Archive for the 'BMW E36 M3 Evo' category

A decade of driving

As this decade draws to a close I thought I’d reflect back on the motoring changes I’ve experienced. As we celebrated the new millennium I was the almost proud owner of a 1992 Ford Escort estate. With a lusty 1.4 litre engine it could barely pull the skin from a rice pudding, but it was […]  Read more »

M3 Repaired

I’m pleased to announce that the M3 Evo is no longer an ornament on my mother’s driveway – Ben fixed it yesterday! For those who don’t know, it had cut out on us one night and refused to start thereafter. We could tell that the ECU was alive and well, and as the starter would […]  Read more »

Weekend update

The first thing I did yesterday morning was to give the M5 what I imagine is a fairly typical weekly service: some fuel, a litre of TWS oil, and a pair of rear tyres. I failed to take the camera out with me for that trip, but it’s hardly photogenic stuff. I did consider getting […]  Read more »

Comparing: E39 M5 to E36 M3

We were doing a spot more work on the M5 today (unfinished – hopefully more on that tomorrow!). I needed to nip out and grab some more tools, so I took the M3 we repaired over Christmas. A section of road between Robin’s tool shed and Ben’s workshop is one of my all time favourites. […]  Read more »

M3 -> back on the road!

(this article concludes a series of five, starting here) I turned up after work today to find that Robin and Ben had basically finished the job – fortunately Robin took some snaps along the way. We left it on New Year’s Eve looking like this: So the front of the car was rebuilt: New exhaust […]  Read more »

Great Picture

I found this picture, or perhaps it’s a diagram, on a forum and I think given recent engine antics it warrants reflection. Looking at that – there’s not much of that car we didn’t take apart! Ben’s working on the car now – Robin and I will be there later so expect another update in […]  Read more »

Engine In!

I arrived late yesterday afternoon to find Robin and Ben had decided to source and fit a clutch – they’d assembled it all and attached the gearbox to the new motor. Next job was to reattach the exhaust headers with new gaskets. This wasn’t the smoothest operation – some of the nuts had seized onto […]  Read more »

More engine swap progress

A busy day today. We’ve not got much to show for the 20 man hours we’ve put in today, but we’ve overcome a lot of hurdles that we’re pleased to have behind us. We had a rounded bolt on the clutch assembly that caused a delay first thing. The clutch doesn’t look new but is […]  Read more »

Engine Out!

A couple of hours today saw a good deal more progress. I grabbed a spanner from Robin to get rid of the fan – I can’t tell you how much I could have done with that yesterday! Then it was time to get the injector wiring out of the way, which marked the point at […]  Read more »

Bored this Christmas?

My friend Ben Smith clearly is. He had a rummage around in his yard and found this: That’s an S50B32, or for those of you who don’t speak in code, the 3.2 litre 321bhp engine from a BMW M3 Evolution. Which is handy, because Ben also has one of these with a dead engine. We […]  Read more »