Matt Farah, the man behind beloved Youtube channel, The Smoking Tire, has been mostly preoccupied with shooting podcasts lately, leaving the car testing side of things to other people. However, for one special project he bounced back and, looking at this car, it’s easy to see why. Today he’s telling us all about a 550 HP BMW E30 M3, on one of his traditional One Take videos, as you’re about to see.
This car though is something truly special. I know the internet is filled with E30 M3 cars with engine swaps but this time, it’s really an interesting take on this timeless classic. This M3 has the S55 3-liter straight six twin-turbo engine from the F80 M3 and F82 M4 models. The engine, however, was tuned to make different levels of power instead of the classic 425 HP it comes with as standard. Thus, you get three different levels to choose from.
Stage 1 is 300 HP, which is less than what an S55 usually makes but more than what the S14 had under its belt back in the day. Then there’s the 500 HP stop and going all the way up, the third level brings 550 HP to the mix. What I love most about this car though is that it was done right. If you ever drove or had a project car involving such huge changes, you probably know you sometimes end up with faulty gauges, maybe some wiring sticking out, or something like that.
Not on this car though. The interior has been completely redone and the instrument cluster was taken from an F80 M3 and it looks brilliant and works to some extent (the speedometer seems to have a couple of issues). Furthermore, there’s even a push button to start and stop the engine, which also works. Other than that, power steering is missing from the menu and Matt definitely didn’t enjoy that, as you’re about to see. Overall, this is one of the best swaps I’ve ever seen done on an E30 M3 and the car was done over a period of three years and presented at SEMA last year.
