Black & Tan 332iT

[Bry5on]

So today went rather well. I broke the scales out, along with my brother in law and his bike, and we weighed both, and also calculated the CG of both the car and the bike.

For the car, with a full tank, roof rack, a spare tire, e36 M3 (heavy) muffler, and all my 'always there' stuff under the trunk, the car came in at 3606lb without me and 3806lb with me. Weight balance is damn perfect at 48/52% Front/Rear !! and cross weight (without any shimming) came in at 49.66% with me in it. Hell yeah.



To measure the CG, I raised the rear of the car, corner weighed it again, and did some trigonometry. By my calculations, on stock M3 springs and 245/40/17 tires, the CG is 21.25" off the ground and centered fore/aft at pretty much exactly my seating position. Overall really happy with the results, even if the car is a little bit heavy with my choice of things.

CG measurement in progress:

[Bry5on]

The v2 recaro brackets showed up, powder coated and all and I was able to get them in today. They’re millimeter perfect fitment in every dimension, and I’m very happy with the finish. Thank you sendcutsend!

Link to CAD, if you're inclined to recreate these: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/c4...d0507e4eaa81d3

Final bracket version installed:

I also installed the upper steering column trim from a late cabrio (still waiting on the OEM mic, just wired my existing one in for now) and swapped out the steering shaft flex disc. No pics of the flex disc but here’s the cabrio column trim:

[Bry5on]

I can officially declare victory on my quest for STOCK exhaust vibration smoothness from the SS v1 headers! The bracket I initially made was a huge help toward eliminating resonances at idle and throughout the rev band, but it didn't get all of them. I recently purchased some 2.5" exhaust clamps and bolted them together with a laser cut beefcake piece of sheet metal. I can unequivocally say that the SS headers with these two changes are absolutely as smooth as stock, with no vibrations added anywhere in the rev band. All idle ranges, transitions through rev bands, and all loads at all RPMs now feel great, smooth, like the car should.

Some photos of what I did (bracket in front of cats, and at header-section 1 joint):

[Casa de Mesa]

The matching armrest showed up, now the interior looks complete. I know the natural brown cars normally came with black armrests, but I’ve gotta say that the color matched one really completes the interior.

I have to say - that armrest really does tie the interior together really well. Definitely $$ well spent. Looks like it came that way from BMW!

I also received my lock for the 1up bike rack on the roof. Re-keyed that to match all the racks on all the cars and I’m in business there too.

1UP is making the best bike rack out there right now, bar none. I have a single rear hitch with an add-on rack. Their products just kill it.

[Bry5on]

Wow great build. Love that you have the working flap on the CSL airbox AND those seats!!!! So tempted to get the same seats. How's daily driving with the CSL airbox?

Thank you, it’s such a fun car! In non-sport mode, you can really barely tell it’s not stock during daily driving. It really opens up when the valve opens at 3300rpm (most gears) in sport mode. It’s not quite as raw and raucous sounding as the box without any flap was, but to me the flap smoothed out the sound when fully open and just made it perfect. When closed, you can only tell it’s not stock at wide open throttle above 3k if you know exactly what to listen for. I definitely recommend the flap.

edit: if you need extra motivation to get these seats, I’ll send you a driver’s side Brey Krause electric seat mount if you cover a flat rate box

[puma1824]

Wow great build. Love that you have the working flap on the CSL airbox AND those seats!!!! So tempted to get the same seats. How's daily driving with the CSL airbox?

[Bry5on]

The matching armrest showed up, now the interior looks complete. I know the natural brown cars normally came with black armrests, but I’ve gotta say that the color matched one really completes the interior.

I also received my lock for the 1up bike rack on the roof. Re-keyed that to match all the racks on all the cars and I’m in business there too.

[Bry5on]

Got on the lift this week and knocked out a couple crappy jobs:
1) Swapped in the M3 brake booster and master cylinder
Pedal travel is less but does seem a bit more boosted (softer) than the non-m, which surprised me. I was looking forward to a little more pedal effort


2) Replaced both rear lower control arms
The passenger side had been bent from before I took ownership. Dropping the diff to get access to a single bolt is rather silly! Oh well, I doubt I’ll ever have to touch them again, other than alignment.


And I also got a chance to test fit some 2.5” exhaust clamps to add another bracket between the SS section 1 pipes. There’s still a vibration on elevated idle, and I can feel the pipes resonate when I put a finger on them and smack them with my hand. Hopefully this kills the last of the SS vibrations and brings it back to stock levels (it’s pretty close now honestly). Took some measurements to waterjet a quick bracket (now where did the good calipers go?!).

[Bry5on]

These simple dual pole, dual throw momentary switches fit right into the holes designed for the heated seat buttons and are much cleaner than the e30 switches that were there before. Pushing the forward rocker moves the seat forward, and the backward rocker moves the seat backward. Very happy with this!

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/...AQkgHL4gC6AvkA

[Cronenberged]

Seeing this made me go from 6 to midnight.

[Bry5on]

Got a chance to install the driver's side bracket today, and learned everything I needed to learn. Next version will be 4mm higher, 8mm to the center of the car (same as Brey Krause), and I've figured out a better way to do the fwd/aft electric motion, so I'll delete those little mounting holes.

As measured, I'm currently sitting 18.5 (~3/4") lower than the Grey Krause mounts, which was exactly my target. I'm pretty stoked. V2 will be coming in soon

Also, I caught the car in really good light and snapped a photo of the interior front/rear seat color match. Photos always show up looking so much nicer on my phone..


edit: v2, this should do it

[heinzboehmer]

not loooking forward to bleeding that master. I think I’ll back bleed it by removing the calipers, compressing them with the pedal (filling the pistons), swap MCs, then back bleed by compressing the caliper pistons again. I’m hoping that will get most of the job done, but MCs can be a real bitch.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure mine still isn't fully bled after doing the MK60 swap. Have done multiple power bleeds and pedal still feels kinda weird in the first part of its travel.

Might try what you described next

[Casa de Mesa]

Thanks, glad to hear someone else is into mountain biking! My friends got into gravel riding recently so I’ve finally built one of those up just to be able to keep riding with my buddies. It’s pretty good too, not the same though.

Thankfully my buddies out here all are chunky dirt fiends Though, I used to road ride and can see the appeal of not being out on the open roads with people who text and drive, but still get the same kind of burn you can only get with road-bike geo and flatter terrain (i.e., not singletrack or downhill).

For the squeaks, I’m basically using five things(in order of quantity); 3/4” tesa tape, 2” tesa tape, cut to size adhesive backed felt sheets, cut to size adhesive backed 3/8” closed cell foam, and 1” x ~1/8” butyl rolls. Between those five, you can get just about everything.

Brilliant. Wish I would have known about this when my car was in a 1,000 pieces earlier this year. When I redo the interior, I'll tackle this. Appreciate the details, just dumped this into my OneNote.

Version 2, which has been going strong for several weeks now, dead simple, and I’m confident it’s good (.063” stainless)

Wow, that is MUCH simpler than I envisioned, lol.

Nice eye. The small holes are for the yet to be designed Mount for the fwd/aft seat motor switch. I haven’t really decided if that’ll be sheet metal or 3D printed yet.

Those brackets are pretty slick. Love the ingenuity.

Can't wait to follow along with these updates.

[kaiv]

This touring couldn't have gone to a better home! ☺

[Bry5on]

Nice, those look great. What did you make them out of?

Went with 11ga A36 steel. Easy to bend, not a lot of spring back, cheap and plenty strong.

This build is awesome! Absolutely everything about it - the chassis, attention to detail and thought that went into it are all amazing. Thanks for taking the time to post details about it.

I also very much like that you have something with knobbly bit tires on top of it Mountain biking is my number 2 interest behind the automotive drug, so always love it when I see people combining the two hobbies like this.

Have a few questions for you're willing.



How did you felt them? Is there a cloth tape you used (easy) or are you doing something similar to flocking a dashboard and apply adhesive + small fibers (more involved) on the hidden, overlapping areas?



Have any pics of this? Curious how you joined section 1.

This pic below - what are the small holes for? For a x-mas tree clips to secure wiring or do they have another function? Those Recaros look spot on in the car, BTW.







Especially MCs. Brakes aren't so bad, but bleeding MCs and the ABS unit... one of my least favorite things.

Thanks, glad to hear someone else is into mountain biking! My friends got into gravel riding recently so I’ve finally built one of those up just to be able to keep riding with my buddies. It’s pretty good too, not the same though.

I’ll try to hit all the questions one by one:

For the squeaks, I’m basically using five things(in order of quantity); 3/4” tesa tape, 2” tesa tape, cut to size adhesive backed felt sheets, cut to size adhesive backed 3/8” closed cell foam, and 1” x ~1/8” butyl rolls. Between those five, you can get just about everything.

Version 1 of the SSv1 bracket, which didn’t pass the fatigue test after 1 week of driving (.032 titanium):


Version 2, which has been going strong for several weeks now, dead simple, and I’m confident it’s good (.063” stainless):



Nice eye. The small holes are for the yet to be designed Mount for the fwd/aft seat motor switch. I haven’t really decided if that’ll be sheet metal or 3D printed yet.

not loooking forward to bleeding that master. I think I’ll back bleed it by removing the calipers, compressing them with the pedal (filling the pistons), swap MCs, then back bleed by compressing the caliper pistons again. I’m hoping that will get most of the job done, but MCs can be a real bitch.