While building up my new (to me) S52 supercharged engine for my E36, I had to decide what to do with the exhaust coming out of the head. Throwing a wrinkle in the plans is that I need to keep my stock catalytic converter pipe in place to pass my local county emissions (I was …
Continue reading Turner Motorsport (TMS) Equal Length Shorty Headers for my BMW E36
I just came across a deal to good to pass up and I'm now planning to swap in the 3.2 liter S52 motor (157k miles) from a 1997 BMW M3 in place of my current M50 (2.5 liter) motor! The compression numbers tested very well for this S52 with less than a 10 psi variance …
Continue reading BMW E36 S52 Engine Swap – Long Block Strip and Planning
The Rocky Mountain SCCA Solo summer series is finally getting underway after a very long break (for me at least). It was time to get my E36 out on the track and see if all these performance improvements were really going to make a difference! I've thrown a lot of things at the car over …
Continue reading Event 1, 2019 – My BMW E36 is way faster than me now!
There's just time to address a few more things before the 2019 autocross season kicks off. Quite a bit of miscellaneous items but they will all definitely impact the car's performance. This upgrade session is focused on the following areas: Adding more braces to the E36 to further stiffen the chassis front and rear Changing …
I'm still in the process of finishing up a few projects on my BMW E36 over the winter but not quite ready to blog about them. In the absence of one of my normal posts, I thought that I would let you know of several sites that I regularly visit to look for new parts …
As I've mentioned in a previous post, my car is feeling down on power since moving to the high altitude of Colorado. According to most reliable sites, my BMW E36 has 20% less power at my current altitude (~6000 ft) than at sea level. It left the factory with 189 hp (M50B25TU), so best case …
Continue reading More Power! Upgrading and modifying the BMW E36 engine.
