Has anyone used a BMW as a donor for a locost?

Caber

BMWs are as over rated as they are over priced. Most people stick to ford running gear as it is cheap and plentiful.

BMWs are RWD though and are still in production. I would guess that if you could find a rear ended 3 series for sensible money then it could be quite good.

How well do the uprights lend themselves to dubble wishbone suspension and how heavy are they? these would be my questions.

Big BMW straight 5/6 pots will fit a Viento chassis much more easily
They are designed for it.

marlins are built from them, or at least the new kist can be built from a bmw doner.

edd

Dont the bmw engines have to be mounted on the slant?

Be careful with the diff's though they are a weak point of many higher powered older BMW's. My M3 diff was on it's way out before I sold it on. On a 7 it will prolly last forever...

Yes, a standard E30 or E36 diff with more than 200 hp needs an oil cooler. Not realy hard to find and install but with is more complicated than without...

Except for this it's a great donnor: possible to find Getrag sport gearbox, 25% lsd (ZF I think) and 4 disc brakes on the same car.

I don't know anything about the front uprights.

One more point: on the Sierra the rear axles turn in a part bolted on the suspension arms, on a BMW this part (trunion? bearing? don't know how you name it) is welded, it belongs to the arm itself. You will need to grind it and weld it on your custom made rear upright, or lathe a new part.

We use a BMW E36 rear end on the LMP. Have had no prob's whatsoever.