Might stay with a ti, Ive got questions.
 

Well I know I should search but that would eliminate the possibility of asking further questions and most of the time I search I dont get the specific answers Im looking for. Ive been saying it for a while but time is drawing near for the current ti to go. Lately I guess Ive become sentimental about ti's because Ive been dreaming of another. So I have a few questions, sorry if they've been asked before but please put up with me, Ive done the same for others. Ok, I remember that a member put vader headrests on his seats and they became cloth leather hybrid vaders. Do all sport interiored cars have seats like this or is this only possible with club sport cars? Question two, does anyone have numbers for cars that were made without sunroofs? Id like a non-sunroof car but Im not sure how realistic that is. This is a long shot and a very newbish question but does anyone know the numbers for the most powerful M42 and M44s on record? Has anyone put E36 rear suspension on a ti? I know the ti is called inferior because of its E30 rear suspension and I would like to know if it is possible to change this. This is all I have for now but Im sure Ill have more questions later. Thanks in advance guys.

Oh, I have another question. If I were to stay with a ti I would want to stroke it out. Has anyone done this before? What would be the most you could bore a M44/M42 out to? Would 2.3l be realistic?

Q-1: All the ti's that came with the sport package have sport seats unless someone changed them. The fabric patterns may vary depending on the year and the color combo, but the seats themselves are the same. I recently posted pictures of the sport/vader hybrids in another thread. I'll try to find it for you, they looked pretty cool however it's going to be next to impossible to find just the headrests as I couldn't imagine anyone parting out a set of vaders.

Q-2: Not sure about the number of non-sunroofed ti's on the road. I know my first ti didn't have a sunroof and I almost bought "jflip's" ti which didn't have a sunroof. One of the Colorado member's ti came without a SR but one was installed when it got to the states. They're definitely out there, but the chances of finding a car in a 5 speed, low mileage, good maintenance history, no sunroof, color combo, decent price etc is going to be pretty tough.

Q-3: Metric Mechanic was selling rally m42's and m44's with 250+hp. IIRC they cost over 10 grand.

Q-4: As for the rear suspension, people only say that the semi-trailing arm suspension is inferior to the standard e36 multi-link suspension because they're ignorant. M Coupes, Z3's and Ti's all share the e30 design for a reason. 1 being they're all roadster type vehicles that are specifically designed for spirited driving. The rear suspension on our vehicles increases negative camber when compressed. This helps it hug corners really well, but you get a little understeer from it when you hit bumps in the turns. The tires may also wear irregularly if your car is slammed. The other reason BMW used semi-trailing arm rear suspension on our cars is simply because multi-link takes up more space. The rearends of the M Coupes, Z3's and Ti's are significantly shorter than coupes, sedans and verts and it would be extremely difficult to fit a full multi-link setup on these vehicles. Don't believe the ignorance posted on BF.c

Q-5: Stroking a 1.9L to 2.3L would be impossible. The pistons would be humungous and you'ld probably have to change the angles, not to mention the amount of material needing to be removed would leave you with very thin cylinder walls which would collapse under the excessive load created by the increased displacement. "Viper3812" is working on a 2.9L stroke jobby, but he's using an m52. Investing this kind of money into an m44 or m42 is pointless and will cost thousands if not 10's of thousands.

I just realized that all of my answers were negative and I want to appologize if I came off that way. There's still plenty of reasons to stay with the Ti, those just aren't the right reasons. You could always find a cheap shell and go crazy with a motor swap like many of us are doing these days. I know it's not original, but when it comes to technical info and discussions, you'll get a lot more help from other members who have done the swaps than people who have actually went through the hastles of stroking a 4 banger. I just checked metricmechanic and it looks like they changed their website around. I can't find the m44 rally engines, sorry.

Heres my post from another thread with pics of the vader/sport hybrid seats:
http://www.318ti.org/forum/showpost....20&postcount=8

the hybrids are ok... but it really does look off. it's lacking a lot of the flow of the real vaders, and that squashed side support..... it might look alright at a glance, but not worth it imo. get the real thing.

More like improbable; look into the RD Sport K18. It has a 2.4L stroked motor that makes about 220 at the crank (they say).

But he's right on the price. AFAIK the R24 motor was Japan-only (why it was in my English brochure is beyond me), but you might want to try calling them for details.

Im not seeing the difference here....

Yeah I didnt think stroking it out was the best idea and 2.3 was just a nice number that popped into my head. My idea behind it was to build up a M42 (since its OBDI) with as much power as possible, like I was going to run it NA, and the supercharge it. My idea behind this was to milk out as much power as humanly possible from it. And the idea behind the idea behind the idea was basically a big F you to bf.c. I will admit bf.c is a good resource for used parts and I do frequently visit there for ideas and styling inspiration but the "enthusiasts" there do get on my nerves. I dont think I should have to have a bigger and heavier car to have something thats fast and respectable. That and I love how ti's look and dont really want the eye sore of a trunk hanging off my car. Id love to have a lightweight ti that can hang with the "big guys" at the track and retain the stock motor. So thats basically my long shot of a game plan for things. What Id like is to get a nice hellrot sport model and start off with full H&R suspension on Style 5s then go into the aforementioned engine mods.

I hear ya man. BF.c is BS. Atleast the e36 section is. Most of the people have no idea what they're talking about and hate on 318's because they think their 15 year old 325's are the shizz. There's a member on there from S. Africa with a badass alpine 318. I forgot his name or what he has under the hood but man it's sweet and it has well over 200hp. Anyway, you don't have to prove anything to those idiots. You already belong to the best forum on the interweb. DOT ORG FO LIFE YO!:biggrin:

His name is Gizmo318i.

enjoy! http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...&highlight=S42

That's a recipe for disaster. If you've got a highly-strung motor then blow it, you're gonna grenade it.

General rule: Fast, Light, or Cheap -- choose two.

Im not doing it so much as to prove anything to anyone, I just wanna see the look on the other guys face when I blow by his M3 in BMWs "bastard".

Yep, Ive seen his car before. Definitely inspiring.

Im not gonna pretend I have any mechanical knowledge whatsoever. I thought it was a big deal when I got my front bumper off. Basically Im just toying around with some ideas, if I did S/C a BMW 4 banger Id probably just put a DASC on a mostly stock motor since thats basically what I could do without selling a kidney.

I'm not saying that it's impossible by any means, just improbable or really really really ridiculously expensive. You have to keep your goal reasonably limited and focused.

This would not make sense at all. The ti handles fine with its rear trailing arm suspension. It would make much more sense to invest in coil-overs, front sway bar, camber plates, and an X-brace. The ti will handle better that you could have imagined.

Like I said before, I know nothing in terms of mechanics, if I hear something enough thats what I go with since I have no experience to tell me otherwise. Im probably just eliminating the impossible and impractical right now. Just trying to think outside the box a little.