Track car: e36 or e46

[bryce]

Lads

After top gears episode last night on the rally cross it has inspired me to do something exciting with my free time this year.

On a disposable budget I'm looking for something that will give me big grins for low dolla. I'm thinking along the lines of track set up e36 or e46 m3.

Thoughts?

[Barry C]

i would decide what you want to enter, then pick the car accordingly. something like a 205 gti will be cheap to run and great fun or you could get a civic or integra type R for a little bit more but they're super reliable

i would buy a car ready to go rather than build. the cars on the show last night wouldn't have been built on the budgets they quoted. don't forget it'll be 1500 for all your clothing and helmet etc then you need a licence etc.

the trick with racing is to go through you budget loads of time to make sure you didn't miss anything. then double it:-D

[bryce]

thanks barry - i think you may have misread my post though. I want to do track days, not rally cross.

[Barry C]

ah ok, sorry! The same logic applies though, 205 gti, 306 gti, Integra, civic etc all great little track cars that are cheap to run

do you not track the CSL?:wanker::-D

[Barry C]

actually.

just buy this http://www.cslregister.com/forum/showthread.php?p=109429#post109429

awesome little thing:supz:

[Pooky]

I've got an E36 M3 track car as well as the CSL.

Bang for buck nothing can touch the E36, E46s wont be that much quicker or more fun to be honest. But the E36s are getting a bit old so finding a good one is getting difficult.

If it was me building a new car now I'd do an E46 but I think it will be twice as much to build.

[bryce]

Thanks for the replies so far lads

That old e30 does look the bollocks but I think Id like something with more poke. I may be wrong though?

It wont be an "all out" track car as such - til I probably get hooked - just mainly stripped out, cage, seats, brakes and susp. will do for me.

Pooky, is your car the 3.0 or 3.2? How have you found it realiabilty wise? Any reason why you'd go e46 this time around? Oh, and pics / specs :wink:

IIRC, Hazy was running an e36 at one point? Been such a long time since I visited.

Oh, and no I dont track the CSL - means too much to me / Im gay.

[Barry C]

This was my e36 trackcar. it absolutely flew, stripped out, buckets cage, coilover, engine mods, r888 tyres, 3.91 diff etc etc it was probably as quick as the CSL but it cost a fotune to get up to the spec I wanted and wasn't cheap to run. I'd say that e30 325 will be plenty fast enough for a bit of trackday fun. you'll be able to drive it flat out without worrying about it too much. for the money it's hard to beat

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t49/autotradersupraiv/Bmw-21.jpg

[bryce]

Wow. That looks fantastic. Could you give an idea on build and running costs? Thank you for the advice.

[Barry C]

Wow. That looks fantastic. Could you give an idea on build and running costs? Thank you for the advice.

cheers. well, to be honest i owned the car for 5 years and it became a bit of a labour of love trying to extract performance from the car but this ended up extracting vast amounts of cash from my wallet.:hahaha:

I wouldn't attempt to build something like this, I know I spent probably 30k euro on mods and maintenance over the 5 years easily and i know that might sound insane but over a few years it's easily done if you're doing a lot of trackdays... but what you should do is go and buy a better car for 10k that cost some other fool 30 or 40k to build.;) don't build anything yourself, cost will spiral out of control

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t49/autotradersupraiv/a4ea50cf.jpg
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t49/autotradersupraiv/photo1-8.jpg
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t49/autotradersupraiv/T1G_2650R1.jpg
http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t49/autotradersupraiv/T1G_3666R1.jpg

running costs worked out pretty big too. every time i did a track day between tyre wear, brake wear, oil changes, fuel, general wear and tare, trackday entry fee etc etc, it usually cost 900 euro+

You need to decide do you want the car to be road legal. If youu do then you shouldn't be driving a car with a full cage on the road, it's very dangerous. If you've a full cage then you need to buy a trailer and a jeep to tow it etc.

If i was to do it again, I wouldn't. I don't have the space or patience for a jeep and a trailer so I sold the M3 and my M5 and bought the CSL because i figure CSL is comfortable enough for the road and is great fun for doing the odd trackday.

it really depends what your budget is? you could buy the 325 or similar for cheap and go and have a great time on a couple of trackdays, see if you like it and you could easily sell it for the same money and buy a 8k M3 trackcar or something but I reckon you'll have great fun in the likes of the 325. things like tyres will be dirt cheap too in 14 or 15':thumbs:

have you ever done a trackday? you'd be surprised, you might not like it, it's not everyones cup of tea

[bryce]

Thanks again Barry.

I hadn't really thought about a budget but I guess it's a cheap and cheerful one as I've other things I want to spend on too.

Ive done a track day, been passenger and a driving experience (lol) so I've a fair idea that I'll enjoy it.

The car doesn't necessarily need to be road legal as I have vans/ trailers for transport but I guess it'd be easier just to drive there. I'm not looking to set any records, just to have a bloody good time and not worry about the car physically too much - though I don't want to be under the bonnet every five mins.

[bryce]

Roughly what would it cost (excluding car) to set up an e36 fit for amateur td's?

[Barry C]

Roughly what would it cost (excluding car) to set up an e36 fit for amateur td's?

the bare minimum with a new car i think would be to do a full service including all filters and fliuds etc

full service, say 600.

then i would highly recommend proper racing brake pads like carbone lorraine RC5+, braided brake lines and Castrol SRF fluid. probably 400 quid.

at this point it really depends what you want to spend.

tyres? 800
bucket seats?800
harnesses?250
suspension? 1000

the biggest improvemnt you could do is free though;) strip out all the excess weight. the M3 interiors fetch a few hundred quid so this can offset the cost of the bucket seats etc

honestly you could buy an e36 M3 for 3 grand and just drive it and spend close to nothing on it until something brakes or you could spend insane amounts of cash.

as I said I think the cheapest and best option is to spend a decent chunk of cash on something that cost someone else a fortune to build

to put in perspective I got under 8k for my e36 M3 when I sold it and it cost multiples of this to build:bigcry:

[bryce]

you could buy an e36 M3 for 3 grand and just drive it and spend close to nothing on it until something brakes

This is more or less what Im thinking along with upgraded susp, tyres and brakes.

Was your car a 3.0 or 3.2? Is there only in particular that is better suited for track considering they'd both get the aforementioned mods.

Again, thank you for your input

[shimmy]

There was a great 3.0 M3 at Donny in February, very well set up.

[Barry C]

This is more or less what Im thinking along with upgraded susp, tyres and brakes.

Was your car a 3.0 or 3.2? Is there only in particular that is better suited for track considering they'd both get the aforementioned mods.

Again, thank you for your input

Definitely go for the 3.2 evo. It has a much better sump design for track use, has more power.

Mine was a 3.0 but I ended up fitting an evo sump and brake discs etc

[bryce]

Thanks.

I went to look at one today (evo). Seemed in pretty good condition exterior wise, however the inside was bogging. An ex smoker and mechanics car showing every sight and smell of such. Yuk. However, being a mechanics car it seems to have an extensive service history - BMW and Indy and on a very short run it seemed to run sweet. Sounded sweet though didnt fair excite me?..

Its done 129k miles, more or less rust free and can be had for £3k.

Just what to do...:banghead:

[bryce]

£960.72 to insure a £3,000 motor - yer havin a laugh!