heinzboehmer's 2012 Alpine White 128i

[heinzboehmer]

Next "mod" is a second set of tires. Plan is to take this thing skiing at least a few times per year, so snow tires are a must.

Found some absurdly cheap ($40 for the set) style 45s on craigslist and picked them up.

Daily doing daily things:



Wheels are absolutely disgusting. Guy said he had them out in his yard and they got super dirty with the recent rain. Should clean up well and if they don't, who cares, they'll be snow wheels anyway.

Ordered a set of Michelin X-Ice snows to mount on them. Haven't driven these tires before, but they're Michelin, so should be pretty good.

[heinzboehmer]

Ah who am I kidding. I'll probably be messing around with this thing a lot. At least in the first months of ownership.

Next mod was the cluster. Apparently there is no temperature gauge of any kind anywhere in a 128i. Not in the cluster and not in the iDrive screen. Only thing you can do is go into the cluster's secret menu and display coolant temp, but you have to do this every time you start the car, so not an option.

This is the stock 128i cluster:



Fortunately, the 135i cluster has oil temp on it and is a direct replacement. Just need to mess around with it a bit to get rid of the tamper dot and done. Followed this guide when doing this: https://www.1addicts.com/forums/show....php?t=1655093

First step was to modify the programmer. I bought a test clip so I wouldn't have to desolder the EEPROM and it came with a couple boards to solder into DIP8 shaped spots. The programmer had a matching DIP8 shaped spot, but it wasn't socketed, so I added a socket first (top right of the board):



Pretty easy to attach the test clip after that:



Then grabbed the 135i cluster, disassembled it and zeroed out the VIN:



Semi-reassembled and plugged into the car to see it if was still working:



Looking good.

Also noticed that the cluster I bought had exactly 20 mi less than the original at the time of the swap (eBay listing didn't have mileage on it). Crazy close. Had I known this, I would have avoided driving the 20 miles and then just done a straight swap. Oh well.

Reassembled the cluster, coded with NCS expert (took the opportunity to code some other stuff to the car too) and went for a drive.



Much better!

[heinzboehmer]

Okay maybe just one mod.

After having the 6MT M3 as my only car for the past 5 years, the kickdown in E82's gas pedal felt extremely weird. Decided to open it up and remove it.

Pedal was much easier to take out than in the E46. Pop a plastic cover off, undo a torx bolt and done.



Pedal was significantly harder to take apart than the E46 one though. It's held together with plastic clips instead of screws. Lots of messing around later I got the cover off:



Disassembled it further to get to the kickdown switch (square white thing). The switch is fully mechanical, so the way the car drives will not change with it missing.



Popped the switch out and reassembled everything:



As expected, the car drives exactly the same, except that now it doesn't annoy me everytime I want to go full throttle (which is admittedly not all that often in this thing).

[heinzboehmer]

Recently got this as a daily and figured I'd start a journal here to document anything I do to it.

Probably won't be as detailed or frequently updated as my M3 journal, since this thing is a daily and I can't have it down for too long.

Pic right after buying:



Car is in decent condition, but does need some attention. Looks like it hasn't has a proper wash in all its life, interior soft touch plastics are peeling, headlights are faded, etc. Besides that, it's pretty solid. 76k mi, no leaks of any kind (!), no paint issues, basically no options and doesn't seem to have been abused. Pretty happy with the purchase.

Factory Specs

• Production date: 2012-02-16
• Type Code: UP93
• Body Type: Coupe
• Transmission: 6AT
• Exterior Color: Alpinweiss 3 (300)
• Engine: N51
• Interior: Manual seats, double hump
• Exterior: Slicktop, style 262s
• Options: iDrive

Yes, it's an N51 auto with iDrive, but as mentioned before, it's a daily. I tried to look for an N52 car, but they were pretty hard to find in California. Auto transmission was a requirement from the GF. Not my favorite, but did make the purchase a bit cheaper. Plus, if I ever get tired of the N51 + auto, I can buy a crashed E9x M3 and swap absolutely everything over . iDrive was something I did actually want, because —once again— daily.

That's pretty much it for the car. I don't expect to be modding this thing at all, since I just want it to work. Plus, my garage only fits one car, so working on this thing means pulling the M3 out, which is just annoying.

So yeah, I think this thing will stay pretty much exactly as it is right now. I think.