft cam so doesn't rev) where 2.5 was 170hp out of the box. 2.7 only good if you are building a stroker (lotsa $$$$ to do properly)To me this one is a no-brainer: go for a 2.5 swap, and spend the balance of your $5K freshening it up and making it faster. I VERY much doubt you will get a 200hp M20 2.0 for $5K!

Looking good! There are quite a few E36's in the race series now which is really good to see. Interesting that MNZ won't homologate the Supertourer cage because of the reasons you pointed out, the late E30 DTM cage was identical in this area so would also have problems. Another case of not using common sense and going by the letter of the rule book! I was involved in the original build of the NZ Touring cars, and we were very limited to what we could do to the suspension because of the rules. We ended up with the front roll centre about 75mm below ground level, and the rear was 150mm above, so this made for some "interesting" handling to say the least! I think you are on the right track by leaving the rear alone, and concentrating on the front. If you must stick with the standard (unmodified) crossmember, then it might be prudent to extend the outer pickup points downwards, by way of some pins fitted to the front upright, to get the roll centre back to a sensible level. I did do this on one of the NZ Tourers at one point, and it improved it quite a bit, but it was deemed to be illegal so it was only used in testing. Here are some pics of an Italian E30 DTM front suspension, basically the same as an E36, might give you some ideas. http://e30m3performance.com/tech_articles/...c_gra_pic-1.jpg P.S. if you are contemplating air jacks, drop me a line, someone I know is beginning to produce them here in NZ, haven't seen them yet but I know the quality will be good,, and the price should be friendly too! PPS. here is a pic of one of the "replacement" front suspension mounts same person made for me, copied from the original BMW Motorsport piece. Wasn't cheap, but very nice!