[Lynn]

Hey Dave:

Between my brother and I we have owned over 60 bimmers over the years, but not one V8. 4, 6 & 12. So, I am far from a BMW V8 expert, but can help a little. BTW, not that many on this site would care, but a BMW car is a "bimmer" and a BMW bike is a "beemer".

Have always loved the 507. It was more expensive new than the Mercedes Gullwing cars (but has not kept up since then price wise). Did not sell that well, and almost bankrupted BMW.

Yes, the 4.0 liters had issues, but it was related to the high sulpher content of US market gasoline in the early 90's. It would eat away at the hard coating applied directly to the cylinder walls. BMW repaired a lot of those engines, even ones that were well past the warranty period. They also changed the composition of the coating either mid 95 or mid 96, and all the later engines are free from that malady.

If you source a decent engine, I would try to get the wiring harness and ecm with it. Nothing to program, and parts are easy to get. Even a very well kept 740i is ridiculously cheap when it is 15 to 20 years old. Even better if you can find one that has been recently hit. Just buy the whole car and you will have everything you need.

I would look for something like 98 to 2004 range.

With that little car, you won't need outrageous power to have fun.
Maybe we can start a new forum for totally non muscle car build threads. You can do this one, Eddie already started on the Ferrari, and I have a tube frame chassis, aluminum body replica of a Ferrari 250 GTO (body is about 80% done) that wil be gettin a Ferrari V12 and 5 speed.