info please?

[bmwnewbee]

okay so heres the deal.i am purchasing a 1992 bmw 325is froma friend.it has its problems and i know that..but i wanted a project car.i want to give it a good look and a little bit of speed to back up the look.well,i dont plan on entering it into any major car shows.just something i can be rpoud of and enjoy driving.so nothing extravagant will be done(maybe).and as far as peformance i am intending to turbo it..found a nice low boost turbo kit for it.my question is..the car itself has 128k miles on it...need i rebuild the motor if i am planning to run low boost?or are the bmw motors strong?ive never owned a bmw before...just jap cars and one VW.so any information would be awesome...thansk guy...cant wait to get back into a german car...im stoked...peace

[wesmyth]

I'm not sure how the boost would affect the engine. I've got a 1997 318i and its got over 180k hard miles. This car has been abused. Still it runs nice. Keep up with your LOF (Lube Oil Filter)s, and maintanance charts and the car will not quit on you. Also consider this...BMW and Mercedes Benz are rivals, right. Well a Greek cab driver rode his 1970 Benz for 2.8 million miles. And rivals do try to beat each other in all aspects. So i'm thinking that if a Benz diesel can run for 2.8 million miles, lets say a regular gas car only gets a quarter of those miles, thats 700K miles. And if Benz and BMW stays on par for quality then you can expect close to 600k more miles out of that engine. Another point is that BMW has been working on 6 cylinders for a while now. Like the Japanese can squeeze everything from the 4 cylinders they make, The Germans can create that potential in their engines. So with new technology comes better engines. The E36 that your talking about is a solid engine.

The most important thing is a great mechanic and regular LOFs and the charted maintnance. Also get the Bentley Manual. Third, read all the DIY's you can get your hand on. In summary with proper care the car is Excellent car and will give you lots of fun. The boost will kill the engine faster, how much I'm not quite certain.

PS. if the car is free and you don't want it, send it my way. I'd love to have it.

[wesmyth]

also you will eventually have to some work done on the engine. Yes since it is a BMW certain cost will be higher. But be smart. I new one girl with a E36 and she was paying 60 per LOF. However I found a place in the next town over that did it for 35 bucks. only $10 more than a oil change on regular domestics. Also shop for your own parts and give them to the mechanic. That way you only pay for labor and you know your not paying for overpriced parts. So have a good mechanic find all the problems with the car. You get and buy the parts and have him install. I hope some of the more wise people in the forum can help out with the boost query and when you need to rebuild that engine.