E36 Question

I've got some questions about my M3, but some of them probably pertain to any E36.

Has anyone here swapped a manifold from an OBD1 325i or M3 to a later E36? Was it worth it?

Also, this car is incredibly quiet. How quiet are they supposed to be, stock? I'm thinking about hitting up a local muffler shop so I can hear this thing when the top is down. My understanding is that a cat back gives 5hp and loses 20lbs or so.

This shifter is very sloppy. How tight are these things stock? It's not floppy, it just doesn't feel very good. It's difficult to get good, positive shifts. I suppose the bushings could be worn out already at 95k miles, but it's worse than my RX7 was at 230k miles. I guess I don't want to spend the money and time fixing this if it's just a characteristic of the car.

Is there anything else other than suspension and maintenance that will make the car more enjoyable to drive without dropping serious coin? I'm just wanting a fun daily driver; not a world beater.

The OBDI mani swap . . . depends on what you are looking for. The top end thrust is wondermous . . . but without a tune, the low end to mid range suffers a good bit. When I had mine, I didn't do the mani swap since it was more than enough for the street. I drove a few without the tune and it wasn't exciting at all. With the tune you keep the low-mid range and get the top end pull.

A decent magnaflow muffler will drop more than 20lbs over the stock box (tank) and give you some good sound.

Get the shifter rebuild kit from BMAparts.com (spece30 for 5% and free shipping discount).

For suspension . . .simple H&R + Bilstein Sports . . . not much coin . . .

I have an Active Autoworks exhaust on my 1999 M3 and it is still pretty quiet. I put a Dinan Cold Air intake on it and it sounds glorious now. If you are looking for a little extra noise, you won't be disapointed with an intake.

M50 manifold swap kicks the ass for an e36 M3 track car. You give up some bottom end though...

EDIT: The only e36 that benefits from the swap is OBD2 M3 getting a 328i manifold which has much larger runners. I got the kit from m50manifold.com

My '98 M3 has the aforementioned manifold, traction control throttle body deleted + a Samco silicone boot in place of the OEM rubber accordian + a Conforti intake + ECU flash. Stock headers + cats, a UUC-Corsa twin-muffler exhaust, under drive pulleys, 16" SPAL puller fan + Zionsville race cooling system, Bimmerworld light M5 flywheel+Clutchmasters clutch. VAC oil pump shaft+baffle.

It makes good, reliable power and sounds totally kickass. When you exit oak tree @ VIR and go by the wall on drivers left at WOT it's fantastic sounding.

A bit of play in the shifter is inherent to the design.

Personally, I found the stock M3 exhaust to sound pretty good. Make sure the bypass system in the muffler is working correctly. It should have a much more aggressive sound when you get on it.

It's the intake that gives you the kickass noise. I have stock exhaust with intake and it is spectacular. Shifter: Get a z3 lever and the low knob, and rebuild the linkage, and you'll be better, but not perfect.

Hmm...I think my expectations were just too high. You know what they say about meeting your heroes.