In late 2017, Scott was attending school at UH and working at BMW of Honolulu. One afternoon at work, he noticed a 1995 E36 parked in the customer lot. It caught his eye, as he had always had a soft spot for these cars. Curious about its presence, he began asking around and found out it had been brought in as a trade-in. Realizing it wouldn’t fetch much as a trade, Scott pulled the car salesman aside and asked if there was a chance of convincing the customer to sell the car to him directly.
The salesman managed to get the customer to agree to sell the car to Scott for a thousand dollars. However, Scott was now in a tight spot—he was at work, without the cash on hand or a car to retrieve it. Fortunately, he was able to borrow a brand new 3 Series, allowing him to dash home on his lunch break to grab the cash he had stashed away for just such an opportunity.
Scott is a true BMW enthusiast—not just a weekend admirer, but someone who lives and breathes BMWs. You could confidently call him an expert. Normally based in Las Vegas, he regularly drives an E30, but he put all that on hold to attend the University of Hawaii. Like many students, he got a job to support himself while in school, but he didn’t go the typical route with his choice of workplace. As you might have guessed, he works at BMW of Honolulu—a natural fit for someone with his passion for the brand.
Let’s go back to the car Scott had just bought. It was manufactured on October 31, 1995, a significant detail because it meant the car didn’t suffer from the issues found in earlier 1995 production models. BMW had identified a valve-dropping problem in E36 M3s produced before October 1, 1995, which often led to engine failure. Although they didn’t issue a recall, BMW quietly addressed the issue in cars built after that date.
Scott’s car is a 1995 E36 M3 with 170,000 miles and a few tasteful modifications already in place. His first priority was addressing some known weaknesses in the car’s cooling system. He replaced the stock water pump with an aftermarket version that features a metal impeller, as the original pump’s plastic impeller was prone to failure. He also swapped the stock thermostat housing for a more durable metal version.
Working at a BMW dealership allowed Scott to purchase OEM parts at cost, so he took the opportunity to replace every coolant line under the intake manifold and install a new thermostat. The car already had a Zionsville radiator, expansion tank, electric fan, and shroud, so no further upgrades were needed for the cooling system, aside from adding BimmerWorld radiator hoses.
The car came with stock double-spoke Type 1 OEM wheels, but it didn’t take long before Scott wanted to swap them out. After completing all the cooling upgrades and ensuring the car was mechanically sound, he started looking for wheels. Naturally, he had his sights set on Kosei K1s—after all, what car don’t these wheels look good on? However, being on an island made it much harder to find parts than on the mainland, so he had to settle initially for some OEM 2-piece BBS wheels, which came with slightly oversized tires. To make them fit, he rolled the fenders a bit, though he was never fully satisfied with the look and fitment.
Determined to find Kosei K1s, he scoured eBay and finally found a seller on the mainland willing to ship to Hawaii. These wheels were 17×8.5 +41 and came without tires, which suited him perfectly as he was eager to mount some 200TW tires. Once again facing the challenges of island life, he turned to eBay to find affordable 200TW tires. The best option he could find that shipped to Hawaii were 235/40/17 Federal RS-RRs.
The day finally came to mount the tires on the Koseis. The anticipation was killing him—he couldn’t wait to feel the difference with those 200TW tires.
He took the car out for a spirited drive, but his excitement was quickly cut short as he felt the rear of the car shifting through the turns. Something was clearly off, and after a quick inspection, he realized that the added grip from the 200TW tires was causing the rear trailing arm bushings (RTABs) to flex and distort. With the car’s high mileage, the stock RTABs were completely worn out—disintegrated, blown out, knackered, you name it. This led him to his next upgrade: a set of polyurethane AKG Motorsport RTABs, along with the tool to install them. With the new bushings in place, the car handled significantly better.
His car was feeling dialed in, and Scott began considering entering an AutoX event—the only motorsport available on the island, given Hawaii’s lack of racetracks. To prepare the car for the added stress of pushing it to its limits, he started gathering the upgrades it would need. To prevent oil starvation, he picked up an Achilles Motorsport weld-in oil pan baffle. To keep oil flow consistent, he also got a BimmerWorld oil pump safety wire nut, which prevents the oil pump gear nut from backing off—a known issue in S5x and M5x engines that can cause the oil pump chain to come loose, halting oil flow. Finally, he purchased AKG Motorsport rear trailing arm pocket reinforcement plates to guard against the common issue of tearing in the E36/E46 chassis.
Since this was his only car in Hawaii, downtime needed to be kept to an absolute minimum. To streamline the process, he bought a used oil pan and enlisted a friend to weld in the baffle ahead of time. That same friend also welded in the rear trailing arm pocket reinforcement plates.
When everything was ready, Scott and a coworker planned to install it all after their shift at the dealership. They threw the car on the lift and got to work. But what started as a straightforward project quickly turned challenging…
They began by dropping the subframe, which gave them the room they needed to remove the oil pan and install the replacement pan with the welded-in baffle. But as they started to lower the oil pan, they heard the unmistakable clinking sound of loose engine parts hitting the floor. They froze, looking at each other in confusion. “What was that?” they wondered aloud.
Their uncertainty quickly turned to concern as they inspected the situation more closely. Lying in the bottom of the oil pan were two stray bolts—origin unknown. After a closer look, they discovered that these bolts had come from the timing chain guide, which had worn away so severely that the timing chain was no longer running on the plastic guide. Instead, it had chewed straight through it, eventually grinding down the bolts that held the guide in place. Now, instead of simply swapping oil pans and adding a safety wire nut to the oil pump, Scott was facing a much bigger issue.
Adding to the stress, he knew he couldn’t leave his car on the lift indefinitely, as customer cars would start coming in within hours—and Scott’s car certainly couldn’t be blocking the dealership’s operations. Fortunately, since BMW of Honolulu was the only BMW dealership in Hawaii, it operated 24/7 (albeit with a skeleton crew at night), so there was a parts guy on shift. Scott hurried over, looked up the parts he needed, and ordered everything with overnight shipping—a perk of working at a dealership.
However, Scott’s coworker, who had initially agreed to help, wasn’t interested in tackling a major repair like this, leaving Scott to find another way to get the job done.
Although the parts were on the way, Scott was anxious about having his car sitting in the service area too long, not wanting to push his luck with management. To tackle the timing work, he enlisted the help of an outstanding technician and now friend, Roland. When the night came to dive back into the project, Roland got a head start while Scott finished the remainder of his shift. But before Scott could clock out, Roland brought him more unfortunate news: to install the main timing chain guide, they would need to remove the cylinder head—there was simply no other way.
Scott, already stretched thin, was reaching his wits’ end. This added setback not only meant more downtime but also a significant increase in costs. Removing the head would require additional parts—like a new head gasket, a VANOS rebuild kit, and all the related gaskets, seals, and hardware. At this point, with the car completely torn down, there was no turning back.
Determined to see it through, Scott went to the parts guy once again to order everything needed to refresh the top end. The parts were set to arrive overnight from the mainland, and he and Roland geared up for round two in their mission to get Scott’s car back on the road.
When the parts finally arrived two workdays later, Scott and Roland wasted no time. After their shifts, they put the car back on the lift and worked steadily until almost 1 a.m., when Roland offered to take Scott home since he’d been relying on the bus to get to work. But after dropping Scott off, Roland—knowing how urgently the car needed to be out of the service area—went straight back to the shop and put in another four hours of work on Scott’s car.
The next day, Scott, unaware of Roland’s late-night efforts, arrived at 9 a.m. as planned. To his surprise, he found that Roland had made huge progress overnight. Now, they only had a few minor tasks left before the car would be ready to start. You might wonder how they managed to get the head resurfaced in such a short timeframe. Well, the truth is—they didn’t. With Scott’s car already overstaying its welcome, there was no other option. Instead, they checked the head with a straight edge and flashlight to confirm there was no warping. Though not a perfect method, everything looked sound, so they pressed on.
Once the car was back together, Scott took it for a test drive, but quickly noticed that it was running a little hotter than before they tore it apart. Hoping it was a minor issue that would resolve itself, he kept driving it, but after a few more days, the temperatures remained slightly above normal. One day, while driving uphill on the H3, the temperature spiked to 205°F, and he knew something was wrong. Once he reached his destination, he carefully removed the radiator cap (after letting the car cool down) and started the engine. His heart sank as he saw tiny air bubbles in the radiator—his worst fear had come true. It meant they should have had the head resurfaced after all.
Despite the issue, the car still ran, and with his work schedule already stretched thin, Scott continued driving it, keeping a close eye on the coolant temperature. A few hundred miles later, when he went to change the oil, he found yet another issue—a grim sign that the car’s problems were far from over.
As the oil drained from the engine into the pan, Scott noticed an alarming amount of shiny metal flakes mixed in with it. “What the hell is this from?” he thought, trying to piece it together. After some quick thinking, he realized that in the midst of all the chaos trying to get his car back on the road, they had neglected to properly clean out the oil pan after his friend had welded in the baffle. To install the new baffle, they had to cut and grind out the OEM “baffle” in the pan, which generated a lot of metal dust.
On top of that, one of the timing chain guide bolts that had fallen into the oil pan had wedged itself against the oil pump chain, wearing a deep groove into the bolt and potentially adding even more metal debris into the oil. While they had changed the oil and cleaned off the parts they had removed during the motor rebuild, some of that metal was still left in the oil passages and the oil pump.
In full-on panic mode, Scott embarked on an oil cleanse using Rotella oil—the cheapest “decent” option—changing the oil every 10-20 miles in a desperate attempt to flush out all the metal particles. He even went as far as buying a Dimple magnetic drain plug, which claims to be the strongest magnetic oil drain plug available. If you’re curious, you can click the link to grab one for yourself.
Each time Scott changed the oil, he took a picture to track the progress and see if there was any reduction in the metal flakes. After the seventh oil change, each done within 10-20 miles of driving, the metal debris had mostly disappeared. Encouraged by the results, he did another oil change at 1,000 miles, and this time, the oil looked promising—nearly free of metal particles.
Despite the air bubbles still lingering in his coolant, Scott decided it was time to sign up for that AutoX event he had been eyeing months earlier. It was a bold move, but after everything that had happened, he figured it was time to finally take the car out and push it to its limits. Looking back, it was almost as if the whole ordeal had a silver lining. If he hadn’t gone through the trouble of switching the oil pan, he might never have discovered the timing chain guide issue. Had it gone unnoticed, the timing chain could have jumped a tooth, potentially causing irreparable damage to the engine.
Scott was all signed up for the AutoX event, and Ronald had joined him, ready to compete in his E46. The night before, Scott barely got more than a couple of hours of sleep. Whether it was the excitement of the day ahead or the anxiety of making sure his car would hold up, he couldn’t say. What mattered, though, was that he was running on almost no sleep.
On his first-ever AutoX run, he got a DNF (Did Not Finish). He chalked it up to nerves or perhaps struggling to read the course. But when his second run ended in another DNF, followed by the same result for every run he took throughout the day, frustration began to set in. All the time and effort he had poured into the car over the past few months felt pointless. The excitement he had once felt about the event quickly faded, and doubt crept in—maybe he shouldn’t have even tried the AutoX in the first place.
It was now May, and Scott was preparing to graduate from the University of Hawaii. He was ready to leave the island for good, but he wasn’t ready to part ways with his beloved M car. For $1,200, he had arranged to ship it back to Las Vegas. The day the car was set to be loaded onto the ship, Scott arrived at the port inspection area, only to face an unexpected setback. For a while now, the driver’s side door handle had been malfunctioning, but Scott hadn’t bothered to fix it—it wasn’t a big deal, and he had learned to work around it. Unfortunately, the port wouldn’t allow the car to be shipped with a broken door handle.
With his flight back to the mainland just days away, Scott found himself in a bind. He had already submitted his two-week notice at BMW, his lease was up, and he had completely moved out of his place. He had planned to drop off the car at the port and then head to the North Shore to meet his family, who had come from Vegas to see him graduate and enjoy a short vacation before they all flew back together. But now, none of that seemed possible.
Desperate, Scott called Ronald, his go-to problem-solver. That afternoon, Scott left the port and headed back to his old workplace, ordering the necessary door handle mechanism and opting for overnight shipping. However, he missed the cutoff for next-day delivery, which meant he was now stuck in Honolulu for another two nights. Fortunately, his old landlord agreed to let him stay for a couple of days.
Finally, the parts arrived, and Ronald worked his magic, getting the door handle fixed just in time. The car passed the port inspection and was finally loaded onto the ship, ready to make its way back to Vegas.
The car would take a little over a month to make its way back to Las Vegas, sailing across the Pacific Ocean, stopping in Long Beach, and then getting trucked to Vegas. During that time, Scott returned to Las Vegas and quickly landed a job at an independent BMW shop called Sin City BMW. About a week or so later, his M car finally arrived, its once-clean surface now covered in a layer of sea salt from the long journey.
Scott’s plan was to make the E36 his dual-purpose daily driver and track car, all while still holding on to his trusty E30.
One day in late June 2018, out of the blue, Scott decided he wanted to do a track day. He logged onto Motorsport Reg and found an event at Streets of Willow with On Grid. Without hesitation, he signed up, booked a nearby hotel, and it was official—he was about to take part in his first-ever HPDE. When he went to register, the beginner group was sold out, so he signed up for the group above that. He also opted to pay for an instructor, wanting to avoid picking up bad habits.
Scott didn’t do much to prepare for the event, aside from giving the car a quick once-over and doing an oil change. It was mid-June, peak summer in Vegas, and he drove to Streets of Willow with air bubbles still lingering in his cooling system.
On the morning of the event, he met his instructor, and then they headed out for the first session. Things didn’t go as smoothly as he hoped. The instructor was offering too much feedback, making it hard to focus. This was Scott’s first time at Streets, and his first time ever on a track, so he asked the instructor to ease up a bit to reduce the overwhelming input.
In the second session, it was more of the same, but during lunch, Scott took some time to reflect on what the instructor had been saying. By the third session, things started to click, and he began to have fun. Everything the instructor had told him started making sense, and his confidence began to grow.
By the fourth and final session, Scott was on his own. Without an instructor, he was able to focus and enjoy the experience without constant feedback. It wasn’t that the instructor was bad, but the overwhelming amount of input had made it hard for Scott to absorb everything at once.
By the end of the day, Scott was hooked. The track had him, and he knew this was just the beginning of his motorsport journey.
A few weeks later, Scott signed up for another track event at Streets of Willow, this time a two-day event. By now, he was feeling comfortable in the intermediate group and was able to outdrive most of the other drivers. Not to brag, but he was really starting to get into a groove and had a solid understanding of what it took to drive fast on track.
However, as is often the case in the summer desert heat, the temperatures quickly climbed after the first session, and the gremlins in Scott’s car began to surface. He could only manage about 3-4 push laps before the engine would start to overheat (remember, his head still wasn’t sealed properly after the botched resurfacing job back in Hawaii). This quickly took the fun out of the day, as he was no longer able to get into a rhythm or focus on improving his lap times.
Despite the overheating issues, Scott managed to finish the two-day event and drive all the way back to Vegas without any major issues. But he knew that it was time to bite the bullet and redo the top end properly—no more shortcuts this time.
Scott enlisted the help of Patrick, the master technician at Sin City BMW, where Scott worked. Together, they tore the engine apart, sent the head out to be properly resurfaced, and ordered all new gaskets—again. Once everything was reassembled, the car seemed to be in good shape, but it was time for a real test.
The next big opportunity came in the form of a PCA event at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch (SMMR), and Scott was eager to sign up. This event turned out to be a pivotal moment in his motorsports journey because it was there that he met Pat, a guy with a red S2000. On the first day, Pat approached Scott, complimenting the way his BMW looked. They quickly realized they were probably the only two under thirty at the event, so they spent the rest of the day chatting. The next day, they even pitted next to each other.
Scott was thrilled because Pat had years of HPDE experience, and he was eager to pick his brain about driving techniques and track tips. As for Scott’s car, it performed flawlessly that weekend. After all the work and frustration, it was finally running how it was supposed to—and it’s still going strong today, with nearly 190k miles on the clock.
Scott decided to sign up for the inaugural Bimmer Challenge event at Chuckwalla in February 2019. Pat joined him with his S2000, and it was going to be Scott’s first time on the Chuckwalla track. He was still running the Federal RS-RR tires that he had brought with him from Hawaii, which had already been through six events and were pretty much toast. As a result, he spent most of the day slipping and sliding, but he made the best of it, enjoying the challenge.
After the event, Scott decided it was time to upgrade his tires. He ordered a set of Hankook RS4s in 255/40/17 to mount on his Kosei wheels. His next track event was the second round of the Bimmer Challenge at Buttonwillow, but this time he was going solo, as none of his friends were able to join him.
On his way to Buttonwillow, disaster struck when he hit some debris in the road—a tarp—while driving at night in the fog. The car jumped as he ran over it, so he pulled over to inspect the damage. Fortunately, it seemed to be mostly cosmetic: damage to the bumper, undercarriage, and grille, but the car still drove straight, so he pressed on and made it to the hotel that night.
The next morning, he needed to make some quick repairs before hitting the track. He stopped at Walmart for some grill mesh to help protect the radiator (since the grille had been knocked out) and some zip ties to tuck the undercarriage back up. Scott was especially excited for this event, as it would be his first time on track with his new Hankook RS4 tires, which were also a wider size than the previous ones.
Unfortunately, he missed the first session because of the repairs, but when the second session finally rolled around, it was worth the wait. His first session on the new tires was a blast, and the magic of Buttonwillow only made it more special. Scott was on cloud nine, excited for what the future held with his car and newfound track skills.
Scott had been tracking his car for about a year and a half, and in that time, he had experienced events at several tracks including LVMS, SMMR, ACS, SOW, Buttonwillow, and Chuckwalla. With only around fifteen track days under his belt, it was hard to imagine how much faster he’d be with another fifteen. Equally impressive was the fact that his car had withstood so much along the way and was still running strong. The journey had been full of ups and downs, but his car kept pushing forward, just like Scott.
From the time he moved back to Vegas till now the car has gotten many upgrades, and maintenance stuff taken care of:
- Did all four wheel bearings oem FCP euro lifetime warranty.
- DTC 60 all around with oem rotors.
- Rear camber arms ground control with the spherical bearings.
- Dropped subframe and welded reinforcements on the subframe, powder coated it black. went all aluminum sub frame and diff bushings from bimmerworld. spherical rtabs. rebuilt the axles. factory clutch type LSD
- Sway bar bushings just oem but new. upgraded to a 96-99 m3 rear sway 21mm. front bar is UUC with AKG spherical endlinks.
- Suspension is what came on the car when he bought it. bilstein sport shocks, and h&r sport lowering springs.
- 96-99 strut mounts up front flipped sides to add more negative camber. bimmerworld camber shims. partshop max front strut reinforcement plates.
- Bimmerworld ss lines all around with heat sleeves
- Project mu g four fluid.
- D force ltw wheels flow formed 17×9 +41 sub 20 lb wheel.
- Motorsport hardware wheel stud conversion bullet nose type
- Donated cobra suzuka seat, motion Motorsport rails. fixed position.
rear seat delete, NRG sfi certified quick release, 350mm old nardi wheel. - Saddle fuel tank was causing fuel starvation through right turns, upgraded to bimmerworld dual fuel pump kit to remedy this.
- Ben Simpson roll bar 4 pt
- No passenger seat due to needing space for supplies when driving to events.
- Engine: radium catch can, not vented. mishimoto 25 row oil cooler, earls oil thermostat. rally road oil filter housing cap. rally road oil distribution sandwich plate. obd 2 later model e36 header, tubular, and not cast iron(much lighter) cold air intake. ss squid tune, with 24lb injectors from a fox body mustang. vanos was rebuilt when the head was done the first time
- Bimmerworld group n motor mounts/rouge engineering trans mount.
- Stock shifter, garagistict dual sheer selector rod.
- Run redline lubricants 15w50 oil, redline in trans superlightwheight shock prooof,
- Clutch fx racing (ebay style) 6 puck sprung, fx racing flywheel
- New oem slave cylinder, ss braided clutch line.
- Hard Motorsport carbon sunroof delete.
- Trackspec Motorsports hood vents.
- Full factory exhaust with super sprint muffler with dtm tips.
- Gauges: vdo analog oil temp, autometer digital water temp, aem digital oil pressure that not plugged in for fear of scaring himself.
- Homemade air duct to force air through the radiator.
- Bimmerworld brake cooling ducts, but don’t often run them because 200tw tire wont demand much of the brakes.
- front control arm bushings are Bimmerworld spherical. no rubber bushings excepts sway bar bushings, strut mounts.
- BMW Z3 1.9L 4 cylinder short ratio steering rack
- BMW OEM X brace up front
