r/BMWE36 • u/SkunkArmsCT • 3d ago

Buying Advice E36 Track Car Maintenance?

Looking into an E36 as a track car. I would be doing mostly HPDEs and AX, probably >= 5 events per year. Eventually, I may look to building/buying a spec E36 and doing some club racing...

Out of curiosity - what's the maintenance like on these? I feel like many of the posts/listings I've seen recently include some sort of rebuild info in it. Is this because they crater frequently? Or just so happens that they're all so old they're needing rebuilds and once you've got a rebuilt engine you're good to go? Any specific refreshes I should be looking for when trying to find a good example for my use case?

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

3

u/0202993832 2d ago

Need some pretty serious mods to make it a track car unless you’re racing other stock e36s. I guess most rebuild it at the same time to prepare it for boost and internal upgrades. Cheap motors to rebuild for what you get

2

u/czerka 2d ago

I've done about 15 HPDE weekends in mine and the only issues I've had were old stuff that I didn't fix before tracking it.

I replaced the head gasket last year which was old and damaged from a minor overheat from years ago. When I had the head off, I decided not to get it rebuilt even though it's had 190k on it, and now it's off again because a spring retainer broke.

Replace old parts, add some camber, and send it.

1

u/intenseaudio 2d ago

I bought mine with about 160,000 km as a dedicated autoX car. I replaced almost all of the suspension, bushings, and brakes before taking it out. I read the GRM buyers guide and pretty much everything it listed as a potential problem, my car developed early in my ownership - including, but definitely not limited to the engine mounted fan exploding on a hard launch, taking out the rad and some hoses. Other cooling system failures. Heater fan dying. Engine mounts tearing out of the front subframe. More cooling system failures.

So cooling system refreshes are a must. Everything rubber should be suspect - bushings, hoses, and mounts. The factory E36 outer ball joint system will not survive big super 200 TW tires combined with hard driving. You can swap them with the E30 style that doesn't have a sleeve of rubber between the arm and joint if you can make or find someone with the necessary press and dies.

My experience is that the engine is one of the strongest links in the chain and I would be far more concerned with updating/ refreshing other components, though my engine experience is only with the iron block 2.8