Steering is by far the biggest weakness, I find it to be sloppy, uncommunicative and lacking the sharp response that I'm used to. I've thrown money at it hand over fist trying to remedy it, improved on it a fair bit but still not up to scratch.
Never had that issue in either my E36s, both were precise and gave great feedback.
Engine is good but the restrictive inlet manifold makes it lose torque dramatically at high rpm, very strong in the mid range and nice throttle response as you'd expect from an NA motor.
Orly?
My graph on a
stock 1995 e36 328i says otherwise.
RWD, this is why I bought it, I love a bit of skidding and this was cheaper than the S15 I really wanted by a large margin. Only the pre facelift (Sport model) ones had an LSD, make sure you get one of these as the open diff model with an electronic nanny sucks massive balls. I suppose if you have no intention of doing any fun skids in it then it would be fine.
Actually no. Late models also came with LSDs. The prefacelift 328i is the 325i, the facelift came in 1995 and the 325i was dropped and the 328i came in instead. The Sport models from 95-98/99 came
either with traction control
or LSD, depends on what was specced.
The non Sport models in early form came with neither an LSD or traction control. TC came in around 97 on e36s and was not bad at all.
Without TC my 328i was capable of kicking out the back and holding a slide. With TC my 318iS (only 140bhp) was capable of kicking the back out, sliding and correcting via power drop. Without TC the 318iS would kick out and hold slides despite the lack of an LSD.
I found the 318iS was actually better to slide than the 328i (this may be down to confidence though).
Suspension wise, Sport model came with Bilstein B8, I would assume this is firmer and better than the B4, they had Nurburgring stickers all over them so I guess they are the sporty models. I had these with Apex springs on and it felt like an american car, soft and wallowy. I can only assume the dampers were worn out, but anyway the springs were no good IMO, however there would be no problem with ride comfort at all.
I chose to ditch the **** suspension and put HSD HR coilovers on, even on quite a hard setting, with solid rubber bushings and solid top mounts, the ride isn't bad at all and it's still plenty compliant enough to go full throttle on a bumpy road.
At 14 years old being the newest e36, the stock suspension will be past it, I know it was on my 1998 318iS.
You mention it sounds muted, is you exhaust flap working? The tailpipe closest to the centre of the car has a valve in it which will open up at wide throttle openings after 2.5k or so, the backbox becomes straight through, with this open and the VANOS coming in at 3k it really makes a fair bit of noise. Check that it works, it should be open when the engine is off, and close shortly after starting up.
Incorrect. Have you seen the internals of the 328i backbox?
I currently can't find an image but I know it is on e36coupe.com
The box is a maze of pipework for both tailpipes.
To the guy who said don't buy a Sport, don't listen to that guy. The sport gets the lower, Bilstein suspension as I mentioned, you get the M3 body kit (definitely want this, standard looks pony), Sport seats standard, nice black headlining
I agree with this though, the Sport is the one to have unless you know your way around the cars and can/want to retrofit parts.