Let me just say, I was not disappointed!
Apart from the weight reduction the car is essentially stock. It does have Performance Friction pads front and rear and updated fluid, but apart from that it’s a stock road car on stock suspension with Kumho KU39 road tyres.
I've never driven a car that is so capable out of the box. Don’t get me wrong, the RX7 performed better in almost every way, however I had piled £££s into it over 4 years to get it to that point. The M3 is just a very, very capable car, which with a few fairly basic handling mods should easily be as quick than my RX7. Even the stock brakes which I have heard are useless were actually very good. I didn't get a whiff of fade over 10+ laps driving fairly hard.
The thing you notice straight away is how balanced the chassis is and how easy it is to control when you get it out of shape. It took me about half an hour to really get into it and about an hour to start pushing and playing with the throttle and over steer characteristics a bit more
It’s a real hoot! I was concerned that it wouldn't provide as much feedback as my RX7 did, which is doesn't, however the car is so easy to control that it really doesn't matter. You're having lots of fun, which is the main thing.If I could give it some criticism, it would be the under steer. Coming into Montreal and Agostini, it was quite severe. The 225 width road tyres were being totally overwhelmed and the heavy car would just push into the corner. I am not used to this as the RX7 or 200sx before it never had any under steer at all. You could neutralise with a bit of throttle and going slower into the corner, but to be honest it was really hard on the tyres and this is something I will need to look at with wider tyres, coilovers, geo and corner weighing.
Despite these weaknesses, which should be fairly easy to overcome, I'm happy with my decision to move. I didn't have to get paranoid over temp gauges or worrying about boost issues. I didn't need to take the car half apart and the engine didn't end up covered in oil! And to top it all off the M3 was considerably more economical to run (possibly the first time anyone has ever bought an M3 for better economy)!!
I will always miss my RX7 and it will be hard to top in terms of raw driving feel and epic power, but I'm glad I have moved on to something that I can turn up in, drive hard and then cruise home and not worry about.
Let the modding begin!!
