In my surfing on this interweb thing I have found that in the first M3 BMW used a straight four cylinder. I thought this was interesting as I was under the impression that BMW was all about the straight six, so I read on... I come to find out that it is a cast iron block with aluminum, double overhead cam, head, over square, naturally aspirated, etc. (sound familiar?) So I read on, the displacement was... 2.3L with the last ones bored to... 2.5L!! (sounds too familiar) Now, this is where I got really confused:
The 740 (which has the identical sounding motor) makes a whopping ~140 hp while the BMW STARTS at 220hp!?!?! What are we doing wrong!?!?! I know most turbo builds are aiming for those numbers! I found that the 2.5L BMW was making 250 hp!! Isn't that where our transmissions commit suicide??

So my question, for those of you that got through all that, why aren't we all scavenging the DOHC heads and doing a good job with a motor build to produce those numbers? What is BMW doing that we are not?

Sorry for the rant.

Andrew