Martin's AW/Cinnamon 6MT Street/Track Build

[nextlvel]

Super excited to see the rest of this build journal unfold, very interesting so far.

[sbay]

thanks! i have a bunch more updates to catch up on, but spoiler alert: i do regret selling the first box and bought another karbonius box a few weeks ago. It's sitting in the garage and i'm just waiting on some downtime to get it on the car 🤣.

I decided to skip the flap and extra hassle this time and went with the race box in matte finish instead. figured i'd do something different this time since I went OEM-ish the first go around. can't wait to get it in and share the progress here.

Funny enough I have the race box as well; install seems that much more straight forward! Guess you’ve convinced me enough to keep it if you had to buy it again.

[gabylonfive]

Clean build…I hope it continues to give many years of smiles per miles!

Any regrets getting rid of the CSL-style intake? I have one that’s waiting to be installed but sometimes I feel like just keeping the car stock and not messing with tuning and all that.

thanks! i have a bunch more updates to catch up on, but spoiler alert: i do regret selling the first box and bought another karbonius box a few weeks ago. It's sitting in the garage and i'm just waiting on some downtime to get it on the car 🤣.

I decided to skip the flap and extra hassle this time and went with the race box in matte finish instead. figured i'd do something different this time since I went OEM-ish the first go around. can't wait to get it in and share the progress here.

[sbay]

Clean build…I hope it continues to give many years of smiles per miles!

Any regrets getting rid of the CSL-style intake? I have one that’s waiting to be installed but sometimes I feel like just keeping the car stock and not messing with tuning and all that.

[gabylonfive]

Happy you decided to keep the M3. I'm currently on the hunt for a AW slicktop, but they're all located in Cali (I reside in MA).

I'm happy I kept it too, at this rate I'll just keep working on it and pass it to my kids when they're old enough 😁. I wanted a slicktop too but I settled for a clean sunroof car with plans to do a carbon roof down the road. Good luck on the hunt!

[Loopyspec]

Happy you decided to keep the M3. I'm currently on the hunt for a AW slicktop, but they're all located in Cali (I reside in MA).

[gabylonfive]

With my daughter almost turning 1 and getting ready for day care, I was on the hunt for a suitable baby hauler / daily / tow rig for us.

In typical BMW guy fashion, I made a quick trip to the P-car dealer and nearly traded the M3, the Lotus, and all my earthly belongings for this:



Alas, it was not meant to be - we settled on a '16 Cayenne S E-hybrid and don't regret it (I guess.) We absolutely love this car and it's been amazing for the 6 years we've owned it.




I spent most of my free time in 2019 working on restoring the Elise, which was a very fun and gratifying project. It was essentially a total loss due to front clam damage from running over a curb and I got a crazy deal on it, picking it up basically for nothing. The original plan was to get it back on the road and sell it, but as you can tell I went a little overboard and started falling in love with the car.










The M3 wasn't getting much attention in 2019 so I actually entertained the thought of selling it and keeping the Elise as I'd promised my wife I would only keep one of the two. I started parting out some of the more expensive parts on the car - the airbox, wheels, and trunk sold fast.



Car was still looking pretty good though, and every time I'd drive it I knew I would never have the heart to sell it. I'd always ask myself what I'd possibly replace it with, and I'd always come up empty.

So I did the absolute worst job of trying to sell the car for 6 months before deciding I would just look for a house with a bigger garage instead LOL.

2019 came and went and we started house hunting right before the world went to shit.

[gabylonfive]

The rest of 2018 was pretty uneventful. Decided to throw a CF front lip on to cover some of the battle scars the bumper had built up over the years. I figure it would be a nice short term solution until I could find a CSL bumper. Spent most of the rest of the year just driving the car and spending time with family.









2019 ended up being a bit of a slow year for this car, but that's not to say there isn't a whole lot more left to share.

[gabylonfive]

Time jump to the beginning of holiday season 2018 - I was browsing craigslist for an oil cooler for my Elise project when I somehow found a set of TE37SLs for sale for the wrong car (this one.)

Needless to say, I met the guy the following day on the way to buy the Elise cooler and came home with the oil cooler and a set of wheels 🤣.

My personal favorite Volk/Rays finish is Mercury Silver, especially on a white car. At the time though, that finish was nigh impossible to find as the OG wheel was already discontinued save for some one-off group buys and the SL was not offered in that finish yet. These pressed graphites were a nice consolation though.

[gabylonfive]

As I wrapped up the airbox installation I noticed a small oil leak at the vanos line / accumulator and what appeared to be the start of a coolant leak at the lower rad host / temp sensor. I decided I might as well refresh the entire cooling system so I went with a CSF radiator and oil cooler, bw vanos and coolant overflow lines, SPAL electric fan and fan controller, expansion tank, and new OE upper/lower hoses,






Knowing what I know now about how this setup has held up for other folks, I'll probably go back to an OE rad and mechanical fan whenever the time comes to replace this. It's mostly been fine for me but on hot days here in the Bay I've noticed coolant/oil temps get uncomfortably high when sitting in traffic and I would rather just stick to the simplicity of the mechanical setup .

[gabylonfive]

I love it when journals are posted as catch ups - it's like being able to binge a whole season of something on Netflix 😂

that's so funny, that's exactly how it feels as I type this up and go down memory lane with these photos 😅

[gabylonfive]

Around the time I finished up the subframe (May 2018), Karbonius and a bunch of folks on m3f had finished up the details on a group buy of their first set of OE-replica CF airboxes. Seeing as I hadn't already spent enough money and time on the car that year, I went ahead and placed my name in the hat for a box with the OE style plastic trumpets. I figured I'd only do this once (wrong) so I went all in and went with the OE snorkel with flap, Kassel MAP adapter, spare h-bridged HP DME, and all new OE intake boots, csl dipstick, hoses, shut off valve, etc etc.

I even went as far as picking up the OE CSL ducting for an OE CSL bumper, with plans on eventually tracking one down (I don't think Mile End had started producing one yet) and running the ducting to the snorkel like a proper CSL. I hadn't done much on the cosmetic front up to this point, but I had plans to do an OE CSL trunk (I did not like how the CF trunk currently on the car fit, nor did I care for the trunk handle) and OE CSL bumper in the near future. In hindsight I wish I had just gone ahead and done it because prices were still somewhat reasonable and parts were somewhat available still. You live and you learn, i guess.

I remember waking my daughter up on accident as I ran downstairs to make sure I didn't miss the DHL guy. 🤣














It took me about a 5 days of working between naps and feedings to get everything in (so like, 30-45 mins at a time), but man was it worth it. For the most part, everything went very smoothly - the wiring was pretty straightforward and everything fired right up on the first try. Needless to say for anyone that has done this mod, the sound is fkn glorious.





Both TPS replaced since I'm already in there:

For what was essentially v1 of their carbon airbox, the fit and finish of this box was great. Install was a breeze, the quality and placement of the weave was awesome and everything just felt super high quality. Very impressive first take - it's no wonder they’ve become one of the go-to brands for this platform.








Also coded the cluster to display the oil reading with the CSL DME now installed:




Hell yeah:

[karter16]

I love it when journals are posted as catch ups - it's like being able to binge a whole season of something on Netflix 😂

[gabylonfive]

Haven't seen this username in some time! Good stuff.

between having two kids and also rebuilding a totaled elise into a track car, i've had my hands full the past few years 😂. glad to be back though!

[Tbonem3]

Haven't seen this username in some time! Good stuff.