We all went a bit loopy when lockdown kicked in. Life became about nothing but TV and crisps, all the days blurring into one. But not for Jake Hughes – he spent the mid-2020 lockdown building this awesome bagged S14a.

Feature first appeared in Fast Car magazine. Words: Dan Bevis. Photos: Mark Loony

If you take a straw poll around the Fast Car office to see what everyone’s opinions are of the borderline-retro boyband Blue, you’ll get some mixed responses. Midge loves them, obviously, because their brand of radio-friendly motherloving beats feeds into his nature as a sparkly little pop tart. Glenda has a surprising fondness for them too, having once spotted Antony Costa in a branch of Costa Coffee; the coincidence seemed like a glitch in the Matrix, and now he reckons Blue are just a pan-dimensional troupe of buccaneers masquerading as a slightly shit boyband. Jules isn’t really bothered either way, as long as they don’t interrupt the snooker. Initial G hasn’t paid much attention to the hit parade for a while, all these young whippersnappers making a racket. And me? Well, sorry, but I’ll have no truck with that sort of nonsense. It’s not so much the cheesiness of the lyrics or the cliched production that puts me off, but the fact that ‘All Rise’ presents a thoroughly illogical image of how courtrooms work. They haven’t even done the most basic research. And worse than that, their claim to “have the city on lockdown” in ‘Fly By II’ may have sounded cool back in 2002, but it’s a slap in the face for all of us in 2020. The very idea that they were cruising around in a lowrider with the system up and the top down, while the rest of us were confined to quarters and working our way through the deepest recesses of Netflix – well, frankly, that’s a total dick move.

Not everyone, however, was watching ‘The Last Dance’ and baking banana bread throughout lockdown. A small percentage of people managed to drag their arses away from the sofa to achieve something useful; some even made it as far as the garage, and that’s precisely where you would have found Jake Hughes throughout the early peak of the pandemic. A government-mandated decree to bolt the front door and hide away from other organisms of all types was just the push he needed to crack out the spanners and build the Nissan S14a of his dreams.

This is all really a natural progression for Jake, as he’s been keen on taking cool cars and making them cooler for a fair few years now. “I first started modifying cars around 2014,” he explains, which was round about the time Blue were revelling in the success of their fourth studio album ‘Roulette’ (which, we have to admit, we’ve literally never listened to – because, FFS, why would you?). “My first car was a Honda Civic EG; I grew up loving Hondas as all my friends had them. They were all into the track look while I was the only one who really wanted to stance one! Then as the years went on and I bought more Hondas, I got myself an EK VTi that had been in a crash and was repaired without going through insurance – so I had no idea about the damage that had been repaired. Me and my mate Ryan Davies tried our best to get the front wheels to be equal, but it didn’t play ball at all…”

With all of this garage-based swashbuckling, Jake couldn’t help finding his eye wandering over to the corner where Ryan’s Nissan S14 was sitting. “I’d wanted one of those for so long, and I said to him that if I couldn’t get the EK fixed up, I was going to sell it and find an S14a,” Jake recalls. “After driving his one, and being a passenger in it so many times, I knew the time was finally right to find one for myself.”

All of this was inevitable really. Once the seed of the idea has been planted, there’s no way it’s not going to happen. It’s the same feeling you get if you’re sitting on the sofa watching telly and start idly wondering about having a Jaffa Cake, or if you’re on a road trip and begin questioning whether you might need to stop for a wee: basically, if there’s any doubt, there is no doubt. So the EK was ousted and Jake started searching in earnest for just the right S14a to make his dreams come true.

“I put a post on Facebook asking if anyone was selling one, and that ultimately led to me finding this one with a bloke called Connor in Blackwood, Wales,” he explains. “The car looked like it had been sitting for a while; it was in okay condition, I wouldn’t say it was brilliant. There were rust holes covered up with metal plates that had been cut out and bonded on over the holes in the wheel arches… it had Rota wheels and an exhaust, and a bodykit of unknown brand, but otherwise it was pretty stock.”

The condition wasn’t too much of a concern, though. Having wanted one of these cars for so long, and with a vision in his head of building a white one with wide WORK wheels, this was simply the first step towards the masterplan of success. It was an S14a that he could buy, that was enough. So, with ruthless efficiency, Jake dragged it home and started tearing it to bits, ready to slice out all of that rust and build it up as the badass brawler he’d always imagined.

“The car’s had many looks over the last two years of owning it,” he says. “It didn’t take long to start the stance look after I crashed it into a kerb, that was when the changes really began to happen! I took the car to my mate Axel Richardson and he cut all the rot out and replaced it, as he’s a been building S14s for many years. He also tubbed it so I could fit 18s without mega amounts of camber.”

To achieve the correct wheel results, Jake acquired a set of tired WORK Equips from JDMDistro and busied himself rejuvenating them. They were in fairly ruined condition, so he spent days and days on end sanding them down, before building them back up with new lips sourced from Rimscarnated. While all this was going on, Jake was patiently waiting for all his new body bits to arrive from Origin Lab, stacking up a nice little pile of parts ready to give the Nissan the aesthetic makeover it deserved.

“I slowly started to build the car up in my unit with my mate Owen Caines, who painted and helped me with all the panels,” he says. “The bodykit is a DMax Type 3, which has been custom-made to fit the car to get it spot-on, as fibreglass ain’t the best to work with! The bonnet, overfenders and front arches are from Origin, and I also have a JDM kouki grille and a custom jack bar made by me and my friend.”

The aesthetics really are on-point, it’s true testament to how the lockdown blues can be chased away by having a manual task to despatch, and it’s equally important to note that this car isn’t just about looking pretty. The freshly rebuilt SR20 is now packing a fireball 320bhp or thereabouts, kept in check by an R33 Skyline brake conversion at either end, and those radical lows you’re witnessing are brought to you courtesy of a full Air Lift Performance suspension setup. Jake’s vision of a white bagged S14a on wide WORKs has been comprehensively achieved, and it was well worth missing out on ‘Tiger King’ for.

“The hardest part of it all was building this car through lockdown,” he assures us. “That, and getting all the fibreglass to fit right. I went through five sets of Origin arches to get the best ones!”

And now that the lockdown restrictions have eased a little and it’s possible to take the finished product out and about, Jake’s sublime hand-crafted creation is certainly turning heads. “People can’t believe that I daily the S14, they say it’s too nice,” he laughs. “But I don’t believe in building a car not to drive it – and I really do love driving it.”

The central part of all this is that it was achieved in circumstances way beyond anyone’s control, but Jake refused to just sit back and let 2020 pass him by. Out there in the garage, usually with just the radio for company, he’s created something to be truly proud of; something positive out of such a negative year.

He probably wasn’t listening to Blue though.

Tech Spec: Bagged S14A

Styling:
DMax Type 3 Aero bodykit, Origin bonnet, Origin overfenders and front wings, JDM kouki grille, custom jack bar

Tuning:
SR20DET 2.0-litre turbo – freshly rebuilt, stainless exhaust system, front-mount intercooler, Tomei radiator, torque damper, stock SR20 transmission

Power:

320bhp

Chassis:

10.5×18-inch (front) and 12.5×18-inch (rear) WORK Equip 05 wheels (custom-built by owner), 225/35 (f) and 275/35 (r) tyres, Air Lift Performance suspension, front strut brace, R33 Skyline front and rear brakes

Interior:

BRIDE Low Max seats, full interior retrim in BRIDE fabric to match, Grip Royal steering wheel, Nismo gearknob, AEM gauges (boost, AFR, oil temp)

When Dominik Pokoj bought this 20-valve Coupe five years ago, it was a wreck. Despite the original plan to simply restore it, ideas spiralled and Dominik was left with this wild, modified Audi B3 Coupe.  

Feature first appeared in Fast Car magazine issue 420. Words: Dan Bevis. Photos: Mike Crawatt

Comebacks are, more often than not, rather exciting. When Charlie Sheen returned from his rollercoaster of narcotic rants to the comforting bosom of network television, the entertainment world was on the edge of its seat. Ozzy Osbourne’s shaking form on reality TV bonanza The Osbournes showed a man visibly damaged, but undeniably triumphant. When Paul Weller knocked Wild Wood out of the park in ’93, the vagaries of the Style Council were all but forgotten as the Modfather returned reborn. It’s true to say that comebacks are, assuming you ignore the ill-fated Spice Girls musical, generally considered to be pretty stonking news. So, ladies and gentlemen, allow us to present the glorious return of the Audi B3 Coupe.

Naturally, to many enthusiasts in the scene, the B3 never really went away; if you’re reading Fast Car then there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of the model and have a fair idea of what it’s about. But if not, here’s a quick history lesson: the B3-generation Audi 80 saloon was launched in 1986, this time on its own unique platform rather than one shared with the VW Passat. The car was swoopy and aerodynamic, and galvanised – all forward-thinking stuff for the eighties. As with previous generations, an upmarket variant was offered, badged Audi 90, which came with a 5-cylinder engine, and the really interesting development came toward the end of the decade. In 1988 Audi shortened the 80’s wheelbase and reworked the rear suspension to fit into the pretty and well-proportioned Coupe shape, and the following year began offering their first 20-valve engine since the turbo unit in the Sport Quattro. The result of all this was a sporty-shaped variant of the 80, packing a 170bhp 2.3-litre 20-valve nat-asp 5-pot – either with or without quattro AWD. Bang a turbo on the latter and it becomes the S2. There you go, all clued up.

So why are we mooting the B3 Coupe’s presence here as ‘a comeback’? Well, it’s simply that these late-’80s/early-’90s models are seriously hot property right now; while they seemed to disappear from the common enthusiasm for a time, those that remain are coming back onto the scene in full force. There’s a robust core of cars that have unexpectedly leapt right from ‘whatever’ to ‘woah!’ on the petrolhead intrigue spectrum. Cars that were everywhere back in the nineties, but often weren’t considered sufficiently interesting or noteworthy to save and thus gradually marched their way into the world’s crushers, only now to be lamented by old-school enthusiasts who’ve cottoned on to the fact that there aren’t many left.

For Dominik Pokoj, though, the B3 Coupe you see laying frame on these pages isn’t some new fad, leapt upon because they’re so hot right now. He started modding this car five years ago, back when he was nineteen, and it’s hard to deny that the 20-valve 5-cylinder variant is a pretty forthright choice for a teenager. And now, at the age of 24, Dominik’s turned the Coupe into the car it always deserved to be.

“The car was in really bad shape when I bought it,” he recalls, with the steely gaze of chipped flint of somebody who’s seen a few things and somehow made it through unscathed. “It wasn’t legal to use on the road, it had so many faults and defects. And a lot of rust and dents too!”

Sounds like a bit of a dog. Why would Dominik take the plunge on something that seemed like such a lost cause? “Quite simply, there is no more beautiful vehicle that reflects the Coupe shape,” he reasons. “The history of the older Audi models is indescribable.”

Fair enough, really. Such decisions are informed more by passion than rationality – he’d decided that the B3 Coupe was the car for him, and nothing would stop him achieving that dream. This reality is borne out by the fact that this isn’t even the car Dominik went to buy in the first place: “I drove with my father to Kassel, which is about 550km from my home in Schmiedorf, to look at a different Coupe,” he recalls. “But the owner of that one had driven the vehicle dry and the fuel pump had dragged a load of dirt through the engine; it wasn’t running properly and there was no way it would have made the 550km return journey. I was really disappointed, and I didn’t want to come home empty-handed, so I was looking out for other Coupes all the way home. We found this car, a 1990 20v in Emerald Green, in Landshut – and, despite the poor condition, I bought it and brought it home!”

With a vision in mind of what he wanted to achieve, Dominik set to work straight away, fully dismantling the car and starting to cut out the rust. However, projects are so often subject to mission creep, and over the lengthy restoration process the plan began to transmogrify and evolve. “I initially planned just to fix the rust and dents and get it running,” he grins, “but a bit more ended up happening.”

He’s not kidding. What followed was an obsessive and fastidious rebuild, returning the interior back to factory-stock, to the extent that today he reckons it’s like driving a brand new car. The Coupe had a Kamei spoiler fitted as-new from the factory, and those timeless eighties lines have been beautifully restored. However, as you will no doubt have deduced by now, this isn’t simply a story of a man buying a tired car and restoring it. While elements of the car are just as Audi intended – the steel panelwork, and the jewel-like 20-valve motor – Dominik’s got a bit carried away with developing the sporting theme. The body, now a crisp white, wears a custom Audi Sport livery which certainly announces its presence with a figurative fist to the solar plexus, and it’s rather better acquainted with the tarmac than it ever was in the 1980s. This is thanks to the custom installation of a TA Technix air-ride setup, running Air Lift management, which gets the retro lines hard-parked like a boss over those tasty BBS RS splits. These bolt to S2 hubs, with the uprated Girling 60 brakes native to the S2 peeping through those myriad BBS spokes.

So he’s mastered the look, the stance, the menace and the old-school vibe – but Dominik wasn’t merely paying lip service to the car’s sporting pretensions. 170bhp was considered rather a lot back in the day, and he’s accentuating this 5-pot’s prowess by authentically turning the innards of the Coupe into something pure race car. “Installing the custom fuel cell was the hardest part of the project,” he ponders, although you get the feeling that none of it was strictly easy given the fastidiousness with which it’s all been finished. The full rollcage is a work of art, neatly complemented by the Recaro seats and Schroth harnesses. What trim remains in situ is artfully reworked in Alcantara and carbon fibre, and the dual x-braces in the rear separate the functional cabin from the sumptuously trimmed air install in the boot.

“It drives so well now – the engine has had so many new parts installed and it runs like a dream,” he smiles. “If there was one thing I’d change with the car though, perhaps I’d go back in time and buy a quattro version instead. Maybe I should sell this one and buy an S2…”

Well, such are the fickle whims of fate. We always want what we don’t have, that’s just the inherently envious nature of the human condition. One thing’s for sure, however: Dominik knows what he’s about here, he’s an Audi Coupe guy. If there’s going to be a B3 comeback, this is the man leading the charge.

Tech spec: Modified Audi B3 Coupe

Engine:

2.3E 20-valve 5-cylinder, 5-speed manual

Power:

170bhp (est.)

Chassis:
8.5x17in ET37 BBS RS 236 wheels, 225/45 Hankook tyres, Audi S2 wheel hubs, Girling 60 brake system, TA Technix air-ride with Air Lift management and twin Viair compressors

Exterior:

Kamei spoiler, Audi Sport livery, debadged grille

Interior:

Full rollcage, Recaro seats, Schroth harnesses, Audi S2 white dials, custom Wiechers fuel cell, custom air-ride install, Luisi Sports steering wheel, carbon fibre dash and door trims, carbon sills, Alcantara pillar trim

Dripping with raw aggression and with a massively modded S52 pushing out a monster 605whp, this full-on turbo E36 M3 is an absolute beast.

Feature first appeared in Performance BMW. Words: Elizabeth de Latour. Photos: Daniel Piker

Aftermarket forced induction is the ultimate sign that you’re committed to performance – BMW may have made forced induction mainstream, but on the scene we do it better and bigger – much bigger. We might feature a lot of aftermarket forced induction cars in the magazine but, realistically, they make up a tiny percentage of all the modified BMWs out there – the number of people who can commit to their car on this level is tiny because it’s always a lot of money to spend. Even if you opt for an off-the-shelf kit it’s still a big deal but if you put it together yourself, that’s another level of dedication to performance and Joey Princen is flying the forced induction flag in a big way with his monster turbo E36 M3.

When Joey’s not busy being an Alaskan commercial fishing captain and professional fishing guide, he’s busy enjoying the fruits of his forced induction labour in the form of this magnificent E36 M3, and for Joey, this is the fulfilment of a childhood dream. “I have been into BMWs since I was 14 years old,” he begins as we chat, “I remember watching videos of ‘Dado’ from DTMPower.net in his turbo Dakar E36. I knew this is what I wanted to do when I was older and more financially secure; there was no other car that I wanted besides a turbo E36,” he says with a broad grin. “The unique balance of the E36 created a driving experience I couldn’t find in any other car or even in newer BMW models: the E36 truly is the ultimate driving machine – the way they shift, turn and sound and maintain the perfect balance in a sports car,” he smiles. “In boosted terms, the high-revving M5x/S5x inline-six, paired with a proper turbo, can beat some of the world’s best high-horsepower inline-six engines such as the 2JZ-GTE and RB26. The M5x/S5x engines are incredibly well-built and today these BMW inline-six motors are competing with the best of the best sixes for big boosted horsepower,” he smiles and his car is living proof of that.

With such passion for BMWs and the E36 M3 in particular, it’s no surprise to learn that Joey has had more than a few and not a single one has left his hands stock. In fact, he’s owned no less than four E36 M3s, all modded to varying degrees, but 2016 was the pivotal year for him when, after a seven-year break from BMs, the call of the E36 M3 brought him home and he knew what he had to do. “I knew I needed to build the one-of-a-kind E36 I was waiting for,” he says with a smile. “The time in my life was right and E36 prices had fallen to an all-time low. I searched and found my 1999 Fern green E36 M3 after months of looking for a clean car and the build began shortly after. As green is my favourite colour I made it my goal to find a clean 1999, Fern green M3; Fern green in the sunlight is such a mesmerising, metallic colour and the 1999 E36 was the last year we could get this platform in the United States. The 1999 versions of these cars so feel much tighter and well-sorted over earlier models and OBD2 is the perfect option for stock ECU tuning a boosted E36 platform,” Joey explains. “I found the car on a local BMW Facebook page in Seattle; it was owned by three other BMW enthusiasts and well maintained since the day it was purchased. There were only 140,000 miles on the car when I bought it and the condition was 7/10, the car needed some TLC to get it back to OEM appearance but it was fun bringing the car back to OEM condition all by my myself in the garage and I find it pretty incredible an E36 can turn so many heads on the street once they are clean like they were in the ’90s,” he grins.

So Joey had his perfect green M3 and he also had a plan, a big plan for big power and he wasn’t going to waste any time. “I purchased the car with the intent to boost it and see what a stock S52 can really do with proper tuning and good hardware. In the last five years the US M5x/S5x engines have come so much further in head gasket and tuning advancements and these incredible tuning advancements have kept these engines together more reliably than ever before, and I knew it was time to try to make my dream power goals on a stock motor,” he smiles. “The entire goal of this build was to make 600whp+ on just 92 octane and pure methanol. We were able to do this all while keeping the internals of the S52B32 completely stock – our goal was accomplished,” Joey grins proudly. “We only used a JE cut-ring head gasket and copper spacer combined with ARP head studs. I wanted to keep the stock ECU and complete factory wiring harness and let Zack at 22RPD tune the car to make these impressive power levels reliable. It’s impressive to find that an OEM S52 from 1999 can put down over 600whp reliably with no major internal work, it’s all in the tune on the stock Siemens ECU. The build only took around three months to complete, but these were long days and nights; boosting a naturally aspirated motor takes time and patience with all the extra changes it requires,” he says. “There were no problems with the build itself once finished. The car fired right up and we fixed a few vacuum leaks initially. It’s been bulletproof since with many long hard pulls to the limiter,” he grins and that’s almost the most impressive aspect of the whole build.

As Joey says, adding boost to a naturally aspirated engine is no small undertaking and while the internals of this S52 might be stock almost nothing else is. The aforementioned combo of head gasket and copper spacer have dropped the compression ratio from 10.5:1 to 9:1 and the head itself was removed, pressure checked and then hot tanked and decked to ensure a flush mounting surface. The timing chain guides and valve seals were replaced and there are Achilles Motorsports internal oil pump upgrades. The turbo itself is a BorgWarner S366 with a polished cover and it’s equipped with a 44mm Tial MVR wastegate and a 50mm blow-off valve, and it sits on a RapidSpool Industries top-mount manifold. The exhaust system, meanwhile, is a custom setup from Fuse Fabrication with a 3.5” stainless pie cut downpipe and a 3.5” straight-through system that’s pie cut all the way to the tips. “One of the most unique parts of this build was the fabrication to the exhaust and intercooler system, done by Fuse Fabrication,” says Joey. “His incredible talent reflects in his TIG welding abilities and this downpipe electrifies the under-hood characteristics of this turbo kit. Fuse pie cut each bend in the exhaust from the back of the turbo, all the way to the exhaust tips. If you lift the car up, it looks as good on the bottom as it does on the top. His welds have slowly been changing colour into the rainbow spectrum as the car has heat-cycled over the last year. This was by far my favourite part of popping the hood,” grins Joey and it’s a spectacular under-bonnet spectacle.

Helping to slake the engine’s massive thirst for fuel is an Aeromotive Stealth EFI 340lph fuel pump with an AEI FPR while 80lb Siemens Deka injectors sit at the business end. Cooling is taking care of by a selection of Mishimoto goodies, including an M-Line intercooler, radiator and expansion tank which has been relocated to the driver’s side of the engine bay for additional turbo clearance, which Joey needs with the size of that thing. Finally, there’s the meth injection and he’s opted for an AEM 30-3300 boost-activated system with a direct port into the throttle body and 1000cc/minute injection. We already know what all this adds up to and that’s a dyno-proven 605whp, which is basically 700hp at the crank, but in “kill mode” Joey says it’s pushing closer to 650whp, which is insane. But this S52 isn’t just about the business of power and performance and the engine bay looks damn sexy – you’ve got the polished turbo housing, the gold foil, that incredible downpipe, the stainless steel vanity cover and it makes for a spectacular sight with the bonnet up. The two other incredibly impressive things about this build are the fact that the engine now has over 148,000 miles on it, and the only transmission upgrade that has been applied is an FX Stage 4 unsprung six-puck clutch, both of which are a testament to the sturdiness of this powertrain.

So we know this E36 has one hell of a bite on it but it also delivers in spades when it comes to bark and Joey has absolutely nailed it in the looks department. Sometimes green can just look a bit bland and uninspiring, but Fern green is lush and full of character and it suits the square shape of the E36 perfectly, and the woodland hue is enhanced by the stance of this thing and it looks outrageously mean. While Joey hasn’t gone overboard on the exterior mods there’s plenty here that has amped up the aggression to scary levels, and it’s no surprise that some of the styling mods have made their way onto his list of favourite upgrades on the car, from both an aesthetic and practical standpoint. “I love my DTMFiberWerkz hood and side skirt extensions, these are uncommon E36 modifications that really added character to this build. The hood allows the large S366 BorgWarner turbo to be visible from the outside and vents engine bay heat,” he says. Not only does the vented bonnet serve a functional purpose, but it also looks extremely intimidating and we applaud Joey’s decision to paint the bonnet while just leaving the vents in exposed carbon and it adds an extra layer of depth to this car’s visuals. At the front end, you will find a Rieger GT Cup splitter, which does an awesome job of making the car’s jawline appear even more intimidating as well as making the car appear that much lower to the tarmac, while the side skirt extensions (visible in some shots but not in others as this shoot happened in two sessions spread across a couple of months) make the car appear that much lower and wider in the flanks as well as that much more muscular. At the rear, meanwhile, sits a Mateo Motorsports diffuser, which does a fantastic job of filling out the rear bumper with its array of massive fins. Beyond that, though, Joey has kept things pretty subtle – the massive Mishimoto intercooler is visible in the front bumper aperture and there are yellow-tinted high-beam lenses but otherwise, the styling hasn’t been messed with and it looks all the better for it.

As we mentioned, a large part of what makes this E36 look so damn aggressive is the stance and wheel combo – it sits low to the ground, the arch gap is all but invisible and the fat tyres take up any remaining real estate in the arches. It looks squat and pumped up like it’s looking for a fight and that squared-off ’90s aesthetic makes this one car you wouldn’t want to mess with. “I chose the ESR SR05 wheels on purpose; I feel that, for a replica brand, ESR has great quality products,” explains Joey. “The main reason I chose this particular wheel and brand was they offered a deep-dish 17” LM-style wheel in aggressive specs. The car sits on a 9.5×17” square setup with an ET20 offset; this offset and the width are extremely aggressive for the car and really helped make the car look ‘full’ without having to add spacers and I couldn’t find many wheels with this sizing for the E36 bolt pattern. Soon, the car will need Weld drag wheels for the big power we are throwing at it,” he grins. “The tyre choice was obvious: for big power on the street it’s hard to beat the look and performance of the Toyo R888R. This tyre is incredible after a few hits; when I get them warm they really put the power down and don’t spin that much. However, as we are creeping into the mid-600s traction is getting harder and harder to make, so in the future we will need a racing slick,” he says. Regardless of how you may feel about reps, there can be no denying that these ESRs look damn good on the E36 and suit the whole look of the car perfectly, and the square setup and low offset combo is an awesome one. That purposeful drop comes courtesy of a set of Ground Control Track/School coilovers utilising Koni Adjustable shocks along with a set of front and rear ECS camber-adjustable arms dialled in for -1.5° of camber up front and -1.0° at the rear, while an OEM X-brace keeps chassis flex to a minimum. This trio combines to deliver not only that intimidating stance but also ensures that Joey can fully deploy all of that monster power and really enjoy himself doing it. And, when the time comes to stop having fun, the combo of Brembo drilled discs and Sport pads ensure that there’s plenty of slow to match the go.

The final stop on our journey around this turbo E36 M3 is the interior and here Joey has left things almost entirely stock, but with those iconic Vaders up front that’s no bad thing. The interior has been treated to brand new OEM Dove grey leather with added 3/16” hardened foam so that the seats feel like new, there’s a VAC extinguisher mount and a polished extinguisher to go with it, and there’s a trio of VDO gauges for oil temperature, pressure and water temperature discreetly mounted ahead of the gear lever in the dash while a pair of additional AEM boost and wideband gauges are mounted to the steering column.

This turbo E36 M3 is an awesome modern-day throwback to the ’90s turbo era when Japanese performance machinery dominated the streets and by boosting this square-jawed Bavarian brute Joey has built the turbo E36 M3 he’s always dreamed of. It looks awesome, the power level is monumental and it’s a full-on build that doesn’t disappoint and which delivers on every level, and there’s an awful lot to love about it. “I’m really glad we decided to recirculate the turbo wastegate system, as doing so allowed for this particular turbo to create incredibly loud spool noises you can hear from a mile away. Enjoying the engine noises is as important to me as the performance aspect as well,” grins Joey and with a car like this it’s absolutely all about the whole driving experience, and what an experience it delivers. Impressive as this build is, Joey’s got some big plans and he’s ready to take this E36 to the next level; “We have a built motor slowly being assembled on the side right now: the goal is 1100whp on E85 fuel. The motor won’t be installed for a few years because the stock engine build has gone so well,” he says and his shopping list includes a fully ported and built head from CES Motorsport, custom 22RPD Diamond pistons, triple Walbro fuel pumps and a one-off twin-scroll top mount manifold with a Garrett G42 turbo and that taster of the spec list has got us salivating already. With 605whp on tap right now and almost double that in the works, Joey’s boosted beast of an E36 M3 is one epic machine and it’s here to remind us of those ’90s glory days in the loudest, fastest and most extreme way imaginable.

Tech spec: Turbo E36 M3

Engine and Transmission:

3.2-litre straight-six S52B32, lowered compression from 10:5:1 to 9:1, CES Motorsport 86.4mm JE cut-ring head gasket with copper spacer .140” total thickness, ARP 2000 head studs, Achilles Motorsports S5x internal oil pump upgrades, head removed, pressure checked, hot tanked and decked for flush mounting surface, new OEM timing chain guides, new OEM valve seals, entire car converted to JEGS -4AN vacuum/boost lines, 22RPD M logo stainless vanity valve cover, BorgWarner S366 T4 .88 A/R turbo with open exhaust housing with 66/73mm inducer/exducer diameter and polished cover, 44mm Tial MVR wastegate, 50mm Tial Sport Q blow-off valve, Cummins -10AN flex drain return to pan, RapidSpool Industries S5x top-mount T4/T3 flange exhaust manifold, custom one-off exhaust by Fuse Fabrication with 3.5” stainless pie cut downpipe with wideband and single O2 sensor conversion, 3.5” straight pipe exhaust completely pie cut to the exhaust tips, OEM ACS delete with 3” intake charge piping welded directly to throttle body, Vibrant clamps, 80lb Siemens Deka injectors, blow-through MAF, stock wiring system, Mishimoto M-Line intercooler, Mishimoto radiator, Mishimoto expansion tank relocated to driver’s side for turbo clearance, Steward high-flow performance water pump, lower 80°C thermostat, new OEM fan and clutch, Aeromotive AEI 13109 fuel pressure regulator with gauge relocated to engine bay, Aeromotive Stealth 1569 EFI 340lph fuel pump, S50 manifold conversion, stock S52 fuel rail, AEM 30-3300 boost-activated methanol system, on/off toggle switch for tuning sessions, direct port into throttle body @ 1000cc/min injection, stock ECU, software by Zach Schaper with 22RPD. ZF Type C five-speed manual gearbox, FX Stage 4 unsprung six-puck clutch with OEM dual mass flywheel

Power:

605whp

Chassis:

9.5×17” ET20 (front and rear) ESR SR05 wheels with 245/35 (front and rear) Toyo R888R tyres, Ground Control Track/School coilover suspension with Koni Adjustable shocks, ECS adjustable camber arms (-1.5° front, -1.0° rear), OEM X-brace, Brembo drilled discs and Sport pads

Exterior:

Fern green, DTMFiberWerkz carbon vented bonnet, Rieger GT Cup front splitter, Depo yellow high-beam headlights, BavToys 6000K AC HIDs, DTMFiberWerkz carbon fibre side skirt extensions, Mateo Motorsports rear diffuser, Depo smoked corner, side markers and rear lights

Interior:

New OEM Dove grey Vader interior leather skins with added 3/16” hardened foam to fit like original, AEM Tru-Boost and LED Wideband Failsafe gauges, RallyRoad column-mount cluster, OEM OBC delete with VDO oil pressure, temperature and water temperature gauges, VAC fire extinguisher mount with polished extinguisher, ECS full interior LED conversion