Is there a better time to buy?

So my house caught fire last year, it's getting fixed they are just moving slowly. So I'm not living at home, I have at *LEAST* 3 other vehicles / projects I need to work on, I work a lot, and I need to purchase a trailer...

So now is the BEST time to purchase a 1998 BMW 328is that had been drifted, gutted, a back half cage installed, hydraulic e-brake, e-bay coilovers, no seats, welded differential and exhaust cut off before the rear axle, right?

I will need to add pictures later, but the car was last drifted in 2017 and has been sitting since because the drivers door no longer wishes to door (will not open from inside handle or outside handle) but it runs amazingly well, and came with 9 17" wheels, 5 215/45R17's, 5 225/45R17's, 2 235/45R17's, a second set of 15" wheels (set of 15's on the car). 

I later discovered I know the guy who built the cage, and his work is highly regarded and very very well done. I will probably see him to add door bars / front half of the cage in the future mostly due to the nature of the sport of drifting. 

My plan for now is get the door working properly reliably, sort out safety gear (seats, 5 point harness for driver at minimum, inspect / replace fire extinguisher), basic maintenance, and just burn through the tires at the track, and tackle some of the more 'pressing' cosmetic straightening. 

I paid under challenge for the car ($1700 CAD = approx $1244.93 USD) and I *think* I might be able to make it look presentable AND be safe for under challenge budget.

Pictures to come!  

I did not forget or sell the car! I bought it because I was led to believe I would be home not long after purchasing the car (mid / late August) but alas, it is nearly December and I am still not home...

I did however order some parts from Condor, being a drift car and going to be going through wheel swapping a lot, a stud conversion is a solid investment. Also ordered reinforcement plates for the rear as I know my street e36 does not have them, and I do not know if the drift car has them. 

I have some pictures I need to upload, I also removed what was left of the rear plastic window. Was supposed to received a new plexiglass rear window but weather turned before that was installed (the shop was arranging to make a run to a few farms to install glass on site) so that will be an early spring job (either trailer it in or get done at the farm), the rear window opening is covered by a tarp and its strapped down to prevent large quantities of snow / water getting in. 

I guess in other related news, while searching safety gear it looks like this:

will be the seat I go with for the driver. I was able to test sit in an NRG fixed back (very loose fitting) and an OMP Halo fixed back (very snug) and the Momo is measurement-ly very close to the OMP. So I am trying to make progress on it as I go. 

Also bought a new fire extinguisher bracket to install, need the driver seat to figure out best location to install it so it's easy to grab in the event of needing it. Will replace the extinguisher closer to running my first event and probably get the one in the car re-certified if possible. 

Really need to get pictures uploaded to show what I have to start with and I will do my best at shade tree body straightening and will be sure to record my attempts at that as well. 

Sounds like fun. I kinda know how you feel. I desperately need to do a gut-renovation and/or serious remodel of my house.  I already have more cars than I have parking for. So what did I do?  Of course, I went out and bought another Triumph car to bring my fleet total back up to 8. Doh... 

Car on trailer at gas station? Check.

The absolute pile of spare wheels / tires that came with the car.

And tucked beside my street legal V8 swapped 94 e36. 

And a shot of the cage. This was when I was cleaning up the gasket maker silicone that was used to seal the rear plastic in place. Trunk was only held on loosely. 

And the original ad for the sake of why I would consider this thing in the first place. Some parts will transfer over to my street car, and some little pieces already have (bumper trim).

Hopefully I will get to work on it and get it ready for next season. 

I just want to register my shock at your last statement; the bumper trim from a former drift car has been transfered to your street car 

TheTallOne17 said:

I just want to register my shock at your last statement; the bumper trim from a former drift car has been transfered to your street car 

Yes, my street car came with a period correct fibre-glass replica M3 body kit, all molded as one piece. I recently replaced the rear bumper with an OEM one from the junkyard but it was missing the black rub trim, the drift car had those pieces on it and in decent shape so I quickly swapped it over. How it survived (considering the one quarter panel has taken a hefty hit) I will never know. 

So I ordered some reinforcement's and wheel studs from Condor on Black Friday. I saw them by the following Thursday, which I think is amazing turn around since I am probably not touching the car until the new year.

I only ordered the rear reinforcements as the PO can not recall if the rear was done or not when the rear differential was welded, and the street car does need them to be done, and a stud conversion will make tire swaps so much quicker for a drift car.  

The basic plan is to get it to a more 'level' ride height (currently the tie rods go in an 'upward' angle) and try and get everything to feel neutral. I have no preconceived notion that I need big angle or big power or anything like that, I feel the car presently sits too low and is not as properly optimized as it could be. Ideally, I want to make the car easy to throw around, fun to drive, and easy to learn with. Also safe. Needs to be safe. 

Being competitive can come AFTER I get a season or two of seat time with it.  

Love me some e36

Sooooo...

Movers are moving us back into the house from the seacans on Monday (January 16th) then its another week of letting things warm up so we can organize and put stuff away. THEN hopefully I can dig this thing out of the snow and begin putting it together to get it ready for the track. 

First event is May 13. Plenty of time right? I probably can't start on anything til March due to snow... plenty of time right? 

In all honesty, the hardest things to accomplish by then is the cleaned and painted interior then mounting the seat and harness. I can work on pulling it straight and swapping to studs any night after work for an hour or two, same as an oil change can be accomplished while the front wheels are off the ground for the stud swap, needs only a few tiny mechanical things sorted out (intake boot, secure the rad) and it was drifted in an 'as is' condition so I can just send it suspension wise for now and raise it for a later event 

OR

Wait for the event in June, which allows me an extra month of prep time.... We will see how many weddings I get booked for to hopefully have those weekends off (already requested off at the day job).

Look out for updates coming!

Alright! Love this! Can't wait to see it in action.

If you need some parts I have a lot of good stuff I'll be listing soon. I can't use them on the Spec3.

So other than the winter having tuned this into an e36 shaped snowbank, I managed to hit the yard the other day *hoping* to pick up a wiper arm since Pelican Parts wants $85 USD for one...

Site said there was a 96 318 at the yard, and when we found it, it was one of the saddest things to see. A compact in near mint condition. 5 speed, clean, and complete save the drivers side turn signal assembly, which looks like it was busted in the yard. I felt bad taking parts from it, but the yard does not offer full cars for sale anymore. 

So I snagged both wiper arms ($10 each), both headlight assemblies for the street car, which will donate the $10 headlights to the drift car, the passenger side turn signal light ($15) and the passenger side seat ($50) so I can offer ride-along's when I 'git gud' since I will push at 1/10 with a passenger.

So on the drift car I spent $85 CAD ($95 if you include the parts trade from the street car) and ended up with more parts than I expected. 

-----------------------------------------------------

I realize this car is not going to be a 'challenge' car, and the odds of bringing it south is very low, but I like the idea rebuilding it as a 'challenge eligible' car. So there will be some parts trading between the two for FMV, and safety gear excluded (since the nature of the sport is fast, sideways, and close to things all at once), I want to see if I can keep it under challenge budget to get it back on track after it has sat for 5 years. 

So, on that note a budget break down is in order I suppose! (I will make it look prettier later), I will need to find out my receipt from Condor, and check if it has reinforcements or not yet

Car purchased -------------- $1700 CAD = approx $1244.93 USD (as of Sept. 28/22)

Junk yard run --------------- $85 CAD  = approx $62.44 USD (as of Mar. 6/23)

Total ------------------------ $1785 CAD = approx $1307.37 USD (totals added)

This should be fun! There are more parts to order and lots of things to repair, so I will try my best to keep this up to date! Pictures to come (including one of the compact I got parts from), and I will keep the USD pricing based on xe.com conversion and dated from either date of purchase (if I remember) or date of post (most likely) since the exchange rate fluctuates. 

And I will be out of challenge budge since I know I am looking at about $1000 in safety gear related to the seat alone, but I *really* don't want to try and make safety come second to budget, since again, it's a drift car and will (eventually) live it's life at high speeds, high angles, and close proximity to both solid objects and other cars.

Thank you for tuning in!

Update!

I have ordered and paid for the Momo Start! Not a cheap adventure but buy once, cry once right? Right? It is safety gear, and I do aim to keep the rest of the car as budget friendly as possible.

So with that I believe an update is in order, so:

Car purchased -------------- $1700 CAD = approx $1244.93 USD (as of Sept. 28/22)

Junk yard run --------------- $85 CAD  = approx $62.44 USD (as of Mar. 6/23)

Momo Start w/ bracket ----- $1328.66 CAD = approx $975.80 USD (as of May 3/23)

Total ------------------------ $3113.66 CAD = approx $2283.17 USD (conversions added)

The seat and bracket pricing seems high, but there was $401 freight, otherwise the seat was less than a new Xbox console, and the mount would be about 2 new games. (justification is the name of the racecaring game!) And now the waiting game of it to arrive. Thankfully, it should be about a week's wait.

Until next time!

Seat arrived. Is snug. Very snug. But the more I sit in it, the better it feels. I need to get some angle iron to span the gap of the mounts in the e36, probably try and get that measurement this weekend.

Also got the driver side door to open! After removing the 4 piece door panel, I was able to reach the rod and pull it to open the door. Exterior handle is 100% busted so I need to sort that out before it can be on track. Interior handles mounting is broken which I will price out an interior handle and possibly pick one of those up as the easy button. 

Needs a rear window (was badly damaged and been removed) and a windshield (badly cracked), going to ask the glass shop about also doing a Lexan windshield at the same time as the back window being done, and with those done it'll be a completely water tight vehicle again. 

I need to do a cleaning of it, bag and tag all the pieces I have, do some basic maintenance and then sort out the suspension. I think I need to lift it a smidge and get the tie rods being flat vs an upward angle. If I can keep it alive, I'll maybe splurge for a set of brand name coilovers in a few years time.

I should take pics of this thing this week for better visual impact in the thread...

I picked up a gimbal cheap at auction and practiced with it on the drift car. It's filthy inside and out. I edited the clips together to some hype music for fun. I will revisit in stages, next step thorough cleaning. 

So *life* has kept me from being able to do anything on this car with the exception of cleaning out the larger bits and pieces and purchasing specific tools and some maintenance items (plugs, oil, filter).

**HOPEFULLY** I get to have Canada weekend off and I can finally spend some time working on getting this cleaned out of pine needles and dead bugs and measure up for mounting my fixed back probably throw my passenger seat in as well as change oil, filter and plugs and maybe get a different pair of wheels thrown on since 2 of the wheels don't want to hold air for more than a week. Need to also figure out the battery mounting location since the OEM is mostly / probably fine, but also kinda in the path of destruction given the intended use of the car. 

Over the holiday weekend I was able to accomplish (with the help of some friends) getting converted to wheel studs and vacuuming out the car. Also got it into my shop space since it is smaller than my intrepid (which is now outside and can get ready for cleaning and hopefully running) so I can get into my shop space and start massively cleaning house and organizing and getting the body on the drift car straighter. 

I am excited to hopefully slide this thing at least once this year. 

I have successfully done very little. Another holiday weekend is coming up, hopefully it's nice enough I can get the drivers side floor painted. I have at least gotten a bunch of the wiring encapsulated in some split poly loom to make the interior look a bit less messy, and protect random stray wires from getting damaged. 

I need to pull the airbag off the door, and get the car inline with a tree to hopefully pull the drivers front straighterish enough to fit the headlight atleast and then get the rear body straighter to fit the tail light. The body doesn't need to win any awards for looking good, I'm just going to bash it up again.

While upfront I need to remove some horn looking thing and disconnect the a/c lines and remove them. Supposedly the a/c worked but it never got cool for me, so probably no charge in it. The lines hang low and the one part (unsure of it's name) sits loosely now thanks to the damage on the passenger side front corner. I'd rather pull parts and if anyone needs good working parts I can sell them cheaply or throw them out a year from now when I am purging the shop.

Have also decided to purchase this for mounting the seat. While it's not cheap, it's a lot faster to get the seat mounted in the car and has substanially more money invested into making it rugged and safe for motorsport usage than I can dream of spending to make mounts 'good enough', let alone the time that it would take me to get mounts made, time I can spend invested into other tasks on the car like general servicing and a few repairs and mild body modifications like hood pins for the trunk and a latch for the trunk. And taking pictures. 

Hopefully pictures after this weekend! maybe...