Tyler's 2011.5 Jerez Black E90 Slicktop Daily

[Tbonem3]

E46 and E90 are similar in having limited travel, but both can get more with thinner mounts. On e46, you have lots of choices, and I went with TMS street, and would also consider GC street. But with e9x, there don't seem to be any middle options only hard-core monoball or stock. At least with stock, you can trim them down.

Already tried monoball mounts on my e46 (plates, fcab) and didn't like the feel and harshness. Rtab works for me, but I'm more sensitive to front end changes.

[rtrules]

Interesting idea with OE rubber top mounts. What is your thought process behind that?
I'm asking because I had the same idea for my E46. Right now I have ST XTA (with uniball camber plates that come with the suspension).
Thought about switching to Ohlins for more comfort. My idea was to use OE rubber top mount, and if I don't get enough camber with them, add CSL king pins.

[Tbonem3]

Passed 60k in summer last year 😭



Bought a set of Ohlins though install won't be for a while. I'm not getting camber plates, I want the OE rubber, but I'm still undecided if I'll need more than -1.9 in which case, I'd pair my "cut down" OE top hats with Dinan fixed plates for about -2.5 degrees. The thickness of the plates is 1/4", but I cut down my mounts by 3/8", so I'll still have a little more bump travel that those pairing ohlins with stock hats.



Car is still beading water very well. It's been 9 months since I coated the car (Gyeon Pure Evo).



Last shot of the AG M359s. I really enjoyed them despite not being genuine. Their weight and fitment were fantastic, but ultimately, I wasn't in love with the finish - too bright, a little cheap looking. I also wanted to switch to a set of wheels that really make this car POP. This car can be called handsome I think, but it certainly isn't as pretty as the E46, and with it looking black most of the time, I wanted somehting special that would draw your attention, and be premium.




Soooo having said that, I jumped at the chance to buy Josh (Good_M3), now Chris' (DreamDriveDrift) silver, deep pocket 18" BBS E88s!

Drove up north a bit to meet Chris and purchase them. Fun to see a car again that I knew very well, and being taken good care of!



Next post, I'll document the cleaning, polishing, ceramic coating, installation...

[Tbonem3]

Thanks!

[AntRyv]

For a dd this is such a beauty. Way to make it even newer and cleaner well done brother! Can’t get enough of those E46 and E90 shots close together

[Tbonem3]

Thanks, sold for top dollar which is why I bought your wheels 😁

Finding a new house has been much more difficult, unfortunately. But things are stalling and falling, so we'll be patient.

I blow dry the car, but still touch it to wash it. I don't really want to go all in on tools and time/effort. This is working fine for now. Maybe in the new house, I'll upgrade my process/tools.

[dreamdrivedrift]

GL with selling the house! One of my cars is coated with CSL/exo V2 and the other is coated with Gyeon Evo MOHS. Gyeon is easier to apply. Because of how hydrophobic it is, you should be able to do touchless washes at times for a routine maintenance washes, with leaf blower to dry, and that cuts down on any swirling that would have happened from even a good routine two-bucket wash method & towel dry method.

[Tbonem3]

So I decided to ceramic coat the car. We decided to sell our house at the top of the market before the increasing rates and buyer fatigue took hold, and the market stalled and now has even started to drop. Knowing my car might not be garaged for a few months or even longer, I thought a ceramic coating really made sense. When you ceramic coat a car, you also *should* be prepared to maintain it a certain way. So besides the coating itself, I also bought the right kind of soap and MF mitts/towels to impart as few new swirls as possible and iron remover to keep the coatng "unclogged."

After researching a lot, I decided to go with Gyeon's latest offering, Evo line. I decided on Pure evo as it has the highest silica content for that very glossy (really, glassy) look often referred to as "wet" or "candy gloss." I love the look of wax, and wanted to get as close to that as possible.

I started with a "decon" wash, though there wasn't much fallout to remove - the car was already fairly recently polished/protected.



Once back into the garage, I did a "paint cleansing" polish which is a polish just strong enough to remove any remaining surface contaminates and any light swirls or defects all while removing as little clear as possible.

Then I cleaned the paint with an IPA/distilled water mix before applying the coating. In hindsight, I should have used a proper panel wipe as IPA isn't completely adequate. I also used a popular coating towel to level, but figured out later that they were the common 80/20 polyester/nylon splt and not the softer 70/30% - so I'm already looking forward to coating the car again with even more perfect of a process.



One of the really appealing aspects of Gyeon coatings is how easy they've made them to install. You get a really long time (up to 10 min) before needing to remove. High spots are easier to avoid. The applicator is really friendly versus the older style of firm block with suede towellete.

I shared some more info/pics in the detailing sub section of this forum:

https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/s...405#post216405

A couple of after pics:




Overall, the car looks fantastic, and is very easy to wash. The car actually got glossier over a week after application. I guess I'm firmly on the "coating" bandwagon now :P

Keeping it to aesthetics, I recently noticed that my Burkhart exhaust tips have turned a bit brown/bronze. I've seen this with other exahust pieces, and normally don't mind much, but the look I'm going for is a very chrome like look to match the chrome accents of the car and the wheels.

I think you should be able to see what I'm talking about in this pic:



So I used some Mother's mag polish (metal/chrome polish) and shined them up. Luckily, it also seemed to remove any color and restored their monochromatic, hi polished look. Then I ceramic coated them in hopes of preserving the look for longer. We'll see. It may just be something I have to redo every so often. If there were more readily available tip options, I'd probably sell these and try somethign else to be perfectly honest.

Here you can see the outside tip is back to pure silver compared to the more bronze tinged inside tip:



Done, and coated:



The beading on Gyeon Pure is amazing

[Tbonem3]

Got too far ahead of myself. I did my first oil change back in January at about 56k, kept it going with the TWS since there was a recent sale, but I plan to go to 3x 5L jugs of Motul next time since both of my cars need a total of 15L.


(1 bottle not pictured)

I have no experience with the S65, didn't realize that there were 2 sumps until I saw 2 copper crush washers (drain plugs) included with the oil filter kit doh! I soon realized I needed the larger collector (7L) for the rear sump drain.



Had to quickly move it over, but that's why I work over a big cardboard piece to soak up spills.



New filter/gaskets. Had to get a 36mm socket for the oil filter housing cap.



Liquid Goooooold. I put in 9 bottles, and the level came out at pretty much full. I really don't love the absence of the dipstick, nor the slowness and inconsistency of the sensor.



Now back to the future a bit, getting around to flushing the brakes with ATE TYP200 after having just replaced the front rotors/pads a week or so prior.



Put a liter in the bottle, and pumped it up to 12/13 PSI which is the point I've found where the fluid moves with some decent speed versus the suggested 10psi.

I started in the rear, of course. As you saw above, the existing fluid was quite dirty, at least the portion that was in the calipers and lines. The reservoir's fluid looked clean.

First drain was dirty, as expected.




But then, oddly, the driver side rear came out clean, but green!? Never seen green before.



I just kept going until it looked like normal, new ATE TYP200.

Finished up front, driver side, of course. Looked great when I finished. I probably drew newer fluid into the drain bottle, but am happy to do so as I prefer to use up all the new fluid (out of pressure bottle) and have the reservoir settle at the full line since my front pads are brand new and rears are still quite thick.



Still have to flush the coolant at some point, but that's it for fluids for a while. Might have mentioned it earlier, but I'm not flushing the power steering exactly, but using the turkey baster method periodically (already replaced 2/3rds of a liter so far). I'll get around to the diff at some point, but no rush, and the DCT fluid seems to actually be a lifetime fluid amazingly. Not that I won't change it at some point, but it's nice to see.

[0-60motorsports]

Nice work bro.

[Tbonem3]

Well, didn't take long for me to want to recapture front travel. For E9x/E8x, you can simply shorten the length of the bushing in the front strut mounts (referred to as guide tubes). I've seen 8-10mm mentioned. My machinist took off 3/8" (9.5mm) cause he's 'murican. My mounts had about 58k, so still in good shape, but I had no problem buying new ones because I was quite sure I'd want new ones when I upgrade to Ohlins later.



Andale



OLD



NEW (see how much higher the strut comes up into the engine bay - it's exagerated a bit because I removed a washer as well.)



Front end is calmer now, the bumps don't cause the car to rebound as much as before, but it's still not as composed as my MCS (E46) or what I expect the czr to feel like with Ohlins. I just don't think the Bilsteins (E90 or E46) can handle much more spring rate than factory despite them being sold that way ("sport"). I'm like 90% happy. If I didn't care so much or didn't have the $ for better parts, I could easily stop here and be satisfied. Without spending big, it's very hard to get opposing things to work well on these cars (lower car yet maintain travel/composure), but this modified setup comes very close all for not much more than $1k.



My front brake pad warning light finally went off. I knew the pads were low and rotors had a big lip/grooved. I had already ordered new OE rotors and Textar pads.

Old stuff was still working great - wonderful bite and clamping force on these brakes. I know fade is an issue of course, but I am not dissatisfied with these binders.



Tha good shiet



Good time to clean



The pads were so low, but brake fluid reservoir had been topped off, so I had to pressurize the reservoir and bleed some out so that I could push back the pistons to fit the new, much fatter, pads, and not overflow the reservoir. I'll do a full flush in the near future, forgot to order fluid for this time.



Oh wow it's that dirty, I better flush it soon...



Done, ready for bedding




I also replaced the passenger side front wheel well liner as it had been damaged by P.O. Not only the liner, but the little triangle "wings" that meet the liner and meet the center belly pan. The pan itself is pretty beat up as well, so I'm going to need to replace all 3 pieces under there at some point. Right now, I just ordered the liner, and will replace that since I have access and it will be held in well enough even without yet replacing the bottom triangle piece. Man these stupid felt pieces are weak/expensive. I know there are metal aftermarket versions now, but I don't want something that rigid plus none of them have the shape of the OE piece so I wonder about cooling and aero abilities.




Keep your original pieces long enough to steal the old speed nuts (silver color) as the new ones (green color) supplied by BMW (when you purchase a liner/undertray) are junk! You can see that the hole is smaller, the screw won't poke through without such tremendous force that you just spin the speed nut or, worse, deform the plastic.



Ready now. I have spare screws for what was missing, but not an extra plastic nut, so I bought one of these too since it has a big pad/footprint.



Giddyup



Didn't fully flush the fluid and didn't fully fix the front end plastics situation, but at least I got the brakes done. Only did 1 bedding session and they feel great already. I'll do one more, and then I'll flush through a full liter of ATE Typ200 soon. If the rotor doesn't change color during bedding, it ain't hot enough!

[Tbonem3]

More composed, they have a little more rebound control, but it's still too low of a spring up front so I'm going to cut the front mounts down. I think eibach or Dinan or even just zcp springs would be better. But swift have the best visual drop.

[akshon]

How's the ride with the b8's compared to stock shocks on swift springs.

[Tbonem3]

without data you are shooting in the dark. you need to take measurements.

I think you're confused. I've done what Dinan does to factory e9x mounts which is also similar to what camber plates achieve- reduced stack height aka more travel without change to ride height.

[maupineda]

I'm talking about cutting down the front mounts, not bump stops. This is to increase travel with no real trade off versus the trade off of a shortened bump stop (less progressive increase in spring rate)

without data you are shooting in the dark. you need to take measurements.