heinzboehmer's 2002 Topaz 6MT Coupe

[heinzboehmer]

The spacers worked great as a quick, easy and cheap fix for the lower front ride height that I didn't want, but I realize they don't make sense for everyone.

The exhaust clamps are 100% worth it. Super cheap and took like 10 min to install.

[heinzboehmer]

When I found both lower wishbone to subframe bolts loose, I torqued them back up, but was only able to get a torque wrench in on the passenger side. Driver's side I did using the double wrench thing. Wasn't too confident that it was torqued properly, so I bought a stubby socket. Surprisingly, it still wouldn't fit, so I had to cut the thing down:





Barely any socket left after that, but it worked! Still need to fix the subframe with the mending plates, but that will come later.

After that, I was pulling out of a parking spot and heard/felt a crunch when turning the steering wheel. It only did it once, so I figured it wasn't an issue. However, on the way back home, I noticed that none of my steering wheel controls were working. So I took things apart and found this:



Somehow one of the clock spring ribbon connectors failed. I didn't get an airbag light, but nothing else on the steering wheel worked. I guess the signal wires for the airbag are on the ribbon that didn't fail.

Was halfway through soldering the thing back on when I decided that I didn't want to risk driving around with a non-functional airbag:



Fine, I'll give BMW the stupid $200 that they want for a new one.

Also, the thing was surprisingly annoying to take apart. Here's how I did it for documentation purposes:

[heinzboehmer]

Was reading through the BlueBus thread and saw that some people were adding ground loop isolators to theirs. My throttle actuator seems to add a fair amount of interference, so I bought the necessary connectors + the isolator and made one real quick.

The isolator came with a 3.5mm male to male wire, so I cut that in half and crimped terminals to the cut ends. Ted mentioned that the car side connector needs both ground pins populated, so made sure to do that:







Fortunately all of Ted's stuff is open source, so no need to go probing with a multimeter to find out what is what. Instead, I just pulled up the schematics and based everything on that: https://cadlab.io/project/1479/maste...ZUJ1cy5zY2g%3D

Difference is huge. I was getting both a low frequency hum and a higher frequency noise (from the throttle actuator) as interference before. Pretty much dead silent now.

Here's the before. Creaking noise is me actuating the throttles to get the interference to come through:

And after:

I can hear some very slight high frequency pops with the isolator in, but I don't know for sure that those weren't there before. I have a feeling that the radio volume was set a lot higher during the test with the isolator and that's why those pops were audible. Either way, much happier with it now.

[heinzboehmer]

Today I left my key in the pocket of my jeans and put them in the washing machine. Key still works lol

[heinzboehmer]

Never mind it died
Oh well, back to using the worse looking key

[heinzboehmer]

Track day tomorrow, so got the car ready for that.

Clock spring replaced with a new one:



Then got an alignment:



Rear camber is maxed out. I really need some camber arms, but I'm dreading the install. I did order some E36 diff bushings to replace the poly ones I have, so maybe that'll finally get me to do it.

I also bought a rear dashcam for the car. I decided to tap into the existing parking mode power module and run a long USB cable to the rear. Soldered some stuff and ended up with two output wires from the module:




Also added a connector for the long cable for easier servicing:



Now onto routing the cable. Easy choice would have been to route it along the seam between the headliner and the door, but I really didn't want to have it interfere with the side airbags, so I did it a bit differently.

Here's the output out front:



Connected the long cable and routed it back towards the sunroof:



I then routed the wire along the perimeter of the sunroof, this definitely keeps it far enough from the airbag:



Pulled it out through the alarm ultrasonic sensor hole (just as a middle stop cause feeding it all the way to the rear was not easy):



Fed it through to the third brake light area:



And out the passenger C pillar:



Still had some wire left, so I zip tied that out of the way:



Trim back on and done:



I did rip some of the fabric off of the pillar trim when reinstalling, so I reglued that real quick, no big deal. Pretty happy with the end result and install was a lot less painful than I expected.

[Bry5on]

You should’ve gone with CSL rear toe specs! Also, you want my ground control spherical lower control arms?

[heinzboehmer]

You should’ve gone with CSL rear toe specs! Also, you want my ground control spherical lower control arms?

I thought about it, but didn't want to mess too much with toe before a track day. I've learned that toe really impacts how much I enjoy driving the car and decided I'd rather stick with something that I know is fine, rather than spend the whole track day annoyed because I didn't end up liking the change. Will probably mess around with it when I do the camber arms though.

Did you end up getting the turner ones instead?

[Bry5on]

I got ECS ones as Turner was out of stock for a while. the adjusters are in the center which is not as good as at the wheel, but better than at the subframe/above the exhaust.

Give the wagon a shot, you should be able to feel the difference in toe on initial turn in, but it might be tough to differentiate from the rebuilt rack at this point. Really good change IMO

[heinzboehmer]

I got ECS ones as Turner was out of stock for a while. the adjusters are in the center which is not as good as at the wheel, but better than at the subframe/above the exhaust.

Give the wagon a shot, you should be able to feel the difference in toe on initial turn in, but it might be tough to differentiate from the rebuilt rack at this point. Really good change IMO

I'll take you up on that offer, also want to feel that new rack. Now that I have the MK60 in the car, I'll probably look into swapping racks.

[Obergoose]

I'd like to do this. What connectors did you buy?

[BADCLOWN]

Today I left my key in the pocket of my jeans and put them in the washing machine. Key still works lol

I have done that once with my keys for the ZHP and it still worked.

[heinzboehmer]

I'd like to do this. What connectors did you buy?

For which project? I've bought a ridiculous amount of connectors lately

I have done that once with my keys for the ZHP and it still worked.

I wish mine still did. Oh well

[heinzboehmer]

Track day was some time ago, but it went great. Felt awesome to be back at Thunderhill on 200 tw tires.

First two sessions were wet (first time ever on a track in the wet!) and the RE71R had absolutely zero grip. To the point where it wasn't exactly fun to drive out. Wish I had had the 4Ss on. Managed to stay on track throughout both sessions though.

Next track day is in two weeks and I'm running low on both brake pads and tires. Have two sets of mostly worn track pads that I want to eat through so that I am finally motivated to get the 996 calipers on the car. Track tires will likely die that day, so need to bring my street tires to get back home. Will be interesting fitting all that into the car. This is what the trunk looks like now:



Will need to figure out how to get the street tires into the back seat with the nogaros installed. Bought a set of tire totes in anticipation of this, but probably still not going to be very fun.

[jet_dogg]

Man that inflator is garbage and I'm a makita guy.