E30 Zone

Hi peeps, can I have some help please?
I have an E30 trackday car which sadly is becoming very tired. So I need a new one! I also have an E36 318ti sport compact (1.9 16v) which is for work.
I have had an idea to turn the compact into my new track day car but it is very very slow.

Does anyone know anything about the 1.9 16v engine and what can be done to make it quicker or do I need to go down the bolting in a 2.8 route????

The tuning potential shouldn't be too far off of the 1.8 IS engine. So pretty minimal payback in terms of bhp per £, unless you go down the turbo/supercharged route. Going into the E36 the safe/easy money's got to be on going down the 2.5/2.8 24v route as it should be a straight swap.

Had a feeling that might be the case. Thank you.
Best start hunting out a 328i

M3 3.2L evo engine? Will that fit in the compact?

Whats going wrong with the E30? Maybe people could help there. If its just getting tired, pull it out and rebuild it. Easier than fannying around with sorting out a second car IMO.

Everything about the E30 is tired. Been track dayed hard for 2 years now. High mileage engine and bodywork is getting tired too. Time to move on.

In my opinion 328 engine is a bit poop. And then there is the question of what will use to get to work? Why not get another E30 (if you not happy with yours) and whack in 3.5, which is pretty good and nout in it weight wise between that and M3 engine.

the 1.9 m44 engine is an 'is' engine, 140bhp out the box and respond well to a chip and big bore throttle body

Thanks you lot and the PM I received, very helpful.
I will be looking into the options and costs

As far as I'm aware, you can't 'chip' an M44 engine.

I looked into it for my iS and I was advised on E36coupe.com that they can only be remapped which is obviously silly money for the gains on an M44.

M44B19 will "chip" to around the 160HP mark, anymore is not possible without spending major £££

that said, my Ti daily is NOT slow, sure it lacks torque below 3.5K but between 4 and 7 it flies, for its capacity.

options are Turbo( £3.5K total) for around 225 HP 220 TQ ( last on I did made 226.3HP ands 220.2 TQ)
supercharge to around the same output, or indeed do the M52B28 swap, or better still drop an S50B30/ 32 in there, it all bolts straight up.

Ant wrote:M44B19 will "chip" to around the 160HP mark, anymore is not possible without spending major £££

that said, my Ti daily is NOT slow, sure it lacks torque below 3.5K but between 4 and 7 it flies, for its capacity.

options are Turbo( £3.5K total) for around 225 HP 220 TQ ( last on I did made 226.3HP ands 220.2 TQ)
supercharge to around the same output, or indeed do the M52B28 swap, or better still drop an S50B30/ 32 in there, it all bolts straight up.

So on a 97 m44 E36, you would be able to chip it?... The jokers on E36coupe said I couldn't!

Chip change no, its an OBD remap car dude, hence the "chip"

suck out the original file, alter(remap) and then blow it back to the ECU.

Ahhh okay, I'll let them off then.