For sale is a well sorted turbo M50 1987 BMW 325is, that was built to be a drivers car. True to its purpose, it is not slammed, stanced, or covered in stickers. There is zero rubbing, scraping or dragging in any way shape or form. Every consumable in the drivetrain from the control arm bushings to the guibo have either been replaced or upgraded. The exterior is in great condition (rare for these cars, and the interior is in near perfect condition with a crackless dashboard and multiple digital readouts for the standalone ECU. The rear valance was properly swapped to the late model e30 to better balance out the look of the car. The car has lived its entire life on the west coast and it has zero rust issues. There are a few custom components that were professionally fabricated for this car, such as powered rear window openers and a removable hydraulic handbrake (car has never been drifted). Anyways on with the stats.
Engine
Garrett GT3076R bought new
Tial 44mm wastegate Tial BOV
Goodntight exhaust manifold 18-8 SS
VEMS stand alone ecu w/boost controller, egt, and wideband controller
VEMS LCD module
VEMS round display
60lb Siemens injectorsRebuilt Vanos
S52 Camshafts
ARP head studs
0.120" Cometic Head Gasket
Bosch 044 fuel pump
Mandrel bent 3" exhaust with 18" resonator and Flomaster Super 44 muffler, v-bands everywhere
Mishimoto aluminum radiator with 16" pusher fan
Custom aluminum catch can for crankcase breather
SPEC stage 3 clutch
Suspension/Drivetrain
Five lug swap (e36 M3 front control arms and brakes, with Z3 rear trailing arms)
Recently refreshed ZF 5spd transmission with M3 driveshaft
Staggered M Contours
Ground control coilovers 500f/700r (almost brand new, maybe 100 miles on them)
Bilstein HD shocks
Ireland Engineering front adjustable camber plates
Ireland Engineering rear adjustable camber kit
Ireland Engineering front and rear adjustable sway bars
New front ball joints (less than 100 miles on them)
Polyurethane mounts everywhere (rear subframe, front subframe, diff, transmission, m3 offset control arm bushings, rear trailing arms)
2.96 lsd differential (perfect size with the turbo)
Z3 steering rack
Body and others
Late model rear valence swap
Custom power rear windows
Custom hidden hydraulic handbrake
Focal component speakers
Euro Grill
Smiley headlamps
Spares
M54 short block for stroker build
I daily drive it at 15psi and I have a big fuel map for 22psi that I've used sparingly. Never tracked or abused, just daily driven on the nice days. It pulls great with plenty of room to grow if you get the need for more power. Please only serious inquiries. 13,000 obo
Last edited by kloucks; 10-28-2017 at 11:30 PM. Reason: price drop
this is super cool, wish this would've come up at the right time for me though. glws
Very well built car. Can you tell me was the M50 gone through at all or was it just dropped in save for the head gasket/studs/cams? Do you have an approx. mileage on the motor? Have you performed a compression test at all?
Car sounds like a great driver and I am interested, and I'm in PNW.
When I had the m50 out and was preparing for the turbo, I had the head resurfaced, the block decked, new chain tensioner, rebuilt vanos (mentioned in OP), added oil pressure sensor, new water pump, replaced all the gaskets/seals/bearings, and all the little things that you find. That was all done about 1500 miles ago. Everything ever done on this car was done right and in preparation for driving reliably on a daily basis. I have a slight case of OCD and it shows on this build.
I took a quick video of the car just out for a spin for a potential buyer. I think I need to find a better way to mount the camera though, the road noise is much exaggerated because it is mounted to the window.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3...zVUc1l1czlQZlE
Oh. My. God.
This is basically a dream build for me.... Beautiful car, unfortunately not in the position to make an offer just yet... In the process of moving out of my mk7 Golf R....
Best of luck, beautiful car! Makes me wonder why would you sell such a beautiful machine.
Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
MK6 VW GTI - Sold
E90 328i - Sold
F30 328i (Sport Line) - Lemon
E39 530i <3
I appreciate the video. I get that it sounds like it was prepped properly for the turbo, and it does show that you paid attention to the details, but my question pertains to the health of the bottom end. So I'm assuming the M50 short block is stock, and so far there's no mention of what kind of mileage it has on the short block..... and compression numbers would tell me how healthy it still is. It's fantastic you took the proper approach of having parts decked and used studs and MLS, and rebuilt/replaced wear/tear items but since I see no mention of the M50 being fully rebuilt with new pistons/etc I have to question the health of the shortblock.
Please understand my perspective. I've been a performance car guy for 27 years. I build and tune Subaru/Honda/Nissan/Mazda professionally at a shop in Boise ID. I see A LOT of junk roll through the door. Cars that were recently purchased (local and from other regional areas) that have decent enough parts on them but from lack of maintenance, abuse, improper tuning, etc, they run like garbage and often we find a cylinder way down in compression. Some of these are cars that supposedly have new motors in them, and we find RDOT blocks in them, and they still took a dump.
Now, I'm not at all saying I have any reason to believe your car would have an issue nor am I making such an accusation, and obviously the video shows that it looks like it runs great, but I've been around the block many times purchasing performance cars and with a build such as this, for the asking price, I would not buy the car unless I knew the bottom end was still healthy, which means a compression test.
Is this something you're willing to perform?
Also curious as to who did the tuning? Has it been on a dyno?
I have experience with VEMS, kudos on using standalone.
The shortblock was swapped in when I first bought the car. It had 120k on it and that was roughly 30k miles ago, hard to say off the top of my head. I drove it daily with the m50 swap for about three years and then it became a garage queen for the winters. Then about four years ago was when I started the turbo upgrade. So that is what I know about the m50 bottom end, but my dad does have a compression tester, so I will get those number shortly.
I appreciate your perspective and I bet you do see a lot of junk rolling through. I'm a mechanical engineer with a specialty in product development and design, but I am a performance car guy on the side .
The car was first put on a dyno by fast specialties in Vancouver Wa. This was the initial bring up of the initial build (which was with a holset hx35), I mainly just wanted someone to double check my numbers and make sure I don't blow anything up right away. On that setup it made 390 at the wheels on a mustang dyno at 18 psi. With the current turbo, it will likely have better numbers. Since that visit I have been doing the tuning. It has logging built into the VEMS, and so that made it pretty easy to tune myself.
Thanks for your interest and I will post those numbers shortly.
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