Just bought my 1st BMW 6 days ago, joined the club today. I've got a 1995 M3 manual coupe, Cosmosschwartz in color. Or should I just say metallic black? Its in decent shape, but it is 17 yrs old, so its a good thing my cars are my favorite toys. Looking forward to some good modifications, because after all, too much horsepower is never enough! And I've heard these old M3's can turn a corner pretty well, too.
Welcome to the club and congrats on the car - nice! Find your local chapter's website and see what's happening in your area, and don't be shy, if there's meetings and events going on, there's usually fun to be had with the rest of the gang. You'll want to start reading up more on the specifics of your car - peruse the forums here, search them, buy a Bentley manual for your car if you plan to work on it yourself, and check out the other main BMW internet forums for more model-specific info - http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/ http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/ You can google up others, there's probably something out there specifically oriented to E36 M3's, for instance, but those two have been around for awhile and have a lot of info in addition to the club. Keep in mind that it IS the internet however, don't jump on something just 'cause some total cyber-stranger sez so. I don't know all potential issues for E36's, but I think one common one are the transmission mounts - perhaps this was more common at club driver's schools and track events, but earlier on was an issue with the E36 "money-shift" where the transmission mounts in particular, and possibly engine mounts contributing, would flex enough that a driver could miss the correct gear on a downshift, and over-rev the engine and kill the valvetrain (if you search it you'll get more specifics on the mechanical damage) - anyway, getting into that kind of headwork on the engine.... very expensive. I think the solution was upgraded transmission mounts, at a minimum, which are offered by a number of vendors that advertise in the club's monthly magazine (Roundel), that presumably you'll have in your hands by the middle of January. I'm not sure how much of an issue it was for M3's, perhaps more so for track driven cars, but I think there was an issue with the sheet metal in the rear-subframe attachment area not holding up and ultimately showing cracks or tearing/separating. Not an endemic issue to all BMW's, E36's were the first BMW to be completely cad/cam designed, and it would appear the computer engineering models weren't quite up to accounting for all the real-world stresses that were incurred over time. E46's suffered a similar issue, I think this problem was fixed in the E90's as I don't recall hearing much about it with these cars. E36's have been around so long now, and were so popular and numerous, that I think there's products out there from a variety of vendors to address just about anything that's been known to come up with the cars. Check http://www.turnermotorsport.com/ & http://www.bimmerworld.com/ for what all they have available for E36 M3's and you'll see what I mean. Happy New Year's!
A cheap mod is a x-brace which replaces the single brace below the engine. A common problem on these transmissions are the return springs tend to get stuck. If you find the shift lever not centered or you have to hunt to find 3rd gear, that could be an indication that the spring is stuck. Back in the 90s, 240hp was a lot.
Thanks for the info, I'm trying to figure out some of the best forums, there are quite a few out there. All the more fun, I guess.
Thanks for the suggestions, I appreciate it. I grew up with muscle cars in the family, but MY first car was a German built, 1973 Mercury Capri. I slalom raced that in San Diego in the '80s, and have been addicted to corner carving ever since! And those funky German quirks, much more personality than U.S. cars.
