the project car (need advice)

[Duckydos]

Im running low 13s right now and will be much faster in the spring. The power is easy to make, just spend the dough. The E30 chassis with an M50 engine is where to start. There is room for a blower, turbo, or twin turbo, easily. All 3 could be intercooled as well. The main limitation of an E30 will be weight and the rear suspension. The E30 is kinda heavy with not many routes to substantially lower weight. The rear suspension is not designed to put this kind of power to the ground without destroying itself. There is a fully tubeframe, aluminum floor, Chevy small block powered E30 drag car up here that runs 9s, it has a Ford 9 inch rear end (read: live axle).

Getting 400hp out of the E30 (btw, E30 is '84 - '91 3-series BMW's) is really asinine, with only a $11k budget... But you might want to check www.dtmpower.net for some more help or try http://www.turbofast.com.au/javacalc.html to see what your turbo options are.