Learn Me: Fun Autos - Possible or Blasphemous?

rslifkin wrote:

fireball123 wrote: You say the 7 series is faster but for 16k you could get a nice 3 series and do a 5.0 swap

An E38 7 series is usually well under $16k, even for a pretty clean one. Plus, why would I want to put a heavy cast iron lump under the hood? There's no way a 5.0 isn't significantly heavier than the stock BMW I6 in an E36/E46, so there goes some of the handling...

according to e36v8.com quote "The Ford 5.0 is very close to the weight of the M52 six-cylinder engine. Both weigh around 480-500 pounds fully dressed with accessories, transmissions, and oil. Toss some aluminum heads on there to save about 50 lbs (and add up to 100 horsepower)."

In reply to fireball123:

Not many people realize how heavy iron inline 6s are...they got a bit lighter when they swapped over to aluminum in the m54 but still not a whole lot iirc

Well I decided to break all of my rules. Went over my original budget and went FWD as well:

2015 GTI with dsg transmission, I was able to get a pretty good deal on it so was worth the shot.

Turns out these cars are a lot more fun than I anticipated. Pretty happy so far

Agreed. DSG GTIs are pretty sweet. May the automotive gods grant blessings of reliability to you.