Andrew O'Hara

Hol,

What M3 was it? E36 or E46 (new M3 is the E46) as E46 M3's are still fetching over £40K second hand. If it was the E36 M3 you made the right choice mate to buy a type r

[Edited by Andrew O'Hara - 7/2/2002 12:44:34 PM]

mccltd

One of my mates has just bought the BMW3 Coupe with tiptronic gearbox.
Lovely car, and what a wack in the back it gives.
Will the Performance pack for the STI7 bring it up or more to the performace of this car, just that he began to leave me at 65mph.

SCOOBERATORS

I been out in the new M3 around the bowl at millbrook 4 up at 168 MPH .Not even flat out.

I know what you mean about the kick in the back but you can adjust that i think.

FANTASTIC CAR.

LG John

You'll have to do some serious modification to be faster than the M3. It might be possible to make the scooby faster 0-100 but it'll require money and brutality. You can't really argue with 3.2 litres and 343bhp of normally aspirated grunt.

mccltd

Ohwell thanks for the replies.

Time to start saving I think,,all that power and no Clutch wow.
Trouble is they equate to about £43,000 hmmmm..

image doctor

Just take him out when its a bit damp, and the balance will return.

jjr1

Even if it is damp the M3 still puts its power down....... An Impreza may win in a traffic light GP in the wet but don't kid yourself that it can't be driven at speed down a twisty in the wet.

Adam M

hmmm, dont know what the power to weight is, but since the sti 7 is so lardy, it would take some serious power to leave an m3 behind.

get yourself an sti 5 or 6 type ra v-limited like felstead and mellow, and start there. You should then be able to leave the M3 well in your mirrors and have a lot more change and exclusivity.

Not quite the quality or resale value but then you laid out much less in the beginning.

and to all those talking about not being able to beat 3.2 litres of na grunt, remember that high revving na engines dont get the torque, at least nowhere near that which you will get out of a 350bhp impreza.

jjr1

Also don't forget high rev, motorbike engines have absolutley no torque, so you should be able to kill them as well :-)

IntegraR

High revving is fine, its the power/torque to weight ratio that counts more, a lighter car doesnt need masses of torque to stay with a heavier one with masses of torque.

Thou saying that, I wouldnt mind some torque, Im sure my car had some, but Ive looked everywhere for it, and nothing!!

The torque on the M3 must be pretty damn high anyway, NA or not, so I dont think a turbo is the be all and end all.

carl

Hi revving and no torque is fine. Power from the engine is not produced continuously, it comes in pulses as each cylinder fires. Shoving 100 lb/ft at 10,000 rpm (i.e. 10,000 times in a minute) shouldn't be much different to 200 lb/ft at 5,000 rpm. In the second example you're putting in twice as much torque, but half as often.

Bruiser.STi

The beauty of the M3 is it will run all day at 160mph, whereas most STi's wouldnt be overly keen. And you can't fault the beautiful lines of a M3 or the goodies you get inside.
I know I'd have one even if it wouldnt keep up with my STi up to 100mph....

TopPrize

Tis true,

I took a M3 cab SMG for a test run, and they are just superb!.

Spudgun VI

spend 43k on a car that looks like every other 3 series??

buy an evo6, send it off to RC for stage 3 conversion, buy a seat ibiza (for pootling round, shopping etc) and spend the other 13k on anything you like

Chins

One I can answer as a former owner of both

The M3 is not all low end. It pulls pretty well throughout the rev range. Where the STI starts to slow down around 90 the M3 is just getting into its stride. 0-100 the M3 is about 1.5 sec quicker. After that the better Aerodynamics will help a lot as well as the 340bhp. The STI will get to 150, the M3 nearer 170 without a limiter.

Performance wise neither my modified STI V or P1 was it equal.
At Bedford on the long straight most stuff would be closed on. Some of the thanks goes to the SMG. It changes gear quicker than I change cars .

I had one track day in the M3, at a wet Bedford. It was amazing. Anyone that thinks that on a wet road the Scooby would be quicker could be in for a lesson on how RWD and DSCIII has moved on.

I doubt even with a PPP that it will keep up with an M3.

Jonathan

droid42

Hi revving and no torque is fine. Power from the engine is not produced continuously, it comes in pulses as each cylinder fires. Shoving 100 lb/ft at 10,000 rpm (i.e. 10,000 times in a minute) shouldn't be much different to 200 lb/ft at 5,000 rpm. In the second example you're putting in twice as much torque, but half as often.

Erm, no. Torque, as measured at car flywheels, is exactlty what you described, i.e the average of all the "pulses". 100lb/ft at 10,000rpm has exactly the same twisting force as 100lb/ft at 2,000rpm.

To everyone who thinks torque really matters, forget it ... torque/weight ratio is about the most useless measurement you can give for a car. Torque at the driven wheels is what matters, not torque at the flywheel ... the flywheel torque has to go through special torque multipliers first (i.e. gears) and then another special torque multiplier (i.e. final drive) before it starts to move the car forward. High-revving/medium-torque/high-power cars can have shorter gearing than low-revving/high-torque/high-power cars and therefore the effective torque at the wheels is the same.

There endeth the lesson

jjr1/Chins ... didn't know you hung about here ... damn shame the "other site" is down at the moment

Ian.

Joseph

A friend of mine has an M3 SMG and we have tusseled.

On the motorway(in Germany)it is neck and neck his gearchanges are much quicker and can pull half a length clear but my STI7 soon pull it back.

When we stop he tells me he was about maxed out whilst I had 1000 revs to go and this was at 155mph.

Round corners it surprised me and I had to go a lot faster than anticipated to shake him off.

His brakes are stupid. I have seen better brakes on a bicycle.
I can stop so much later than him that he thinks I'm suicidle.
When I do brake he comes flyin passed with his foot firmly pressed on the middle pedal.

We swop. His car looks the bollocks inside with all those gadget but if I wanted incar toys I would get the missus to drive me around whilst I use the net.

His seats are pants though, they are far too comfortable and laid back I want to light a pipe not drive a car. The steering wheel too big and the steering soo light I'm oversteering. The car feels heavy and a little lethargic at low revs. He later tells me the SMG jumps out of gear and sometimes doesn't go into gear.
We swap back but only one of us has a smile on our face and its me cos I'm going home in an STI7 knowing my mate paid 50k for his.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

J.

Chins

Joseph

Maxed out at 155 in an M3. Sure its not a 330 Ci ? The car has a limiter at 155 which can be removed on the M3. Dont Import STI max out just over 100 without the limiter being removed.

As for 50k, a base M3 cost under 40k and has a much higher spec than the STI as std. Leather, Xenons etc. You should also of found the electric lumbar a help. If his car jumps out of gear, he needs his brains testing if your both driving at 155 mph.

Its also not what it costs, but how much you lose. Buy an Imported STI 7 spend loads modding it to get it to the std of an M3 then sell it a couple of years later. I know who would be smiling all the way to the bank, and it wouldnt be the STI owner.

Jonathan
ex STI 7
ex M3 SMG

now in a hairdressers Cooper S

[Edited by Chins - 6/29/2002 11:11:06 AM]

Phil M

jjr1,droid,chins

I'm hangin on here as well, ours is nearly fully up and running.

droid42

When we stop he tells me he was about maxed out whilst I had 1000 revs to go and this was at 155mph

That would have been his speed limiter then.

If he'd had that disabled you would have finished with about 15 mph between you

Ian.

Andrew O'Hara

Joseph,

I can tell you mate that the M3 does not max at 155mph.

Had one indicating 172mph in sixth with 1000rpm still to go but backed off. Didn't go into sixth gear until 160mph indicated.

I know of one on the way to Le Mans that had 178 mph indicated on speedo.



[Edited by Andrew O'Hara - 6/30/2002 1:36:55 PM]

droid42

I can tell you mate that the M3 does not max at 155mph.

Had one indicating 172mph in sixth with 1000rpm still to go but backed off. Didn't go into sixth gear until 160mph indicated.

I know of one on the way to Le Mans that had 178 mph indicated on speedo.

Yes, I forgot to mention that one It's been well proven now that the M3's speed limiter is occasionally generous. It's also been well proven that some do actually work

Most I've had out of mine is 162mph (indicated) and an estimated true 158mph (based on my calibration from a GPS) at the 2 mile straight at Bruntingthorpe. If I hadn't run out of space, who knows what it would have got to in the end ...

Ian.

Andrew O'Hara

Ian,

I think 180mph indicated would have been possible at the time. The weather conditions were just right. I have seen 165mph indicated in my M3, and the wife can vouch for that

I agree with you on the speed limiter, I think they are very generous. I know in my E36 M3 Evo that you could drive through the limiter if you stayed in 5th until just after 155 and then went into 6th.



[Edited by Andrew O'Hara - 6/30/2002 2:05:26 PM]

scoob_dood

The only valid input I'll offer is that from a magazine article that ran the Evo VII vs. the new M3 -

they concluded that the two cars were so different, and yet so equally capable that the end result was down to the driver's ability.

Not sure if this was Evo or Car & Performance Car.

- Jon

RobEvo5

iTrader: (9)

Anyone had tussles with the older M3 Evo's ?. They are running 320bhp normally aspirated. Not a lot of difference in BHP between new and old yet you can pick an older M3EVO up for as little as 15K.

droid42

Not sure if this was Evo or Car & Performance Car.

It was "Car"

Ian.

LG John

As a big fan of the M3 and a wannabe scooby owner I've always monitored M3 V Scoob threads and the posting usually go something like this. "Raced an M3 the other day, had him from the lights and then he sailed past at about 50mph"

I raced one in the VTS one day and felt like I was going backwards. They are fast.....very fast!

Andrew O'Hara

Rob,

I did have the older M3 Evo before buying a P1, now have the new M3. Comparing the new M3 with the old M3 Evo, they are very similar in straight line speed, but the new M3 goes round corners where as the previous M3 wouldn't.

The handling characteristics of the new M3 are similar to the original 1st generation M3, I still have a first generation M3 which I use for track.

Neil Smalley

I would have an M3, but could'nt afford one. Therefore I went for the next best thing. STI-7.

It's not what fastest or 'the best' it's what we can afford and justify.

Hol

iTrader: (1)

I actually thought of getting an M3 instead of the typeR the ones I looked at were higher mileage, and although that doesnt really matter in a BMW, it still put me off.

Dave (MCC) who is that has the M3?, anyone I know?.

Oh, I saw Bugsy (Mark) this morning, in a Beemer.