I was at the Performance Center this past weekend for a CCA autocross, and of course the M3s were everywhere there. Mike Renner (chief instructor at the PC) was running one in the autocross, which if you've seen my video is a very fast course, and we were having a nice battle for FTD. My fastest time was a 1:28.0xx while he did a 1:28.8xx, but we both tagged cones (same one too! lol) on those runs. He was on PS2s, and I was running NT-01s, so that's a bit unfair, but then again, he knows that place like the back of his hand and is in a car about 300lbs lighter than my M5. Of course my car has lots of suspension mods too...
The E92 M3 was difficult to launch perfectly from what I witnessed. It wants to rev so hard once you get the revs up above 5-6k rpm that it makes traction modulation difficult. It doesn't have the nice fat torque of the E39 M5 as it is a very high revving V8 (not the best engine for a 3500+lb car imo). If you don't get the revs up high enough, it appeared to catch traction and not dig too hard (below main powerband). In contrast, in the E39 M5 you launch (with R-comps) about 1800 rpm, get weight transfer, roll into full throttle and just modulate the throttle for a tad before getting it all the way down.
All-in-all, I think he was turning really impressive times for a completely stock car on street tires. With some camber plates, ditching the stagger wheels for rears all around and running R-comps, that thing would have been way out in front.
It sounds pretty good, but it is pretty quiet like my car was with the stock exhaust (it sounds a lot like an E39 M5 which of course makes sense).
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