Hello M3forum,
I’ve been lurking for some time now and I feel that it’s time to make a formal introduction.
A little bit of back story:
I bought my first BMW in October of 2014 as a high school senior looking for a fun restoration project. What started as an interest turned into a passionate addiction; spending my evenings on the forums and the weekends in the garage. I soon learned that this car would become sort of a teacher; provoking me to learn new skills and write a book of acquired knowledge in my head. I won’t go on too much on that car, but I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Before I sold it mid-summer of 2017, I can confidently say that I’ve touched/cleaned/fixed/Improved 99% of the car. Among this, notable mentions include the M20 stroker, Alcantara/m-rain interior, fully refreshed suspension and driveline, and gorgeous exterior.
Anyway, that’s not really an M3 by any means, so I’ll let the photos do the talking and move on to this threads main event.
Here is a link to my E30’s build thread: https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=348571
So, I sold the e30 to buy my dream car; an e46 M3. I spent about two months in search of the perfect car and thought I had found just that. Unfortunately that one didn’t last long. It was just barely out of my price range and I had pulled out some money to buy it. All would have been fine, but after stumbling across a potential issue; I didn’t want to face repairing it or even investigating it so I sold it to move into a “cheaper” chassis in my price range. It didn’t make sense to own a car I couldn’t afford to maintain at my standard while studying towards an engineering degree. I’ll put that one off till after I graduate.
A few more months of searching proved the unexpected reality of the recent price hike of e36 M3’s. I was hoping to pay 6-8k for a reasonably clean low mile car, but that ship has sailed. Each car I checked out in that price range was absolutely trash. On my way home from checking out one of these $6k buckets, I received a phone call from a CL seller of this gorgeous 2 owner ’99 Estoril coupe. Stopped by and checked out the car. It felt super healthy and was very well maintained by the airplane mechanic owner. I had two of my e36 buddies along for the ride and they were thoroughly impressed with the condition it was in. The car overall was in excellent shape minus some door dings and some rust on the rear subframe right where it wraps around the diff along with the typical engine block corrosion. The car started its life in Illinois for it’s first 2-3 years before the owner moved out to CA, so I didn’t expect it to be perfect. Thankfully after thoroughly inspecting it; those were the only affected areas. With my plans for the car, I wasn’t very concerned at all.
I used my findings as negotiation points and brought the price down a considerable amount to stay within my budget. We settled on a price so long as the engine ran a healthy compression test. I ran home to grab my tools and cash and arrived back to the owners house; ran the test with great results, signed the papers and headed on home! The car came with a mountain of paperwork, every key, original manuals, both window stickers, etc. The car also has quite a few goodies including a Dinan intake, 10k mile GC coilovers, a full suspension refresh with some poly bushings, and square rear contours. Needless to say; I was pretty stoked!
Over the past six months of ownership I have done numerous things to get it up to my standard. While the PO took great care of the car, it was sort of a neglected garage queen. Having owned it for almost half of its life, he sold it due to a loss of interest; saying he drove it maybe once a week. It certainly needed my touch.
I first started with a full detail, mild paint correction, and sealed it up with a hybrid ceramic product. This was meant to be temporary as I wanted to get all of the holograms and most of the swirls out of the paint, but didn’t want to go overkill right before the rainy season. I’ll be doing a full proper paint correction in the next few weeks once sunny weather is guaranteed.
Then, I swapped out the US headlights with Glass dimpled depo headlights. Say what you want about ZKW VS BOSCH VS DEPO but I ran a resealed set of DEPO smiley headlights on my e30 without a single complaint. I’ll save my money on more important pieces to the puzzle.
Flushed all of the fluids and caught up on general maintenance items! Thankfully the car has records for all the maintenance, upgrades, (most of which recent) so I don’t have to worry about replacing half of the wear items anytime soon.
My friend Patrick picked up a new exhaust for his car, and offered to trade his Remus square tip for my stock unit! While it’s way quiet, I like the tone and it complements the Dinan intake quite well. While I was at it, I swapped out the hardware ofcourse!
Installed a new OE M3 trunk badge, OE Z3 passenger footwell net, and new OE black M3 floor mats (ceramic coated before install)
One quirk of this car was the dreaded clutch pedal lean. I ran to pick n pull, snagged a spare pedal to go along with some fresh UUC clutch pedal bushings. Swapped it out and she now sits straight as an arrow!
Audio: Something was up… some speakers were cutting out, one of the tweeters wasn’t working, and the dated head unit was a pain to use. I got rid of the horrendous speaker kicker panels and replaced them with the correct sized speakers. Also, upgraded the 10 year old head unit to one with integrated Bluetooth. It looks much better… If only it wasn’t glossy… Cleaned up the wiring mess the PO’s audio shop left behind. Unfortunately, they clipped the stock head unit harness, but I can always swap that out if I deem it’s necessary. This’ll do for now. Lastly, I replaced the large amp protruding through the side of the trunk carpeting with a smaller unit. I love music, but I’m not a major audiophile. It sounds great enough for my pleasure so I’ll call it a day. While I was in there I gutted the dated laser jammer.
Vaders are some of the best looking factory seats. Ever. Period. But not when you’re 6’2 and try to drive any longer than an hour or two. I had to do this weird slouching/leaning thing to make it work. I picked up a set of NLA recaro SRD’s, ran them for a month or so, but changed my plans for the interior and sold the seats. I’ll reveal these plans as the ball starts rolling!
Reupholstered a set of brand new dove door panels in grey M-rain for my buddy @Ctejuco. This is a slight hint on what I’m planning!
Did another oil change
Picked up a spare ’99 M3 rear subframe. This will be powder coated, have new bushings pressed in, and installed in the summer to replace the rusty part!
A friend of mine had a successful flip on a car I pointed his way, so he hooked me up with his old 27mm Racing dynamics front sway! I stripped off the rust, sanded down the scratches, painted it, and threw it on the car!
Swapped the smoked depo corners, side markers, and tails for OEM Ambers that I polished up and coated. I love the way the orange compliments the Estoril!
IMO, the LTW/GT/high-rise wing completes the rear end of the e36. I also didn’t feel too bad about drilling into the trunk since it was the only non-original body panel on the entire car after being replaced a few years back when something was dropped on it’s edge.
As of right now, there aren’t many good budget friendly options for the wing. OEM is out of the question (costing as much as a beater daily driver), and Abrahams/lester has been out of production for over 6 months. I wasn’t going to spend $700 on a fiberglass MAshaw after hearing they too have issues with sagging and imperfect fitment so I bought the bullet and ordered a Bulgarian rep. Fitment was meh. It required a lot of fiberglass work to get it to fit properly. But overall results are very good. It’s not perfect, but neither is OEM. I mean, seriously, how did BMW allow such poor fit to leave the factory? Painted the wing and mounted it! I still have to get around to wet sanding and polishing out the orange peel, but I’m partially so discouraged by the nature of wavy fiberglass that I may just leave it until I can find a nicer Lester or OEM wing; that is - once one comes up for a decent price. The color is also a few shades too dark. I learned a few things about solvent vs. water based base coats at my local supply shop. It appears the PPG water based formulas allow for a more accurate paint match than their solvent formula. I’ll switch to the water based for the next wing!
New OEM windshield cowl to replace the brittle chipping old one!
The PO installed a set of GC street/school coilovers with 440/550 rates and street camber plates roughly 10k miles before selling me the car. Unfortunately, the street plates don’t allow for a lot of adjustment so it’s common practice to swap them from side to side to get a factory alignment. I swapped them back to their correct side and added some thin grade 10.9 spacers and 10.9 bolts to add some additional camber(along with the plates) to get to that 3-3.5 degree sweet spot for aggressive autox/track applications. It should be noted that 245/40’s on square rear contours do not fit without a spacer up front. Just after I bought the car I had noticed there was a worn spot on the height adjusting collar and added a 10mm spacer.
The clutch delay valve has always bothered me in this car. It actually made my engagement jerkier since I’m used to driving more rev-happy cars with lighter rotating assemblies. My buddy Jeff assisted me in bleeding the clutch along with the brakes. (of course with type 200 fluid [emoj
i3]
Picked up a set of used 17x9.5 et35 ARC 8’s from a friend for a good deal that came with some almost cycled out toyo RR’s. Smashed the mountain roads all weekend before I corded one of the tires and Swapped on some 595 RS-RR’s. Not sure what to expect from these tires, but most of my track buddies swear by them! Plus, they’re SO DAMN CHEAP. I’ll be throwing these back on the car once I roll my rear fenders and get an alignment. Here are also some of the latest photos!
Anyway, thanks for sticking with me!
My last build thread was very text heavy and had far too many details that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things; so I’ll try and keep future updates short and concise. Future plans will be revealed as they happen!
I’ve been lurking for some time now and I feel that it’s time to make a formal introduction.
A little bit of back story:
I bought my first BMW in October of 2014 as a high school senior looking for a fun restoration project. What started as an interest turned into a passionate addiction; spending my evenings on the forums and the weekends in the garage. I soon learned that this car would become sort of a teacher; provoking me to learn new skills and write a book of acquired knowledge in my head. I won’t go on too much on that car, but I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Before I sold it mid-summer of 2017, I can confidently say that I’ve touched/cleaned/fixed/Improved 99% of the car. Among this, notable mentions include the M20 stroker, Alcantara/m-rain interior, fully refreshed suspension and driveline, and gorgeous exterior.
Anyway, that’s not really an M3 by any means, so I’ll let the photos do the talking and move on to this threads main event.
Here is a link to my E30’s build thread: https://www.r3vlimited.com/board/sho...d.php?t=348571
So, I sold the e30 to buy my dream car; an e46 M3. I spent about two months in search of the perfect car and thought I had found just that. Unfortunately that one didn’t last long. It was just barely out of my price range and I had pulled out some money to buy it. All would have been fine, but after stumbling across a potential issue; I didn’t want to face repairing it or even investigating it so I sold it to move into a “cheaper” chassis in my price range. It didn’t make sense to own a car I couldn’t afford to maintain at my standard while studying towards an engineering degree. I’ll put that one off till after I graduate.
A few more months of searching proved the unexpected reality of the recent price hike of e36 M3’s. I was hoping to pay 6-8k for a reasonably clean low mile car, but that ship has sailed. Each car I checked out in that price range was absolutely trash. On my way home from checking out one of these $6k buckets, I received a phone call from a CL seller of this gorgeous 2 owner ’99 Estoril coupe. Stopped by and checked out the car. It felt super healthy and was very well maintained by the airplane mechanic owner. I had two of my e36 buddies along for the ride and they were thoroughly impressed with the condition it was in. The car overall was in excellent shape minus some door dings and some rust on the rear subframe right where it wraps around the diff along with the typical engine block corrosion. The car started its life in Illinois for it’s first 2-3 years before the owner moved out to CA, so I didn’t expect it to be perfect. Thankfully after thoroughly inspecting it; those were the only affected areas. With my plans for the car, I wasn’t very concerned at all.
I used my findings as negotiation points and brought the price down a considerable amount to stay within my budget. We settled on a price so long as the engine ran a healthy compression test. I ran home to grab my tools and cash and arrived back to the owners house; ran the test with great results, signed the papers and headed on home! The car came with a mountain of paperwork, every key, original manuals, both window stickers, etc. The car also has quite a few goodies including a Dinan intake, 10k mile GC coilovers, a full suspension refresh with some poly bushings, and square rear contours. Needless to say; I was pretty stoked!
Over the past six months of ownership I have done numerous things to get it up to my standard. While the PO took great care of the car, it was sort of a neglected garage queen. Having owned it for almost half of its life, he sold it due to a loss of interest; saying he drove it maybe once a week. It certainly needed my touch.
I first started with a full detail, mild paint correction, and sealed it up with a hybrid ceramic product. This was meant to be temporary as I wanted to get all of the holograms and most of the swirls out of the paint, but didn’t want to go overkill right before the rainy season. I’ll be doing a full proper paint correction in the next few weeks once sunny weather is guaranteed.
Then, I swapped out the US headlights with Glass dimpled depo headlights. Say what you want about ZKW VS BOSCH VS DEPO but I ran a resealed set of DEPO smiley headlights on my e30 without a single complaint. I’ll save my money on more important pieces to the puzzle.
Flushed all of the fluids and caught up on general maintenance items! Thankfully the car has records for all the maintenance, upgrades, (most of which recent) so I don’t have to worry about replacing half of the wear items anytime soon.
My friend Patrick picked up a new exhaust for his car, and offered to trade his Remus square tip for my stock unit! While it’s way quiet, I like the tone and it complements the Dinan intake quite well. While I was at it, I swapped out the hardware ofcourse!
Installed a new OE M3 trunk badge, OE Z3 passenger footwell net, and new OE black M3 floor mats (ceramic coated before install)
One quirk of this car was the dreaded clutch pedal lean. I ran to pick n pull, snagged a spare pedal to go along with some fresh UUC clutch pedal bushings. Swapped it out and she now sits straight as an arrow!
Audio: Something was up… some speakers were cutting out, one of the tweeters wasn’t working, and the dated head unit was a pain to use. I got rid of the horrendous speaker kicker panels and replaced them with the correct sized speakers. Also, upgraded the 10 year old head unit to one with integrated Bluetooth. It looks much better… If only it wasn’t glossy… Cleaned up the wiring mess the PO’s audio shop left behind. Unfortunately, they clipped the stock head unit harness, but I can always swap that out if I deem it’s necessary. This’ll do for now. Lastly, I replaced the large amp protruding through the side of the trunk carpeting with a smaller unit. I love music, but I’m not a major audiophile. It sounds great enough for my pleasure so I’ll call it a day. While I was in there I gutted the dated laser jammer.
Vaders are some of the best looking factory seats. Ever. Period. But not when you’re 6’2 and try to drive any longer than an hour or two. I had to do this weird slouching/leaning thing to make it work. I picked up a set of NLA recaro SRD’s, ran them for a month or so, but changed my plans for the interior and sold the seats. I’ll reveal these plans as the ball starts rolling!
Reupholstered a set of brand new dove door panels in grey M-rain for my buddy @Ctejuco. This is a slight hint on what I’m planning!
Did another oil change
Picked up a spare ’99 M3 rear subframe. This will be powder coated, have new bushings pressed in, and installed in the summer to replace the rusty part!
A friend of mine had a successful flip on a car I pointed his way, so he hooked me up with his old 27mm Racing dynamics front sway! I stripped off the rust, sanded down the scratches, painted it, and threw it on the car!
Swapped the smoked depo corners, side markers, and tails for OEM Ambers that I polished up and coated. I love the way the orange compliments the Estoril!
IMO, the LTW/GT/high-rise wing completes the rear end of the e36. I also didn’t feel too bad about drilling into the trunk since it was the only non-original body panel on the entire car after being replaced a few years back when something was dropped on it’s edge.
As of right now, there aren’t many good budget friendly options for the wing. OEM is out of the question (costing as much as a beater daily driver), and Abrahams/lester has been out of production for over 6 months. I wasn’t going to spend $700 on a fiberglass MAshaw after hearing they too have issues with sagging and imperfect fitment so I bought the bullet and ordered a Bulgarian rep. Fitment was meh. It required a lot of fiberglass work to get it to fit properly. But overall results are very good. It’s not perfect, but neither is OEM. I mean, seriously, how did BMW allow such poor fit to leave the factory? Painted the wing and mounted it! I still have to get around to wet sanding and polishing out the orange peel, but I’m partially so discouraged by the nature of wavy fiberglass that I may just leave it until I can find a nicer Lester or OEM wing; that is - once one comes up for a decent price. The color is also a few shades too dark. I learned a few things about solvent vs. water based base coats at my local supply shop. It appears the PPG water based formulas allow for a more accurate paint match than their solvent formula. I’ll switch to the water based for the next wing!
New OEM windshield cowl to replace the brittle chipping old one!
The PO installed a set of GC street/school coilovers with 440/550 rates and street camber plates roughly 10k miles before selling me the car. Unfortunately, the street plates don’t allow for a lot of adjustment so it’s common practice to swap them from side to side to get a factory alignment. I swapped them back to their correct side and added some thin grade 10.9 spacers and 10.9 bolts to add some additional camber(along with the plates) to get to that 3-3.5 degree sweet spot for aggressive autox/track applications. It should be noted that 245/40’s on square rear contours do not fit without a spacer up front. Just after I bought the car I had noticed there was a worn spot on the height adjusting collar and added a 10mm spacer.
The clutch delay valve has always bothered me in this car. It actually made my engagement jerkier since I’m used to driving more rev-happy cars with lighter rotating assemblies. My buddy Jeff assisted me in bleeding the clutch along with the brakes. (of course with type 200 fluid [emoj
i3] Picked up a set of used 17x9.5 et35 ARC 8’s from a friend for a good deal that came with some almost cycled out toyo RR’s. Smashed the mountain roads all weekend before I corded one of the tires and Swapped on some 595 RS-RR’s. Not sure what to expect from these tires, but most of my track buddies swear by them! Plus, they’re SO DAMN CHEAP. I’ll be throwing these back on the car once I roll my rear fenders and get an alignment. Here are also some of the latest photos!
Anyway, thanks for sticking with me!
My last build thread was very text heavy and had far too many details that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things; so I’ll try and keep future updates short and concise. Future plans will be revealed as they happen!
Comment