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E36 Saloon - Budget circuit build

2K views 8 replies 3 participants last post by  Eddie6464 
#1 ·
Hi :)

New here but like to keep a record of my progress and I've spent a fair bit of time lurking here over the years so though I'd sign up.

I've been building a Mk2 Golf for almost two years now and the spec has gotten ridiculous. GRP wings, bonnet, roof, boot, 360hp 20v, well specced gearbox with a Wavetrac diff, full turret-to-turret weld in cage, spherical bearings, AP 4-Pots, etc etc, full on legitimate race car.

As I'm sure you've all been though, projects take way too long and it starts to wind you up after a while that you're working all the time instead of driving, so I put aside a small budget to knock up a car to get out in this summer. So it was back to a BMW, natural choice in all honesty. My 325 and 328 had left an impression that stuck with me more than the E30's I'd had did, and with them being so cheap to pick up a 'beater' I got on with it.

I found a 323i Saloon in good condition. it drove perfectly bar worn out bushes making it wriggle over uneven surfaces. Even the driver's seat looked brand new and it had the BMW extinguisher, medical kit, spare wheel, full tool kit, history, etc. It's Arctic Silver which is a little odd, not the straight silver like the Coupe we have which I think is nicer, but hey... it's only paint.

So anyway, I immediately began ruining it, almost sadly, and took it down a bit.




Next up, I decided to do as I should have on my last 328 and ditch the 2.93 diff. I got a 3.45 from a 320 along with the drive shafts and rear half of the prop. I was totally split on this as it is NOT a drift car, but I couldn't justify the cost of a good LSD for this build and figured the extra drive out of corners would outweigh a slightly less-eager turn in so we MIG'd the diff up good and proper. I got our mate Louka to do it who's only 19 but he's a seriously sharp lad and he's already a coded welder - needless to say he's usually doing far better things than letting me get him to bodge up an old Bimmer diff.



I put the passenger's seat from the racer build in on some Driftworks direct bolt in seat mounts as they're cheaper than eBay's 'motorsport' folks, but unfortunately they didn't go back far enough or sit low enough as the top of the mount dug into the seat fabric so I had to add a little onto the front, re-drill the holes and lop the top of the mounts off in line with the bottom of the top bolt hole. I had an old 3-Point Willans harness kicking about that was from another long-gone car so I put that in with it.



After that I fitted the diff, prop and shafts... no pictures here as in all honesty by the time I'd gotten the old driveshafts out and had been supplied 325 replacement shafts instead of 316-320 I was in no mood to take pictures and talk about it :D

I then picked up my front bumper on Friday afternoon just gone. I got the guys at Spraytec in Bath to take care of it, it had a nasty crack on one corner and some deep scuffs on the other end, and they did an awesome job of it and charged me a lot less than most places would have wanted, so thanks to Andrew and his lads over there for helping out. I'm going to get the rear bumper and super-touring-ish spoiler I'm working on over there when I get some time.




Then got some wheels yesterday. 17x8 et29 all round as most track folks seem to steer clear of staggered sets from what I've seen, if that's right? I wanted something that looked vaguely like a baby touring car wheel. I'm not sure that's quite worked out, but they're light and they were cheap, £430 for the set from Motorsport Wheels, so they'll do for now :)



Our mate Steve at Somer Tyres sorted some rubber out for them as he always does, awesome shop if you're up this way. 225/45r17 XL's. I'd never really liked T1R's, they hadn't ever seemed any better than Nankang's uber cheap NS II's which are spot on on the lightweight Golfs on the road, and they cost more, but I'd heard the extra load versions with the stiffer sidewalls were pretty good on the bigger cars so I figured I'd give them another shot. Toyo on the side looks better than Nankang I guess...



I'm also been chasing a few unpleasant noises which had developed. I thought it was either rear wheel bearings, the shonky O/S drive shaft I fitted whilst waiting for my second new one to turn up whilst fitting my diff (out of stock for a couple of days), or the haggard rear discs and pads. Went with Pagid as I usually do, always top notch for decent money.





On to doing the wheel bearings next, the prop's centre support bearing and going to put some fresh trailing arm bushes in next in the hope it'll shut the thing up :thumbsup:

Thanks for looking :)
 
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#4 ·
Haha top man, glad people see it that way, and thanks :) The oddball face on the side of the sun strip was a VW logo at first so I had to peel bits off until it looked vaguely like it was supposed to be there :thumbsup:

Got my other seat and harness through now and a 328 exhaust and chasing down a lead on an M50 intake so fingers crossed I can update some things at the weekend.

Cheers :)
 
#5 ·
Well got the wheels on. The arches need some attention to get full lock though so the car's essentially useless right now.





Put the other bucket in but the cheap harness I bought for the passenger's side was crap so I have another Willans one coming.



Bought a cheap eBay wheel, again it was crap and would have folded if you looked at it wrong, so I put my OMP in it for the moment.



Also got the 328 exhaust on, looked far less restrictive, which is good because that's why I got it. I bought pattern stuff hoping it'd be a bit louder with the poorer quality silencers, and it is especially at WOT, but still perfectly quiet when rolling around town or cruising... spot on :)




Between the diff and the exhaust, 4th pretty much pulls like 3rd did now. Should be bang on with a better intake and a map.

Got a bit carried away with the stickers but hey, car's only a bit of fun.



Cheers :)
 
#7 ·
Thanks mate, appreciate it, quite pleased with them for cheapies :) The weight isn't too bad for 17's with fair sized tyres either.

Quite funny though, Motorsport Wheels had "The UK's best alloy wheels" written on the boxes... I guess they haven't heard of Compomotive, Image, Team Dynamics, Revolution, etc :D
 
#8 ·
Well, kind of an update... pretty daft one, but it's all fun and games :)

I've been painting stuff with iso-free 2k for a little while and it's been spot on, but in all honesty I couldn't be bothered with the cleaning up so out came the rattle cans.

I had the front bumper painted properly and was about to have the rear done, but then someone drove into my car and drove off, so I figured that and my inevitable crashing it before long, I figured it'll be easy to touch up.

Then just on the off chance that it didn't look stupid enough, I put some LTW-ish vinyl on the ole girl. Probably more vinyl than paint on this thing now :D

So now it's multi-colour, but mostly satin yellow… really, really yellow :sarcastic

Put the M3 rear bumper and some tow hooks on as well so that firstly if anyone crashes into it again they'll know about it and secondly it'll give us something to pull it out of the armco with :D






Also slightly more productively, I put some new coilovers on that I can actually adjust. I wanted HSD's but my money's earmarked for the Mk2 Golf build so I chucked on some from Max Speeding Rods via eBay… surprisingly, they don't seem sh*t?? Different league from proper stuff, I had BC's on my last E36 as well as AP's from Venom, but these are perfectly good for enthusiastic road use with a few track days and having a slide about. They feel a bit better damped than most eBay stuff, noticeably so in my opinion compared to previous Hot Tunings and uber-soft JOM's, and decently stiff which is nice.



Dialled in what camber I could at the front… may fire a couple of shims in between the shocker and the upright to squeeze some more when I give it some more lock, but it's all good for now.




Had my other harness turn up as well, so chucked the fresh one in the driver's side and the old one in the passenger's side as it'll get less use. I work at a breakers during the day and work on cars for local folks at our little workshop nearly every evening so it should dirty the fresh one up to match the other soon enough :sarcastic



Anyway, thanks for looking :thumbsup
 
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