So I have abandoned hope of entering into organized club racing events (SpecE30). The addition of a son to our family last year has shifted priorities to diapers, wipes and regular visits to the pediatrician. Regardless, the need to hit the track for the occasional has been just too difficult to resist...but one big problem: I'm losing coolant. There appears to be a nice slow stream of what looks like mud oozing out of the area where the head gasket on cylinder #6 is. Do I pull the head and hope for something easy? Or do I just change out the entire 20-year-old hunk of 12-valve iron for something better?
Right.
Stumbled on a nice S52B32 advertised in bimmerforums and picked it up over the Christmas break down in Orange County. 117K miles, pulled out of a 4 door '97 M3. No compression or leakdown numbers, no maintenance history. Just acquired out of blind faith. I'm hoping that wasn't the wrong decision...
The plan:
- Full OBD-I conversion
- 3.5" HFM
- Lightweight flywheel
- Keep the current driveline (G260 transmission & 3.73 LSD rear end)
- Fan delete
- Keep A/C: it doesn't work now, but I'm hoping new lines and R134A conversion will work
- Keep PS: this will be a daily driver
