heinzboehmer's 2002 Topaz 6MT Coupe

[heinzboehmer]

Just fixed one of the more annoying rattles I've had in this car.

When going over small potholes or driving on rougher roads, I could hear a faint metallic clinking sort of noise. It sounded like there was a washer rattling around inside the rear right C pillar cover.

This had been going on for a while, but the rattle was quiet and infrequent enough that I mostly just ignored it. Plus, I knew the plastic screw bracket on that C pillar cover was on its last legs, so I figured it had finally broken and the screw was rattling around.

However, the C pillar covers have been off since the deep clean (because that bracket did indeed fail) and the rattle was still there! Not only that, but it was significantly louder and way more frequent than before.

Banging on stuff with the car parked in the garage never caused the rattle, so I was stumped.

BUT, I had a breakthrough earlier today. Was driving on a slower street and realized that the rattle sounded like it was coming from closer than the C pillars. Pulled over and realized that banging on the dashboard made it happen pretty reliably. A repro! Finally!

Drove back home, parked the car, banged on the dashboard and absolutely no rattle. What!?

Started thinking about what variables had changed and slowly zeroed in on the only one: the position of the handbrake lever.

And wouldn't you know. Handbrake down, rattle. Handbrake up, no rattle.

Took the center console apart, kept banging on stuff and realized that the rattle was coming from the locating tab for the center console bracket:



Turns out that when the handbrake is pulled up, its bracket flexes juust enough to butt up against that tab and stop the rattle. How annoying.

Copious amounts of tesa tape later and the rattle is gone!




Too long of a post and way too much effort for a stupid rattle, but man, it was driving me absolutely nuts. I'm so glad to have resolved this

Has been a pretty good week for the M3

[heinzboehmer]

So, car went into limp mode twice on me today (reset codes in between). This was the only code in the DME when I got back home:



Took the intake side of the engine apart to see if there were any obvious issues.

Hmm, no wonder:



I guess that's not really all that surprising for a 23 year old hose that was held on with a shitty hose worm type hose clamp.

The rest of the hoses in the idle air path aren't looking that great, so decided to replace all of them. However, turns out those two small hoses on the tube that goes to the idle air rail are $50 EACH. I feel dumb paying that much for 50mm of hose, so time to look for an alternative.

Stock hose has "FPM/ECO" printed on it and measures in at ~20mm ID/~30mm OD:



The FPM (Viton) part is easy, but the combination of both FPM and ECO seems a bit harder to find in those dimensions. I'm sure I can find a distributor, but have to keep looking.

Also, I just have to say that it felt really nice to only have to remove the left brace and still have all the necessary access to the intake side of the engine :

[Obioban]

If you have to buy a longer section, I’ll buy some off you

[maupineda]

Hate to say but 50 is not much when you consider the downtime, I'd buy the stock hose unless you can quickly find a source, sometimes these type of things just don't exist in the open market, unless you source by dimension and not care much about the very same spec, and just change it every now and then I guess.

[heinzboehmer]

Hate to say but 50 is not much when you consider the downtime, I'd buy the stock hose unless you can quickly find a source, sometimes these type of things just don't exist in the open market, unless you source by dimension and not care much about the very same spec, and just change it every now and then I guess.

Yeeeah, I'm slowly starting to realize this. There are no good consumer sources for the hose, unfortunately.

The only lead I have is that -16AN hose is almost the exact same dimensions. There seem to be some companies that produce what I want, albeit with a couple extra layers that I would have to remove. e.g.:



I have yet to find someone that sells an FKM/ECO/whatever hose in -16AN size, though. I'll keep looking, but it's totally possible that I'll need to give in and just buy the BMW stuff.

[heinzboehmer]

Printed a TPU test piece in the same dimensions as the -16AN hose, and it fits perfect. It's pretty much exactly the same as what's on there now.

Unfortunately, I just cannot find a -16AN hose that has the internal Viton liner. The Raceflux stuff above only goes up to -12AN, unfortunately. There's lots of -16AN PTFE lined hose available, which is likely better, but all of it is white...

So, I caved and bought the BMW stuff. Don't want to delay getting the car back on the road just cause I'm being stubborn.

[bigjae46]

Printed a TPU test piece in the same dimensions as the -16AN hose, and it fits perfect. It's pretty much exactly the same as what's on there now.

Unfortunately, I just cannot find a -16AN hose that has the internal Viton liner. The Raceflux stuff above only goes up to -12AN, unfortunately. There's lots of -16AN PTFE lined hose available, which is likely better, but all of it is white...

So, I caved and bought the BMW stuff. Don't want to delay getting the car back on the road just cause I'm being stubborn.

I was going to say you're overthinking this but I remembered what thread I was in...hahahaha

[heinzboehmer]

I was going to say you're overthinking this but I remembered what thread I was in...hahahaha

Lol, overthinking and overengineering are my signature strategies!

[heinzboehmer]

Most parts arrived:



The top hose for the ICV has a lead time, so that's arriving later. Also, I broke the door lock button on the hazard switch when cleaning the car up after that off track adventure, hence the new one on the bench.

Old hose put up a bit of a fight coming off:



Nothing a plastic scraper and some patience couldn't take care off though:



And done:



Also, I found the oil drain line disconnected from the airbox, sigh. Guess replacing the line wasn't a real fix.

Decided I had had enough of it, so busted out the dremel and hacked away at the aluminum boss on the airbox.

First, cut some clearance into the sides of it (tape is only there as a reference for the cut line):




Next, I trimmed back the lip on the inside of the two tabs:



Not as pretty as what came from Karbonius, but the hose actually clips in now!



And with that, car is back on the road!

Unsurprisingly, fixing the vacuum leak improved drivability. Leak was small, so the difference isn't enormous, but it's definitely noticeable at small relative openings.

Just to drive the point home, here are the adaptations before:



And here they are after the fixes, a reset and ~30 min of normal driving:



Good stuff.

[heinzboehmer]

Grabbed this thing to run errands for a couple hours today. No codes, no limp mode. Nice.

[Arclitgold]

Great work! The little rattles drive a man insane. It’s weird that hose isn’t available anywhere.

[heinzboehmer]

When I had the intake off last week, I noticed that the harness I recently built for the MAP + IAT looked like this:



Guess the conduit I used wasn't exactly rated for high temps. So I did some looking around and ended up ordering some 1/4" ID Drossbach 014NDBUG. Looks pretty much identical to the BMW stuff and is made of high temp nylon rated to 150 C.

Conduit and remaining idle hose (top) swapped out:



Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with the 98ft of conduit that I have left over:



Yeeaah, I probably should have stopped to think what 100ft of conduit actually meant before just blindly accepting that as a minimum order quantity...

[bavarian3]

Oh shoot! I bought some cheap amazon conduit as well. I'll keep a lookout. Glad you got the car up and running so quick!

Probably will show up to the Menlo Park meet this Sat if you're around.

[maupineda]

When I had the intake off last week, I noticed that the harness I recently built for the MAP + IAT looked like this:



Guess the conduit I used wasn't exactly rated for high temps. So I did some looking around and ended up ordering some 1/4" ID Drossbach 014NDBUG. Looks pretty much identical to the BMW stuff and is made of high temp nylon rated to 150 C.

Conduit and remaining idle hose (top) swapped out:



Now all I need to do is figure out what to do with the 98ft of conduit that I have left over:



Yeeaah, I probably should have stopped to think what 100ft of conduit actually meant before just blindly accepting that as a minimum order quantity...

I can buy off some of you. If we meet Thursday for the 3D prints?

[heinzboehmer]

Oh shoot! I bought some cheap amazon conduit as well. I'll keep a lookout. Glad you got the car up and running so quick!

Probably will show up to the Menlo Park meet this Sat if you're around.

Well, you know where to find me if you ever find it melted in your engine bay

Unfortunately have plans on Sat, so won't be able to make it. Next time!

I can buy off some of you. If we meet Thursday for the 3D prints?

More than welcome to have some of it for free. Would rather you buy me coffee or something next time we see each other. The entire 100ft spool was about $30, so feels dumbs to charge for a few feet of it