2001 M3 Journey: Laguna Seca Blue Edition

[bavarian3]

Lighting and trim reinstall


I started with reinstalling the refreshed wipers, hood vent, and new windshield cowl. SEM trim paint is ever so slightly satin, but if you want you can apply a matte clear for additional flatness. I think it looks perfect.

Don't mind my dog's toys they're everywhere.





The csl parts were still at the body shop, but they were able to turn around the grills promptly. These are genuine grills professionally sprayed gloss black. This is the same as what IND does.

I know the chrome grill purists will rage, but this is the way to go on lsb imo. Easily changeable anyways. Also had some new grill badges laying around but it looks like they're knockoffs.





In they go along with new side markers. What a difference.





Next up the headlights and new corner lights, and fogs. The fog lights were tough, as the price for new is ridiculously expensive. I first tried to sand and polish the existing ones without luck. I ended up taking the plunge on "TYC" brand.

The TYC(right) lenses look great, no discernible difference on look, but they do weigh less.





Because it is a hassle finding these, and they get beat up down there, I decided to have them PPF'd. Perfect timing as I took my girls Alfa Romeo in for tint and they owed me a favor.

PPF is so good now days you can't tell it's there. Fitment was perfect, and the refreshed trim went in place without issue. Nothing loose.





Headlights as shown in the previous post, looking mint with new corner lights.





Tackled the tail lights next. Early models require some mild effort to install LED tails properly. There's nothing worse than seeing those aftermarket LED tail lights with the black outline. The process is really quite simple.

First acquire a newer version LCM. Unfortunately this does add a useless auto headlight switch state without the proper windshield.




Then a couple easily sourced adapters to mount the early model harnesses to the led lights.




Then just follow the coding process(also easily sourced) to rewrite the new LCM using PA soft 1.4. Actual process took like 2mins.




Now enjoy your new genuine taillights with no dash lights or flickers, and go get a smog.

Inner lights will come with that whole csl trunk thing.




Will grab some proper pics soon. Gas cap and reflectors were still at the shop.





Soon...

[Bry5on]

You can swap the LCM face to get rid of the auto lights setting. Also, even without the windshield sensor, the auto setting is useful as it will turn your headlights and parking lights off automatically when you shut the car off, preventing an accidental battery drain.

[bavarian3]

You can swap the LCM face to get rid of the auto lights setting. Also, even without the windshield sensor, the auto setting is useful as it will turn your headlights and parking lights off automatically when you shut the car off, preventing an accidental battery drain.

Thanks for the tip I had no idea. Since I don't want my headlights on when driving in the day I think I'll go the faceplate swap route.

[bavarian3]

Megane RS, 996 Brake Retrofit

It's been 2 months since I last posted, but as usual things are always in motion. Next up was to overhaul the brakes.

I went back and forth on all kinds of setups, even purchasing retrofit brackets for Alfa Romeo Quadrifoglio calipers. In the end, due to the weight reduction, brake bias, look and feel, I decided to go with Megane RS fronts and 996 rear calipers.


The Megane RS come new in box with brackets and lines from freakyparts.co.uk. 996 came from ebay for a steal of a price in decent shape. Rallyroad was used for brackets and lines.





I thought about running them red, even to the point of refinishing the rears. As soon as I tried them on though, I knew it wasn't the look I was going for.






Knowing what a pain refinishing is, and not having the means to spray 2k clear, I found a powdercoater to take them on for a good deal.

So I got to disassembling. I knicked a couple 996 pistons and seals in the process, and decided to just purchase full rebuild kits from OPS while everything was out.




They came back looking so good. I went with simple gloss black, as you can see. Here they are all refinished with powdercoat, seals, and pistons.






Don't forget stickers. Conveniently get a gf that has a cricut with existing vinyl cutting skills. We mocked up the brembo motorcycle logo and she somewhat-gracefully made various test pieces to eventually get it where I wanted. The fun part is these can always be changed.




Everything ready to go. I went with Zimmerman zcp rotors. Don't mind the other stuff in the background...





The install was one of the most rage inducing processes I've done. To be frank, feakyparts included hardware was poorly selected. Insufficiently lengthed bolts, poor fitting or completely missing washers, etc.





Good opportunity to remove all the old crap including studs. These came out easily with a little heat. The hex bit removed them fine even though they're "not for removal"





Front looking good, after much pain and waiting on hardware orders.




Trimming the rear shields wasn't too bad with snips. I think I removed more after this pic. Also painted exposed edges and gave the hubs a good scrubbing after.




I used all new piston shims on the rear, hoping to avoid squeal.




Finally everything was in and ready for bleeding. The Shwaben power bleeder was amazing at this.




Looks like the fluid was due for a change. Cola?





Went out and bedded the pads in, and gave the car a much needed wash.







Thoughts - So, I have a squealing issue with the pads on the front and rear. I will continue troubleshooting this, but outside of that wow! The brake feel is amazing, and the car really flies with more unsprung weight knocked off. The look with the black calipers and new rotors is just what I was going for too. Subtle but so much better than stock.

It's too bad the pads will likely need to be changed as the dust is low, and I'm perfectly happy with their performance.

Stay tuned for those other parts to get installed. I swear once those are in I'll get some proper pics of the car, I might even drive it a few miles.

[OPS]

bavarian3 Your calipers were done extremely nice! I love to see them nice and fresh and I agree once you get to feel a fixed caliper compared to a sliding caliper there is no going back! And I always like to remind folks dust boots should always go on dry like you did. Bravo!

[Rokoz]

Have you done much mileage since doing the front plastics in Sem Trim Black? Curious how it has held up

[bavarian3]

bavarian3 Your calipers were done extremely nice! I love to see them nice and fresh and I agree once you get to feel a fixed caliper compared to a sliding caliper there is no going back! And I always like to remind folks dust boots should always go on dry like you did. Bravo!

Thanks for the great service! The parts are working exceptionally well.
______

On the topic of brakes, the squeal ended up being the pads. Whatever is in the compound of the powerstops did not agree with the rotors despite all anti-squeal measures taken.

I changed to Brembo ceramics per maupineda data point. Problem solved. Yeah the bite is lackluster when compared to true performance pads, but dust is low and overall the setup feels A++. Very happy with everything.

Have you done much mileage since doing the front plastics in Sem Trim Black? Curious how it has held up

Don't hesitate to use SEM products. They work exceptionally well.

Everything has held up very well. Only challenging pieces are the wheel wells. They just get gunky at no fault of the paint. When I do full washes I clean them up and hit them with solution finish(trim dye). I actually use that stuff all over the place, also works very well.

[bavarian3]

CSL Exterior Enhancements

Another major project complete as I finished some exterior enhancements on the rear. This took a while as I worked with the painter to get the color match right. TLDR - We initially sprayed PPG paint which matched poorly. We resprayed with Glasurit and the match was excellect, and IMO had better quality clear coat.

A shot of the completed parts ready to go on. Super happy with the results. These were painted separate from the car as I'll of course be doing the fitting, and no touching the factory paint for blending.


Gt4 / Mile End Composites Diffuser




Genuine CSL trunk.





First step I removed the rear bumper and took the opportunity to install some new tips. Maybe I'll do a muffler down the road but I'm pretty happy with the stock muffler note with euro headers and HJS catted section 1.





Once you figure out the right drill bit size the rivets come out easily




The tips were sourced from a community seller on FB groups from UK. Great suggestion from. Avedis

New on left, stock on the right





You don't really need the level, but I was curious. Had to source some rivets in 5/32x1/4" and in stainless steel to avoid any galvanic corrosion.




Blingy




Then I worked on the bumper. There really wasn't much work to do here. The MEC diffuser is so good, you literally just pop it on like the stock one. I have no experience with any of those ebay examples, but I feel this is one of those you get what you pay for situations.



I really can't ask for more with an aftermarket carbon part.






Test fitting going well. I went ahead and polished and ceramic coated the piece. The tips and diffuser couldn't have fit better.






Moving on to the trunk. This was actually more involved than I thought. The genuine part made it an enjoyable experience though.





Got some help to feed the trunk onto the hinges. As a bonus, turns out she could just walk the wiring harness through the new trunk by hand. 🤣





Prepped the donor inner lights with polish and ceramic. You can see the difference where I taped the line.





Prepped the wiring of the LED license plate harness. Many make the same mistake I did and measured this out too short. The reason is because how the power and ground split to each light isn't accounted for. Instead folks measure from the bigger blue harness shown below, instead of where the black wires split.





The lights themselves were a pain to fit, requiring some dremel work(on the lights themselves) to squeeze on, but they eventually fit and look fantastic.






Roundel and license plate base fitted. I used genuine well nuts for the plate base, then a bunch of trips to the hardware store to get the screws right for the license plate framing. Roundel also didn't fit without some dremel work. Oh that key tumbler was a slight pain to get right as well. The gasket is a little fussy.







Fitting the M badge took some precision to make sure I didn't go crazy after sticking it on. I basically measured and drew out some spacing as outlined from this image. The csl badge didn't matter, just getting the padding right from the bottom and right lines.






Overanalyzed for a while till getting it what I hoped would be just right.






Bang on. Not too close, not too much gap.





Last step was to fit the inner liner. This also required some dremel work as the holes didn't all want to fit.

While it may seem incomplete, I won't be installing the tool kit at the moment. I'm happy with how it looks as is.






And there it all is. A whole new look.





I'm not the first to do this look, but it never gets old to me.





This work was completed a month ago and I've been enjoying driving it, making some summer meets here n there. Here are a couple shots from a photographer that posts up on a local mountain.

[0-60motorsports]

Looks gorgeous, those tips are sweet.

[sbay]

Clean

[Gt4]

Too bad our diffuseurs aren't selling cause fitment is spot on. Better than the first MEC production batch/mold

Now you give me motivation to work on my LSB and get my CSL parts painted!

[bavarian3]

Thank you 0-60motorsports sbay

Gt4 I'll write you all a review. Perhaps not enough people know about it. I think at the price point it's a no brainer for the quality received.

[bavarian3]

CSL Intake

I planned on waiting till winter for this, but I figured with CA smog I better enjoy this as long as possible till it has to come out again. I was lucky to come across a nice deal on a Karbonius Race from a forum member looking to quit having to swap for smog purposes. I won't mind the hassle, so let's go.

Out goes some parts. This was my first time pulling the intake, so it opened up a new area for cleaning. This was post manicure.




Everything was quite simple on removal, figuring out the best way to wire the MAP sensor gave me more of a headache. Some amazon and some awesome heinzboehmer provided bits would help get me to where I eventually wanted to go.




The issue wasn't how to wire the MAP. It's only a few wires. The issue was how to do it without splicing into the factory wires. I wanted it to be completely reversible without leaving traces of tampering. To my luck, I found an amazing writeup from karter16 which was exactly what I was looking for: link.

The gist of it is you wire the MAP and IAT lines straight into the now open MAF connector. Then you just re-pin one slot in the x60003 DME harness. I drew up a diagram for those confused, and even included the part numbers for each primary component(you still need little bits like grommets and pins which Karter covers in detail).






This is what the final harness is like. Left is MAP harness, middle is to IAT, and right goes into the MAF connector. Go into the X60003 harness and re-pin slot 1 to slot 18. The best part is it's completely reversible and will leave no trace of tampering, and no need to feed any wires through the harness weatherproofing.

I will redo this when I take things apart for smog to optimize the length, and put some proper sealing on the MAP connector end.





With the wiring figured out I could get to fitting the airbox in. This was pretty easy I just took my time not to muscle the carbon too much. The clamps were fine as well once you know what to do.





Given that I have a 2001 MY, a couple aspects require a little more effort. One being the DME. Since 2001's use MSS54 In comes a donor MSS54HP.





Another annoyance with the 2001's is the vacuum line many use the covid-19 kit for doesn't seem to fit too well. Besides, this also helps avoid tampering with factory equipment(not that a hose is a big deal). Other solutions(kassel) seem to have question marks around them, so there was only one fool proof solution that I figured I'll buy while I still can.

Genuine CSL air rail.





This is where a 3d printed parts comes in handy with Karter and Heinz's awesome contributions. The adapter in the pic above with the wiring loom is glued(I used epoxy) to the map sensor for proper fitting to the CSL air rail. This is necessary to get a nice fitment with the Saab MAP sensor(0261230101).





All fitted





With that set I can move to the DME for the re-pinning as previously mentioned. Straight forward as can be. You can actually see on the far right where it has a "1" marked.




In to 18 it goes. You can count as it's marked 14 on the left, 26 on the right. With that done I dropped the new DME in and continued with the intake.





Kind of a lousy pic but this shows the routing of the wiring harness. As mentioned there's a bunch of extra slack I plan to refine later. You can see how it plugs into the MAP, IAT, and MAF. I don't really have a great solution for routing this formally, so I'm open to suggestions.





After fitting the second half of the intake. Starting to get excited. The airbox also came with the csl air shutoff valve fitting and extended crankcase hose.





I was amped to get this running. Based on positive feedback I went with the Bry5on tune. TLDR, no regrets. Do it and don't look back. More on this later.




Some close to final shots after firing it up and making sure everything runs.










If you noticed the air duct panel that connects to the stock intake is missing. I had an idea to make things more CSL like. I picked up an extra panel and trimmed away the extended part that's no longer needed.



After more filing and some trim black solution now everything is buttoned up and looking how I want. I did intentionally remove the drive side shroud. The CSL omits it(due to the snorkel iirc), and I despise the part. Classic troll move by the BMW engineers to route the cooling hose through it.




Summarizing

And there it is all done. So what can I say that hasn't already been said? The car absolutely rips now.

Driveability is 95% that of stock. It's not to say there aren't SOME compromises, as there is a low-end hiccup or two, and bumpy throttle for a short period of time on cold start. I could not care less about the minor negatives with the overall improvements this solution provides. Bryson is also continuously improving things so I look forward to the next iteration. As others have stated, Bryson is also very friendly, helpful, and patient. This goes a long way.

Sound wise it's loud as hell if I want it to be, but completely muted if I want it to be. It's not exactly an exotic sound, but it's rowdy and a crap load of fun. I'm curious if it sounds any different from the standard Karbonius box.

I'm not sure if I care to dyno this, but with the tune, intake, and euro headers the power increase is not subtle or bs. Adding to that some mild weight reduction goodies, the car is really just a blast to drive.



I actually drove the car outside of town for the first time and caught Monterey Car Week. I usually just hang out there with the commuter car, but this was way more fun this time. A little stressful at times with all the crowds and "content creators" everywhere. The GF wasn't prepared to be in that many pictures. 🤣

Naturally I didn't take many pictures of my own car with the level of operation there. Our hotel's parking lot alone was a car show.

[0-60motorsports]

Last pic is awesome! Nice work and DIY tips and tricks in your post. Cheers.

[Bry5on]

Cold start will be getting a major revision this winter! My car warms up before the end of the block right now, so it's too warm to tune Glad you're out there enjoying it!