FR-S BMW M52 Turbo Time Attack Swap
 

Hey folks. I'm a racer and shop owner living in Glendale, AZ. For the past five years I have been developing and racing a BMW E30 in Global Time Attack, NASA TT, and various hill climbs all over the US. Recently I decided it was time for a change, so I found a nice FR-S chassis that had been lost to the flooding in Houston and bought it at auction. We just got home last weekend from going to pick the car up (long tow each way, but worth it)! The plan for this chassis is to swap in my tried and true turbo M52 engine and eventually swap that for an even more powerful S50b30 engine that I have on a stand ready to be built. I love the 86 chassis and what it stands for. I wish more companies *cough*BMW*cough* would build driver oriented cars like this, and I feel it will be a worthy successor to the mantle that my E30 has carried for all these years, with the added benefits of better suspension, aerodynamics, tire choices, a super stiff chassis, and much much more.

Hopefully along the way we can become a part of the 86 community and most importantly become positive contributors as we have with the other platforms we build.

Just a short list for this build, besides the swap, will be:

• Engine moved back 10"
• Full chassis seam weld
• 10 point cage
• Custom Carbon widebody/hood/trunk/roof/doors etc.
• Carbon Aero
• Some sort of differential swap
• Tubular subframes

It's a long long list, but I'll be sure to keep this thread updated as we move along. The projected timeline to begin testing is 4-5 months, so stay tuned!


Some photos for your enjoyment!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/137890...posted-public/
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4621/...26c9fb3a_c.jpgIMG_20180109_153953_296 by Rocco Bocchicchio, on Flickr


E30 at the Global Time Attack Superlap Battle 2017
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4664/...f33b672a_c.jpgGTASLB2017_ETA 589 by Rocco Bocchicchio, on Flickr


Engine bound for the FRS

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4612/...61932879_c.jpgGTASLB2017_ETA 272 by Rocco Bocchicchio, on Flickr

Some dyno numbers on the drivetrain. The new engine that will go into the FRS will yield +150 in both whp and wtq

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4694/...7c135de8_b.jpgDyno 1 by Rocco Bocchicchio, on Flickr


Thanks for checking out the build thread, and I look forward to sharing more with you all.

Sounds awesome...Pics don’t work.

@LeVeL I'll second ILLSMOQ. Looks like you are another Photobucket hostage. Pay big to play small.

Can't wait to see the progress!

NOOOOOOOOOO!!! You cant give up the e30 effort. What will the cats at R3v think or do? I guess the rear end swap from an E36 is dead in the water then?

There we go. Goodbye, Photobucket, hello Flickr!!! Lol.

@amcp1 I'm sure the R3v folks will do what they always do; Say how much they love the stuff I build then buy all their parts from Ebay! Lol!

Swapping the rear in the car is just going to be too much work to be worth it. At a certain point, it's not an E30 anymore, it just looks like one, right? That's where we are right now. I'm selling off most of the parts, but keeping the shell, so it will stay with me in case I ever hit the lottery, at which point it will make it's valiant return.

Ha! Exactly. Youre right though. At some point it just makes more sense to move on to a better platform unless you want to continue throwing money in a hole.

Very interesting, looking forward to following this.

good post nice welcome

I saw your post on the 86 track cars FB page, can you post some more updates here?

What transmission?