Last month during the Streetpower event at Zandvoort, a few cars stood out to me and because this is Motorsport month I waited to feature them until now. One of the cars that got major attention during the event was this E36 built by DBM Engineering in Holland.

At its first outing on Zandvoort the BMW didn’t disappoint with a second place finish of 1:50.063.

The car belongs to Dirk Bonder who got bitten by the racing bug and has never
recovered. He asked DBM Engineering to build him a race car after he
entered the Dutch Time Attack series in 2008 with a Audi R8. It took DBM
almost a year and a half to finish this project, mainly because they
never built a race car before. They are mostly famous for their customer
Skylines and know how in getting the cars registered for the Dutch
roads.

Dirk had a rolling shell with a FIA approved rollcage and widebody kit so DBM already had a base car. Now it was time to choose the engine, it was pretty obvious for DBM to start with the venerable RB26 because it was the engine they were most familiar with.

The most eye catching part on this car is of course the widebody kit. It harnesses the wider wheels for better traction and shows all sorts of holes to provide better airflow around the car.

It seems that there are no rules on the size of the rear wing, because they keep getting bigger and bigger. The center exhaust features a bend to tone down the noise a bit, at Zandvoort they have very strict rules regarding noise. If you are too loud you will get a black flag and will be disqualified.

The bolt on rear fenders features more holes for better cooling. DBM has given extra attention to the suspension and geometry of the car using only the best products available. They used Ikeya Formula lower and upper arms in the front and rear and lowered the car using a Intrax Black Titan 4-way suspension system.

Other parts include the Nissan rear subframe and Ikeya Formula Cast arms together with a Genesis sway bar kit. The wheels have been wrapped in extra sticky Dunlop slicks

The left head light has been removed in favor of a air-duct to force the air into the engine. Other enhancements include the front splitter for that extra downforce in the front.

I’m sure that the people with a sharp eye noticed that engine sits well back -this has been done to achieve a better weight distribution. This in turn forced DBM to make longer custom turbo piping towards the intercooler. For a full spec list you can check DBMs own site.

Another shot of the engine bay reveals the chassis strengthening that goes all the way through the fire wall and into the cockpit.

Because I was so busy shooting cars in and around the paddock I lost track of what was going on the circuit. But luckily I found Ronald Veth, well actually he found me. But he was willing to lend me some shots he took of the car out on the circuit. Go check out his site Carbon Vision for more of his shots.

-Jeroen Willemsen

Street Power Time Attack

DBM Engineering