Black & Tan 332iT

[Bry5on]

Installing with wet POR-15 or is that an epoxy? Thank you for all you do!

I did POR-15, probably lots of options though! When I did this at work I’d use a zinc chromate primer instead. Honestly not sure which is better.

[ethan]

Installing with wet POR-15 or is that an epoxy? Thank you for all you do!

[Bry5on]

I'm very excited for this! Having felt some extra chassis rigidity with the rear brace I now want as much as possible! I love that this solution is entirely invisible when installed! Which rivnuts did you use? (Or have I missed that somewhere?)

Thanks very much for sharing the sendcutsend cart!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

These bad boys, installed in a .5” hole: Metric Low-Profile Rivet Nut, Tin-Zinc-Plated Steel, M8x1.25 Internal Thread, 15.2mm Long

https://www.mcmaster.com/91230A011

Don’t do what I did and accidentally go one step too far with your stepped drill bit on the first test hole! But if you do want a low risk ‘test’ hole, the topmost one does the least structurally.

[karter16]

Ok, great successes!

3) I got to installing the fender brace with these awesome new rivet nuts (definitely recommend).

I'm very excited for this! Having felt some extra chassis rigidity with the rear brace I now want as much as possible! I love that this solution is entirely invisible when installed! Which rivnuts did you use? (Or have I missed that somewhere?)

Thanks very much for sharing the sendcutsend cart!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bry5on]

Ok, great successes!

1) Last night I loaded karter16's custom binary that logs extra values over CAN. So far it's working great, even with extra data like lambda integrator, and now I can finally stop bothering the D-bus constantly while I'm driving. Thank you! Datalog of a drive here: https://datazap.me/u/bry5on/kartercan-log?log=0&data=23

2) Today I installed v2 of the exhaust brace. I'd noticed around 3300rpm that a bit of vibration was still coming through, so I modified the design to use the non-m e46 exhaust hanger bushings. Mild-but-still-there improvement. I also discovered that the thin brace to the exhaust has cracked. I guess next time I'll try Ti or just design a weld-on bracket.




3) I got to installing the fender brace with these awesome new rivet nuts (definitely recommend). Fitting up:


Rivet nuts installed:


Bolted in:


After installing the brace, I repeated the earlier experiment but as below with the car 1) in the air and 2) lowered straight on the ground. I left the Slon brace installed for the most conservative test. Measuring displacement here I saw .001"


So what's the verdict? A nice improvement again! The front feels in line with the rear now after the recent work I did back there, and so far it's most noticeable on pothole and sharp road impacts. There's less harshness and the steering feels almost a bit lighter. There's yet another step of less vibration in the steering wheel when driving over not-smooth pavement, although not as drastic a change as the Slon brace. I expect that once I get a chance to put the car through its paces, it'll be even more stable and consistent during cornering, putting the suspension to work instead of the chassis.

If you want to order/recreate this on your own car, click this link and get a set for yourself! https://cart.sendcutsend.com/chn7orju3zid The job took about 4 hours and involves removing the bumper, headlights, fenders at the very least. So budget for a full day as I work pretty fast.
edit: the cart above is for two sets. Either reduce the quantity to 1 each or get one for a friend!

[Bry5on]

Good updates with the braces. Out of curiosity, did the front clip have the windshield and lower subframe brace installed?

Good questions, it did not. I wouldn’t expect much of a change from those two though.

I’m planning a modified re-run of this experiment when I pull my fenders off. Basically set the dial indicator up and watch it as I lift the car up and place it back on the ground. We’ll see what happens!

[discoelk]

Good updates with the braces. Out of curiosity, did the front clip have the windshield and lower subframe brace installed?

[Carbonvert]

Alright, here’s a link for those in the US where you can purchase this v-subframe brace directly if you so desire: https://cart.sendcutsend.com/styxqbkx1nth

Reminder, this link is not me selling anything, I make no money on this, and I’m not affiliated with sendcutsend other than really liking their service.

Just stumbled onto this. Thank you for sharing. I'm thinking this will compliment the redish v3 kit being installed right now

[Obioban]

Seems to now be NLA.

Go, team!

... glad to have mine in hand...

[0-60motorsports]

Got some work done on the flight!

Thats awesome! Great work and Thanks.

[Obioban]

lol.

do want.

awesome!

[karter16]

Oh man - that's huge! Well done - very impressive to have figured that out! The E46 is going to be like a platform that's 10 years younger by the time you're done with it!

[Bry5on]

Got some work done on the flight!

[Bry5on]

Thanks to George Hill I believe we’ve found the remaining flexiness in the front suspension. George has an e46 front clip handy (the man has dedication), so during a visit to TX we ran a test yesterday to prove my next hypothesis. With the fender off, we attached a dial indicator as in the image below, measuring longitudinally, then I pushed on the fender mount vertically with about 40lbs by hand. You could see the dial indicator move .002” from this ~40lb push. This is significant because just sitting on the ground, the car sees about 20x that load, meaning it’s displacing about .040” or a full millimeter from just placing the car on the ground. View of what’s behind the right front fender, with dial indicator setup:


So every time your suspension loads/unloads or hits a pothole/bump, this joint is flexing and allowing the strut tower to move up/down out of sync with the car. This will be noticeable in driver feel.

So we took some scans, including of the other side which had a pothole damaged tower, and I’m going to design some gusseting that will live invisibly under the fender to stiffen the front suspension up nicely.

Thanks George!

[m3_tristan]

You can reach out to @limited.slip on instagram if you’d like to pick one up that’s ready to rock! I just don’t have the free time to pack, ship, distribute.

thanks! I just shot him a message.