WORLD’S FASTEST EURO

South Africa might be the last place you’d expect to find the world’s fastest BMW, but that’s exactly where the Budler Motorsport M5 pro-mod calls home. With a quickest pass to date of 6.53 seconds at 216mph (348kph), many would suspect the M5-bodied RJ Chassis pro-mod to be 2JZ powered, but the billet block is actually based on a BMW S38 found in an E38 M5. Budler is a BMW specialist and no stranger to pushing the limits of Bavarian engines, having previously pushed over 1300hp (969kW) from the factory S38 block run in its E30 drag car (which is the world’s fastest E30). For the pro-mod, PPT Pro Billet machined the new closed-deck billet block, based off the S38. The block features some unique pieces, such as the external oilfeed rail, which feeds each bearing, and the billet caps, each with four studs clamping it down.

Measuring 3.6 litres, the block runs custom rods and pistons, but, surprisingly, a factory crank remains, despite power figures that we’d suspect are closer to 2000 ( 1491kW) rather than 1000hp ( 746kW). The actual output is unknown, but the driver Marius Oosthuizen explains it well: “Looking at the speed, it’s safe to say it has a decent amount of power.” The head is a factory BMW S38 casing, although South African–based cylinderhead specialist Vanderlinde Developments has CNC-ported it and machined a set of custom billet cams. Valves and springs are by Supertech Performance.

Marius is a fabricator by trade, owning Full Race Engineering in South Africa, and is not only responsible for building the chassis from an RJ Race Cars kit imported from the US but also all the engine-bay fabrication and the billet block design. It should come as no surprise that the turbo is a Precision Pro Mod, measuring 98mm, which is barely breaking a sweat, currently only pushing 44psi. The ECU is a Fueltech FT600, and boost is controlled by an AMS-1000.

What makes the package so exciting to us is the promise that it has shown after such little runtime. It’s essentially only competed in a handful of test days in South Africa and one event in the US, where it delivered a string of six-second runs. Give the car some time, and we might see a BMW nipping at the heels of that 2ZJdominated top 10. Sadly, this will probably only happen once the car is returned to the US.