I took the e30 to the BMW club’s Dyno Day hosted at Dietsch Werks to find out what kind of horsepower it gets now that it has a refreshed m20 engine. It was fun to hear and see all the different BMWs, get my car on the dyno and have some good food.

My car was the oldest to run the dyno that day but also the car with the least HP: 121.6. I’m not upset, in fact it puts an extra wide grin on my face when I put my foot down and out-accelerate newer, more powerful cars.

I’d never been to a dyno day before, and I’ve never seen cars spewing black junk from the exhaust pipes before: As I learned, this junk doesn’t accumulate if you hit the rev limiter frequently. Since the dyno day I try to get out on the highway and hit the red line at least three times a week. Since doing that I’ve noticed the car feels like it’s putting down more power at the wheels… and no more black junk.

I made a video of my 3 runs.