Have you ever seen a JDM BMW 116i before?

Hot hatch? Cool. Rear-wheel-drive hot hatch? Even cooler. A rear-wheel-drive hot hatch that’s right-hand-drive JDM, too? Maybe one of the coolest. That’s what owner and driver Mike Pagano drives in Gridlife GLTC: a Japanese-market BMW 116i.

Much of Mike’s inspiration comes from the U.K. He grew up watching the British Touring Car Championship, a series where Colin Turkington would campaign a second-generation BMW 1 Series to earn two of his four drivers’ championships. Mike’s love for BTCC and hot hatches led him to seek out a BMW 1 Series.

“British Touring Car was super competitive–it was like European NASCAR,” Mike says. “I was always fascinated by the hatchbacks. To have a rear-wheel-drive hatchback is having the super-hot hatch.”

Mike Pagano. Photo by J.A. Ackley.

While BMW offered the 1 Series in the U.S. from 2008 to 2013, the hatches never came over to the States. Mike thought about importing one from Mexico, but a friend’s fiancée in Canada stumbled upon one that had been recently imported from Japan. “We drove up there immediately with a trailer, bought it and drove it back,” Mike says. “We used the race car clause [to import it because we were] turning it into a race car.”

After bringing it back to his Seems Legit Garage in Michigan, Mike began dismantling the BMW. “We stripped it to the bone,” he says. “We then caged it out, with the help of my buddy Jelani, put air jacks in it and started working on the motor. This came with a four-cylinder, which immediately went into the dumpster. No car uses it here. I couldn’t sell it to anybody.”

Mike then inserted an M54B30 inline-six from an E46 BMW that puts out 220 horsepower. He also swapped in a ZF 8HP 45 automatic transmission. He has since switched to a different powertrain, opting for a higher-revving M54B25 and a seven-speed BMW DCT instead.

“We did this to take advantage of the close ratios between gears to keep the engine in its power range,” Mike explains. “This is worth a lot when you only have 220 horsepower. On the track we were very competitive on the straights, always in the power. I ended up dropping valves when pushing the stock motors too far and built [the engine] with reduced displacement to take advantage of the rules, which gave benefits to lower displacements.”

Photo by J.A. Ackley.

Then Mike went to work on modding the BMW for his ultimate goal of endurance racing it. Mike thought a sliding pedal box would do the trick in accommodating drivers of different statures, but that required other adjustments.

“The floor-mount sliding pedal box reduced the amount of legroom, which was already of short supply in the 1 Series, so the decision was made to shift the driving position back a lot,” Mike explains. “To do this, we made custom seat mounts and implemented a Woodward steering column. This moved the back of the seat almost all the way to the rear seat edge/body-in-white waterfall. In the end, I am very happy with the positioning. The feel of the car is great back there.”

Photo by J.A. Ackley.

Mike swapped in a suspension from an F80 along with E90 subframes. “We fused the F80 knuckles to the car using a mix of adjustable links we already make for the standard knuckles … and some custom links for use with the little differences of the knuckles,” Mike says.

“The main upside of the knuckles is free track width–about an inch per side–so we can use the widebody [kit] without huge spacers, since we don’t have very wide tires–265s,” he continues. “I have an E46 with a terrible scrub radius handling traits from the widebody design, so I wanted to make sure we didn’t fall into that hole again. Lessons learned. The other great thing is the F80 brakes that bolt on. They are very capable and budget friendly for a track car. We are 1000 pounds lighter than an F80, so they take care of business.”

Mike also changed the brake master cylinders from 15/16- and 1-inch cylinders to 7/8- and 15/16-inch, respectively. “This increased travel slightly,” Mike says, “but it let me hit target pressures.”

Mike adds that one change made a big difference in handling: “These things are notorious for understeering. Stiffening both sway bars helped the understeer tremendously.”

Photo by J.A. Ackley.

The fiberglass widebody kit comes from the Mikinka Projekt in Poland. The car weighs just 2640 pounds, but to run in Gridlife GLTC, which has weight minimums, Mike bolts on the ballast (and himself) to up that figure to 2870 pounds. “Our goal was to make it look like a proper BTCC car,” Mike reminds us. “[It] was the theme of the whole project.”

Photo by J.A. Ackley.

The BMW 116i debuted at Gridlife Midwest in 2024. “I expected it to be really weird sitting on the wrong side of the car,” Mike says. “On track, it’s not that bad. I dropped the wheel on the entry to the corners more than on exit just because I placed the car a bit too close, especially on a right-hander. Other than that, it’s okay.”

In addition to powertrain changes, Mike says, “we struggled with tossing belts all season after that. We created some upgraded power steering mounts and now don’t have any belt issues.”

Recently, Mike competed at the Gridlife event at Road Atlanta. “This was my first event this season, so I was for sure a bit rusty, but the car felt great,” Mike contends. “The only thing I can really complain about is my defogging capabilities. I couldn’t see anything out there and had to come in when it got bad.”

When Mike could see the track, he loved every minute of recreating his BTCC dreams. “Going slow has never been so fun,” he jokes. “The car is more balanced than ever, and I was flat through Turn 12 [at Road Atlanta] and felt great rotating through Turn 1 at high speeds. I’ll be able to get more out of it once I’m better on the brakes and make less mistakes. The car just makes me want to drive more.”

Photo by Rob Wilkinson/courtesy Seems Legit Garage.

Comments

Displaying 1-10 of 10 commentsView all comments on the GRM forums

You'll need to log in to post.