As the title says, is it? I've always been a BMW fan, and the e46 can be had cheap, and parts are plentiful. Is a wagon a bad idea as far as weight distribution goes?
I personally think it 'could' be a fun and quirky car.
As the title says, is it? I've always been a BMW fan, and the e46 can be had cheap, and parts are plentiful. Is a wagon a bad idea as far as weight distribution goes?
I personally think it 'could' be a fun and quirky car.
The BMW experts will weigh in, pun intended, but I believe at least in an E36 the sedan is almost exactly the same weight as the coupe, so I'd suspect the e46 wagon would be similar to the coupe as well.
Having said that, it's an e46 so consumables are more expensive, and it will have small doors making getting in over the cage difficult.
If you want/need a car with a manual transmission, it may be difficult to find in a touring. They made them with manual transmissions, but they weren't that common.
I am not old, I am not old, I am not old, I am having a hard time accepting that E46+'s have hit beater status value wise.... I remember the E30 being launched, how can two models later be in Chump territory.
A BMW wagon is never a bad choice, for anything.
From an e46 forum:
A manual 325Ci Coupe weights 3197 lbs.
A manual 325i Sedan weights 3219 lbs. 22lbs. more than a coupe.
A manual 325iT Wagon weights 3362 lbs. 143lbs. more than a sedan.
A manual 325Ci Convertible weights 3560 lbs. 198lbs. more than a wagon.Automatic Transmission adds 88 lbs.
And another post in same thread:
Sedan weight distribution is 50.9 /49.1
Wagon weight distribution is 47.7 /52.3
So chances are you'll do some minor weight reduction wherever you can find it. Shouldn't be too hard to find ~200lbs to remove.
Well, glass and metal up high is generally not a good thing and probably not better than just throwing that much extra weight into the trunk of a sedan, but it will look cooler and potentially be more fun/useful for street use. My experience with stock wagons on the street IS that the improved weight distribution makes them more neutral, but a serious track car you would modify to make more neutral based on whatever weight distribution it had anyway, and once you're going to modify it anyway the extra weight back there is just extra weight, not a handling bandaid. My .02. I'm still pro-wagon, I just don't consider it a benefit to a track car.
In reply to JesseWolfe :
FuzzyWuzzy gave you all the pertinent information, so I'll just provide my $.02. If it's your first time running a auto-x or HPDE, almost anything will be sufficient. You're going to be focusing on your driving and as long as the car doesn't have any glaring handling issues it will get the job done.
If you don't care about outright lap times, then I think the touring would be a great way to have a "do everything" track car. I'd probably suggest you look into upgrading to some more suitable brake pads and fluid, but otherwise hit the track and learn more about your driving.
This talk of tracking a touring is really making me want to get mine back together, so I can see what it can do.
If you find it cheap enough, you can always be "the first" to gut the sunroof/pano (I can't remember what it came w/) and rivet in a big sheet of aluminum.
I'd skip the wagon and get a 330i. The wagon bring a (little bit) of a premium and the hatch isn't doing anything for you in racing. You can't get the big engine in a wagon.
All of the E46s need a little bit of structural reinforcement, but it's trivial in the grand scheme of caging it.
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