[mikebontoft]

Its been a crazy busy week but I thought I'd post this up because I can.

I found this '99 BMW 328is for sale on facebook on the local page. He wanted $1500 for it. I didn't have the money. It is a 5 speed manual, 2.8L straight 6 M52. 179K miles. lot of M3 parts on it, and a cold air intake and some exhaust. The cool thing is the Autologic tool we use has peformance tunes available. He bought it from a dealer that was asking $6800 for it! Never sold and was about to go to auction when he gave them his offer.



The car was about an hour away from me, but I went to look at it anyway (when I took the other pictures). I talked to the guy's dad who showed me the car, and expressed both my interest and disappointment in it.

Got home and called the guy back, his dad talked to him and said to forget the other guy and sell it to me. I guess it had been sitting in his driveway for a month and the guy lives half an hour away, so they wanted it gone. Offered $1300, he didnt want to take it. Then he came back and said I can have it for $1200 if I come get it friday. STILL didnt have enough but managed to sell some stuff to go for it.

Tried to rent a tow dolly with the Jeep but Uhaul said it didnt weigh enough, which is a load of crap. So fortunately I was able to borrow my coworker's Tundra and make the trip down and back.




The minute I got back, the guy that sold me his rusty donor 2002 arrived with a trailer to buy it back from me for $100. Haha. So I said goodbye to one car and hello to another.




The list of known issues so far:
-Starter gear is stripped (for the most part) hopefully not the flywheel. Takes a few tries for it to grab.
-windows dont roll up or down - FIXED with a new fuse for the anti theft system
-sunroof rod is broken, just gonna leave it closed
-power steering is making noise
-Multi info center has dead pixels, new ribbon cable should fix it
-brake wear lamp is on - needs a new sensor.
-heater blower motor doesnt work.

First thing I did was wash it after fixing the windows. And polished the headlights:
Pre

Post








Havent touched the interior but its fairly clean as well.

@KidVermicious forget the Z, this thing's fun.

[02SE]

I had an E36 M3 in the 90's. It was a fun car.

[KidVermicious]

That looks like a ton of fun, let's go do hotlaps.

Right after you figure out whether I have a bad MAF or bad ECU, I mean.

[mikebontoft]

Right of course haha

[lelandr]

Ahh, E30s are where it's at.

Jk, looks pretty clean for a cheap E36. The sunroof parts are cheap & that's an easy fix.

Forget the pad wear indicators, trace the wire back as far as you can, cut them off & solder the ends together.

With a used E36, do a thorough check of the cooling system, especially the radiator neck, thermostat housing & fan blades.

In principle, these were good cars, but their best use now is to be gutted & turned into track rats.

[mikebontoft]

Nah it needs brakes anyway. They're pretty close.

Need to make this thing my daily so since it needs tires, I finally bought my first set of wheels and tires.





E30 you say? Ive driven a few M3's before

[mikebontoft]

Current status. Traded some headlights for free.

[mikebontoft]

[e46inperrycounty]

The blower motor is usually the resistor but if it is indeed the motor itself, be ready to show extreme patience. I'm about to get rid of my e46 325xi once I take all the audio gear out and put the interior back to stock. Will probably leave the coil over kit on it when I sell it though.

[amalik]

great price on this and looks nice... but quick question -- if the engine needs a rebuild, wouldn't that be an arm and a leg with BMW?

[lelandr]

Originally Posted by amalik

great price on this and looks nice... but quick question -- if the engine needs a rebuild, wouldn't that be an arm and a leg with BMW?

Nah. Not so much. There are eleventy billion of these sixes out there. There are a lot of shops who have mastered building them inexpensively. TRM will sell decent refreshed motors for less than a couple grand. The S52s pull a little more. They will sell a 400+hp turbo S52 for about $4k.

Otoh, the chances that the motor will go are slim. BMW's drive trains are commonly very robust, only really having problems with abuse or missed shifts. Even the heavily tracked cars will go past 300k with proper maintenance.

The only motors really expensive to rebuild are the true Motorsport engines. Even those are inherently robust & commonly available due to wrecked cars.

[amalik]

Originally Posted by lelandr

Nah. Not so much. There are eleventy billion of these sixes out there. There are a lot of shops who have mastered building them inexpensively. TRM will sell decent refreshed motors for less than a couple grand. The S52s pull a little more. They will sell a 400+hp turbo S52 for about $4k.

Otoh, the chances that the motor will go are slim. BMW's drive trains are commonly very robust, only really having problems with abuse or missed shifts. Even the heavily tracked cars will go past 300k with proper maintenance.

The only motors really expensive to rebuild are the true Motorsport engines. Even those are inherently robust & commonly available due to wrecked cars.

Thanks for the info. A 5-speed oldschool 2-door inexpensive coupe BMW might be in my future like OP's post. JW about engine/tranny though if they need work.