So I bought another car on Saturday. I was helping a buddy look for a convertible of sorts when I stumbled upon an ad.
Feast your eyes:
So its got 190k miles, been well cared for, bought it from the original owner. They had paperwork and stuff for it so it seems like its been well maintained. It runs like a beast, although there is a vibration from the rear under load. The suspension is also completely shot, but other than that, its actually a really clean car. Interior is good, everything works, car seems clean and rust free.
I picked it up for $1000 bucks. Heres the question though: Me and my buddy are looking to get rid of our E30 318i. Its just too slow without doing an engine swap or something. I can go several ways with this new car.
Option A: Sell my tired NB Miata and use this as a little daily/weekend track car. Its nice enough to daily, but not nice enough to where it would hurt should I have to write it off at the track.
Option B: My friend goes in on this car with me and we use it as a rallycross car/occasional road trip car (none of us have owned a 4 door car up until this point...this opens up so many new possibilities!). I am a bit weary of option B because I dont like sharing cars 
and my friend tends to be rough with them.
I really am looking at getting a new daily. Heres an option C: I saw in the latest GRM magazine they talked about the non-M E46s. Whats the jump from an E36 to an E46 like? Should we go full racecar with this little 328 and then I can just grab an E46 to daily? Whats the maintenance disparity like? Thanks for any input guys!
Swap the 2.8L & 5sp into the E30 318. You have almost everything you need sitting there for $1000. Part out the shell to get some money back to buy the rest of the stuff you need to do a nice job.
Looks really nice! What happened to the instrument cluster?! Looks like a rat attacked it!
I'd go with option A. The E36 is a good daily driver, and a decent track car with an upgraded suspension w/ camber plates.
In reply to CyberEric:
Haha apparently the previous owner left his pitbull in the car while he went shopping. Apparently the pitbull didn't appreciate that...
I vote either A or C. E36 and E46 seem to be about the same in terms of maintenance and share many of the same weak spots, however the E46 is a pretty big step forward in terms of "niceness" inside. E36 makes a nice daily too, e46 is just a bit nicer place to be. Depends on what your budget and priorities are, if you can deal with a vehicle that is a compromise both on track and as a daily (but is less expensive overall), then A, otherwise C.
I would go with option C. I have an E36 and it has broken down a lot. I also did heavy commuting with it that was part of a bad idea for me to buy it. Most people that own E46s have reported less repairs than I have made.
wake74
New Reader
5/23/16 8:51 p.m.
I recently bought an E36 328 with more miles than that, and I paid more, so you didn't do too bad. I picked mine up from a local racer who had been using it mostly for autocross, so it has some decent parts on it , well maintained and has lots of cone marks on the bottom of the front splitter :-) I bought it to use as a back-up daily for my E46 M3 Vert, particularly in the winter, but primarily will use it as a track rat. Running with the local BMWCCA at an HPDE in mid-June, so it will be interesting to see how it runs.
Personally, I'm not a fan of generalizations about maintenance between an E36 and E46, as either car is just an old cheap used car at this point, and future maintenance will mostly be a function of maintenance history, not whether it is an E36 vs. E46. The E46 is a step up in comfort in my opinion, but once you head down the rabbit hole of tracking, comfort gets tossed out the window anyway.
A or C.
I have a soft spot for E36's, they are great cars that are comfortable stock and answer well to modifications to make them much sportier. I have my own 328i that I daily/autocross and want another as a committed daily so nothing happens to mine on the street. It's hard to find clean ones now, at least up in the northeast.
When I look at the list of instructors at my BMW club, (and they're really an unusually well-trained group of instructors,) nearly all of them drive E36 chassis. Most of them have the M-version motor. The suspension differences between M and non-M are minor, and can be eliminated easily if you upgrade to coil-overs anyway. Your chassis NEEDS a suspension refresh unless it was done in the last 50K or so with good bushings. Rear subframe mounting points will need welded-in reinforcements, too.
The car with the M50/M52 motor is not fast enough to hang with the "A" group at most clubs. But if you strip it down to 2700 pounds, it's fast enough to be fun for sure, and you can run in the A group as long as you don't mind pointing a lot of cars by. But I would probably, at a minimum, find an old M-class motor and ECU out of a dead M chassis and rebuild it before swapping it in.
If you're an E30/Miata person, I think the E46 is going to be quite a change. It is heavier and handles differently; takes a different driving tactic. Not a good or bad thing just different.
If it were me, I would take the M50/M52 and transmission out of the E36 and put it in the E30. That will be a fun car to keep tracking. Then I would find a Ford 302/T5 combo, add used GT40 heads (or GT40Ps with uprated valve springs), an Explorer intake and TB, and a camshaft. Either Microsquirt it, or take the stock ECU to a tuner for a burner chip. That car will be a bit faster than an E36 M3 for the same weight. Budget is probably $2,000? If you want to later, you can find plenty of used aftermarket heads and intakes that will let you get power up to levels where the car will be fast, period.
