Starting from a Rolling Chassis

[m3f_tripitz]

As I have crashed my E36 M3 track car and have quite a few parts that appear to be in good order, I have been looking for a decent car to start the process of turning it into a track car. I found a local salvage yard with a clean body car for $250. While it has a diff and axles to mount wheels on, most of everything else is missing.


Am I crazy to go this route? I cannot find a clean-ish (e.g., no rust, non-mangled) M3 for 5-7k so far. 325s and 328s seem to be worth around 2.5-3k in my area. Is this money foolishly spent? I have a motor, transmission, driveshaft, steering setup, suspension,gauge cluster, etc.) I already know it needs a hood and front bumper, both of which can cost me quite a bit to get painted (or I can just plastidip it?)

[m3f_usedunderwear]

Sorry to hear about your wreck and sounds like you are okay coming out of it.


Here is my take - are you in a rush or something to get this track car up and running? Do you care how the exterior looks like?


$250 is cheap but it does sound like you have almost everything to swap over. Getting it painted nicely will indeed run the costs up.


If you are in no hurry at all and doing most of the work yourself, then I'd say go for it. Not sure how patient you are from a perspective point of view


GL with the project

[m3f_tripitz]

Thanks for the reply. I am okay doing most of the work as soon I will have done pretty much everything to an E36 other than take the engine apart. I do not mind spending 5-6 months again building the car up from scratch. More worried about wiring issues, etc.



Unfortunately, the "clean" body turns out to have a few patches of rust (some on trunk from a chip not in the usual spot, and on both sides of the quarter panel in the usual spaces). That immediately will skyrocket the cost of the car to deal with properly.



While I am patient, the quality of cars out there right now is pretty abysmal, unless one is willing to spend a lot. I may unload everything, including my suspension and engine shortly. Ugh.

[m3f_usedunderwear]

Maybe expand your searching radius a little more?

[m3f_tripitz]

Maybe expand your searching radius a little more?

I am looking at ~300-400 miles out (NY metro) and not finding much. The last car I purchased was 900 miles away; the PPI sucked and I ended up with a lot of issues I would have caught in person. Prefer to buy a car that I can drive to in a few hours.