Critique My Build Plan - 15yrs of ownership and ready to refresh

[tnord]

Looks like a very familiar build to me too, haha. It'll be a GREAT street setup, I actually think my car is more like a M3 CS. A little bit tarted up, but not a total track car by any means.

One comment. Ditch the CSF. Either go OEM, or DO88. I went CSF and my car started overheating, for whatever reason, it's does not evacuate heat well with the S54. If you really want the CSF, I'll sell you the one sitting in my garage for a deal 🤣

I'm not married to the CSF, it was the largest radiator I knew of so I put it on the list. If the DO88 is a higher quality part, I'll absolutely use that instead, and that's exactly the type of feedback I'm looking for in this thread - thank you.

A bit more of my background is I raced Spec Miata and ITA with SCCA from 2003-2010, where there was no such thing as too much cooling. I put a new OE radiator in when I did everything else to avoid a catastrophic failure, but for track purposes I really think the car needs more cooling. With as much compression as the car has, how close the bores are, and the propensity for high oil temps I really think you need to throw as much cooling capacity at it as you can. Even beyond reliability reasons, the miata ECU used to start pulling timing and you'd lose power when water temps got beyond about 210, and I'd bet there's similar safety measures built into our DME as well.

[oceansize]

https://www.pwrna.com/product/bmw-2001-2006-42mm-radiator-e46-m3

PWR is highly thought of. This statement came with my supercharger from ESS which I thought was interesting:

"-If you run any other performance radiator than PWR, remove it and replace it with OEM. There is a lot of cooling problems with so called performance radiators when the system is stressed, do not ignore this warning."

[tnord]

If this is a street car, then yes, the parts you've selected are going to transmit NVH and you probably won't be happy. Especially hearing you say things like a "3 hour road trip"

When you go spherical you have to understand the nuances and limitations that come with it... you are going to hear clunking, things will be loud, and the car will be stiff. Parts require maintenance, and with no deflection in the rubber, everything better be up to snuff or you're going to have other parts fail. It is not suggested for street cars. My car sees little to no street use... and when I do drive it on the street I'm prepared for the sacrifices in comfort and noise.

That being said - if you buy quality parts with good bearings (Aurora, FK) and you make sure things are serviced in a timely matter, and everything is greased, you shouldn't have any issues. A spherical car can be surprisingly compliant on the street if setup properly.

Can you elaborate on this a little more? Are you running sphericals on your car? It kinda sounds like you have them and think the NVH is too high for street use, but then in your last sentence you say if everything is in good condition then it can be surprisingly compliant (to me compliant=comfortable).

And I absolutely agree that replacing rubber with sphericals transfer force to other parts of the car. That's another reason I was leaning towards the higher quality damper vs a PSS10 as it will be doing more work. The idea behind all this being that I'd run a quality damper on reasonable spring rates with a harder wearing and softer 18'' tire instead of a 19'' RE71 or whatever. That's where all the streetability comes from, and the rest of the suspension is solid monoball so you don't get the inconsistent twitchy handling that comes from deflecting components.

I'm very willing to be wrong about my approach.

[9kracing]

My car is full spherical.



Suspension & Chassis Modifications:

OEM BMW M3 Competition Blue Tag Steering Rack
Ohlins Road & Track Coilovers
Ohlins Spherical Camber/Caster Plates
Millway Motorsport Billet Offset FCAB
Millway Motorsport Spherical Rear Damper Mounts
SPL Parts Spherical Front Endlinks
SPL Parts Spherical Rear Camber Arms
FDF Spherical Rear Upper Control Arms
MRT Engineering Spherical Tie Rods
Dinan Spherical Rear Trailing Arm Bushings
Hotchkis 30.2mm Hollow Front Swaybar
Hotchkis 25mm Hollow Rear Swaybar
Hotchkis Adjustable Rear Endlinks
CMP Solid Subframe Raising Bushings
CMP Weld-In Front RACP Beam
CMP Bolt-In Front RACP Brace
DMG Autosport Comp GT RACP Brace
DMG Autosport CO+OP Bar
DMG Autosport Pro 46 Strut Bar
Rogue Engineering Aluminum Chassis V-Brace
Turner Subframe Reinforcement Plates
MSW Swaybar Mounting Reinforcement Plates





"it kinda sounds like you have them and think the NVH is too high for street use, but then in your last sentence you say if everything is in good condition then it can be surprisingly compliant (to me compliant=comfortable)."


Everyone has their own tolerance for NVH. I grew up in the Honda world where we drove gutted EG hatches with no air conditioning, minimal sound deadening, and 14K spring rates, so almost anything is comfortable compared to that.

Like I mentioned before, all sphericals are not equal either. I specifically listed FK and Aurora, as they are known to be of "aircraft quality" and you will run into less issues with those. Notice I said "less", and not none.

You just have understand what you're doing when you move to spherical bearings. If you are prepared to accept the limitations associated with them, then yes they can be great on the street.

But, like I said, what I find acceptable as far as clunks and noise someone else may find abhorrent.

[tnord]

thanks for the perspective - I think we're of the same era.

I have some BW "lifetime" rear shock mounts that seem to clunk when it gets cold, which annoys me. And if that annoys me then I probably wouldn't be happy about clunking from other solid bushings. At the least, unless I hear otherwise from people who have logged significant miles on them, I should put these items at the end of my priority list and wait to see if I really feel like I want them after everything else is done. I had been thinking of them as low cost items that would be easy to knock out if I ever see them on sale, so the discussion is helpful.

Does this also go for the subframe mounts and camber arms? Or is it primarily a FCAB/RTAB thing since that's where a lot of load seems to go on these cars?