As some of you may or may not remember, I'm a huge BMW fan. On my second E30 currently.
We had a "Cars and Coffee"ish type event this morning. Lots of great cars and such made it out F430, '55 Speedster, Gallardo, GT2, etc.
Long story short. I got to drive a 2004 E46 M3 and a 2009 E92 M3 with DCT.
I'm completely sold on DCTs if they are as good as the one in the M3. Then again, it could have also been because I was banging 8k RPM shifts through a Borla exhaust in the car.
I felt like just leaving in the keys in 318is afterwards and letting someone steal it.......
Any comparison opinions on the two?
Hmmmm, E46 M3 is good enough that I actually want to buy one. S54 is silky smooth, and torquier than I thought it would be even hauling around that much weight, and just absolutely screams from 5-8k rpms.
Stock clutch is a bit heavy, brakes felt amazing, but the car also had big Rotora calipers at each corner. Neutral handling car, didn't get to drive it as long as I would have liked.
The E92 M3 is insane. The DCT trans is brilliant, the ECU throttle blip on each downshift is addicting. Kind of amazing, the 4.0L V8 in the car sounds like Satan's Warrior's about to storm Jerusalem for the end of the world, in a good way.
Even with the DSC and TC, OFF, the car still put down the power in the turns very well. Although keep in my mind, I was not trying to break/fix my buddies nearly $70k car.
The car holds it's girth quite well. You know you're driving a big car, but it's suprisingly nimble.
If I owned an E92 M3, I would likely loose my license in short nick. I picked a particularly short on-ramp to really unlease the acceleration. Car broke 100mph in devastating fashion. Almost 600cc Sportbike type acceleration.
Just insane.
mtn
SuperDork
3/27/10 6:13 p.m.
I had a BMW put a huge smile on my face today, just got back from the seasons first autocross. I need better tires
^I get to autox my 318is for the first time next weekend. I'm REALLY looking forward to it.
Here are some pics from today, hopefully more will be up soon.
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1404370&page=5
You can see my car in pic #11, and later on me behind the wheel of my buddy's Carbon Black E46 M3 before he let me test drive it. Pics 16 and 20 are the two cars I was lucky enough to drive today.
