And So it Begins

So, not so long ago I found myself contemplating the fact that I could no longer afford to finish building my 2008 Evolution X into the track monster / weekend toy that I wanted it to be. I talked it over with a couple of my buddies, Seth and Andrew, and finally decided to put the X up for sale. My plan was to take the diference between the payoff amount and the selling price and find myself a nice project car.

I started shopping for a nice used sports car, checking all the past favorites (RX-7's, E30's, ls1-swaps, etc) in the $6,000 - $7,500 price range. I found lots of cool cars, some way cheaper than my predicted price point but needing lots or work, and some that were ready to jump in and hit the road corse but way out side my dubget. To be honest, I never really gave much thought to the E36 line, they just never did a lot for me that could remember anyway.

My buddy Seth and I were kicking around idea's one day and he mentioned the E36 M3's. As we were talking about the options, an image came up from memory... it was the cover of Car and Driver ( I think, may have been motortrend) from years past, with none other than the 1995 E36 M3, in Dakar Yellow. I remeber reading the review way back in 1995 and thinking "man, what a cool car, I wish I could afford one of those".

Over the next couple days I spent hours googling the interwebs and reading everyting I could find about the E36 3's. I settled on the fact that I wanted a 1995 model for the following reasons:

1. Non staggered wheel and tire package (more tail happy)
2. Suspension settings that more closely resembled the Euro models (US version got a geometry change in 1996 that introduced more understeer)
3. OBDI so I could switch to stand alone engine management if I desired
4. 3.0 S50B30US has a better rod ratio for rev potential
5. Combo of S50B30US and OBDI responds way better to mods than S50B32US or S52
6. 1995's were going for the least money.

Well, two days after posting my car for sale on EvoM it was sold. I had just about $7,300 to spend on an E36 M3 so I got to work trying to track one down.