You probably read that title and wondered how someone juiced a 2 liter M52 engine to 1000 horsepower. In reality this 323ci isn’t packing some massively nitroused or turboed inline six BMW engine, but instead a full race 410 cubic inch Chevy small block with a supercharger.
There has to be a bit of crazy sparkle in the eye of the gent who thought this conversion up, not to mention more than a couch full of spare change. This car has been around the net for a number of years, gathering its share of cheers and jeers.
The 2000 323ci has a salvage title so the car itself was probably sitting around awaiting a less interesting fate or was purchased for a song. Somehow, perhaps after an evening of drinking in the garage, someone got the idea of dropping an engine worth 10 times the value of the car up front, the seller says there is $40,000 invested in the engine. The seller lists the engine has having dyno sheets showing 850 honest horsepower before the addition of the supercharger, which is being claimed to push the beast to close to 1000 horse power. The engine a bored over 350 was pulled from a World of Outlaws sprint car and is mated to a GM 700R transmission. I’d probably want to see updated dyno sheets and I’d think twice about wagering on there really being Veyron horsepower at the rear wheels.
The car itself has had a BMW M3 GTR widebody kit added along with some M badges. A few extra holes in the body work have been added, presumably to help with heat. The trunk is filled with a fuel cell.
Inside the car looks stock other than the new autobox shifter and a redone digital dash.
The seller gives mileage as 5,000, who knows what exactly that refers to. Probably would be worth knowing how much track time the engine saw before the transplant. I suspect it has seen some hard miles since the conversion. The ask price is $30,000. Some other crazy might buy it for that much. I’d be a bit scared of the longevity of something like this, but the hard work has been done so even if something breaks it would be easier to replace the second time. This would be pretty fun to surprise some people out on the street, but the novelty may wear off pretty quickly as this is probably two complete handfulls to keep in straight line. I’ve posted a few videos below showing the car as it appeared back in 2007, thankfully it has lost the ridiculous wing since these were made.
1000 horsepower 2000 BMW 323ci on eBay
~Evan
One word: Traveshamockery.
Kinda cool, but I like this as long as its somebody else’s car.
@medic1: well said.
No bidders at $30k.