Black & Tan 332iT

[Bry5on]

Calipers arrived last night, so I swung in to the machine shop this morning for an hour to knock out the 5.5mm machining needed to make these fit the 345mm ZCP rotors. These calipers are nearly perfect, really pleased with the paint and seal condition! Looks like the pads in the rear calipers were still the ones from the factory! Fronts were replaced textars

[Bry5on]

Front brakes went in and got bedded tonight. Rears will have to follow this weekend.

So far I’m pleased with the more immediate and confident pedal. The dead zone before pad bite is definitely reduced, and there’s less weird feedback on long downhill braking. Looking forward to doing the rears now.

The scales had these at exactly one pound less per front corner than the 325mm euro setup I had before. Not a bad tradeoff, although I swear I could feel the change in inertia from the bigger rotors. Probably just placebo..

[Bry5on]

Rears went in just fine. Feels great!

[YoitsTmac]

Looks awesome! I sent you a PM. I'm in Marin and I'd love to see this build!

[heinzboehmer]

Meet up mext weekend?

Suggesting next weekend cause mine won't be done until then

[maupineda]

Meet up mext weekend?

Suggesting next weekend cause mine won't be done until then

If you take another visitor, I will love to join

[YoitsTmac]

I didn't know we had so many in the bay. September 9th we have a cars and coffee at BMW San Rafael. I'd love to see some amazing rides. Alternatively, we can set something more formal up as well

[Bry5on]

Two different welders came out today to knock out the last of the jobs that I was really not looking forward to. This am, I swung by Kevin’s place and had a friend who’s good with a torch weld in v-brace mounts for the OEM M3 underbody brace. This gave a nice increase in stiffness, but more noticeably removed a little post-bump vibration from the rear end. The rear is caught up with the front now



After a burrito, I decided to tackle the M3 header/AC line heat shield that’s on all M3s. This part is skipped on every single swap I’ve ever seen, and we’re not having that. Using factory BMW coarse thread studs, we successfully stud welded the missing three frame rail studs to attach that last missing heat shield, and I can rest easy. Since I had to evacuate the AC system to remove the lines for stud welder clearance, I took the opportunity to recharge the AC (evacuation reported it was only 70% full, missing 200 grams of R134).

[Bry5on]

Alright, the parts for v2 of the solid steering coupler are on order. This time using 7 or 8 .030" 304 stainless steel flexures to replace the rubber bushing.

My first go at this using spherical bearings didn't end up to my liking once I'd finally assembled it all, and I like this solution better anyway. This one is simpler, cheaper and has no wear parts.

[Bry5on]

Now I've done the math and given this a bit more thought. Flexures have been thinned out a bit to .008", I'll be using 301 tempered stainless spring steel and can get away with anywhere between 4-8 flexures and still outperform the adjacent aluminum parts. That said, I still want a safety net for a part like this in the steering system, so three positions will get keepers in place of washers, clocked 90 degrees apart, which will keep the steering functional even in the event of catastrophic failure of all of the springs. Overall, it's over constrained, so we'll have to see how this works in practice. First four springs hidden for clarity:

[Bry5on]

I was a little under the weather this weekend, so I decided that a nice leisurely activity would be to swing by the junk yard to look for auto dimming e90 sport mirrors for my M3 mirrors which will go on some day. Well, I found some, and also managed to find a bunch of little things that all made small improvements.

The auto-dimming mirror glass (I brought a battery and tested them both) that I paid a whopping $5 for, fitted into M3 mirrors:


The late e46 insulated foot well cover that replaced my cracking non-insulated one:


A late e46 HVAC control panel, cleaned thoroughly before installing:



And last, a driver's seat memory module, harness and motor. Lately I've been letting a few people drive my car and I was reminded that 1) the rocker switch is a little hard to find on the seat side and 2) I like having seat and mirror memory. At basically no cost or weight penalty, I tore this thing down, removed the seat tilt button, de-pinned and de-wired all of the no longer useful wiring and pins, then adhered the memory module to the side of the recaro seat base with double sided tape. Memory seats are nice to have again!

[Bry5on]

I am also giving up on my u-joint replacement as I ordered one of these, which just simplifies everything:
https://www.steeringlpsr.com/product...column-linkage

And if that doesn't work well or seem legit, I'll order a RHD steering shaft and install a solid bushing replacement in it. I'm kicking myself for not thinking of that solution earlier. So simple!

[0-60motorsports]

I have the wide angle e90 side mirror glass and love them. Auto dimming would be cool too as I love the ones on my E70 X5M and the M3 can benefit from that function.

[usdmej]

great build and wow what an excellent attention to detail!

[stephen]

I am also giving up on my u-joint replacement as I ordered one of these, which just simplifies everything:
https://www.steeringlpsr.com/product...column-linkage

And if that doesn't work well or seem legit, I'll order a RHD steering shaft and install a solid bushing replacement in it. I'm kicking myself for not thinking of that solution earlier. So simple!

I also recently placed an order for one of these, fingers crossed it's a quality product; E34 u-joint in my E36 is one of my favorite mods. Really sharpens up the steering.