Announcement

**bwwaaaa** · 05-29-2021, 10:13 PM

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:

Some alignment changes are needed.
This exhaust is annoying as hell around 4-5K RPM.
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 IÂ’m hoping to get my headliner done next month. So in relatively short order we should have a solid Â“Stage OneÂ” 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 Â“wobbleÂ” 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 Â“littleÂ” 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.

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

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 Â“redoneÂ” 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 canÂ’t see it unless youÂ’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.

**bwwaaaa** · 06-13-2021, 09:31 PM

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.

**philohlean** · 08-22-2021, 01:46 PM

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

**MotorSportThree** · 08-22-2021, 02:40 PM

super entertaining. good work!

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Started Off Simple: E36 M3 Sedan

Started Off Simple: E36 M3 Sedan

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