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    Started Off Simple: E36 M3 Sedan

    Hi all, new to these forums. I'm copying over my build thread from another forum pretty much one for one, so if some of the comments or asides don't make sense I apologize. But thought it's the easiest way to get everyone up to speed on my build. Also trying to make some posts to get access to the classifieds, I'm in the market for an S54 so figured this is a good way to introduce myself to this community. The posts below are copied from my other build thread I've been maintaining since I got the car about 2-ish years ago. So there's a lot of changes and doubling back as I figure things out. Apologies in advance for broken formatting and all that.


    Simple M3
    Yeah, yeah I have commitment problems when it comes to cars.
    The Miata
    has been sold, and it was sad for a number of reasons. Loved the car, but I simply did not fit. But let’s back up a bit. Before I ever bought the Miata, and in fact before I had the 2002 I think, I have been talking about buying an E36 M3. I had a 318ti a few years back, but that wasn’t quite enough for me. I’ve always loved the E36 body style, and an M3 is just timeless.

    A few problems. First, I wanted a sedan. I prefer the body lines, I like the functionality, and for whatever it is worth the chassis is stiffer. I’m not tracking the car, but it’s a nice thing to brag about in a parking lot with your friends. Second, I didn’t want to spend the prices these things are now going for. Does anyone remember a few years ago when E36 M3s were disposable? Finding a not destroyed M3 is nearly impossible, and those that are nice are far too expensive in my opinion.

    I got a DM on Instagram one morning about this car. Low miles, manual sedan, decent interior, looked well kept. It just so happens that it also belonged to someone who is pretty well known in these parts.
    You may know him from his Trans AM build at SEMA last year.
    I reached out, and arranged to come take a look at the car while I was in LA for the Japanese Classic Car Show.




    I wish I took more photos while at Stanceworks headquarters while buying the M3, but I was too excited about the car itself. I managed to snap the one photo after test driving the M3, just before I set off for the rest of my weekend adventure. Special thanks to Riley for making this an easy pick up.




    After departing Stanceworks headquarters, I went straight to PCH for a cruise up to our hotel. Thanks to my friend @
    nhammon
    for grabbing this quick photo. Needless to say I was about as happy as I could be at that point.




    Obligatory first fill up photo. The first day was pretty limited. I took it to Period Correct, took no photos in front of the store front for some reason, and then headed back to the hotel. The following day we went to the Japanese Classic Car Show, so I left the M3 at the hotel and carpooled with friends. But as we got to the evening, I was dying to drive the car again. I suggested we visit Neptune’s Net in Malibu, and take some photos in the canyons. So we all hopped in our cars and hit the PCH once more to cruise to the Malibu hills. I wanted to take some photos at The Snake car park. And it went like this:



    Just past that sign was the car park, literally one turn away. I’m guessing the fires probably caused the road closure, but I’m not 100% sure. Either way, I didn’t dare go past the sign. The last thing I wanted was a trespassing ticket on this trip. Bummed, but still happy to have driven that evening, we went to Neptunes Net. We went down another canyon road and I opened up the M3 a little, windows down, sun setting. Then I saw a great little spot to stop.









    Followed by a brief drive in Long Beach near my hotel to round out the night.




    Sunday was the day I had to drive it from LA back to Phoenix. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t dreading this, I have had a bad history with E36s and this drive. Most notably my 318ti blew up just outside of Phoenix a few years ago. I had almost no history on this car, and really no recourse if anything went majorly wrong. I didn’t even have a spare tire.




    It went without incident. The car cruises perfectly at definitely 100% legal speeds. The car was quiet, comfortable and really a joy to drive for such a long distance. After the first hour, all my worries were gone and I just enjoyed the drive back.
    I temporarily parked it in the 2002s dedicated spot, since it’s still not back home. I put nearly 500 combined miles on it this weekend, and they were all trouble free.



    There are a few catches. Part of why the car was so reasonably priced, was the paint on the driver’s side is torched. It’s gone on the fender, and the doors are starting to go as well. The wing is almost completely shot, and yet somehow the rest of the car is actually fine.



    That’s the worst of the damage there, but it gives you an idea of what I’m up against. Otherwise the interior, of which I have no photos of for some reason, is clean. I have a few minor items to clean up, but compared to some of the other E36s I looked at, this interior is in mint condition. The engine pulls strong, and the trans seems healthy. Really hard to complain about any of that.
    So now comes the inevitable question of: What is the plan for this M3?
    I’ll be honest, I don’t know quite what I want to do with this car yet. Originally I wanted to daily drive an E36, but I have other aspirations of finally replacing my lemon of a Fiesta ST with a truck for that purpose. Which leaves this to a back roads bomber. For now, I want to clean the car up. Fix some of the little issues it has, refresh critical components and just enjoy driving it. Too often my projects end up on jack stands for too long, and I lose interest. I just want to put as many miles as I can on this car.
    I do want to address the paint in some way. I’ve been debating wrapping the car, as I’ve never had that done to any of my cars before, and silver was one of my very last choices. I also have a very specific set of wheels I want for this car, so I’ll be on the hunt for those as this goes on.
    The dream would be to put an S54 in this car someday, but that requires unnecessary down time. So for now, we focus on keeping things simple. Make it sharper, make it more enjoyable and just enjoy the car as it is. Perhaps that’s a bit boring for a build thread, but I’d like this car to focus on the adventures you can have behind the wheel, instead of the adventures you have behind the wrench.






    So I’ll call out a few flaws first. The rear seat has some tears in the bottom. I think just sourcing a new black leather base will be the easiest fix. Unfortunately, for a sedan that seems to be a bit of a struggle. The front seats are in good shape, though the driver’s seat has the normal bolster wear. I’ve been on the fence about going to Vaders in this car, I think if I could find a clear powered set, I would go for it.

    The Mtech steering wheel is an obvious highlight. Wrapped in suede, M stitching, it’s honestly one of the coolest parts of the car. I ordered some cleaner to see if I can pull out the fade from it a little, but I have no plans on changing steering wheels in that car.

    Not picture is the moon roof. The panel fell at some point, so it’s just gross glue residue. I’ll probably have the whole headliner redone at some point, so I’ll address that then. Otherwise everything is just stock and nice. I don’t even want to put another radio in the car, I like having the OEM triple amber screens in there.


    Bonus photo, cracked 127k last night. Picked it up just a hair over 126k, so it’s been a fun 1000 miles so far. I got a few parts in, I have a line on some other parts I want, so I’ll hopefully get to refreshing this car soon.


    Back Story
    Hope you like reading, there aren’t a lot of photos on this update. So this last weekend I had planned to spend some time going through the car and cleaning things up. However somehow I ended up driving to LA and back AGAIN. For those not familiar, the drive from Phoenix to LA is about the most boring 6 hours there is. I’ve now done that back to back weekends. It was for a good cause, my friend bought this:



    Manual, V8, blower... Puts my Simple M3 to shame. But that’s the reason I didn’t get much done. Once he has some time to sort that car out, I want to take photos of my M3 and his 540i together. When I got back Sunday evening, I decided I needed to drive the M3 at least once this weekend. I checked the oil, and immediately ran to the parts store to get everything I needed for an oil change. I know “Low is a Lifestyle” around here, but I don’t think that includes oil level.



    After driving all day, I found myself doing an oil change in the driveway. I had tucked my daily driver in the garage, and I was just too tired to shuffle them again. Not ideal, but I wasn’t going to sleep well until I knew just how much oil came out of that engine. The answer was not much. So the question is, where is it going? We topped the engine off before driving back from California last week, and although it does have some minor leaks, it shouldn’t equate for the level being as low as it was. So either we have some wicked blow by, or I have a more serious leak that somehow isn’t making it to the ground. Either way, something to figure out.

    So that’s all that got done on the car physically. It drives fine, no funny noises, no loss of power. But oil is going somewhere it shouldn’t. Now here’s where the wall of text comes in. If you like reading, this post is for you.

    Out of boredom and curiosity I wanted to see if I could find more information on this car. I found another previous owner of this car through Instagram, and reached out to get some more information from him. I knew a few oddball facts about it just from deduction. For example the throttle pedal still had a kick down switch, so obviously the car had started life auto.

    He told me some of the following, which I thought was really interesting.
    1. The car originally belong to his friend’s wife. The car was overheated and cooked the head gasket, and was put into storage for about 10 years. He acquired in in a trade, rebuilt the head last year and started cleaning the car up, before deciding to sell it.
    2. The manual swap was done 15 years ago, and because of the EWS the way the keys work is pretty funky. Long story short, I lose the keys the car is bricked.
    3. The car originally came with a full dove grey interior. It was completely swapped out for all brand new black interior pieces early on in its life.
    4. Half the suspension and other bits under the car are brand new as of earlier this year.
    Ok cool, so now I have a better understanding of why this car was so low miles. For the most part, it’s been sitting for the last decade. The black interior swap explains why it so fresh for the most part, and considering the period it was done in, explains why everything is so well done. He also dropped one more interesting bomb on me. In a continued case of “small world” he is friends with the guy I bought my 2002 from. To make it even wilder, the guy I bought my 2002 from is the same guy who painted Riley’s Trans AM, who I bought the M3 from. So in a very unimportant way, my two BMWs are kind-of-not-really connected.
    What are the odds?
    I have a back roads drive in a few weeks that I would like to take the M3 on. I’m waiting on a few more parts, and I’m hoping to find a pair of rear DS2s so I can run square 245s. Those aren’t the permanent wheels I’ve been hinting at before, but it’ll be a nice OEM+ change for Radwood later this year.

    More Noise Please
    I’ve been debating what all I wanted to do with the car, and one thing I kept circling back to was an exhaust. The car is simply too quiet in stock form. A friend of mine suggested an aFe intake, as it provided a lot of induction noise and paired with the stock cat back well. I figured that this was a cheaper change than any quality cat back, and was at least worth trying. As luck would have it, someone fairly local to me happened to list that exact intake the same day he suggested it to me. Brand new in box, at a fraction of the price, I arranged to meet him and pick it up.


    He didn’t really list any photos, but sure enough the intake was literally brand new in box.



    It really is a bone stock S52. I’m so used to at least seeing an M50 manifold, that this looks almost foreign to me.



    And installed. I would say that the heat shield was a pain in the ass. Beyond that, an obviously easy change.
    Verdict is, I still want an exhaust. It’s throaty, it adds some desperately needed sound to the car when you get on the throttle, but is otherwise pretty quiet still. As with any intake on a NA car, there are no real power gains to be had, but I really do enjoy the sound. Again, simple changes to improve the car bit by bit. This was a great first step, and will hold me over until I decide to commit to a nice cat back. In the mean time, I want to finish some external cosmetic bits.
    Maintenance Log


    Nothing of super importance to note, other than some basic maintenance and care. But it comes with a fun story, so thought I'd make a post.


    First thing is first, I put some brand new RE71rs on the front of the car. That's what the rear had, but had some cheapy all seasons up front. I drove all the way home from California before bothering to check the date code. Turns out, the front tires were 12 years old. Oops.

    I still haven't found wheels that I want for the car, and I didn't want to continue driving on those time bombs, so I just bit the bullet and bought new front tires. Suddenly the front end vibration was gone, and the car drove a million times better. Wonder what was causing that . While I was at it, I also bought a brand new spare. I found a stock Contour wheel for sale locally, and just had a new all-season slapped on. Given my luck with flats, I didn't want to drive around without it. So the car now has proper tires across the board.



    Last weekend I took the car to Fourtillfour, a local coffee place that puts on some great little shows. This one was 60-90s JDM and Euros only. So the M3 was right at home. Unfortunately, as usual, these shitty headlights really let the car down visually. But I had a great time regardless.


    That said, the drive there became a big moment of anxiety. When I pulled up to the show, a very, VERY distinct knocking could be heard from my engine bay. Oh no, here we go, I blew it up. I was skeptical at first, because the sound was a little muffled to be a rod knock, but it was RPM dependent. It didn't help a friend of mine would not stop saying "That's definitely rod knock, it's fucked". But I got home, and started going through it. I thought maybe a sparkplug was loose, as others seem to have had this issue. Sure enough, cylinder 3 spark plug was finger tight. I torqued it to spec, and no more knock. But that was a stressful afternoon.




    Finally, because I can't help myself, I ordered a Condor Speed Shop tall shift knob. I had one in my old 318ti and loved it. So far so good in the M3, though it has highlighted that I need a short shifter in this car.

    Currently I'm waiting on some headlights to arrive from another SW forum member, and I'm ordering some refresh parts for the car. After that it'll finally be time to tackle suspension, and wheels. Then the whole simple thing is being tossed out the window next year. But more information on that later, I don't want to spoil the surprise and let everyone down.

    So until then, there will be a few more boring refresh posts. Bare with me.



    Welp
    Some friends and I decided to do an early morning canyon drive. Saw this as the perfect opportunity to put the M3 through it's paces with some spirited driving. If you're ever in the Phoenix area, not too far away is a spot called Tortilla Flat. It's at the end of a particularly long stretch of windy road, and has some spectacular scenes along the way. Really not a bad way to break in the M3.




    The following photos were taken by my friend Lane (@
    fast_lane_photo). Super talented guy, and made the M3 look way better than it actually is. I couldn't help but share.













    From a mechanical stand point, I'm beyond stoked on this car. It handled the drive beautifully. I do notice a bit of understeer from this staggered tire sizes, it really feels like the front end just needs a 245 as well, but there is only so much you can push it on a public road safely. I think it might be time for a track day. I have my eyes on a set of wheels too, so we may resolve that soon enough.

    Now here's the problem I mentioned prior. My shift knob broke... Or at the very least is defective. After my canyon drive we stopped for breakfast and I left the M3 in the middle of the parking lot. When I came back, hopped in the car and took off, my shift knob was rattling.




    This is supposed to be a video, so I guess click it if you can't watch it here...

    Alright not ideal. I took it out of the car, sure enough shake it and it rattles. It looks like the weight was loose inside. Zero issues with it prior. I dumped it on the counter, came back a few hours later to figure it out, and it was no longer rattling. It looks like the delrin expanded in the heat, as there was direct sunlight on it for the couple hours it was parked, and that was enough to cause the weight to stop rattling. Once it cooled down the weight was no longer rattling. Fortunately, Condor has agreed to exchange it because that one was clearly defective. I had one in my 318ti a few years back and never had that issue, even in intense AZ summers. I've sent it back and I'm waiting on the new one. I got a lot of questions on the shift knob on Instagram surprisingly, so I figured this was a worthwhile update. I'll keep you all posted on the outcome of the exchange.

    But that's a first for me, I've never had a shift knob fail.
    Some Good, Some Bad


    Alright, so a few interesting updates. I have Radwood in a little under a month, so I wanted to get a few things done in preparation for that. But also, a few things popped up on my radar that I couldn’t ignore, so I jumped the gun on purchases I wasn’t really planning on making right now. The problem being I now have parts out of order, so I have to find a place to store them while I play catch up getting the other bits. But let’s rewind.


    So for Radwood LA, I kind of wanted the car to be mostly stock, and to take care of small blemishes that we in my control. Thinks like center caps, for example. So I ordered up a new set for all four wheels. You’ll see later in the post that doesn’t matter much in the long term, but for one event it’ll be nice to have. Is this important? No. Was I excited? ...Yes.






    So one thing that has bugged me since I bought the car is the dead OBC. Common issue, but annoying that I had to clear “Check” codes without knowing what they were. Plus the clock was half burnt, and I couldn’t see outside temp. A company called BavTek rebuilds these units, so I sent it off to them. Removal is easy for those thinking of doing it. You can remove it without removing any of the center console or trim simply by pushing up on the unit underneath through the hole in the storage cubby. Tried to prove it with that photo showing it gone, looking at it now that really proves nothing, but whatever.

    Anyway it took a few days, they sent it back and it works perfectly. I paid the extra for the lifetime warranty, so if it ever dies on me again they’ll fix it. I absolutely recommend this to anyone with a dead OBC. Turns out the code I was clearing was for “Low wiper fluid”. Super critical stuff. I really love the triple amber stack, so I have no plans to actually put an aftermarket radio in and spoil that. I’ve found another guy who will modify my stock radio to have bluetooth and AUX, so looks like I’m going down that route.





    On a more depressing note, I bought something and it arrived destroyed. I bought a set of Bosch glass headlights from fellow forum member Ben. You may know him from his epic cross country tour in an E30. Unfortunately the driver’s headlight arrived destroyed, and I stress this was no fault of Ben’s. The box arrived in green tape that said “Inspected by US Customs”. It was poorly put back together, and looks like it was run over by a truck a few times. It’s actually a miracle that only the driver’s side glass was broken.

    I have a couple lines on replacement glass, so fortunately this headlight is fixable. However the time, effort and sheer disappointment all kind of sucks. These things do happen, especially with fragile, international shipments. But it’s a shame to see this otherwise mint headlight killed. Well the glass at least.











    Right now for the exciting stuff. I bought wheels! These are Fifteen52 Podiums, 18x8.5 et35. I had planned in the back of my head to order a set of these wheels later this year. Fifteen52 usually has a pretty great Black Friday sale, and I love the look on the E36. Turns out they were having a similar, and in fact better, sale going on right now. Buy 3, get 1 free, plus a discount, plus the vendor I ordered from had free shipping. Win, win, win. So I placed an order, and a few days later they were here.

    I love these wheels, though I’m not sure they’re permanent. Gives a very Super Touring vibe. I was a little hesitant to order 18s, I’m usually a small wheel kind of guy, but I’m glad I gambled on it. I do have two gripes though, which are not major but may prompt me to change them out for something else later down the line. The first is the offset. It looks like I’ll need to run a 225/40r18 tire square. That’s fine, it’ll work but it is downsizing in the rear a bit. The other gripe is the weight, they are 24lbs a piece. 2lbs heavier than stock wheels, but I know there are considerably lighter options out there.

    For what it’s worth though, they appear to be very well made. I was actually pretty stunned to see that the center cap and hex nut were metal. I 100% expected them to be plastic, but they are metal pieces. The mock up went well, I may need to roll the rear fenders a hair more. But it will fit well. I just need coilovers next, the Eibach springs simply won’t cut it for these wheels.
    Clear Changes


    Took some time this weekend to knock out some items on the M3.


    Changed the belts. They had started to squeak, and sure enough the old ones were definitely worn. Some fresh Continentals did the trick, no more squeak and I don’t have to worry about those belts coming apart on long drives anymore.


    Also took some time to change the valve cover gasket. As it turns out, totally not needed. Looks like it had a fresh one prior, which led me to dig a little further. Unfortunately it looks like the source of my oil leak is the oil pan gasket. That was definitely a bummer, as it’s a real pain to do.










    Finally installed the headlights as well. I sourced replacement glass here in the US, swapped it out and wired it all up. Before and after really doesn’t do it justice, it’s a huge difference. While I was at it, also finally installed clear turn signals and repeaters. As pointed out here, the RHD lights have made for a weird cut off here. But otherwise I’m happy with them. At this point, I’m happy with how the car is sitting overall. I’m taking it to Radwood LA in a couple weeks. I’ll leave it as is before making any more changes.



    Polished Tip
    So I picked up an exhaust for the M3. A local guy wrecked his M3, and posted it up as a part out. I immediately messaged him about the exhaust, a UUC cat back. He was wishy washy about it, and then the car disappeared. Turns out he sold the whole thing to another guy. Fortunately, he also decided to part out the car, I knew about the exhaust, and managed to snag it before anyone else. I’m not entirely sure about the exhaust tips. I had wanted straight tips, but I think this will work well once I have the wheels on as well.




    As you can see, it’s a little faded. Didn’t sustain any damage from the wreck, that was all on the front of the car, just grimey. I decided that it really needed a good clean before ending up on the car. It doesn’t show well, but it was also kind of muddy for some reason. Guess the last M3 it was on went bogging...




    Though not strictly necessarily, I decided to give it a quick shine. For those of you wondering, Basso+a polishing cone will do wonders on bringing back shine on faded polished bits. I sprayed off the mud, dried it off, and went to town.








    Didn’t take any progress pictures, but really there wasn’t much to see. Faded, then not faded. The tips destroyed my polishing cone, which I was a little bummed about, but otherwise it looks a little better. Obviously still some scratches here and there, but for what I paid, more than presentable. I haven’t yet put it on the car, because I’m waiting until after Radwood in a couple weeks. I’m making the drive to California and back, and figured a more stock (and quiet) car would be nicer for that particular trip.

    So the parts pile is steadily growing. I need to order some tires, some coilovers, and I’d really like an LTW wing... I’m also looking for some excellent condition Vader’s for the front, and some other bits here and there. But it’s all coming together. Safe to say this will be a fun transformation.
    Needs More Low STAT


    Tires arrived, tires mounted, wheels test fit. For those wondering (because specs aren’t precious) 18x8.5 et35, 225/40r18, Hankook Ventura V12 Evo2 tires, square setup. These tires were my second choice, I wanted Falken RT615k tires but they weren’t carried by the vendor I was ordering through. Also, realistically, these are a little more street friendly. The Bridgestone’s I have on right now grip fantastically, but are absurdly noisy and a little sketch on the rain. Though I do plan to take this car to the track, for the street these tires are more than sufficient. I hope...


    I was concerned that visually this would have more stretch, but that wasn’t the case.











    So you don’t have to say it, I know. Needs more low, very desperately. Fortunately my fenders are rolled, so I don’t need to tackle that job. But if you’re looking to run the same setup, yes you need to roll your fenders for sure. I took the wheels back off and I’m rolling on the stock wheels to radwood. Going to get the rear tires flipped to survive the drive out and back, then it’ll finally time to overhaul the car. I guess I should also preemptively say, I’m totally aware that these tires are pretty narrow for an M3. I’m playing it by ear right now, I’m happy with the aesthetics of this setup, but it does have to preform well too. 235s may be possible as well, but I will wait until after I do a thorough shakedown on my favorite road to determine that. Tortilla Flat reveals all.



    Oops
    Small update, but a bummer all the same for me. I've talked a lot about taking the car to Radwood. I had purchased a ticket and all. Well just before it was time to go, I gave the car a once over. I noticed the rear tires had a substantial amount of camber wear, so I took them to go get flipped. Two shops later, no one would touch them. Fair enough, that's on me they did get pretty bad.




    I figured it wasn't a problem, I'll just put the new wheels and tires on. Not a super big fan of driving them out with some goofy stance, but at the same time I just wanted to take the car. So I swapped them out the evening before I was supposed to leave, packed the car and went to drive to a friends house to verify I had no rubbing issues.




    About 15 seconds after getting on the freeway, the whole front end felt like it was falling apart. It seems as though the tire shop somehow balanced my wheels incorrectly. It was now too late to get the wheels rebalanced, and I had to leave at 4am the next morning. So that was that, complete failure. I suppose the most frustrating bit of all that was this was a simple mistake, that was made by someone else, but kind of ruined my plans.

    However, on a more interesting note, it looks like the M3 is going to be my new daily driver soon. I've been wanting to ditch my Fiesta ST for quite some time, but have held on to it as it's a much better commuter. It looks like I won't have a commute here soon, so I have the added benefit of being able to daily drive the M3 as I please. This does mean I need to take some extra time to refresh a few things sooner rather than later. So, next few updates will likely be more boring maintenance.

    Loud Noises, Big Tips
    So I finally got around to installing the exhaust. Not because that's what I specifically set out to do this last weekend, but rather because I think I need a new driveshaft. The long and short of it is, on power in first or second, I'm getting a lot of loud knocking from the transmission tunnel. I thought that my CSB has failing and that was causing the noise. But when I dropped the exhaust, it looked pretty much in tact. So my leading theory now is bad u-joints in the driveshaft. I figured since I had the cat-back down anyways, might as well put the new one on.






    Pros: It sounds pretty good, and isn't horribly obnoxious. On idle it's mellow, and it only really screams at you when you go full throttle. It does have a drone around 2,000 RPM, but cruising speed seems to be just fine. It's also SIGNIFICANTLY lighter than the stock exhaust. So that's a win too.

    Cons: As Fruttolo point out to me on Instagram, these tips are kind of rice. Well... German Rice, so I guess that's sauerkraut? The point is, I really don't know how I feel about these exhaust tips still. Part of me thinks that once I source an LTW wing, dial in the ride height and get the car looking how I want, the exhaust will tie in better. But it's a lot to look at right now. I'm debating having different tips just welded on in the mean time, because I like this exhaust otherwise.

    So up next I have to figure out the driveshaft situation, I really need to get the oil pan gasket done, and I'd like to sort out the steering rack. I've yet to start daily driving the car as I still have so much to overhaul first.

    Still Simple I Swear
    I’ve emphasized how I don’t want to over complicate this car for now, and I promise this isn’t going over board. But I started collecting big brake parts. After some research, I’ve decided to start collecting Porsche 996 parts to fit considerably larger brakes to my M3. I’ve found the stock braking capacity to be a little lacking, and this seemed like a good budget solution. On a whim I checked Craigslist, and there just so happened to be a pair of rear calipers for sale. I got a screaming deal on them, so I scooped them up. I was advised by a friend that the 996 brake setup does change the bias a little bit, and not for the better. So I’m keeping that in mind moving forward, and if I don’t like how it feels I will be swapping this out for something else.

    My main motivation for continuing with the 996 setup, despite this warning, is because of two things. First, this uses OEM parts so if I need replacements it should be a little easier to source. I also know the durability of a 996 Brembo is going to be pretty high. For a street driven M3, that’s pretty important for me. But the second big factor is cost, as the Simple M3 is an exercise in restraint for me. I won’t be powder coating these calipers or over doing the setup. I wanted big brakes on the car so I could drive it hard, that was always part of the plan. But I didn’t want to go down the same scope creep that lead me to doing a total restoration on my 2002.




    If anyone has a line on a front set of 996 (non-turbo), Boxster S, or Cayman S front calipers let me know. My goal is to get this all sorted in the upcoming months with the substantial refresh. Coilovers, steering rack, brakes, bushings, etc. Might as well do it all at once.

    Broken Glass


    So the inevitable happened, one of my fog lights got shattered. Arizona freeways are notorious for being covered in rocks, and sure enough it finally got one of my lights. I thought about just ordering another, but the reality is it will happen over and over. Now I can put some clear film to protect them, and I will do this for the headlights, but since I’m going for a Super Touring look I figured why not just delete them.




    I bought some delete covers from a guy locally. $10 well spent. I ordered some color matched paint in spray cans from Automotive Touchup, and some clear coat and went to town.








    I’ve found the key is to do a whole bunch of really light coats. Then bury it in clear coat. It seemed to work out pretty well, the color match was spot on and since these will just be taking more rocks to the face I wasn’t too stressed with perfecting it for now.






    And that’s that. I’m still waiting for my coilovers, steering rack and bushings to arrive. Oh also... I booked the car for paint this April. More on that later.

    Low is a Lifestyle
    Alright, so now that we have the forums again I can finally post about my coilovers. I got my Fortune Auto 500s in, and decided to get them on the car right away. A couple notes on these coilovers. First, they are built extremely well, and that's just from a parts quality standpoint. I've had a lot of coilovers brands in the past, these were definitely made nicely. Even little things like locking collars, or fine threads on the shock body all make for a much nicer install. I'm impressed, 10/10 would buy again.




    In retrospect I wish I opted to upgrade to Swift springs right out the gate, just because I know I probably will sometime in the future. But for now this will do. This is all stock rates as recommended by FA. I believe 8k/10k.






    Another thing I opted to do was order the Garagistic front and rear reinforcement plates. The fronts are particularly useful as they are the "High Adjustability" plates. When I pulled off my stock suspension, it had the OEM reinforcement plates, which are fine but do slightly limit camber adjustment. So you can see up front now I have full range of motion, and in the rear a little extra support.




    Full droop on the new suspension, vs the old. Funny at this ride height, the left is actually higher than the right between the two. It was hilarious raising the car off the ground before, because the stock suspenion drooped so much, you had to lift the car very high to take off the wheels.












    After installing at my garage, I took it over to my friend's house to make use of his Quick Jacks. I spent an afternoon dialing in the ride height to how I wanted. I put in about 2 degrees of camber in the front, and tried to make sure that it would not rub under heavy load at full lock. It still does a hair, however I believe just turning the stiffness up a few clicks is all it needs. Currently it's set to dead middle (12 clicks) all the way around. I also think I'll need a 5-10mm spacer in the front to clear the big brakes, so that may require further adjusting.






    I also finally got my front calipers. 996 non-turbo brembo's for the front. My adapter brackets came in, and brake lines and pads shortly after. They are significantly larger than the stock M3 stuff, which I am stoked about. My hand for scale, and I have big-ass hands haha. I actually won't be running these specific calipers. I'm trading a friend of mine for his shaved 996 calipers, which takes 12mm off the mounting surface to allow you to clear 17" wheels. Yes, I am running 18s, however if you don't modify the calipers you have to run E46 M3 CSL rotors. Those are $250 a piece, vs the normal E46 M3 rotors at $100 a piece. Saves me $300 in front rotors alone, and still gets me a bigger brake. Plus, I don't want to rule out stepping down to a 17 if I ever find cool wheels I want to swap out to. As soon as I have those other calipers in hand, I will be sending them to get cleaned up and refinished, simply because I don't want them to say Porsche. If they didn't have that on the side, I'd leave them as is.




    Other than that, random bits continue to trickle in. While doing the coilovers I discovered the balljoints on my control arms were shot. So I ordered a new set of those. Because I was doing the steering rack soon, I also opted to order the Garagistic X brace. I wanted to add some structure up front, and this just bolts in. So bit by bit, I'm getting there.

    And Then There Was One...


    So if anyone follows my Instagram, you'll know a couple weeks back I sold my 2002. That's a long story in itself that I don't particularly want to go into, but I also had my other car for sale. Earlier this week I also sold my Fiesta ST. For the first time in about 10 years, I only own one car. I have always had a number of projects, daily drivers or other cars kicking around. But I decided to slim the fleet down to one singular car. And my M3 is it. The FiST was my daily driver, so now the M3 also has to fulfill those roles.








    I don't anticipate this being my only car for very long. Certainly I'll buy another one later this year, as I don't really want to put the M3 through daily driver abuse. But that's how it is for now, and I'm perfectly happy with that. Here's a few shots from my work parking garage this morning.




    I also immediately traded away those calipers I just got, for... the exact same calipers. I had stock 996 calipers pulled straight off a salvage car. However to fit standard E46 M3 rotors vs. the CSL rotors (as mentioned in my last update) you need to shave 12mm off the mounting surface. It just so happens a friend of mine had shaved calipers on his car and wanted to upgrade to CSL rotors. So we swapped calipers straight across. Saved me a few dollars and hassle getting that done. I sent the calipers straight to powder coat because they were pretty nasty looking, and I don't want them to say Porsche.






    Meanwhile my rotors and control arms arrived. As always, I use hand size for reference. I have huge hands, these rotors are huge. I'm a fan.

    Somehow I'm going to have to figure out a strategy to get all this work done without interfering with daily driver duties. I may not have thought this out well enough. But I'll manage.

    And we're back!
    I thought we lost the forums there for a minute. I know there's not a lot of us on here, but I do enjoy this community. So here are some updates on the M3. Progress has been slow, I've been working on the car as I have time after work. Some of you know, I scheduled the car for a paint job late next month, but I've since postponed it for a few reasons. One, I realize that there is a lot that needs to be taken care of on the car mechanically. The other thing is, I have wanted to swap the car since I got it, and it would suck to paint the car, only to have something damaged during the swap process. It's a low risk, but it seems like all the heavy wrenching should be taken care of while the car is an ugly duckling anyway.




    I did get a new license plate. "STW" for Super Tourenwagen. Though with my plate frame, I anticipate most people will assume it stands for Stanceworks. That's fine, either way I'm happy with it.






    I bought this wing from Stanceworks commander and chief, Mike. Back when Riley owned this M3, he had wanted to put this same wing on the car. I saw some photos, and bought it without thinking twice. Turns out it's a wing off a Lancer, and it needs a lot of work to fit. I like it, but I'm leaning towards sourcing a Rieger Infinity wing instead. It's amazing that thing wing fits as close as it does though, for being off an old crappy Mitsubishi.














    I also finally started on my front end refresh. This has been fairly miserable as I have 30 minutes here and there to plug away at this. I've managed to drop everything, clean it up, swap the pan gasket and get the subframe back in. New control arms, CABs, engine mounts, E46 ZHP steering rack, etc. All new everything, because the steering was pretty sloppy on this car. I also got all new power steering hoses, just to hopefully stop the leak for some time. Photos above just show how disgusting everything was. The oil pan gasket was clearly the original one from 1998, the pan fell off the car when I undid the last bolt.








    I also finally have my 996 calipers ready. All new seals, fresh powdercoat with the Brembo logo powder coated in as well (no stickers here). I had the crossover tubes done in black while I was at it, because they were disgusting to start. I was going to hold off installing these so I could make a few events in the upcoming weeks, but thanks to Corona Virus, we are now grounded.






    Not strictly M3 related, but I'm not going to create a new thread for this car, but I finally bought a new daily driver. 2011 Acura TSX Sport Wagon. I got it from Carvana at all places, but it's low miles, very well kept and exactly what I was looking for. Frankly, I won't lie and say I won't do anything to it, but considering it's pretty boring I can't imagine it going beyond wheels and coils. I just wanted a daily driver that was comfortable, practical and reliable. That TSX checks all the boxes with flying colors.

    Quarantine Time
    Well, since I’m not going anywhere, tons of free time to fuss with the M3. Today I started finishing up the M3.




    I got the Garagistic X brace installed, along with the new CABs installed. I opted for Garagistic’s street poly, after ordering the wrong bushings the first time around. They slid on easy, and the brace... well that was kind of a pain to install. So it turns out one of the threads for the lollipops was ruined at some point. Definitely cross threaded, and when I tried using the Garagistic supplied hardware, it became pretty clear this wasn’t going to work. I, unfortunately, do not own a tap set, so I found the bad bolt in question and put that in. This will have to be addressed pretty quickly, I don’t trust having shorter threads there, but for now it’ll let me get the car done and tested.




    For the first time in a while, the engine wasn’t dangling by a support brace. I got everything seated and happy, and started nutting and bolting the car. I’m still a ways from being done, but it’s coming along pretty nicely. Having tons of free time can be nice I guess.




    Finally, I test fitted the front brakes for the first time. Things fit well, I’m happy with the look. I thought I was going to need spacers for the front for some reason, but there are zero clearance issues with my current wheels.

    Not bad progress for a Saturday afternoon.

    So Close, Yet So Far
    Well I had a number of set backs that delayed me, and just as I thought I had finished one final one cropped up.




    Back tracking a little bit first, the first problem I ran into was one of the rear brake hard lines was stripped. This is the piece that connects to the trailing arm. Fortunately a friend of mine was parting out a couple of E36s and brought that by for me. I soaked it in ATF and freed it. Swapped the line and bracket on the trailing arm and we were good to go. That problem cost me a couple days.






    Then, once I thought I was completely done, disaster struck as I was backing out of the garage. One of the pins in the caliper body was considerably indented inwards. I didn’t notice that it would interfere with the rotor face in the air with no wheel on, I guess because I didn’t have set screws in. Anyway, I backed up out of my garage and immediately knew the rotor was destroyed. I’m not sure how I missed this, but looking through all my old photos of the calipers it’s clear to see this pin has always been not flush. Fairly embarrassing, but no sense in hiding my mistakes. I rushed, and that’s what I get. I’m sure I could have this rotor turned pretty easily, the damage isn’t that deep. But with COVID running amuck, I really don’t want to go out to shops or anything like that right now. Take a look at the following comparison pictures:




    Ruined side


    Normal side

    So everything was done on the car, bled and ready to go, but now I’m waiting for a new rotor in the mail. I’m going to attempt to Dremel the pin down slightly to clearance it. As much as I’d like to press the pin in, I don’t have a press or the means to do that. So If I can gain just enough clearance to fit, I’ll call it good enough for now. What a bummer, so close to getting to enjoy the car again.




    At least this looks good. I can’t wait for a proper test drive. So my stupidity aside, the car is finally back together. For just plugging away during weekends, actually that wasn’t so bad.

    Fixed-ish
    So after attempting to press in the studs a number of ways, I gave up and just ground them down. Is this ideal? No. However after weighing my options I wasn’t sure how else to handle the situation. Because of the powder build up on the posts and the face of the caliper, I’d have to cut the powder and use substantially more force than my hand tools provided to move them. I consulted with a few people, and they said it should be fine to ground down the posts since I’ll have the same effective length.








    So I took a dremel and very slowly removed material until it was the same length as the opposing side. I then hit it with some caliper paint to seal it. Hurt to cut into my freshly finished pieces, and I feel like I’ll likely replace this caliper in the future because I feel like it’s a bit compromised, but I guess this gets the job done for now. New rotor showed up, I put it on, rebled the system and took it out on the road.








    So a few things from that test drive.

    1. As questioned before on this thread, the Garagistic X brace does hang lower than anticipated. It definitely scraped going over a speed bump.
    2. Something is up with my alignment or my steering rack. Currently it feels as if the caster is way off, as the rack is not self-centering anymore. If I turn left or right, the wheel will either stick at that angle, or continue to follow that path until it reaches full lock. I only did an eyeball alignment for the front, so I suspect I did something wrong, but it is a little concerning. Some suggested greasing the upper u-joint on the steering column, I don’t see how that could be it but I will try that. Otherwise I need to get an alignment and hope that helps. If not, I’m open to suggestions, anyone else have a similar issue?
    3. Brakes need more bleeding. They’re still a little soft, so I’m not ready to speak to the 996 Brembos effectiveness.

    So back to the garage we go. Nearly done, but still have a ways to go.

    Just in time
    Got these photos from the fabricator today. Looks like I got to the RTAB pockets just in time.








    Fortunately he’s welding in plates and fixing that all up. Hopefully more photos soon, I literally got those photos a few hours ago. As mentioned prior, he’s doing all the bushings while there, since I really have no ambition of doing another rear subframe drop on the floor again. Until I get a lift, I’m done dropping subframes

    I’m thinking about celebrating with a track day, once track days are a thing again of course. I’ll need some different wheels for that though, so... time to source another set?

    Pausing here for post two.

    #2
    Continued from post one.


    Welded


    So fortunately everything is fixed with the trailing arm reinforcements. Just goes to show there's no need to panic over these, but if you own an E36 it is definitely something to be aware of.




    After all of that, the only poly bushings we ended up installing were the subframe bushings. The trailing arm bushings were brand new, and the diff bushings look ok. I may go back in and do the diff bushings myself at a later date, but for now I'd prefer to leave the rubber ones in. Less noise in the car that way.

    Today it got aligned, went back to that shop briefly to fix a small mistake with the speedo sensor, and was then dropped off for fresh tint. So progress is happening as best as I can while the world is upside down.

    A brief question for all E36 owners: has anyone had PCV valve (oil separator) failure that resulted in high crank case pressure blowing out the seals? You may remember I had the same problem in my Miata a year ago. After facing continued oil leak issues, it occurred to me that this is only happening after driving the car hard. If I get it high into the RPM and park it, it seems to leak oil pretty badly. If I put around, it doesn't. A friend of mine noticed that a small amount of smoke was coming out of the exhaust when I floored it, which is consistent with PCV failure, but I wasn't sure if that really translated into crankcase pressure becoming so high it's pushing oil past the seals.

    I already ordered the parts, but I thought I'd ask if anyone else has gone through this. It's driving me a little nuts.

    Pandemic Productivity
    Lots of small updates lately because it’s not like I have anything better to do. First, I got the car back from alignment. If you’ve been following the thread, you’ll know I had some concerns about my steering rack and the handling of the car after doing all of that. I’m pleased to report it was just my own horrible home alignment. The toe was so far off on the front axle that it wouldn’t self steer. One fresh alignment later, and the car feels perfect. The ZHP rack feels tight and linear, and has a great lock to lock ratio (3.0). Huge upgrade from the blown stock steering rack.

    Unfortunately now I’m dealing with other weird handling dynamics. I think I just discovered some flaws in my plan. The front feels sharp and direct, but the rear end of the car feels washed out and too soft. A number of problems come to mind, the narrower tires on the rear over stock, the less grippy compound that I’m running now compared to before, mostly using rubber bushings vs. poly in the front. Of course dampening settings could play a large role in this as well. So I’m going to take some time to fiddle with the rear shocks and see if I can’t improve it.

    I have a feeling in the next few months you’ll probably see me change up my entire wheel, tire and ride height situation to get the car to feel a little sharper. I think I probably slammed it out a little too much.






    Also, less interesting but still exciting for me, I finally got the car retinted. When I bought the car it had horribly bubbled tint on just the rear glass. I love the fish bowl look, so I had it all redone in 70% ceramic. Living in Arizona, we’ve already started hitting over 100F temps the last few weeks, so I wanted to make sure the AC had a fighting chance. I got Xpel XR Plus ceramic tint put on all the way around (minus windshield). It’s a dumb foot note on the car that I’ll never mention again, but in case anyone was wondering what a nearly invisible tint looks like, here you go.

    Up next, I am still waiting on the PCV components to arrive. I need to install the ACS delete boot, as well as my intake back on, and fuss with a few loose ends in the engine bay. I’m also slowly collecting pieces for paint, I had a whole bunch of rubber gaskets/window seals arrive for the car this week. I’m just trying to collect every bit I need before I send it off later this Summer.

    M50 Manifold
    I had pretty much decided I was not going to do an M50 manifold since I planned on swapping the car later. But my oil separator failed, and my big hands don’t fit well under the manifold. I figured it was probably easiest if I removed it and checked the state of all the hoses anyways, and if the M52 manifold was coming off, then an M50 one was going back on. Even though I plan to swap the car, might as well pick up some free power in the interim.












    I also did an ASC delete while I was in there. Ordered the Bimmerworld boot to make things go easier, though to be honest I’m not totally thrilled with the fitment. It seems to be a hair too long. BW does seem to mention that you may need to cut it down, but that kind of sucks for the cost. I guess I’m just lazy, but I also don’t feel like I can safely trim it haha.

    Fired the car up last night, everything seems happy and it idles smooth. Not a particularly difficult swap, and it’s been done a million times over, so nothing exciting either. At this point I’m looking at an RKtunes tune for the car. Partly to accommodate the new intake setup, but also to delete the SAP coding. I’ve had a permanent CEL because of my failed SAP. So I’d very much like to get rid of that, and maybe pick up a few horse puppies during the process.

    Beyond that, I’m really getting down to a short list of what all needs doing. Interior needs some addressing soon, paint obviously, but otherwise the car is getting pretty close to well sorted.


    Cut to Size
    Remember how I said the Bimmerworld boot was too big? It was. Hilariously so. They say “It may need to be cut” as if it’s going to be close. It was 30mm too long. So I started chopping.










    For anyone who stumbles across this thread searching for information on cutting down a Bimmerworld silicone ASC delete boot, it’s really not that hard. Mock everything up in car, mark where the cuts need to be (be aware that it’s not at the ends of the MAF, but at the lip where it seals), get some sort of ruler/straight edge, make marks all around the boot equally from the base, use tape to create a “no no” zone, use razor blades and scissors to cut. Take. Your. Time. It’s super frustrating to work with and trim.




    End result is a boot that actually fits. Test drove the car some, seems to like the M50 maifold and the new oil separator seems to have mostly solved my puking oil under load issue. So we’ll call that two wins.

    Shakedown


    Earlier this morning I finally got a chance to stretch the M3’s legs. I took it out to one of my favorite roads nearby, and I learned a whole bunch about the car. Some good, some bad, mostly expected though. Here were the big takeaways:
    1. Some alignment changes are needed.
    2. This exhaust is annoying as hell around 4-5K RPM.
    3. I kind of want cloth seats.

    I talked to Fruttolo some this morning, and he suggested I add some camber and go to 0 toe up front. Based on what I’m experiencing, this seems like it’ll be a good first step to get it feeling a little less lazy. I also was getting a fair bit of rubbing from the front on tight hairpins. I’m hoping the camber will help some with that as well, because under load on tight turns, if the wheel is turned enough it hits the fender. I can stiffen the front up some, but I don’t want to go too far with that to correct this problem. So it definitely needs some adjustment.

    On the exhaust, it really is annoying for most of the drive. Unless you get high into the RPM, it just drones and drones and drones. On the street I haven’t noticed so much because I’m usually under the level where it drones. But in the canyons, with it bouncing off the walls, it’s hard to ignore. I wish I had ear plugs half way through.

    On the seats, I’ve been looking for Vader’s for a while now, but after today’s drive I’m thinking about just having these redone in cloth. Similar to the LTW M3s. These get really hot, and you obviously slide a lot, but they’re otherwise comfortable for cruising. I figure the cloth would breath a little better, and hold better just based on the added friction. Anyone do this before? Any suggestions on material?








    Finally, I’m having some radio woes. I sent my radio off to a company called German Audio Tech in Long Beach to have it repaired. They also had a service to add an AUX port, so I went for it. It got back late last week, I plugged it in and nothing. They also failed to return my volume knob, and so far they’ve been pretty rude in their responses. I’m hoping I can get things resolved, but if anyone else is looking at preserving their OEM radio, I’d suggest not sending it to them. Just on customer service alone.




    So I’ll close it out on that note for now, I have a long list of stuff I want to change now. I have some cool parts in the mail, I’m looking at ordering some other pieces to make further changes to the car, but at least I was able to get out and drive again today.

    Health and Safety
    So a while back, when the car was gushing oil, some got on my exhaust and would smoke pretty badly. It obviously put the fear of fire in me, and I started thinking that it’d be nice to carry a fire extinguisher on board. I forgot about it for a while, and then some friends shared a video of a GT350 burning down at a track day, and it got me thinking, it’s cheap insurance to have an extinguisher on board. I rather make a mess and save the car.




    I ordered a floor mounted bracket from VAC Motorosports. It’s advertised for the E36 and E46 chassis. I got it with a 2.5lb auto rated fire extinguisher from them as well, it came with a mount that lines up perfectly with the holes in the bracket.






    I decided to put it on the passenger side, since I don’t often have passengers anyways. I did have some concern that it could burn the shit out of someone’s leg in the Arizona summer, but that’s a problem for future me to figure out. In the meantime, I now have some peace of mind. I’m not actually sure realistically how useful this extinguisher will be for anything other than a small electrical fire maybe. Any large fluid fire will easily out pace a 2.5lb I feel like. Also, I guess this is the only splash of color in my otherwise monochromatic car. Everything is silver and black, except this one very, very red thing.

    I was hoping I’d also have the tune done by this update, but that will wait for another post.

    Tuned
    So another small update today. Yesterday RKtunes finally sent my file back for the M3. The tune, as best as I can tell, is 100% placebo. Maybe it's because it's so hot here in AZ right now (109 yesterday), but after a lengthy test drive I found myself more impressed with my ceramic tint than I was with the tune. I know you can't expect much from an old NA car with a handful of intake bolt ons, but it seems to be about the same. But that's just fine with me, because I actually primarily ended up tuning the car to code out the SAP.






    Since I bought the car, it would throw these codes constantly. A common fault for E36s, and I wasn't really willing to spend the money to replace the pump anyways. For the same price I could tune it out and (theoretically) get a little more power out of the car.






    So for the first time since I bought the car, I am now CEL free. I suppose it's nice to know the car is also appropriately tuned for the manifold now, but as far as I can tell, in our heat soaked desert, it feels the same as before.

    Now I get to go back to focusing on matters like "Why does my car handle like shit" and "What is that clunking noise?"



    Radio Woes
    You may remember I mentioned earlier that I was having some headaches with my radio repair. I sent the stock unit (which was having problems) out for repair. The business I sent it to basically made it worse, refused to take responsibility, and now we're dealing with a credit card charge back and all sorts of fun stuff. It's annoying. I didn't want to buy another radio or try to fix this one again until that was resolved, but I was also sick of looking at the hole in the dashboard.








    So I decided to order the OEM radio delete plate. It is not a permanent solution, I would like to have a radio in the car again at some point. But at least it cleans up the dash, and lets me pretend I have an LTW for a little bit.



    Weird Flexes
    So I’ve mostly left the M3 sitting. I drive it around every once in a while to keep things going, but I haven’t otherwise been doing much. Two small updates however.






    First I picked up a Bonrath mono wiper conversion. A friend of mine found it on eBay Germany, sent it to me. After thinking about it for about 30 seconds I bought it. It needs some refurbishment, and I’m actually not 100% sure if it will actually work. But it would be cool to have a single wiper just like the actual STW cars. So more on that when I get around to actually fussing with it.




    Second, I have a working radio! I picked up a CD43 from someone local. It came out of their Z3 Coupe, and works perfectly. For those thinking of sending their OEM headunits in for repair with German Audio Works, just don’t. I’m stoked to have an OEM headunit that works now, it may be a weird thing to insist on having but I **** the look of aftermarket radios. So this was an incredible win for me. It works perfectly, sounds great, what more could I ask for?

    The car is actually going to a shop today for a few driveshaft repairs. New guibo, CSB, trans mounts, etc. Nothing I couldn’t do at home, but without a lift it’s a real pain. So they’ll be buttoning that all up for me and hopefully the car is finally mechanically sorted.

    Also per everyone’s suggestion, I am now on the hunt for some comfortable but supportive bucket seats. Looking at the Recaro Profis currently, it’s just hard to commit to ordering them without testing first. Hoping to hit up my first track day at the end of October when things cool off a bit here in Arizona.
    Clunking


    So I’m having some serious troubles, and I’m hoping someone can give me insight on the cause. I have been chasing a drive train vibration/clunk/knocking sound for a few months now.

    From a dig/barely moving start in 1st or 2nd gear, if I launch the car (WOT) a very loud vibration/banging will come from the transmission tunnel. If you’ve followed my thread, I have now replaced the motor mounts, rear subframe mounts, RTABs, reinforced the RTAB pockets, done suspension, wheels and tires, ruling out a lot of issues like wheel hop and other items shifting. However the problem has persisted through these replacements.

    I just had the transmission mounts, guibo, center support bearing and differential bushings all replaced this week in hopes that would finally do it.









    Here is the problem, despite now everything short of the physical two pieces of the drive shaft being new, I’m still having issues. Video attached, the noise is at the very end, it sounds like an impact gun in the center console.
    https://youtu.be/FYLPfs5Y4XY
    (Only way I could share the video was through YouTube I guess)


    What I thought was the driveshaft center support bearing failing, must be something else, but I’m a little at a loss. The car drives otherwise perfectly, there are no vibrations, clunks or rattles under normal driving conditions, or even spirited driving at higher gears or not from a launching situation. This only happens from a launch which is why I initially believe it had to do with the rear subframe or rear trailing arms causing interference or movement. If you watch the above video, the rattling of the plastics in the car amplifies it, but the source sounds like it is coming from directly under the arm rest (roughly where the CSB is give or take. But it seems as though the sound is likely traveling up or down the driveline from it’s source.

    At this stage my thoughts are: the u-joints in the driveshaft may be bad, the differential internals may have some sort of problem, the clutch/flywheel may be having some sort of problems, or the trans itself has some sort of internal problem.

    I’m going to dig deeper into this obviously, but I **** to just throw random parts against the wall to see what sticks, especially with such large jobs like clutch/flywheel. I don’t feel/hear anything off about the clutch currently that would have been alarming, and likewise the differential doesn’t howl/shriek/grind or act strangely.

    Any suggestions?



    Replace Everything Approach
    So after taking some feedback from everyone and weighing my options, I decided to just replace what was left on the M3. I have done every bit of suspension, and most of the drivetrain, but the clutch and driveshaft were still original. Rather than fight though the issues incrementally anymore, I just ordered everything I needed to make the car brand new. Truth be told, I did not do this job myself, but the shop sent me photos the entire time. Normally I wouldnÂ’t mind doing a clutch too much, but given the heat here in Arizona and my lack of space, I was completely unmotivated to wrestle that out on the floor.









    There was the clutch in the car. Clearly it had seen some serious abuse. I noted the hot spots and uneven wear, and I wonder if the clutch itself had come unbalanced. There are some particularly deep digs in the pressure plate and flywheel, and it seems to me that maybe abuse lead to some issues that was causing the clunk under heavy load.




    Also thanks to suggestions here, I sourced a new-used driveshaft. The last guy bought this brand new, had it in his car for about 10k miles and got t-boned. So I hope that this one is balanced and in good spec.














    Some while IÂ’m in there stuff. New rear main, though my old one wasnÂ’t leaking, selector rod seal replaced, throw out and pilot bearings, so on and so forth. For the clutch kit, I went with the Bimmerworld package which was a JB Racing flywheel and a Sachs OEM sprung clutch. Not pictured, also had a braided clutch line put in. Everything is new and replaced now.

    I drove the car back home yesterday. Some noticeable chatter from the flywheel, that was to be expected. I havenÂ’t been able to really launch it to see if the driveline rattle is gone, because I wanted to give the clutch some time to properly break in. IÂ’m going to try to get in a few hundred miles at least to get everything squared away, then test it again.

    The car has been rebooked for paint (beginning of 2021), and I’m hoping to get my headliner done next month. So in relatively short order we should have a solid “Stage One” completed for this car.

    It was worse before it was better
    Right so, I owe some updates. And IÂ’m not sure what order to give all my information in because there are a lot of moving pieces. So IÂ’ll tell it chronologically, and hope it makes sense.

    After getting my clutch done, I was still frustrated that I was feeling a “wobble” in the driveline. Everything was new, so there was no reason for this to be happening. However I decided to leave it be until it got worse, so I could finally identify what it was. Oh boy, did it get worse. More on that in a minute.

    I actually took the car on a long road trip up to Northern Arizona. 3 hours up and down, and some back roads driving in between, to break in the clutch. The car did well, I didnÂ’t notice anything too alarming as I kind of babied it with the new clutch. But once we cracked 500 miles of street driving I started pushing a little more, and discovered it was still acting up.








    I drove it back down and everything seemed mostly ok, so I was content to leave the car as is. It was time to focus on the interior, so I went to buy some seats from my friend, a pair of Sparco QRT-Vs out of his 930. I took the M3 because it was finally driving well enough for me to trust it, and frankly I was enjoying it more than my Acura.

    Leaving his house, I gave it a “little” gas because, well why not. At the top of third the whole car felt like it hit a wall, and when I came off throttle I could hear a horrifically rattling. The car also felt like it was slipping the clutch, like one of the clutch pads was missing and it was skipping. It was a really weird sensation, and the rattling noise from inside the car sounded like it was transmission. I managed to limp it a block home.

    Frustrated, and thinking it was clutch, I just sent it back to the shop that just did the clutch without digging any further. This is where everything went wrong for me honestly, I should have carved some time out to wrench and diagnose this issue myself.




    The shop came back and said, eh nah not clutch it must be a seized pulley. Red flags, alarms going off, this isnÂ’t at all consistent with a seized idler pulley. But I figured if they have the car in front of them, they must have taken the time to dig through it. I order the parts, overnight delivery and drop them off.




    So they take a couple days to do this (days... for pulleys), and then give me a call.

    “Well, honestly it changed nothing. And when I put on the belt I noticed your crank pulley was loose. Checked the bolt, it’s hand tight.”

    Well, shit.

    A few things, one this tracks with all the vibration issues IÂ’ve had. I suspect the pulley has been slightly loose since I purchased the car over a year ago. Under rapid load, it wiggles and shocks the drivetrain. Alarming for crank longevity, but letÂ’s ignore that. The other thing is, it is likely that I made the problem WORSE by going to a lightweight flywheel. Despite being a reputable brand and balanced piece, it appears that there is some documented history of this happening to others. The harmonics change, and if anything is loose it rattles it free on the engine.

    Solution?










    An extremely overpriced ATI Damper from VAC. For the record, after looking at this thing closely, I cannot imagine why this is so expensive. However it seems to be the only fool proof way to ensure this doesnÂ’t happen again. I also ordered new hardware, woodruff keys, pins etc.

    The logic was, as long as nothing was damaged on the crank snout, this (properly torqued to spec) would hold together much better than OEM with the added vibration of the LTW flywheel.

    LetÂ’s now ADD some complication to the situation. The shop where the car was refused to do this. They said they were uncomfortable being responsible for the repair, and hadnÂ’t done this before. 1. Alarming for a BMW specialty shop, 2. The car was still broken and I needed to move it. So I once again asked my friend to bring his Raptor and trailer over, and we hauled it back to my house. But weÂ’re still not out of the woods yet friends. I had the parts in hand, and I had the car, but to properly torque the center crank bolt, you need to hold the engine in place and crank it to 300ft/lbs. While IÂ’m capable of doing a lot here at home, I donÂ’t have the tools to hold the rotating assembly in place, nor do I own an torque wrench that goes anywhere near that rating.




    So yesterday the car hopped on yet another trailer, and it was off to a shop I knew could handle it. I should have gone there in the first place, they have been the only people I trust other than myself to work on my cars over the years. Literally in the same day, they had it done and running like new.




    That was taken this morning. It runs just as it should. I feel no difference with the ATI damper, other than the elusive vibration I have been chasing for a year is finally gone. I imagine another OEM damper would have done that, but itÂ’s impossible to buy a NOS one. So I had to pay a premium for this one.



    Takeaways
    So there you have it, the M3 is finally fixed. But at what cost?

    Here are my takeaways, and IÂ’m treating this as a learning experience. I went to a shop for all of this work because IÂ’ve been swamped with work and particularly unmotivated to wrench. I went to a shop I was unfamiliar with because of availability, and it bit me in the ass. I should have taken the time to go through the car myself. Even though it would have been sent to a shop regardless (due to a lack of proper tools) I would have saved two weeks of headaches and about $250 in parts I didnÂ’t need to change.

    IÂ’m stoked the M3 is 100% again, but what an annoying adventure to get there. You may publicly laugh at my stupidity

    I want to end on a high note though, so letÂ’s talk about something more fun. I bought new wheels!



    New Wheels
    My friends know me as a real wheel snob. I like old school, authentic and rare wheels, and have a particular disdain for replicas and knock offs. Since I bought the M3, IÂ’ve had this idea kicking around my head to run a specific wheel. But there were some challenges in doing this. 5x120 as a bolt pattern sucks, the quality wheels are limited and the really cool stuff is horrifically expensive IF it shows up at all. Someone show me 5x120 concave TE37s that have sold recently. You just canÂ’t find them.

    Likewise, adapters are not my thing. Not only does it give you limited room for good fitment, my experience with them has been sketchy at best. Though I know plenty of people have run them without issue, itÂ’s just simply a no-go for me.

    I found, just by random chance, a company in New York called Core4 Motorsports that actually make redrilled E36 M3 hubs. They sell this as a kit, but I reached out to Tom, the owner, and he was willing to sell me just the hubs and a template to redrill my E46 rotors. TheyÂ’re actually in route now, and will be here next week, but I had to explain that these were coming to make this next part make sense.




    Here’s a teaser for my new wheels. Yes, for those in the know, these are Regamasters. They are one of my favorite wheels of all time, and I can’t wait to get these on the M3. While I’m certainly not the first to do this, I hope my take will be unique.

    I’ll have more to talk about these soon, but I thought it’d be fun to share here.

    So that’s my update. I actually have even more to talk about, but I’m going to pace myself. So stay tuned.

    And for everyone, because I feel like I owe more photos to this thread, my second pair of Regas arrived. I had to source two pairs to get a square setup (more on fitment later). These are in a little rougher condition, with some minor rash but it should refinish nicely. I dropped them off for refinishing yesterday, so hopefully in the next week or two I'll have them back.








    Side note, my daily driver has one of the most useless wagon hatches ever. The shock towers come so far into the cabin you can't fit four wheels laid down on their side without folding down a seat. Oh well.


    Parts Collecting Pt. 21.5
    Not a lot of substantial updates, but parts are trickling in. And I did a few things.

    Prior to sending the wheels off to be refinished I did fit them on the M3. Just a mock up to see clearances.








    Looks great, fits pretty well. My Brembos do add a bit of headache, since it just barely interferes. Looks like a 3mm spacer will fix that, so no huge deal.








    My Core4 hubs have arrived. I neglected to also order all the rear bearing parts, so those are en route from FCP. Regardless, I now have the parts in hand that will make the whole 5x114.3 swap possible.




    New tires arrived as well. I went with Dunlop Direzza ZIIIs. Substantially beefier than the Hankooks on my car now.

    Alright, nothing substantial beyond that, but weÂ’re getting there.

    Fitment is an Art Form












    So IÂ’ll start with a photo dump. Took some days off work, went back road bombing with a friend of mine. I think IÂ’ve showed his car before, but itÂ’s a 500whp widow maker. Needless to say, alignment problems or not, the M3 does not keep up.




    So a small problem on the Regas. I took them to get powder coated. The two black ones had just been “redone” by the previous owner, and when my guy stripped them all back it was clear they were blasted to hell. He was able to smooth them out and make them look pretty good, but some of the grain and roughness now shows through. You can’t see it unless you’re a foot away, but annoying. Very annoying.

    Regardless, I think they turned out awesome.




    This morning I went and got the tires put on. 245/40r17 Dunlop ZIIIs if anyone is digging this thread for fitment information haha.




    I also went a little crazy on finding Rega center caps. Spot the two white ones that someone promise were silver?

    But this gives me enough to make one passable clean set. IÂ’ll be polishing those tomorrow and putting them on the wheels.












    Some more fitment goodness for you. So I had secretly hoped I could get away with a small spacer to clear the brakes and keep things tight to the hub. But IÂ’m an idiot, and never accounted for the bulk a 245 tire puts in the space. With a 3mm spacer, the tire hits the strut. At 5mm it maybe clears? I tried a 10mm as well, which pulls the tire away from the strut more than enough, but then we start running into fender problems. IÂ’m counting on camber solving that.

    So thereÂ’s another test fit, I know itÂ’s getting boring but weÂ’re getting close. Hub swap next, then we get them on for good.

    Test Fit
    So the day has come. My hubs are on, the car is officially 5x114.3 and I can test fit these wheels I have been preparing for what seems like forever. One small note, I did get these wheels professionally ceramic coated. I figured I've gone to all this trouble so far, and my brakes generate so much dust, I may as well get them protected while they are fresh out of powder coat. No photos of this because, well they look exactly the same before and after haha. I've never done this before though, so I'm looking forward to seeing what difference they make in a real world applicated. I struggle to keep my fifteen52s at all clean, so it's definitely something I hope makes a big difference. But enough on that, here's the good stuff.






    Here's the front and rears for you. You can see on the front, both patterns are usable at any time. On the rear, you have to rotate the rotor to change patterns. But both 5x120 and 5x114.3 are in fact usable on the car itself. That's a big deal for me, because I'm sure I'll find 5x120 wheels I'll want to swap to at some point. Or possibly even stocks when I'm feeling extra OEM. My wheel addiction knows no bounds, this has opened up a world of bad decisions for me.










    So there's the first test fit, and the wheels on the car fully bolted on and on it's own weight. I'm stoked, I can't explain how cool this is to me. Bolt pattern swaps are something I've talked about for years, which is stupid but true. I keep getting into cars with bolt patterns that just don't have cool options. Or, at least not as easily and widely available as 114.3. I would have killed for 4x114.3 conversion hubs for my Miata. I'm fairly anti-adapter after some bad experiences with them in the past, so really this is the best solution. Plus I now have fresh wheel bearings at all corners. It didn't need them, but I have them. So that's kind of nice.

    In terms of fitment itself, in these photos I have an 8mm spacer up front, and no spacer in the rear. With my current alignment, it's about flush in the front and 100% rubbing in the rear. I need to realign the car as previously discussed, and I'm hoping that'll solve some of the clearance in the rear. In the front, I'm planning on adding camber, which to me says I'll probably need to step up to a 10mm spacer to accommodate for the fitment change.

    So up next I plan to send the car off to get aligned to more aggressive specs, and then test fit again. If it fits, great, if not it'll need more fender rolling in the rear. Then I need to, and this is the shittiest part so far, order custom spacers. Not because 8mm spacers are hard to find, but rather hub centric BMW spacers in 5x114.3 are non existent. I don't want any wobble or vibration on the freeway, and the only way I can think to do this is order spacers that are 5x114.3 but with a 72.56mm hub bore. The Regas are miraculously a 73.1mm hub bore, which means I can add a centering shim (I ran them on the fifteen52s as well) and I'll be in good shape.

    Rare Parts
    Small update, but I ordered these tail lights direct from Germany a month or so ago. They finally arrived, authentic InPro sedan clears. Not 100% sure how I feel about them yet though.






    Took some time to test them out on the car yesterday evening. I had OEM euro tails on the car, and I loved the look. So that's probably why I'm so conflicted.








    More photos to come soon, just wanted to post these while I was thinking about it.
    Bonus Shots


    Took my M3 over to my friends house today real briefly to reroll the rear fenders. I took exactly zero pictures of this process because we were speeding through it. My fenders were like "half rolled" before. Clearly someone had started the process, but they really didn't try all that hard to make them really flat. Prior to this, the Rega was tire on fender, now it has a little breathing room. Post-realignment, they should fit perfectly.




    Some bonus photos though. First being with the Rega and the tail light together. I only brought one wheel with me to his house, so that's the best I could get. The second, just admiring how the car looks now with the tails. It's grown on me a lot pretty quickly. Spacers should (hopefully) be here next week for the front. Likewise, alignment should happen then too. So then I'll finally be in business.



    Feels Good
    I love it when a plan comes together.










    Off to alignment on Wednesday. Adding camber all the way around, removing toe up front. But I am so happy with how this looks.

    The Struggle
    So these last two weeks have been kind of annoying and a definite struggle for the M3. While I was beyond happy with how the Rega project turned out, it was immediately followed by some really shit luck. After getting the wheels on, I decided it was time for a realignment. I wanted to adjust my previous alignment mistakes, and get this sitting exactly how I wanted. Now admittedly, the car is low but looking at clearances I had hoped my new alignment would give me the breathing room I wanted. So I booked an appointment and took the car in.

    This is where things went very wrong. For those of you who don’t live in Phoenix, AZ: we have exactly three places you can take a low car for an alignment. Only one of those is remotely close to me (and still 30 minutes away). I had previously taken the M3 there when it was on the Fifteen52s, and while I wasn’t blown away by their service, they got the job done. What more could you ask for?

    I dropped the car off first thing in the morning, and by mid-afternoon I got a phone call.

    “Pick your shit up, we aren’t working on this”

    Not how I wanted my afternoon to go. The owner of the shop started yelling at me over the phone to get my car out of his shop. I couldn’t make heads or tails of the call, and finally got him to calm down enough to explain why. His tech was inexperienced in driving lowered cars, and there is a very substantial curb you have to go over to enter the alignment bay. The tech turns the wheel full lock, and (at speed) goes over the bump. This unrolled and ruined my fender.








    So now I’m in a weird position. The owner of the shop is heated at me because I brought a low car to his speciality low-car and exotics alignment shop.

    I had to talk him down from a cliff, and get him to align the car anyways. It took them over 24 hours (he had to keep the car over night), and the next morning I went to get it and the alignment visually looked off. They did nothing to address the fender, and while the owner apologized for the damage he also lectured me on how tight my clearances were on the car and how much he hates dealing with low cars.

    Again, his shop is advertised (and his social media presence shows) they only deal with enthusiast cars, track cars, exotics and so on.

    I get home, threw the fifteen52s back on until I could sort this mess and went for a drive that evening.




    Something was definitely off with the alignment, and I was still none to happy about the fender. So I gave my friend a call who just happened to get some alignment plates in for doing things himself. He agreed to help me fix the fender and realign the front of the car.




    What we discovered is the shop basically only added camber to the front passenger wheel, and adjusted the rear toe. They did absolutely nothing else. The driver’s side wheel was at -2.0, the passenger -3.8. It had overall toe out. So I raised the car a hair, and we redid the front alignment. This was our first time aligning a car, but actually we ultimately got the front toe near zero, and the camber is now reading -3.8 per side up front. As for the fender, it still looks bad with the cracked paint, but at least it’s flat now. We used a hammer and dolly to take out some of the flair and damage underneath.




    My custom 8mm spacers arrived as well. As it turns out there are no 5x114.3 spacers with a BMW hub bore on the market. So I ordered a set of 8mm and 10mm for the car. I only need the 8mm for now, though I may change it to 10mm later if I’m feeling extra dangerous.




    I was also able to obtain a Scmiedmann LTW wing from a friend of mine. He bought it and shipped it in from Germany, but just sold his M3. He already got all the body work and primer done, so it just needs a color match at this point. I had about given up on finding a good LTW wing, so I’m very pleased with this buy. I’m now on the fence if I should color match and put it on now, or wait until the car gets repainted later. I’m impatient but you know... it looks so cool.

    So there’s the update for now. I can live with fender damage and the embarrassment of driving around the car like that when it’s my fault, but in this case it was just a shady shop and idiot kid that ruined my day. Fortunately eventually it’ll be permanently resolved when the car gets painted, but in the meantime I’m still pretty bummed.


    Vaders
    Title obvious, I bought Vaders. Some background on how we ended up here. I do not love Vaders, for a number of reasons. They look cool, but they’re so heavy, and actually kind of unsupportive for the amount of bolstering they have. But, after the Sparco fail, I really needed something for the M3. My friend Shane was back in town and is actually going down the Recaro bucket route himself, and so he agreed to sell me his seats at a great price.

    They’re manual, non-heated Vaders. To everyone else, the best version, for me I’m slightly disappointed to be losing power seats and butt warmers. But they look great in the car, and after a drive around the block I think they’re keepers. Any complaint I have (weight, bolstering, etc.) is negated by the fact that my M3 is, and always will be, a street car. For longer road trips, I’ll definitely be happier in this than a bucket seat. Also having the flexibility to position them around as necessary is a bonus.








    The primary reason I had to have new seats is the gears in the sport seats were all stripped out, and were stuck at a horrible lean. While drivable, it’s definitely not ideal. While I could have replaced the gears, I can’t correct the slightly bent drivers frame. It really sat all out of whack. For the price I paid for these seats and the immediate added comfort to the car, I’m pleased with my purchase. What I’m not pleased it trying to install these damn anchors with an injured back. I pulled my back a couple weeks ago, and it was pure misery wrestling these monsters into the car haha.

    I think 2021 is going to be the year of paint and interior. I would like to get everything reupholstered, the headliner needs redoing, and I just ordered a part that is totally not needed but will force me to rip apart everything in there anyways. But after all of the work I have planned, I’ll be just an S54 swap away from my dream car.
    Just For Fun


    I picked up some wheels for my TSX daily, but now I’m having second thoughts putting them on the wagon. For shits and giggles I put them on the M3 (hey, gotta make use of that 5x114.3 conversion right?). Now I kind of just want to keep these for the M3 as track wheels














    They’re 18x9.5 et38 Rays Gram Light 57dr wheels. Found them for a good deal in Tucson, a couple hours drive from me. I had purchased them with putting them on my CW2 daily driver, but late night boredom had me test fitting on the M3. From what I read a 255/35 tire will squeeze under the fenders. Though I’m noticing even with my 8mm spacer up front it looks like tires will foul with the strut. Possibly need 10mm but that doesn’t quite line up with what I’m reading online with others who have run similar spec. Any E36 guys here run a similar spec?

    I’ve been wanting to go do a few track days this year, but I’m admittedly a little hesitant to track on the Regas just because if anything does happen to them they are such a pain to replace. 57drs are a dime a dozen, easily replaced if a curb claims them. This is all just a thought experiment for now, but I figured some wheel pics were appropriate for these Forums haha.



    I Bought a Dash
    And I don't know how I feel about it now. I've been on the hunt for a non-airbag dash for my m3 for a while now. I just like the look a little better, and it has some STW heritage, as the race cars also used them from the reference photos I've found. There are no substantial weight savings to be had, and no other good reason to do this, but I had it in my mind that I must get a non-airbag dash. Then I found this one on eBay, instant buy.










    It was cheap, very cheap but seemed in fair enough condition to take a gamble on. Only one blemish was obvious from the photos, and when I got it, I was a little disappointed to realize it had a much longer crack stemming off of that. I thought about it for a bit, and considered redying it and running it as is, but I didn't want to take out a non-cracked dash just to put in a damaged one to get rid of the air bag. I don't love it. I was talking to a friend, and he suggested reaching out to dash repair places and seeing if it was fixable. He had a small crack on his LS400 dash repaired and was pleased with it, so I thought maybe that was a good route. A few places I called weren't interested in dealing with it, it wasn't their main business and they didn't want to even attempt. However I found one shop that was more than happy to take it on. They quoted me $150, and said to bring it on by. It took a couple weeks for whatever reason, but I did eventually get it back.








    And some comparison shots:








    At first glance, wow what a transformation. They redyed the whole thing, and resurfaced the area on top of the cluster. I threw it in the back of my wagon, headed home and then really started looking at it. It's rough. LITERALLY rough. Like the texture of it is rough. Running your hands over it, it has almost a bedliner/sandpaper type feel to the recovered area. Now, visually it's fine, a bit different from OEM but probably not noticed by anyone other than me. But, I know it's wrong, and that bugs me.

    I think the moved will be to continue hunting for a NOS dashboard. If this were a track car, or even just a car I cared a little less about I would absolutely run it, but I really don't want to put less than perfect into this car. I may sell this dash, or keep it as a back up. Really unsure what my move is quite yet. So there's the story of restoring a dashboard and then, at the final minute, deciding it isn't good enough.

    Edit: Bonus shitty photos because I don't really post much visual interest in this thread.











    Full Circle - Visiting HQ
    It's been a while, I've been busy with life and other projects but have been planning on a big change for the M3. A little bit ago Mike Burroughs posted he was selling a set of E36 coilovers, a gnarly set of H&R NR-RS Nordschliefe spec coilovers that is. This is essentially track only suspension, which was originally ordered for my specific M3 when Riley owned it. I passed on buying the suspension when I bought the car and it sat for a couple years on the shelf. When it popped up for sale, I couldn't help but feel like it belonged back with the car it was built for. So after some thought, I caved and sent him some money. Mike suggested that I bring the M3 back to his shop for an install, since he's stockpiling E36 content for the YouTube channel right now, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to head out to California for the weekend and get the M3 sorted. But before that, the M3 decided to remind me that it was a BMW still and refused to go without a fight.








    It's tough to see in the photos, but while going over the car I found the expansion tank was cracked. Of course it would start to fail just before needing to drive 1000+ miles in a weekend. Easy enough, I ordered a new one and got it slapped in. That said, for those of you who have ever bled the cooling system of an E36 will know I didn't have a fun time after that. For whatever reason it developed an air bubble deep in the system that I just couldn't fully burp. It took three tries and numerous drives around town to finally get the car fully bled.







    (The above two are videos, I think you have to click to play them)

    On top of that, the aux fan had been seized for quite some time. I'm rather embarrassed to admit I forgot it had gone bad, but knowing that I would be stuck in traffic at some point in California, it reminded me to finally change that out. The other fan was so seized it popped the fuse from sheer overload. Yikes. So fresh one in, cleaned up some zip ties and tightened some bolts and mechanically I was good to go.








    Prior to this I actually changed out my exhaust as well. If you go back through the thread you'll remember I put on a UUC SystemU DTM tip exhaust. It was fine for the most part, but the exhaust was much too loud for me. I hadn't planned on driving to California yet when I swapped this out, but it ended up working out massively in my favor. I ordered a Stromung cat back on the recommendation of a few others. I very much miss the look of the DTM tips, but the drone from the UUC was driving me absolutely nuts. The Stromung still makes a good noise without being unbearable at highway cruising speeds. Additionally the old exhaust went back on incorrectly thanks to the fab shop that did my trailing arm reinforcement and it melted my rear diffuser pretty significantly. Fortunately I have a new one on the shelf ready to go on, but we were able to correct how that was hanging now with the new Stromung and it isn't melting plastic anymore.




    Onto the fun stuff of this update though. Last Friday I took the day off work, loaded up the M3 and headed out to California. For reference, I live in Phoenix, AZ and it's about 400 miles to Costa Mesa where Stanceworks HQ is. The drive out was uneventful fortunately, and I made it in one piece. Shortly after I was at the SW shop, my car was going on the lift and suspension was getting installed.








    One significant thing to note is the camber plate situation. With my Regamasters, I basically have to run -3.5 degrees of camber up front to clear. Minimum. There is little to no information about these coilovers online, and I wasn't sure what camber plates would be compatible with the struts and they do not come with plates out of the box. Mike took some measurements for me and I sent this all off to Vorshlag who recommended which of their plates to buy. They're pretty rad pieces, both camber and caster adjustable, but came with one fatal flaw. We test fit the plates as soon as I got to the shop, and we discovered that the strut top nut wasn't correct. The threads were about twice as large as the actual strut, which is about worst case scenario. It's easier to make something bigger, but the reverse pretty much leaves us stuck. I had brought stock strut tops just in case something didn't work out, but obviously that wasn't an ideal solution. Mike went to a nearby machine shop and they made new nuts from scratch in about an hour. I'm still blown away that they knocked that out of the park so quickly with no other instructions. It's a fairly complicated piece too, as it has a shaft to center the whole assembly on the strut itself. The new custom pieces fit perfect, and absolutely saved the day.








    The suspension got installed. It's worth noting, I did not turn a single wrench. A massive thank you to
    Khalil
    who hammered out the install much faster than I could have on my own. After driving all day to California, I was a little relieved to just chill and hang out, but I still feel a little guilty for not being able to help haha. The suspension itself went in without a lot of hassle, minus the one custom piece that had to be made to combine the two brands of parts, it went together perfectly.






    While hanging out, I actually ended up finding a home for my old Fortune Autos. That same evening they went on to
    Richie's
    Dakar convertible. So that evening ended up being pretty E36 intensive. The guys ended up hammering out the install in like an hour, which was wild to me. Pictured in the background is my friend
    Blake's
    new E90 M3, that has probably ruined my S2000 for me. I thought my Honda was hot-shit until I went for a ride along in that monster.




    This was the final ride height I settled on. I'm pretty risk-adverse and refused to slam the car on the grounds that I was worried I'd rub through the tires or smash the lip on an expansion joint. Everyone rightly pointed out there's no way that was happening on these insanely stiff springs, but this was where we ended up. In retrospect, everyone was right. I could have driven with the frame rails on the ground and still been fine, but I guess some peace of mind with the drive home was nice.












    The following morning I went to hang out with my friend
    Shane
    . He has a rad Dakar coupe, and we took the cars out to the Malibu canyons for an afternoon of cruising. Because my alignment was hilariously off post-suspension swap, I didn't push the car hard (on center steering was non-existent) but I still had a great time enjoying the weather and cruising around the Malibu area.








    His roommate
    Keenan
    joined us, and took some really stunning photos of my M3. Despite the road grime and sludge coating it from all the driving, it looks awesome in these shots.

    So there's my M3 packed weekend. The car made the drive home without incident and is now safely parked while I recover from putting over 1000 miles on in that weekend. I will say, the H&R suspension is baller, but insanely stiff. It's really designed for track only applications, and needs a lot of fine tuning. The spring rates are through the roof, and California roads specifically make it brutal to drive around town. I feel like I've been run over by a truck today. That said, once I got back into Phoenix (where our roads are a little better maintained) the suspension became pretty compliant and a non-issue. Up next, I need to obviously align the car and adjust a bunch of things post-trip. I discovered things I want to redo, and after talking to the guys at the shop I think I have a good idea of the direction I need to head in with the car next.

    A very special thanks to Mike for the hospitality and opening his shop to me. I had a blast that weekend, and it was great catching up with some old friends and making some new ones. Hopefully more updates on the M3 soon, I'm definitely motivated to make some more progress on the car now.

    We are now caught up to the same point my other thread is at. I'm currently hunting for a healthy S54, and ordering parts like mad to swap the car.

    Comment


      #3
      S54 No Shit

      Well, I was finally able to get my hands on an S54. Some backstory to this, because outside of this build thread I have been hunting quite a bit for an S54. But I thought it'd be interesting to document the whole story of how this came about. After my trip to install the new coilovers, I came to the conclusion that really I like my M3 more than any S2000, and I was being an idiot splitting my time between two projects. For the money I tied up in the S2000, I could have very easily swapped my M3 and then some. So without any hesitation, I listed the S2000 for sale and off it went. It was a no brainer to me, and as good as an S2000 is overall, it doesn't resonate with me nearly as much as my E36 does.
      I started posting everywhere, and had a few S54s pop up here and there, but it seems the current market for them is hot and finding one is difficult at best. I put a deposit on one in Oakland with the plan to fly up and drive it back to Phoenix. It was a total builder, but was arguably going to be worth it as the end result would have been a 0 mile S54. I sent a deposit, booked a flight, and then the seller disclosed some information about the headwork that was done that completely killed the viability of the engine for me. Essentially it was a gnarly race-grade head, and the only way to run it was to delete Vanos. Not something I was willing to do, and not something he seemed to fully understand. So I bailed on that and kept posting everywhere I could. Finally a WTB post got me a DM on Instagram, @wtcc_e46 reached out to me about selling his engine package that he had been debating selling for some time.
      The deal was take everything (carbon intake box and all), and frankly put me in a position to get this swap done faster than originally planned. So I rented a van, and drove out to LA for nearly the third weekend in a row to pick up the engine.














      The last shot there is his gnarly race car he's building. The engine was destined for that, pulled from a donor 2002 E46 m3 he had purchased, but after some thought he needed to finish the chassis prep first and the S54 was another project he didn't have time for just yet. I understand the struggle completely, same reason the S2000 is now gone. We loaded up everything into the van, as sketchy as that loading looks the engine didn't budge the 6 hour drive back home. Included with the engine was all the wiring, cluster, DME and so on, then the stock intake as well as a Turner Motorsports CSL style intake plenum. He even included the engine stand in the purchase price.
      I have also been quietly stock piling parts on the side since I started my swap hunt. I've been buying general things I know I'll need or want, to avoid running into issues with delays.













      So far I've sourced nearly the entire cooling system, I'm going with Z3M units across the board. I have a new radiator, a Euro E36 expansion take (with OE weld in brackets), and all the bits to make that work. For wiring, I have a Redline Motorsports adapter harness, and a brand new S54 Z3M engine harness to locate the DME to the correct location. I also purchase the Bimmerworld exhaust adapters, to allow S54 headers to meet up to my Stromung catback with no issue. I've been purchasing every gasket, o-ring and seal I can possibly get my hands on, and I also had a Z3M gauge cluster cloned. I got this made by @busterhax to essentially retain OBD2 functionality as well as AC. The S54 Z3M cluster is usually the go to, as the canbus routes through this to make those functions work. However these units are NLA and extremely expensive even if you can find them. Kyle can clone this functionality into a Z3 non-M cluster (specific part number: 62116901516), and then swaps the gauge faces for the appropriate S54 redline. The end result is a cluster that will make the swap work without hacky work-arounds. Two small things to note with this, he no longer offers gray gauge faces (that's fine, I prefer the black ones anyways) and you have to supply your own red cluster needles. Non-M clusters come with clear/white needles, and all M cars have red needles. To fix this problem, I purchased another E36 m3 cluster locally (so I didn't have to use my own), pulled the needles and sent them out to Kyle to install.







      A lot of time and effort, but I would argue well worth it. Small details like this are what I enjoy the most haha. So now the Z3M-clone cluster is back in hand and all ready to go.







      Of course I am an idiot for deciding to start this whole process just as Arizona starts Summer. So I'll have to suffer through this whole build process in 117F temps, but I suppose it's all worth it. Current plan is to bullet proof this engine by doing VAC coated rod bearings and all new Vanos throughout. I'll reseal the whole engine so it's fresh and free of any leaks, and clean up the engine itself so it's shiny and ready to go in. I have some more parts to order obviously and I'll be sending out some pieces for additional work to prep for the swap. But I think the end result will be worth it. I'm particularly excited about the Turner carbon airbox, though I have heard some mixed reviews on it. I think the CSL intake makes the whole swap worthwhile, that induction noise is to die for.
      Progress may be slow, but as with any of my projects on this car I will deliver one way or another. Since I bought it, an S54 has always been the goal for my M3. So having one in hand is extremely exciting.

      Comment


        #4
        Excited to see this thing buttoned up, S54 E36s rarely disappoint.

        Comment


          #5
          super entertaining. good work!

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