[justpete]

Originally Posted by Riley1524

Wow! You gotta be crazy to dump so much money into the n52 just for maybe 230whp . I admire your drive to do so, but damn! I love my 328i and I also loved the 1 series I had, but unless this was going into a track only car and you didn't have any other option/car to track, its not worth the money. It pains me to think the total cost all of this is costing you, but you must love your car so much, so that's cool. Congrats and good luck!!

Actually we'll be pushing 300hp and 240rwhp. But we're also reducing weight yet again heading for 3000lbs curb wet.

If you want to learn how to drive a track the biggest mistake everyone makes is buying an overpowered car. Interestingly this was brought up in Intermediate class at the track on Saturday, pretty sure most didn't believe. But then they didn't believe a 328i could blow past their Evora or R8 either. It's the driver, not the car.

My plan was to start at one end of the capability curve and modify me and the car up to our collective limit, converting the car to full race at the end with an engine swap to an S54. It'll be at 300hp with the cams, 330hp with head work and race tuning, and over 450hp with an S54. The money spent is actually cheaper than stepping up through several cars and it allows me to keep it as a daily driver in the process so I'm always practicing.

Real race cars cost upward of $300K and I'm a third of the way there and it's totally worth it at absolutely no sacrifice. I don't love the car, I love the track, huge difference. There really isn't any other choice in a car that can span the difference from relatively slow but well handling street car up to full race car. Most would learn on various cars over the years and eventually go through a couple of track builds and maybe put together a real race car but I'm guessing it's not any less expensive.

Will be fun to see how it all progresses from here and I'll keep posting about it since a lot of this can be done by those with the time to wrench it themselves but bear in mind the last round of modifications cost $27K in parts alone, virtually none of which could be sourced used. Speed costs money, ain't no lie.

Of work left to be done a full six point cage with x-ray inspection is close to ten grand, a widebody conversion with custom Forgeline wheels is close to fifteen grand if not twenty, good race shells are well over a grand each if not five grand each depending on FIA spec, engine swap with dogbox tranny and custom fittings is another thirty to forty grand depending on how exotic it all gets. So, ya know, so far it's dirt cheap in comparison... yow.

Thanks for the words of encouragement, it's kinda cool to make a 328i into what a 328i isn't supposed to be.