1996 328i, 5 speed, 4 door, sport pkg, 187k
This was officially my first BMW and at age 24, it was a well needed change. I purchased this car in 2002 for $9500 with 110k on the clock. It ran great, it drove great and to be honest, I did not care about much else at the time. Eventually I wanted to make this car a rocketship.
The original 2.8l M52 motor was a very good motor and the decision was made early on to keep the block/head, but swap most of the internal components out for S52 M3 components. Therefore "hopefully" turning the car into a 4 door M3.
Luckily at this point in my life, money was not a problem, so coming up with the few thousand dollars to cover such an upgrade was easy.
The first step was to pull the head off the motor and get it polished overhauled. We installed the S52 cam shafts and Vanos unit. We updated the computer too an OBD 2 S52 computer out of a 98' M3 and installed Conforti software. Working out some of the bugs, I had to get the car tuned and custom fuel mapped, which was expensive, but well worth it. We also replaced the exhaust manifold with the E36 M3 manifold off an S52 motor, due to the stock exhaust manifold having issues. After a custom CAI instake install and S50 manifold upgrade, the motor was finally finished. Final DYNO numbers were never done sadly, but I can tell you this, the car was substantially faster after doing those upgrades.
The second phase was to drop the transmission and install a light weight flywheel from a wrecked E34 M5 at a junk yard. It was a 3rd party single mass aluminum wheel, with no markings anywhere, so too this day we still don't know where it came from. We installed the E34 M5 clutch and E34 M5 pressure plate too make the entire thing work correctly. This was not a big install compared too the motor job and the result was astounding. You could drop the clutch and it would not slip one bit. The lighter weight flywheel helped in how quickly the RPM's dropped during shifts. We also installed a BavAuto short shifter kit, which was very nice.
The 3rd phase was to finish off the suspension. We installed Bilstein BTS sport suspension system with springs. Replaced all lower control arms with NEW M3 E36 replacement arms and also did the upper and lower bushings. The the final alignment after all was said and done took an hour, but man the car felt like a million bux. With the new front camber plates, the car was set to - 1.5 in the back and -1 in the front just to be safe. At the same time, we installed the M3 break system including Brembo drilled rotors, and M3 calipers. The system was drained of all its fluid and synthetic fluid was added. We also switched all the piping over to SS lines instead of rubber ones.
The 4th phase was the cosmetics and stereo. We installed the full HK stereo system into the car with speakers and amp. We also installed an E36 M3 front bumper. The car did not come with fog lights (which was odd) so we installed those too. With some other minor external mods, the car looked like an E36 M3 very much so.
We ran the car very hard for quite sometime. Sadly she never saw very many track events, just a few Auto-X and track days. Mainly she was a canyon/highway beast, which is what I built her to be. I stuck with dunlop 8000 tires for the duration of my ownership. 225/40/16 all the way around and they worked wonders on the car. I was always impressed with that tire, for performance per price it was one of the best.
My relationship with this car was mostly as a daily driver, listening to music with the sunroof open and the windows down on a nice sunny day. I decided to keep her instead of selling her over the course of the 2 years I owned her. There is a side of me which really enjoys the 4 door sedan, especially a sleeper sedan like this one. Sadly the fate of this car was met on a rainy day in August.
On August 13th 2004 I was doing some crazy moves with a full back seat and did a beautiful 180 degree drift over some messed up road. This caused my rear lower control arms to come loose from the body. Not knowing this, I kept on driving the car until one day a week later, one of the rear lower control arms detached from the body and totally screwed up a wonderful afternoon of driving! I got the car towed to a shop and they eventually welded that entire assembly back together. After a substantial amount of work, the rear camber would not align properly. Even though the welding job was 100% flawless and spot on work, the car would never be the same again.
So August 29th 2004, I sold my 328 with ALL the modifications for $7500 with 187k on the clock. It was probably the saddest day of my life, but I looked forward to a future with a new 4 door sedan that would be better then the 328. Sadly that day would never come and for the next 2 years, I would be struggling to find a comparable replacement.