ugaexploder's 2004 SG/IR - 1st e46 M3

[ugaexploder]

Dead Sexy.

thank you thank you!

a hold on the next mod

[D-O]

Dead Sexy.

[ugaexploder]

ordered the all black version of the Karb strut bar. order was placed on 10/23, and received today 11/27. $1160 euro equaled out to $1257.44 USD at the time for currency conversion. also had to pay customs duties to DHL to the tune of $45.82 USD. really beautiful piece from Karb as always, I'm still waiting to install the intake and engine cover, but thought this was simple enough to knock out in a few minutes.

[ugaexploder]

the last bit was the trunk, and the only reason I haven't done it yet was because I wanted to figure out the best way to modify the carpet for the ohlins rt damping adjustment knobs. the shop just cut some holes in the carpet and it looked like ass, so I figured I'd give it shot. turned out pretty good, just wish the passenger side was a bit more centered.

I ordered the grommets below from amazon and use the second largest one. i just torched a 1" socket for at least 30-45 seconds and used a decent bit of pressure to press through the carpet. it turned out really nice.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08T1DPCCS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

[ugaexploder]

replaced all of the interior lights with new, need to do a full detail soon, which should be happening in the next few days so apologies for the dirty headliner. also went ahead and replaced the mirror with a refurbished one from Scott Wheeler at radar-mirror.com, he did an awesome job, so much that I sent in another mirror just to have as a backup. I thought about going with the Z4 mirror with the gray clown nose, and even bought a brand new one, but decided I like the look of the factory mirror better, yeah I know, I'm weird.

got the blendmount installed for the V1G2, new cover for the mic, and of course my painted sun visors with a new airbag sticker...I personally like the look of the sticker, my girl hates it

[ugaexploder]

decided while I had the trunk liner out and easy to disconnect the battery, I decided to go ahead and do the positive battery terminal relocation and also install a NOCO terminal accessory so I could just plug in to the car to trickle charge rather than the old school clamp-ons. huge shoutout to Avedis as his DIY's are top notch and really showed how to trim up the plastic properly.

for those of you who want to order the right size eyelet for the NOCO charger, it's the GC008 M10 XL Eyelet, link below.

https://www.amazon.com/NOCO-GC008-Eyelet-Terminal-Connector/dp/B004LWWNLC/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CuX1Pxji0T2ax8js6FhUAjrM7UcYUYR7XPrn91YmzGyz3NwUy-zHCzk9aUteqvces1hGN-iAH68op6OdGyqg4QogK8q-k10G4484c_pA1UFXbW1GQSLHrScrrzIIC3pEpOQZA8LTU87ps4YcrYQIowyWhH2wkHXXJRJ_Uv9R1AT2YHpn7ruoWwvQRdkyylfxw4s7h-a7WZB_KCbLC0dyBO688mnSdrUwon-VThJdR-c.Rx2l3vKdT_i0Af6C9pr3_OZyXHcTmi2H_WUAE6xc7vo&dib_tag=se&keywords=noco+gc008&qid=1731254709&sr=8-1

[ugaexploder]

threw in the rear deck next which was fairly straight forward. did the headrest delete, and of course ceramic coated the speaker grilles to make them look nice again. as mentioned in one of the previous post, i decided to go ahead and use the aftermarket amplifier...if you're on the fence about the amp, in my honest opinion, do not buy it. I think the factory amplifier might actually be better...I'm not one of those people that need to lie to myself to justify a bad purchase. I went ahead and tuned it with a file, and will probably go a bit deeper into tuning everything, but the factory amp just sounded better without having to do all this bullshit. I guess if you're one of those folks who want to use a microphone and run sweeps and shit like that, this might be for you.





I pilfered the mounting bracket from an old amplifier and had to modify it a little bit to get things to fit perfectly. Aside from cutting off the little metal piece jutting out, you need to also modify the top screw holes....they make it to where the amp cannot sit flush on the metal. I messed around trying to find screws that fit into the amp, and decided I'm just going to double-side it and call it a day. Wasted some time messing around trying to make sure the holes I created in the bracket would line up. Not shown below, but I had to add a bit more double-sided tape since the picture shown below makes it to where the tape doesn't make contact with the bracket. I had to double down on top of the double-side tape

[ugaexploder]

next thing was putting on the insulation for the carbon fiber roof. i'm glad i just used the factory insulation rather than dynamat, it did an excellent job of deadening the noise when tapped on. made a huge difference, i was actually surprised. sorry for the crappy pics, i'm not a photographer compounded by odd angles inside the car






thought the little logo was pretty cool so I decided to take a pic of it



got the rear glass trim ceramic coated before throwing it back in...holy shit this thing was dirty

[ugaexploder]

interior going back in, first thing was I had to replace the 20 year old third brake light. it got damaged during the tint job when I first got the car and decided I'd just keep the old one on until I got the rear glass re-tinted. gave the rubber piece a nice little ceramic coat and slapped it on the car

[ugaexploder]

I think I'm fairly happy with the results on the rear glass dot matrix. Most people in the community seem to just accept the silvering in the dot matrix as something that can't be fixed, but it certainly can. Best part about this, I can start putting the interior back in.




I thought about the Audiotec Fischer amp some more, and since it was such a pain in the ass to get one, I think I'll figure out a way to install it. I just pulled apart an old hifi amplifier so I could use the bracket for mounting the new amp. I'll drill some holes and screw the amp on, and probably use some 3M vhb as well. Once you pull off the amp bracket, there is this little metal piece that sticks out that you need to remove. Just waiting on some new dremel saws and I'll knock it out on top of putting the interior back in, and also doing the battery terminal relocation as I went ahead and ordered the Karb strut bar in all black.

[ugaexploder]

Had to reschedule with the tint shop...again. On the bright side, they are willing to try the "glue trick" which should get rid of the silvering on the upper dot matrix. We shall see.

On the way back home, the evap tank venting code came back...again. So I took it to a shop I had a really good experience with in the X3 so I decided to give them a shot. They pressurized smoke tested everything and could not find a leak. I think I'm going to have to figure out other methods so I can get the car registered. In the meantime, I figured I could go ahead and put some insulation back in the car...still not sure if I'm going to over-insulate the roof or not...will probably just stick with the OE stuff but I'm really tempted to dynamat/dynaliner it.

Ordered new trunk insulation a while back and it's just been sitting on top of my rear bench seats for almost a year now. Glad to slowly reclaim areas of the house from the car.

[ugaexploder]

was able to take care of a lot of little things today. was able to get everything worked out for the triple-blink functionality. all of the information is definitely out there, and huge thanks to terra for all of his contributions to the LCM update.

removed the dinan rear shock mount hardware which i thought i wanted on the car but the more i think about it, i don't want a bar going through the trunk nor making more cuts in the carpet. it just looks cleaner and more oem. since i was able to do that, i figured i'd start throwing the amplifier/hardware back in. decided not to install the match up8bmw amplifier since i don't want to mess with figuring out how to mount the thing. probably going to sell it on here soon. i don't even really listen to music or podcasts when i'm driving anyway



with the headlight washer delete, i've been meaning to fix the low washer fluid light that remains on constantly that's been annoying me a little bit. took the right wheel off only to find out the level sensor was unplugged which was actually the main culprit for the light i think. regardless, i shorted the connector for the headlight washer pump and called it a day.

[ugaexploder]

Most of the body stickers are doing okay except for the "emissions" sticker under the hood. Seems like water likes to crawl under there on the edge of the sticker. They apparently made a version for each year I believe, and the one that has "2003" on it is NLA. I went ahead with 71227837109 which is for 2006 models. Don't think it really matters, but something to consider if you end up ordering a replacement.



Found a weird little passive RF tag stuck to the foam under the LCM. Was really a pain in the ass to get off, thankfully the sticky side dried up and made it easier for me. I did a little research and some believe it was a tag to help identify car configuration. I think it's just a cheap little RF tag used in conjunction with some old school lojack type deal. Oh well.

[ugaexploder]

you always learn something new when working on these cars. something i just learned was that the INPA cable doesn't work for PASOFT. it seems like you need to have separate cables for each one which i did not know. so I was trying to load D2XX drivers onto the INPA cable which doesn't work. I don't think I ruined the INPA cable, just need to load the VCP drivers on there I think. was super frustrating...I was thinking the whole time, it was an issue with Windows 11 since there seem to be a bunch of people saying BMWScanner/PASOFT only works on XP yada yada.

Anyway, I'm just waiting on a cable for BMWScanner to code my modified LCM to get the x-blink functionality. Seems like 5 blinks is the sweet spot. While I had the LCM out, I noticed the vent and LCM were missing a screw and body nut...so waiting on that as well, even though I'm sure it doesn't need both screws. That kind of stuff just annoys me so I need to have all screws in place.

Decided I'll go ahead and change out the front TPS and MAF as well since I'll eventually go CSL intake so i figured i'd just use the new MAF I have for the next few years or months until I get the CSL intake installed. Both TPS and MAF looked pretty old so I'm glad I did. They no longer sell the VNE TPS on FCP Euro last time I checked, you can only buy Genuine BMW from them now.

[Slideways]

that's a really cool feature, i'm pretty sure the noco's don't have that. hmm, i'll have to look into picking up a ctek, maybe a 5A since I can still probably use the noco 10A for doing any coding.

NOCO 3500 and up should have the 12V repair - https://no.co/support/sulfation-and-battery-repair-mode