,
Don't get me wrong, I like my turbo torque, but this is a phenomenal setup considering it doesn't have to deal with all of that turbo heat. And remember the size of the car, being an E30 chassis. Although Rocco reports that this dyno run was at 11 PSI boost, today he's actually got the Vortech blower maxed out to 16 PSI. That's probably getting closer to 500 WHP. All Rocco needs is someone to donate him a 3.2-liter crank, and the rods and pistons off of a 1996-1999 BMW M3 and he'll have an even fatter curve. (This is making me want to start an E30 project).
Here's the E30 BMW racing down the inside-stretch of the California Speedway at this year's ProAM Global Time Attack, that Rocco entered in the RWD Unlimited category, and won with an over 6-second quicker lap than the runner up in his class.
Here is the car getting ready to rip a lap at the Global Time Attack at the California Speedway infield. I don't know about you, but there's a lot of nostalgia when I see this shot, specifically of my days watching German Touring Car championships on TV, when the E30 M3s would battle the Mercedes Benz 190 2.3-16 and Alfa 155 touring cars of the day.
This is such a neat angle of the car, which shows just how far it's come between looking like this…
and once looking (as well as driving like it looked) like this.As I stated in Part 1, for some of us, owning a particular car has lead to complete life changes. For Rocco, the work done on this car gave him the confidence to open up his own shop. I think we can all agree that a career chance is a definite life changer.
For me, my first E36 M3 led me to meet some people who led me not only to what I do as a freelance automotive journalist and photographer (which led me to a lot of other people and family photos I have forever, for that matter, as I never was a photographer before I started this in 2000), to leading me to my own current family of a wife and three girls.
Maybe your story is similar, but stems from a different vehicle, or maybe you can't relate at all and it's just a BMW thing. Share with us your story below–as I'd love to read it. Whatever the case is, though, both Rocco and I can say, “thank you” to once owning a BMW 3 series.
Rocco would also like to thank Alex Fuller from Bimmer Life Tuning for his impeccable tuning of the car's OEM E36 OBD2 Siemens MS41.1 ECU. Bimmer Life Tuning is a new company, and you can check out its Facebook page below.
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