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heinzboehmer's 2002 Topaz 6MT Coupe

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  • heinzboehmer
    replied
    Originally posted by karter16 View Post
    Very cool, I'm very curious to hear what the answer is with regards to the base 10/16 thing - that's weird!
    Yeah it's bizarre. I need to go look at the actual IBus command being sent to double check that I'm using the library correctly, but it seems fine after a quick glance through the code.

    Experienced a bit of tunnel vision with base16 thing yesterday, but now that I think about it, the behavior as a whole of this feature is not at all what I expected. This is meant to be implemented as a "X m/ft remaining until next turn" thing, so I would have expected the cluster to scale the data in the incoming command by 10 (or maybe even 100), to save on message length. Not entirely sure in what situation "turn left in 3m" would be useful...

    Also, the fact that it does the weird base16 thing and maxes out at uint8 means that it only displays up to 165. Again, when would numbers that small be useful?

    I did have to code the cluster with NCS to have it react to the commands, so maybe there's some scaling option I missed that I can use to my advantage. Ooor maybe there's some flags hidden in the upper bits. We'll see.

    Originally posted by rtrules View Post
    That's a cool find.I always wanted to retrofit a oil pressure gauge to my car, and I think the integration in the business CD would be perfect regarding placement to see it at a glance. Not sure if it makes sense with refresh rate though.
    Yeah, refresh rate on K bus would not be great. You can do CAN (and even analog) with something like Gauge.S, which might be a better platform for it.

    Originally posted by rtrules View Post
    Also wanted to give feedback regarding your firewall plug, a friend of mine and me both printed and installed it in our cars. It definitely improves the sound of the airbox, so that's a super cool mod. +1 on amazing print quality with pet-cf and 1.2kg saved :-)
    Did you also scan the original cabin air filter housing? Would be another way to save some weight.
    Nice! That's awesome to hear.

    I do have a scan of the cabin air filter housing, but I did not recreate that piece in CAD. I used the scan as a reference to base the design of my modified filter housing on.

    Here's the scan if you want to use it for anything: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/7e...fe3bf8e81c64d2

    (link should take you directly to it, but if it doesn't, it's "E46 Cabin Air Filter Housing" inside the "References" folder)

    Originally posted by George Hill View Post
    IDK what you are talking about this whole project is full of beauty shots.
    Ha, fair enough. I do think it's probably worth busting out the DSLR and grabbing some decent pics of the setup, instead of shitty, low light phone pics.

    Originally posted by Keith_MN View Post
    Any pics of this mount w/o the phone? This is on my list, not sure what i want to use.
    Originally posted by oceansize View Post
    Post 580

    Factory Specs Production date: 2002-04-16 Type Code: BL93 Body Type: Coupe Transmission: 6MT Exterior Color: Topasblau (364) Interior: Powered, lumbar, non-heated, black nappa (N5SW) Options: Sunroof, HK, CD53 Misc: MK20, MSS54, M11 rod bolts Mods Non-m, silver outside, black slat kidney grills Apex EC-7 18x8.5



    I like this one too:

    https://www.rennline.com/exactfit-ma...nt-sku-pm01-69
    oceansize beat me to it. It isn't really all that pretty, but it's designed to be functional and somewhat easy to print. If I won't be using my phone, I just remove the mount from the vent and throw it in the glovebox. One of my requirements when designing this was that it should be installable/removable in single digit number of seconds.

    Leave a comment:


  • oceansize
    replied
    Originally posted by Keith_MN View Post

    Any pics of this mount w/o the phone? This is on my list, not sure what i want to use.
    Post 580

    Factory Specs Production date: 2002-04-16 Type Code: BL93 Body Type: Coupe Transmission: 6MT Exterior Color: Topasblau (364) Interior: Powered, lumbar, non-heated, black nappa (N5SW) Options: Sunroof, HK, CD53 Misc: MK20, MSS54, M11 rod bolts Mods Non-m, silver outside, black slat kidney grills Apex EC-7 18x8.5



    I like this one too:

    Last edited by oceansize; 04-09-2026, 05:16 AM.

    Leave a comment:


  • Keith_MN
    replied
    Originally posted by heinzboehmer View Post


    If I do want to pull up a map, I just use my phone on a mount up on the dash. I printed this thing and really like where it puts the screen:

    Click image for larger version

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    Any pics of this mount w/o the phone? This is on my list, not sure what i want to use.

    Leave a comment:


  • George Hill
    replied
    Originally posted by heinzboehmer View Post
    Turns out the painter who's gonna paint these parts is on vacation until next week. No big deal, but the final beauty shots are slightly delayed.
    IDK what you are talking about this whole project is full of beauty shots.

    Leave a comment:


  • rtrules
    replied
    Also wanted to give feedback regarding your firewall plug, a friend of mine and me both printed and installed it in our cars. It definitely improves the sound of the airbox, so that's a super cool mod. +1 on amazing print quality with pet-cf and 1.2kg saved :-)
    Did you also scan the original cabin air filter housing? Would be another way to save some weight.

    Leave a comment:


  • rtrules
    replied
    That's a cool find.
    I always wanted to retrofit a oil pressure gauge to my car, and I think the integration in the business CD would be perfect regarding placement to see it at a glance. Not sure if it makes sense with refresh rate though.

    Leave a comment:


  • karter16
    replied
    Originally posted by heinzboehmer View Post
    I still don't exactly understand why the number displayed in the cluster doesn't follow the number sent to it via IBus, but that's a question for later. It seems to be counting in base 16, but displaying in pseudo-base 10, super weird.
    Very cool, I'm very curious to hear what the answer is with regards to the base 10/16 thing - that's weird!

    Leave a comment:


  • heinzboehmer
    replied
    This is cool:



    The factory nav can display the distance to the next turn in the cluster, so I figured I could exploit this capability and display whatever I want (well, mostly) by sending IBus messages with my BlueBus. As per usual, Ted's codebase is awesome, so there's already a function to handle this.

    Here's my horribly hacky proof of concept code that you see running in the video:

    Click image for larger version

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    I still don't exactly understand why the number displayed in the cluster doesn't follow the number sent to it via IBus, but that's a question for later. It seems to be counting in base 16, but displaying in pseudo-base 10, super weird.

    I tried with a uint16 as well, but the number in the cluster reset back to 0 once ike_i went above 255. I think I'll sweep through a uint64 just to see if there's any interesting behavior from the cluster with the higher numbers, but I doubt I'll find anything.

    Anyway, the real question is what to do with this newfound capability. I'm thinking that displaying the current gear might be a good starting point. My Gauge.S already calculates that, so just need to figure out how to get the info from it to the BlueBus and should be good to go.

    A friend also suggested adding a "do not downshift" indicator, where some extra symbol is displayed next to the current gear whenever downshifting would result in an overrev. Seems like symbols are off the table, but I might be able to rapidly flash the displayed gear or something along those lines. We'll see.

    Leave a comment:


  • heinzboehmer
    replied
    Turns out the painter who's gonna paint these parts is on vacation until next week. No big deal, but the final beauty shots are slightly delayed.

    The car has no front bracing installed at all right now and I'm kinda excited to drive it around like that for a bit, especially after becoming used to the stiffened chassis. Will report back on driving experience.

    Coincidentally, I just got word that the mill is back up and running, so I'll get a chance to mill the last two slots before paint. After looking at everything yesterday, I really dont think the milling is at all necessary, but I've already done one side and the asymmetry is gonna bother me forever if I don't do the other.

    Leave a comment:


  • maupineda
    replied
    New mounts will make it worse, engine would raise a bit v worn / used ones. Fillet was the right choice for sure

    Leave a comment:


  • heinzboehmer
    replied
    Originally posted by Obioban View Post
    Suspect it’s time you get new engine mounts.
    They're a couple years (maybe 10k mi?) old.

    I think I just didn't leave enough clearance. The stock part tucks up a lot up front, but I left more material on mine because the cutout for the braces makes it a bit floppier. The radius I added yesterday gives an extra 8 mm of clearance and should keep the part's stiffness pretty much unchanged.

    Leave a comment:


  • Obioban
    replied
    Suspect it’s time you get new engine mounts.

    Leave a comment:


  • heinzboehmer
    replied
    Well, the brackets have survived 500 street miles and a track day. Think I'm gonna call that a tentative success. Time will tell how quickly these will fatigue, but I'm not too worried about them.

    Here's what they look like now:

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    No cracks, no weird witness marks and all fasteners still torqued to spec. Off to paint!

    I did notice one other thing though. Looks like the cabin air filter housing is dynamically contacting the PCV hose on top of the engine:

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    Fixed in CAD by adding a big fillet to the front, similar to how the BMW part is designed:

    Click image for larger version

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    I was feeling too lazy to reprint/reassemble this part, so I tried heating up the one I have and making some clearance manually. That didn't work at all, so came up with a genius strategy: ignore!

    I'll probably eventually reprint this, but the interference is minor and I'm not all that worried about it. I'll throw some tesa tape or similar on the part so that it doesn't cut through the PCV hose and it should be fine.

    Leave a comment:


  • heinzboehmer
    replied
    Originally posted by oceansize View Post
    no C/C++ as I'm not in the embedded world or OS focused
    Checks out, cause that's exactly where I'm in

    Originally posted by George Hill View Post
    Love it! I'd rather use my phone for nav than have an aftermarket stereo.
    Fully agree!
    Last edited by heinzboehmer; 03-30-2026, 09:55 AM.

    Leave a comment:


  • oceansize
    replied
    Originally posted by George Hill View Post

    Love it! I'd rather use my phone for nav than have an aftermarket stereo.
    I bought a cheap blue tooth receiver to plug into the auxiliary jack while I mull it over. At least I have my music now.
    Last edited by oceansize; 03-29-2026, 02:22 PM.

    Leave a comment:

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