Greetings!

This posting serves as our official announcement for introductory pricing for the much anticipated Vorshlag E36 LS1 conversion kit. Vorshlag Motorsports, LLC is partnering with Dallas Powerhouse (DPH) to build what will be a kit like no other. DPH offers fabrication and production services second to none. Vorshlag offers BMW suspension design, engineering and manufacturing experience, creating a combination that will produce the best swap kit in the industry.

Introduction

What happens when you take one of the best sports coupes ever produced and mate it with one of the highest performing engines ever produced? Some have already called it "a religious experience". We call it the best performing, most affordable super car on the planet. Imagine a car weighing 3000 pounds with 500hp for $15-$20,000. You can easily build a car matching the performance of cars 5 times the cost. An LS1 powered BMW E36 creates a marriage that a manufacturer could never build. This may not be the first kit on the market, but it will soon be the best.

Design Goals

We've been listening to customer feedback over the development of this kit. The Kit reflects what we've heard customers want:

Quality - As is our mantra with our suspension business, the Kit will have no other rivals when it comes to the production quality. We've taken the steps to ensure we can build reproducible kits every time in quantity. No waiting for 4-6 weeks. Details like engine placement and angle were not overlooked.

Performance - The Kit will allow our customers to build "mild to wild" cars. Whether your goal is a daily driver or a dedicated track terror, you can build it with Vorshlag parts.

Flexibility - Some of the highest names in the aftermarket have asked for parts from our kit. We know that you may want to build your own parts and use just pieces of the Kit. Either way, you'll have the options available to you without breaking the bank.

Price - Since we are using production runs to build this kit, you will receive a kit that benefits from higher quality and similar price to other kits. We encourage you to compare our kit against others, the value for your dollar with our quality components will be readily apparent. We spent more on the Alpha car's hand fabricated headers than the entire Stage 0 kit's cost

Keep the BMW in it - This kit allows you to maintain the steering and braking feel that makes a BMW a BMW. ABS will still work. Steering feel will be OEM quality. Compromises to these two key BMW systems can ruin what makes the E36 chassis so universally admired.

The Kit

Based on our design goals, we've broken the kit into several stages.

Stage 0 (The DIY Kit or "I'm a big boy, I'll do it myself!") This kit includes the following:

Vorshlag/DPH Motor Mounts (Powdercoated, TIG welded with poly mounts)

Vorshlag/DPH 1 3/4" SS T304 headers (CNC bent primaries & precision formed collectors, 3/8" laser cut head flanges, aircraft based V-band collector flanges, TIG welded to perfection)

Vorshlag Spec'd custom steering shaft (Chrome-moly steering shaft built to withstand the extreme duties of this Kit while reducing steering slop and increasing header primary clearance)

Vorshlag/DPH Transmission Crossmember (Powdercoated, TIG welded with poly mount)

Vorshlag Spec'd custom driveshaft (2.5" steel or 3" aluminum, including U-joints, a T56 input yoke and 4 bolt BMW 188mm axle flange)

These production built pieces get the DIY'er the parts you need to get started. It is our opinion that the remaining parts can be done by talented DIYers, such as plumbing, wiring, etc. This gets you on your way to a running car without having to spend time and money designing and fabricating custom headers, drivetrain bracketry, custom steering shaft and driveshaft, etc.

Pricing: $3,999

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Stage 1 (The Rest)
Cooling (larger capacity fabricated aluminum radiator, hoses, relocation of heater valve, catch tank)

Vorshlag ABS Bracket (relocation of ABS motor and brake lines)

Power Steering (hoses to mate to the BMW steering rack)

Throttle cable (necessary hardware)

Clutch hardware (remote bleeder and hoses)

Cold Air Intake (hosing and air filter assembly and heat shield)

Miscellaneous hardware

Wiring Kit (fuse block, wiring, pin outs)

Stage 1 is designed to get you up and running with your project in the quickest time possible. Most of these parts can be located and purchased by the DIYer. We're providing the packaging here as a unit.

Pricing: $3,150

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Stage 2 (The Extras)
A/C hoses
Cruise Control
Header-back Exhaust Systems

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Stage 3 (New Diff)
New rear subframe with custom built mounting to aluminum 8.8" IRS differential and half shafts

Availability and pricing for Stage 2 and Stage 3 parts are TBD. They will be sold individually or together as a unit in the first quarter of 2008.


Availability

On October 5th we will create an entry on our shopping cart at www.vorshlag.com/cart. At that time, customers will have the opportunity to preorder Stage 0 parts. We expect our first production parts to be ready 6-8 weeks after this point, approximately December 1st. Preordering will require a refundable $1700 down payment. The balance will be required when the parts are shipped. The first 10 preorder customers will receive a special introductory Stage 0 kit discount. Customers interested in ordering Stage 0 + Stage 1 can express this in the comments section during the preorder placement.


Other Services

In addition to the kit, Vorshlag / DPH can offer several additional options. Below are some items and services we have based on the testing and R&D work we've done thus far:

Custom suspension packages with LS1 project specific valving (AST/Vorshlag)
Custom roll bars and cages (in cooperation with DPH)
Chassis reinforcement (for cars beyond 550hp; in cooperation with DPH)
"Turn Key" LS1 swaps
Proven wheel & tire combos
400-700+ hp LSX engine packages (in cooperation with HK Racing Engines)
BMW track-only car preparation services. Sub-2500 pound E36 LS1 cars have already been built, and the power potential of modified LS1 engines seems to have no limit!

Where can I see it?

We'll continue to take the first Vorshlag ("Alpha") LS1 car to events throughout Texas, including BMW's OktoberFest October 1st through 5th. Stay tuned!

We are in the early stages of kit production and will release more information and pictures of the Stage 0 parts in the coming days, both here and on the Vorshlag website.

Wow... long time without a blog update. We've been so busy the last 3 months we haven't had time to sleep, much less blog about it. Hopefully this will let you know a little of what we've been up to.

In our quest to to take home more SCCA titles we've enlisted some heavy hitters for the 2007 SCCA Solo Nationals. In Vorshlag co-owner Brian Hanchey's '07 STi (equipped with AST and Vorshlag parts) we've recruited former FStock champion Casey Weiss to co-drive with Brian (who's looking forward to a food poisoning-free week at Nationals!). In another STU car, former DStock champ Brian Fitzpatrick is in the hotseat along with Paul Magyar in Paul's '05 STi. Terry Fair ('06 STU "bridesmaid") is in his '97 M3 along with BMW driver John Scheier. Amy Fair, last year's STU-L winner is again attacking the Ladies class for hoped for a repeat win. Jason and Melinda McCall are taking their AST equipped EVO IX to STU and STU-L. Mike S is running his '95 M3 with lots of Vorshlag parts in STU as well, along with his co-driver.

A lot of these drivers were at the August 25th Test-N-Tune practice event (picture gallery link) testing their machines and honing their skills yet again, with the timed course set-up by Andy Hollis, and several other local hot shoes in attendance including: BSP's Mark Berry and XP's Stan Whitney and Su Brude, among others.



We have been busy adding new camber plate designs, new AST shock offerings, testing with various manufacturers' parts (like D-Force, GoPro, Mason Engineering, etc) and building up our inventories. The new GoPro video cameras have proven to be a great on-car video solution and the 18x10 D-Force wheels are a great option for the E36, E46 and E90 crowd. We're loving these new wheels and the added grip they provide to our M3.

More soon - after Nationals we have the BMWCCA Oktoberfest 2007 event in our own backyard so we'll be there as well!

We've just posted our first Vorshlag videos on YouTube. Thanks go to Hanchey for figuring out how to edit the videos. Here is the ALPHA LS1 VIDEO and another of HANCHEY RACING THE M3. The Alpha LS1car is sorting out nicely and Matteucci is prepping it further for XP class Solo racing, track events, and some street use. The Beta car is moving along nicely (see THIS UPDATE at bf.com) and the prototype Beta headers look great!

It was bitter sweet. The SCCA ProSolo at Mineral Wells was cancelled. That opened the door for us to rent MW during some primetime weekends. Mineral Wells fills up by January for the year, so we jumped on the chance to rent it and practice. The weather didn't look like it was going to be good, pouring rain the whole way there, hydroplaning through downtown Fort Worth, but it ended up great. I felt like I was in Topeka in September. Cloudy, 68, sunny, 75, pouring rain, sunny 80 degrees and drying. Seems like Topeka to me! OK, we couldn't order the 45 degree rain, but it worked out.

We set up the course and added some new practice features too. The DL-1 has shown us time and time again that braking into a fast transition vs. backing off early and holding on for dear life can be worth 0.5s, an eternity in autocrossing. So, we practiced and practiced and spun out and practiced some more. By the end, I was almost flat footed in a 60mph transition that looked impossible. R Compounds, it would have been nothing more than a twitch of the wheel. It is amazing what a few spin outs can teach you.

The doubles on the M3 are proving their worth again. The car had major issues in Houston. At MW, it was more of the same. We played with front and rear settings and took out all the corner exit oversteer that plagued it in Houston. Nothing a little rebound and compression adjustment can't fix.

The AWD cars were fast as usual. Our friend Paul's STi is just amazing coming out of corners. What I wouldn't give for some of that power!

This weekend was definitely an exciting one. We had 5 cars entered including the infamous "alpha" LS1 car. Matteucci got it running and showed up to place 3rd in XP with an unprepared car on Victoracers! Not bad, congrats Brian.

The course was definitely AWD friendly. There were three major turn arounds all with "off camber" corner exits. The Evo and Subarus would just launch out of the turns, the M3...not so much. The M3 loses that 180 degree turn with a good straight battle every time. I have DL-1 data that proves it.

Our M3 is well prepped for Dallas area surfaces, but Gulf Greyhound is quite different. We were WAY loose. So while it hurts a little that the car didn't do better, we learn and move on. We're testing this Saturday so maybe we'll discover something. McCall looked awesome in the Evo. We had revalved his rear shocks after last weekend and he liked how it handled much better, I guess he did!

We've reordered ASTs and should have some singles in 2 weeks or so. Some other interesting AST projects are brewing as well. We'll provide updates soon.

Wow, we had the busiest weekend I think we've ever experienced. Ronnie from AST arrived Thursday evening. We rebuilt shocks all day Friday, ran the BMW club autocross Saturday, revalved shocks Saturday night, went to a party to give Ronnie a little jello shot experience (hey, he'd never been to the States!), autocrossed Sunday, revalved more Sunday night, worked on some ordering stuff Monday and took him to the airport. That's it in a nutshell.

It was an incredible weekend. It is probably no secret, locally anyway, that we've got a STI and an Evo in testing. Three STU cars running AST coilovers and Vorshlag bits and pieces. Friday, Ronnie rode two blocks in the STI and said something to the effect, "this ride is no good." We immediately took the struts out and went to town. We (he made us do most of the work) added rebound and compression to both ends of the car and the ride improved. Granted, it has 700 pound springs in the front, I don't think it will ever ride "great". Again, our plan with the STI was to do as little prep as possible and see how well we could do with it. It has coil overs, a front sway bar and a downpipe, that's about it. Special thanks to Paul Magyar for donating a spare set of SSRs and some worn out Yoks for the test. Thanks Paul! McCall's Evo will be an all out effort as he builds it up to STU rules.

Then we went through how the new double adjustables work, then installed the only prototype AST double adjustable shocks in the world on the M3. They look so good with the threaded aluminum rear shock bodies. Pictures soon. There's about 350 pounds of difference between full hard and full soft on a shock dyno. They seemed to work really well on the street.

We headed out to Mineral Wells Saturday hoping to get some good runs. Of course it rained on us. We only ran the morning so we could spend Saturday afternoon revalving shocks. Terry was able to take all the compression out of the M3 which worked great in the wet. The car was really hooked up. In the morning he was almost as fast as the people with dry runs. Of course the afternoon it dried out and everyone was faster, but we had left already. The STI didn't feel so hot in the wet. Push at turn in and corner exit was the norm. So...back home for some revalving. The M3 of course was "perfect". haha

The M3 needed some more spring in the front so we put some 100 N/mm springs on. Everything else was fine.

On the STI, we put stiffer springs in the rear and more rebound to match hoping it would help at the TMS event on Sunday. We ended up with a setup that was close to what AST's Italian dealer runs on a Type-25 track car. Will it work here? Turns out the car had 1/2" of toe out in the front at Mineral Wells too, that's not good for corner entry or exit. We added camber (courtesy of our prototype camber plates) to the rear while we had the car apart.

Sunday's course was lookin' awfully BMW friendly. Three slaloms and some high speed kinks that favor the M3, but several tight turn arounds that could be a nice AWD advantage. Still was messing with toe Sunday morning and settled for 1/16" toe out in the front on the Subaru. We made our runs and when the dust settled it was our STI by 0.1s over the M3. I saw Terry make two big mistakes that could have flipped that to the BMW in the winning column, but that's autocrossing! Then we have the "Vorshlag crew" coming in Paul, McCall, and Amy "the Stig" Fair. Ronnie did a lot of testing with the Evo and determined the rear shocks needed valving. Jason struggled with a bad push all day. The car has been doing great, so it was nice to have Ronnie there to help tune it. We spent Sunday evening revalving McCall's rear shocks. We'll see how it goes at the Tour.

I guess that's it for now. We're busy working on getting more AST information out in the public. This weekend was a great opportunity to begin that journey. Hang on!

We're wrapping up final preparation for AST to arrive next week. We shipped the "rebuild kit", some "specially matched" hydraulic oil (Cole Trickle style), some spare parts, and.....a set of double adjustables for testing! BTW, we don't have pricing yet. That question seems to keep coming up.

If all goes well, we should have them on the M3 for the May 5/6 weekend. We'll take it to Mineral Wells for some large format BMW club autocrossing (100mph straight aways). Then we'll head to TMS Bus Lot (AKA, Topeka HRP South) and do some testing there with the DL-1 and our new toy, the AX22.

We'll have the AX22 at events so people can see real time data. If the passenger seat is empty, hop in and we'll demonstrate 1.2g lateral acceleration on street tires and 1.1g of braking with almost stock brakes. The AX22 has a display that shows the data in real time. Pretty trick!

The LS1 project is currently getting headers. As always, it is taking longer than expected, but we're confident it can be wrapped up shortly.

Hey what happened to the alpha car? Well...Brian Matteucci actually purchased it and has it running! It was too far past the point of making a kit so Brian has turned it into a full blown track car. No interior, no cup holders. Look for it soon at events in Houston near you. It will run our AST suspension and LTW5 wheels for starters.

Well, it was only a local event, but we took home 1st-5th. Terry was winning by 0.8s until McCall pulled through in the end beating Terry by 0.11s. Not bad, McCall is running AST coilovers so we'll let that slide. haha

Greetings all,
I had this grand plan of communication with our customers for the year. We'd do weekly updates on the blog, announcements, forum discussions. You've seen how well that's worked out so far! Mainly that's because we are working so many things, we've truly lost sight of what day it is, and what time of day it is. No worries, we're still here. And as a side note, things must be working because we're experiencing record growth month after month. Thanks again to all our new and returning customers for trusting us to deliver. We know you'll enjoy the products you've purchased and the things to come!

Just to give you a snap shot of things we're working on that we've
delivered or should deliver soon:

- Camber plates that work with Bilstein Sport E30 and E36 (ready now)
- E30 motor mounts (ready now)
- Poly inserts for E36/E46 motor mounts - zero NVH at idle (ready now)
- 75 and 90mm wheel studs with lead in (coming soon)
- AST coil overs (out of Customs and on their way to Dallas)
- More D-Force wheel fitments for E36 and E46
- 10mm spacers (coming soon)
- Marketing Programs! (no, don't wait for any Group Buys)

AST has been very helpful getting us started. We will continue to follow our plan with AST including offering custom builds as an option. Of course we'll strive for the perfect valving Day 1, but everyone likes different setups and we aim to please.

LS1
So we've had several false starts on this program. I'll admit that it has been challenging to keep the momentum going when we're trying to maintain the growth in the suspension business. So far, we have tackled every challenge that comes up with a kit-able LS1 package for E36s. Does that take time? Absolutely. Are we going to complete this? You bet.

And for the purists, we don't blame you for hating this project. But keep in mind, we're breathing life into two forgotten models. Our first project in work, a 318is. The other, a 325is. Both with over 200k miles. Can you think of a better way to revive these cars? By the way, we're moving the 318 to header fab soon. Updates shortly.

So that's about it for now. I promise to do a better job in the months to come.

Brian