Hrmmm...
Update. 
It was just the strut bearings. Car feels mostly good now, though i suspect that i am going to have to break down and do more bushing work on it, it's starting to feel a little weird, not that that's surprising considering the mileage and the abuse it's taking from having the geometry so screwed up, combined with the power it makes.
Trashed the passenger side motor mount last week. Which sucks. Still driving it until my full set of replacement solid filled mounts cure.
Driving impressions: This thing is REALLY easy to drive. It's not the fastest thing in the turns, but it's impressively flat considering the "cheap bastard" and outright WRONG setup that it has. Initial turn in sucks compared to both the Celica and the Escort, and it doesn't feel nimble AT ALL, but it's extremely stable, and gives plenty of warning when it's about to E36 M3 itself, and outright grip is actually pretty surprising. The brakes are GREAT, which really surprised me.
Next steps:
1) try to get some camber. Right now it's sitting at almost 1 degree of POSITIVE camber on all 4 corners, which is a little annoying, and probably not helping my vague turn-in feeling. I'm either going to invest in some crash bolts, or try rotating my strut mounts 180 degrees.
2) Install the new mounts
3) catch can setup for concours bling (and to keep oil from spraying from the PCV system all over the bay)
4) New cam seal (leaking pretty badly, making a mess)
5) re-install AFPR
6) MOAR BOOSTS
7) Oh yeah, scored rear mudflaps for $5. I didn't realize this car was even supposed to have them. Pretty psyched about having them, as silly as that sounds.
I decided against Megasquirt/big turbo for the moment. If it wasn't my DD, i'd probably go ahead and do it, but i can't afford the down time. I will probably spend remaining budget focusing on concours, hopefully some tires, and POSSIBLY a cheap water injection kit to eke out some more power at the drag strip.
I hates it.
