Tyler's 04 slicktop 6spd Silvergrey MCS/Brembo/CSL/Karbonius/Nogaros/Supersprint

[Tbonem3]

Such a sweet car. Yellow calipers on silver is money.

🤘 thank you Liam

-

Unfortunately, Flickr is not working well for me, and I can't find many pages of my m3f journal, so repopulating this will be slow :/ I've edited the OP for the back story and current status/mods of the car.

[liam821]

Such a sweet car. Yellow calipers on silver is money.

[Tbonem3]

Appreciate that thanks!

[BMWahba]

I was sad for a lot of build threads but especially miss yours!

[Tbonem3]

I got into BMWs in April '03 when I bought a 1994 E36 325i (OBD1 M50) JB/blk 5spd for college, and fell in love with it. I grew up with a wrench in one hand so naturally started to do DIY maintenance, and found bimmerforums.

Modded it quite a bit: Turner chip, S50 cams, Carbonio intake, bilstein/eibachs, sways, style42 wheels. Only pics I have unfortunately:





Parted it out. Joined M3forum, and next was the slicktop 2004 M3 on Black Friday, 2009. Bone stock; 83k iirc. 2 owners and maint. history, almost $20k from a dealer down the street practically! I, even then, knew that I wanted optionless and 6spd no matter what after hating the sunroof in the 325i.

11/2009




11/2009 - 2013

I was starting my career, and pretty busy with other things, so I didn't mod too much. Mostly just maintenance. An RD Sport muffler, silicone intake elbow, BMC air filter, H+R Springs, Konis, spacers, D/A pulleys/fan delete, new alternator, adjusted the valves, obligatory "black out" plasti-dipped oe wheels lol - nothing too exciting really.


2014 - 2015

After almost 5 years, I thought about selling and upgrading (newer) vs. my heart. The heart chose to mod away as the wrenching and motorsport/engineering/mech running through the car is a great passion/hobby for me, having done a very similar thing with motocross with my father, when I was a kid. I also just loved this car. Every time I step in, it just feels right. I decided to keep the car, 140k miles notwithstanding, and spend some real money to address the Vanos, RACP + rod bearings all at once. I had to do some mods too of course! I was going to be out of town for a week, so I took it to Racewerkz, and had the following done:

WPC treated bearings
Besian goodies
Turner plates welded in
New OE ball joints/OE bushings in rear control arms
AKG sub, diff bushings 90a black poly
Euro headers + sect 1 cats
Valve adjustment
OE motor mounts, steering coupler, giubo, CSB
brake fluid flush, powersteering fluid flush


I then did the entire cooling sys (including pulleys/belts), front suspension (control arms, fcabs, mounts, etc.), new headlight lenses, new Konis, Eibachs, Alufelgen 19s, new PSSs. All new brakes (just OE) and complete parking break refresh. Later, another oil change after break in.

Got Evolve software right after too so at this point, even with the tight bearings and break in, the car was a different animal. I was very happy to have kept the car, to say the least!

Then I got a CSL trunk (Toan's Platte Forme AG rep), and fell in love again!



Specs:

2004 (11/03) Silvergrey (A08) M3 coupe, 6MT, no sunroof, manual seats, no nav, no xenon, no anything. *Though, leather is technically an option I believe.

Weight loss - Weight loss is important to me, despite it being a street car. Trying to get to 3100lbs half tank (starting at around 3300-3350lbs)

Conservative estimates
Battery -14 lbs (CSL battery)
Seats -60 lbs (22lb Nogaros w/ manual sliders)
Deletes -70 lbs (SAP/washer/fan/shroud/armrest/stockstereo/liners/brackets/mats/mobility/R headrests)
Wheels -24 lbs (19/20lb vs. 24/27lb) unsprung weight
Brakes -5 lbs (Brembo 996s, 2pc rotors) unsprung weight
Airbox/Intake -9 lbs (evolve CF, no flap, no MAP, no MAF)
Exhaust -5 lbs (catless, no resonators, EGT/rear O2 delete) w/ stock sect3 -25 lbs w/ scorza
Suspension -12 lbs (hollow sway, 6.25"/6" springs, alu RLCAs.
CSL boot/trunk items -6 lbs (w/ tools/liner delete)

Mods/Maintenance as of 9/2025

184k miles

Engine
Evolve-R Alpha N tune stg 3 (SAP/EGT/postcat O2 deletes)
Karbonius full CF 2x2 gloss CSL airbox "race" style
Eventuri scoop
Supersprint Stepped V1 headers 2.5"
Supersprint Stepped V1 2.5" sect 1 w/ HJS 200 cell
OE sect 2
Oakville Motorsports sect 3 w/ 76mm polished single wall tips
New OE oil cooler/lines
New OE radiator, thermo, exp line, hoses, hi-temp o-rings, sensor, BMW coolant/distilled H2O
Fan/clutch delete
Rogue Engineering lightweight, under driven power steering + water pump pulleys
UUC DSSR
Delrin carrier shift bushings
New OE e9x motor mounts (corteco)
Rogue Engineering street transmission bushings
Besian drilled oil pump disk + seals
New OE Vanos filter/O-rings
New OE Vanos hard line (updated)
New OE Vanos accumulator
WPC treated OE rod bearings + ARP bolts (done @ 140k)
New OE tps(s); cam sensors, filters, coils, plugs, o2s, chain tensioner, IAT, everything lol
Refurb'd (MEPEH) fuel injectors
Reman'd OEM Bosch alternator (01/17)
New OEM Bosch CSL battery H5 (05/18)

Chassis
MCS 1WNR
TMS street plates
H&R 60mm x 7" 60N/mm (343lb) front springs
Ohlins 110N/mm (628lb) rear springs/perches
DMG front strut brace
Hotchkis front sway (hollow/10lb) - medium setting
Whiteline adj front endlinks
Turner Motorsport subframe reinforcement plates (welded)
Eibach Aluminum rear lower adjustable camber arms
RE rubber (12mm) RSMs
AKG Subframe & differential 90a (black/street) bushings
DMG Comp-V rear brace (ala "GTR")
SynchroDesignWerks monoball RTABs
New OE FCAB, Control arms, ball joints, rear sway bar links/bushings
BREMBO 996 36/40 Yellow 345mm CSL + Ferodo ds2500 Front; 28/30 328mm CSL + ATE D738 Rear, RR/CM brackets; HEL lines, motul RBF600
ZHP 712 yellow tag steering rack
OE power steering refresh (resv/lines/expansion)
Yokohama A052 255/35/18 - 265/35/18
Apex 18" ARC-8 9.5" et35 x 10" et25 - 5mm/3mm spacers


Exterior
Bimmian painted bumper reflector covers
APEX 75mm bullet nose stud kit black
OE BMW CSL bootlid w/ leds
Happybuyitnow168 (Ameoba wing ltd) CSL rep diffuser 2x2 CF
Philips Extreme vision H7 bulbs Halogens
New OE lights/lenses, kidney grilles, gills, badges, emblems, trim etc.
New OE belly pan
Gyeon Pure Evo ceramic coating

Interior
Cobra Nogaros black/vinyl/suede/tri-color stitch w/ Brey-Krause mounts on OE manual sliders.
AKG bronze clutch pedal bushings + delrin brake pedal bushings
OE (2001) Piano Black metallic Trim
New OE 6spd weighted OE ///M knob aka "M performance"
New OE ZHP alcantara shift boot
Coby Wheel alcantara ebrake boot
New OE armrest delete center console
New OE long Euro tray (coin delete)
New OE steering wheel
New OE steering wheel trims (blank top)
New OE soft touch center console pieces
New OE A, B, C pillars
New OE CSL radio delete plate

Stereo (deleted 04/20)
Pioneer DEH-80PRS
Eclipse PA5422 4ch
CDT Audio WS-100 1.1"
CDT Audio HD-6 6.7"
CDT Audio EX-530
Kicker 10C84 8" sub (ski pass mount - Infinite baffle)

Current look: