E36 Widebody Build

[05subysti]

definately one suspenseful build thread, body work is good. Ashame about the hood flying up... thus the creation of hood pins lol get it finished already! im excited to see the outcome.

[seven-57]

Co-sign

I spoke to soon on this. I like this. It's weird, a purist-killer, and super kewwwll. I love the hard work put in.

[Gwaldo]

What a coincidence. I used to follow this build with interest but I guess I stopped when the updates went quiet. Strangely after searching 'Widebody Build' on Google, this thread was the first thing it pulled up. So here I am signed up and making my first post.

Keep it up Mark, these things were meant to test us.

-Will

[Minuki]

Wait I'm confused, is he starting a new project, or finishing this one or what?! Ahhhh I just want it to be finished!

Did you even read anything that was written?

Interested to see the final product, man

[Khalil]

Finish! And stop with the damn bondo, weld that panel on and you'll be golden.

[Ollie]

Finish! And stop with the damn bondo, weld that panel on and you'll be golden.

The body is mostly all fiberglass


I was actually just wondering about this build today lol looks like it's still coming along.

[benz88]

Ive seen Current pics of it. LOL Apparently your buddies with a guy on another forum im on. He's doing a lift on his truck in a shop you guys rent i think

[xmax92xd]

Almost creamed my pants when I saw this build. This is gonna be sexy when it's finished.

[Jersh]

I'm so happy to see that this build is still alive. Keep it up man.

[Vwdubluvin]

uggghh i read all this and its still not done? it looks so mean

[deutschman]

where is part two? You must be drinking a lot of coffee lol

[Mark Ostrowski]

Part II !!

ok so where we left off, I end up meeting Ian on my first day of class and we hit it right off because we both are in the stance scene and have e36, what are the odds? needless to say its a miracle we both pulled off a "B" in the class considering the topic of the day was always tire stretch, spring rates, and upcoming H20i. After going to a few local VW meets with him, I met a lot of new friends, including Kamil (Topaz_kid) and Myles (Fabel). In the mean time i finally got the motivation to start back up working on my car...

damage control



slapped together a very basic frame/plug to glass over and rebuild my hood from scratch







it wasn't the prettiest, but it would do for now, and it's close to 10 times stronger than the original with a lot of added reinforcement and bracing

and then I met Meehow. Meehow at the time was the new owner of a small 2,000sqft space designated to be home base for the car shop he was trying to start. also Meehow has a turbocharged 400whp E30 widebody he was building, and based on our mutual love for all things wide bmw we quickly became good friends. To shorten the story, I decided that I was completly fed up with how high my car sat in the rear- the solution: notching the rear frame. Since Meehow was a fairly proficient welder I asked if he would mind doing this for me, he agreed



the hood was removed as there were some areas still left to touch up and the car was prepped for its first drive on a main road in close to 3 years

that ass backing out..



after a very eventful drive over my car arrived, and in 1 piece..minus a fusebox cover- god rest its little soul



my car sat there for a while as I helped around the shop with other projects since at this point Meehow graciously was allowing my to use the shop space in order to finish my car, including our soon-to-come new paint booth

eventually things settled down and we got back to work on it starting with the long overdue rear frame notch

Ian grabbed a faptastic shot of my cute butt as i cut away the frame



Meehow welding..



aaand done.



now while this is not the traditional definition of a frame notch, if you cut up high enough into your quarter panel, you will reveal a portion of the frame where two structural beams join together- this is what we were notching, but it wasn't for axel clearance, it was for tire clearance, but i believe the term still applies

anyway the aftermath:



sittin on 4in 1200lb Hyperco linear springs





after that was taken care of I put some TLC into the hood and lowered the front, this is now to my knowledge, the lowest static E36 on 19's



after that car sat for a little while we caught up on the E30



then we got a lift finally after many many delays with the company we booked to install it:



not soon after that I finally test drove my car around the complex outside our shop to see how the notch turned out, more on that later..

her fat ass pulling out..



after we had our fun with that and put some time into the shop to pretty it up a bit I decided to do what is now my favorite mod on the car..i took the my preface e46 kidneys, and widened them by one slat..





its one of those things that you won't notice it at first, but if someone points it out to you, you notice the impact it makes on the overall appearance of the car, here's a before and below is after



so back to the notch, rears: amazing, no more rubbing and clearance for days, fronts..rub like a mofo and so a look into whats to come in the next few weeks





anyway that about wraps it up, i was considering doing MKI style mirror deletes but then I think i fell in love with these old Ebay mirrors i bought 4 years ago



might get cup mirrors, don't know yet but here we are, the car has come a long way since i started this build thread and there is a long way to go, but bear with me, I'm hoping to get the car out for this show season. If you want more recent updates as i can't always post up new updates right away, follow my instagram @mostudiodesign



thanks for all the support, I've mentioned this before but i basically got flamed off bimmerforums when i first started this and had it not been for the S/W community and all the support from the members who post here I may not have made it this far, so seriously- thank you

[mule.]

this thing is beautiful.

[nhojyauq]

this build is crazy!

[Thagodeus]

I cant wait to see this whole thing evened, straightened, cleaned up, and painted. Its already looking golden.