Adivce needed on Tracking an FD vs an E36 M3
 

Guys I need some opinions, thoughts, experience, etc regarding which platform I should use to track going forward.

I have had the privlege to track and FD at some HPDE events but the FD was not properly setup such as my spec miata. I have also driven a modified e36 m3 on the street and that felt very smooth and responsive.

Obviously some things come to mind when trying to make a decision on which platform to pick going forward such as reliablity, price for repairs, handling, power, overall feel of the car.

I loved my FD's when I had them and the M3 just felt right, granted it had quite a bit of work done to it. Any thoughts or suggestions? I run with quite a few M3's and Porsche's which both are amazing cars but the few FD's I see on the track are rarely setup properly. I am also curious as to how reliable the FD is once setup for track events.

Any help or guidance you can provide will be appreciated.

on the BMW, it takes as much if not more setup work to get it to work. you need to fix the floor, so that the rear subframe stays in the car, the front shock towers also bend, you must buy camber plates and a bunch of bushings.

once you do all that though, they do seem to be pretty reliable. if you endurance race, you need to bring lots of extra engines, they last about 8-9 hours.

hp/$ is bad with the BMW, you need to spend a lot to get more than 10hp out of it.

the FD chassis/suspension is excellent, it already has all the adjust-ability that you need to buy with the BMW, and the chassis is much stronger. since its a turbo hp/$ is easy, an exhaust can get you 40-50hp.

the big trouble with the FD is heat. you really need to just put a single turbo on it, and this can be done without going nuts, but it usually isn't. i've seen hybrid S5 turbos on FD's, its almost a bolt on... but a small T4 on an HKS manifold would work too.

once its got just one turbo, the heat issue becomes manageable.

so pick your poison!

Ya my main thing is I am familiar with the FD I just hear that one is more reliable than the other for tracking. And money is a factor it seems you can get an m36 from 4-9k but I'm worried mods are more expensive than getting an FD and setting it up.

the E36 is a nice street car, but to make the leap to track car you actually do need all those adjustable suspension kits and body reinforcements. plus there are a lot of really junky parts out there for BMW's, its hard to figure out what's good because most of the people modding these cars are just doing it for the looks.

the best example are those aluminum tow hooks that screw into the bumper, they look neat http://www.amazon.com/Godspeed-RED-E.../dp/B0068SZXQY but god forbid you actually need to use it, any side load and it just snaps. we broke our $140 turner motorsports ones strapping the car to the dyno!

engines are really expensive in these cars, and they DO fail, the speedtrap racing guys average about 2 engines per 25 hour race, http://realoem.com/bmw/showparts.do?...95&hg=11&fg=05

that being said, once you do have all the BS stuff put on the car they are pretty good

I'm curious as to why you say they only last x number of hours. I haven't heard that before. Is there any reason it would need to swapped during an endurance race? Granted I won't be doing endurance just curious.

Red devil, send me a pm and we'll chat.

J9fds, I have no idea what you're talking about, but the S50/52 motors last MUCH longer than 8-9 hours. It's also thousands of dollars cheaper to run the E36 and they actually have proper support as these chasis were raced professionally. Turner and BimmerWorld to name just a few are great and will actually provide support. There's zero FD support and no real development going on. Not to mention an E36 that's well sorted is very fast even with stock power levels.

i've been to 8 of the 10, 25 hours of thunderhill, and everyone with an E36 brings a spare engine, uses it, and sometimes a third.

in sprint sessions they do fine, but in endurance trim they don't.

i'm not sure what fails, but they do.

pat, i do agree that they do run well stock, and there is lots of aftermarket support, its a popular car. however you say well sorted, and i say you had to re-engineer the whole car. team midnight, did run spec E30, and we did run an E46, so i do have some hands on experience.