I thought I wanted an E36 M3...

In reply to NordicSaab :

Great! I'm looking forward to the next event and seeing your new NC.

I was registered for an autocross tomorrow at Dunnellon, but need to cover for someone at work. 

I finally drove an E36 today, a 97 328is coupe with a five speed. It's got almost 200k miles, but it's been very well maintained, and looks good.  Both windows work.  Isn't it sad that that should be noted?

I don't think I want to own it, but it was fun to drive and didn't feel like a worn, floppy 200k mile car. The lack of LSD, and the prospect of going up against the Focus ST doesn't make it desirable. 

Okay DD car but it's no M3. Now owning an M I can't imagine having just a regular E36.

I've owned two '95 M3's, and they were indeed the E36 M3.  Just freakin well balanced, amazing cars. Looking at tirerack, Firestone Indy 500's are $120 each. I've never autocrossed, but that's not bad at all for a very good tire.

ddavidv said:

Okay DD car but it's no M3. Now owning an M I can't imagine having just a regular E36.

Yes, it was a fun car to drive, but if I was going to autocross it, it would have to be an M3.

BMWs of that era (e36/46) are great cars, but as competitive autocross tools they can't get it done in Street or Street Touring. Ask me how I know. 

The e36 328is had a chance in STX until the Frisbee came along but those days are history.

The cars work in Street Prepared, but then you're buying 315 Hohos.

I ran an e36 chassis on the track for the last two seasons, with 17" wheels.  I'm ignorant of all things Conehead, though.

It's light enough that it doesn't eat soft tires at a crazy rate like my E92 M3, if I put some camber up front with a swapped set of M3 strut mounts.  And oh boy, does it eat less brake pad.

Another point worth mentioning.  I put budget rebound-adjustable dampers on it, and adjustable spring perches.  With a little tweaking, I got it dead nuts neutral.  I can put it on a wet skid pad and keep feeding in power gradually without washing out the front or rear, it just stays perpendicular to the inner circle line and slides outward laterally.   

From there, just a little rebound tweak front or rear and I can dial up the understeer or dial up the oversteer to suit my mood of the day.

When I managed to get the non-M chassis cranked up to M-chassis horsepower levels, the brakes were barely up to it at the end of the straights.  But there's a recipe out there for slapping E46 brakes on it, which I like now that I've done it.

I remember years ago at a BMWCCA event at Sears Point, Steve Dinan gave a talk about hotrodding the E36. He said, and I quote, "If you've got a 325 E36, the correct path for making it faster is to jack up the radiator cap and drive an M3 under it." At the time, Dinan would only sell some basic engine mods and stuff. I think the catalog had about 2.0 large in parts available for the 325/328.

I Jfrenchyd said:

LanEvo said:

E36 is such a common platform among racers and HPDE folks that you should have zero problem finding used race tires really cheap.

Bimmerworld used to sell Continentals with a handful of heat cycles in E36 sizes for around $100 each. Just buy a second set of 17" wheels and snap up whatever used R-comps come your way.

When hundredths or even 10ths of a second separate cars used tires definitely put you in the second tier.  

Wheel to wheel is not so exacting. 

The OP mentioned autocross and expressed concern about the cost of consumables. He didn’t say anything about aiming to be competitive. Besides, is there even a class in which an e36 is competitive anymore?

I’ve autocrossed a bit over the years, but it’s always been casual. Personally, I’d have no problem running BimmerWorld take-offs. But I guess I’m not the typical autocross guy.

In reply to LanEvo :

OP here, and I don't believe that I did say anything about being competitive. I just started in April, and have completed 14 events in my ES Miata.

Perhaps unfortunately, I finished third in October, soundly trounced by one and two, but my best finish ever. Suddenly, being competitive matters.

I'm selling my modified 01 six speed and looking for a stock 5 speed NB1.

In reply to Floating Doc :

The most important question you need to ask yourself is will you have more fun?  I've rarely been competitive in any of the track events I've done, as far as am I regularly getting podium finishes.  However I've always had fun being competitive with the people right around my times. I've had epic battles for 12th place or the like!  It was a ton of fun and I'm not sure if I'd swapped cars to the flavor of the month, or dumped a bunch more $$ into the car, or spent a ton more time being "serious" about it if I would've had more fun.

Actually, scratch that, I *know* I wouldn't have had more fun if I'd done any of that.  I don't want to be "serious" I just wanna go out and have a good time.

So, I suppose the question you have to answer is, what about auto-x makes it fun for you?  Then pursue that....

It's still new to me, so I'm trying to figure it out. I don't expect to beat the nearly perpetual winner of SE edit:ES here, but I did get to beat all of the other slow guys once.

I want to see what happens with a lighter, better prepared car.

NB1, RB hollow FSB, Konis, rivals, lighter weight muffler...

I'm still looking for the most important modification: a skill upgrade. I've been looking for months, still haven't found an autocross class nearby.

You're right, you don't want an E36 M3, especially if you're worried about tire prices, or prices at all. My 99 M3 needed a lot of attention, mostly from my wallet and from my calendar. I did all the repairs myself in 5 years 80-110k miles and it just gets annoying after a while, and that was ten years ago when the car wasn't 20 years old. It was a spectacular car, don't get me wrong, but the attention it required grew tiresome.

I then bought an NA Miata. It was most of the fun, without most of the headaches (though I will say I missed ABS! That NA would lock up the fronts if you so much as breathed on the pedal.) 

Drive an NB and the four door Dakota, forget about the E36.

How about keeping the Miata as your toy and selling or trading the truck for another truck that has 4 doors?  

My truck was given to me, with the caveat that it gets returned when I'm done with it. So, no trade in value, since it's more of a loan than actually owned by me.  That means that there's no equity to roll into a crew cab pickup, and those are expensive, even high mileage used. I've given up on a four seat autocross car for now. I'm going to stick with my 04 Lancer Ralliart wagon as a DD, it's been solid for 9 years now, only has 140k. It has about maybe $4000 in value, but if previous history is any indication, I expect to drive it for years to come. I also have a son that just turned 15, may turn it over to him eventually. 

What all this means is than once again, miata is the answer....