Karter16's Silbergrau E46 M3 Journal

[karter16]

Whole family (including myself) are sick this weekend so took the opportunity to try out doing a VE table tuning run with the MAP sensor turned off. I've been wanting to do this for a while as theoretically it's another variable that can be removed from the process. With the MAP sensor taken out of the RF calculation path the car is essentially running in "Alpha-N Mode". My theory behind this is that depending on point in time conditions the MAP sensor is adjusting the final RF either up or down from what's calculated from the VE table. While this is desirable in day to day use, for the VE tuning process it's an unwelcome additional variable.

Unfortunately I can't really think of an objective way to measure the impact of it to the VE tuning process, so it's really just a subjective assessment I guess.

The difference with the MAP sensor disabled is immediately noticeable in the part-throttle conditions the MAP sensor targets. The car is less responsive and throttle input is jerkier and less consistent. I found a couple of RO/RPM conditions which I hadn't previously been able to flush out.

I intend to do another tuning run tomorrow or Monday on a day when I can get further out and up the RPM range more to get a more complete test.

It would need more people to try this out and get their subjective feedback as well as to whether disabling the MAP sensor positively influences the VE tuning process (I think it will mostly be about the speed at which one arrives at the end result), but I am pleased to have finally proven out that changing the configuration byte from 0x12 to 0x02 does behave as expected.

Oh and also gave the nylon MAP sensor adapter a couple of good heat cycles and then took it off and inspected it - appears to be unaffected by the heat so far, so off to a good start.

[ugaexploder]

that would be awesome, sign me up as well

[bmwfnatic]

The MAP sensor adapter printed in CF-reinforced Nylon arrived today. Minimum order value applied so I'm now the proud owner of 12 of these.

I'll try to install in the next couple of days. HDT is significantly higher than the CF-PETG I used previously.

Yeah send me one as well since you said not to use the previous one 😂

[0-60motorsports]

The MAP sensor adapter printed in CF-reinforced Nylon arrived today. Minimum order value applied so I'm now the proud owner of 12 of these.

I'll try to install in the next couple of days. HDT is significantly higher than the CF-PETG I used previously.

I can always take one off of your hands. Let me know brother.

[karter16]

The MAP sensor adapter printed in CF-reinforced Nylon arrived today. Minimum order value applied so I'm now the proud owner of 12 of these.

I'll try to install in the next couple of days. HDT is significantly higher than the CF-PETG I used previously.

[karter16]

Well yesterday and today I tackled a job I've long been putting off.

Yesterday I took the headlining out of the car, and dropped it (along with the sunroof cover, etc) plus the BM-134 fabric off to a professional headliner upholsterer. The dude was a legend and had it ready for me to pick up this morning (think he was grateful that I'd done the hard work of taking it out of the car!). He was very complementary of the BM-134 fabric - he said it's a quality fabric with quality foam and was lovely to work with.

I'll tackle pretty much any job on the car, but this is one of those few things I'm very happy to leave to a professional - the work is flawless and it looks incredible.

For those wondering about the fabric match - I took some photos of the re-wrapped headliner against one of the interior trim pieces which has the original BMW fabric on it (non-foam-backed):







It's a very close match and certainly once it's in the car you can't tell at all - the slight difference really only shows up in photos.


Likewise it matches well against the new A/B/C pillar trim I bought (which fortunately all match each other as well - as that was a problem for a while):




While the headliner was out I took the opportunity to pull out the wiring a PO had put in for a radar scanner - I removed the T-Tap connectors, insulated the wires and wrapped in Tessa tape:







In order to remove the sunroof cover to retrim it I also had to remove the sunroof glass - I took the opportunity while it was out to give the frame a good clean and re-lubricate with graphite lubricant:




I reinstalled the headliner and then got on to installing the new pillar trim - shiny new B-pillar covers:





Then the C-pillars, along with the foam insulated clips:



And lastly the A-pillar trims and inserts with the airbag logo on them. Notably the A pillar inserts are a significantly different shade to everything else. (which is hilarious given this is all new OE parts). If it annoys me too much I might order replacements and hope for a better match.

I'm very happy to have this done - it's not a particularly fun job but very satisfying to have everything refreshed and like new.







You can see the huge difference in shade between the new a-pillar and the insert 🙄.

[karter16]

Manufacturing for my design is close to being done! Should be in my hands in a couple weeks. Once finalized, installed and validated, I'll make it available for all.

Not sure what your plans are for the front end, but I guess I'm just excited to get my braces installed

Very much looking forward to seeing it installed!


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[heinzboehmer]

It's a very significant improvement and I'm getting itchy to give the front of the car similar treatment

Manufacturing for my design is close to being done! Should be in my hands in a couple weeks. Once finalized, installed and validated, I'll make it available for all.

Not sure what your plans are for the front end, but I guess I'm just excited to get my braces installed

[karter16]

Well 2 days of driving an excavator, 4 months of weekends, 300m of rebar, 14 tonnes of concrete, 232 CMU blocks, and a lot of manual labour my retaining wall is complete - finished backfilling it today. Starting to get a bit wet here for the winter so great timing.

Bit of a general update on the car.

• The latest version of the SMG reservoir bracket is in use, I've got some more tweaks to make to it so will do that and print the latest iteration.
• The MAP sensor adapter in CF-PETG shows some evidence of softening. It seems, under the clamping force of the bolts, it's not quite up to the ~100 degree C temperature that the rail hits. Plan is to get this printed in GF-Nylon which should be able to handle beyond 150 degree C temps.
• I'm doing some preliminary work on the reinstallation of the trunk interior with the RACP brace in place. Working through a few things to get to a lightweight, high-quality solution that meets my need to make it look as OE as possible.
• The version of the CSL tune I've been running the last while seems super stable. Even as it's got colder here it's remained super smooth. Seems I've got the warm-up maps pretty much spot on. I still want to do some more fine-tuning, and in particular am keen to try out running the fuel tuning process with the MAP sensor integrator turned off, but it's not top of the priority list given what I'm currently running is so good.
• Planning to get the headliner out and off to the pros to redo with the BM-134 fabric that I have stashed. I've also got brand new A/B/C pillars to go in once it's reinstalled.
• Intend to make more progress with the 0401 disassembly as well - especially as the days get shorter and the weather gets worse.

Lots of little bits and pieces on the go.

I've also been enjoying driving the car. The refreshed diff bushes have eliminated any remaining clunk in the drivetrain. Combined with the smoothness of the CSL tune it makes for lots of enjoyable downshifts with no need for the manual throttle modulating that I'd previously gotten used to to minimize the thunk. Secondly the RACP brace has, in addition to providing top-side support to the RACP, made an enormous difference to the torsional rigidity of the rear of the car. It's a very significant improvement and I'm getting itchy to give the front of the car similar treatment

[karter16]

Great updates as usual. Do you have a link to that screen protector?

Yeah sure - the one I got is a local brand - but should give you an idea of the sort of thing I used: https://screenshield.com.au/products...LSXH4mF.WHCYV2


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[0-60motorsports]

Great updates as usual. Do you have a link to that screen protector?

[karter16]

Today I also finished up the repainting of the v brace and rear sway bar brackets project. I top coated them a week and a half ago and they've been resting while the enamel fully cured. Today I reinstalled them along with new hardware to match.

[karter16]

Another rainy day here so retaining wall is again on hold. I took the opportunity this morning to finally redo the matte screen overlay on the Xtrons head unit. I got the Xtrons about 16 months ago and have had a much better experience with it than I was expecting. I'm well decided that I'll be keeping it. one of the downsides of it, and many head units is the glossy screen. About a year ago I purchased a matte screen overlay to see if I liked it better. I did my best to line it up nicely but because I had to cut it to size the edges were visible and annoying to me. I've long intended to take the head unit out and disassemble it so that I could replace the overlay over the entire LCD screen so that the edges would be hidden by the bezel if that makes sense. Today was that day.

Head unit out:


Rear case off:


Disconnect the two big ribbon cables between the chassis and the display and remove the 4x screws holding the display shield on.



Then the display and shield pop out of the bezel:


The screen with the old matte overlay on it:


Old matte overlay removed:


I didn't get any photos of applying the new overlay as both my wife and I were employed in getting it on and keeping the screen completely free of dust. We succeeded and the overlay went down perfectly:


The new overlay with the protection layer removed:


Then it was just a case of reinstalling back into the bezel:


And reconnecting the ribbon cables and putting it all back together:


I'm super happy with how this has turned out - we got the overlay to go down perfectly and it looks fantastic:





While I had the unit out I took the opportunity to plug in the USB extension and install the latest firmware to address the issue with a greater than expected difference between volume levels 4 and 5. This was straightforward and did indeed fix the issue.







Now that it's reinstalled I'll give the screen and the head unit a clean to get the fingerprints from install off.

Good, quick rainy day project :-)

[karter16]

Sill waiting for the ground to dry out a little bit before I progress the retaining wall so spent a couple of hours this afternoon taking the rear sway bar brackets and v brace off and cleaning them up. When Dad and I did the underbody refresh in 2017 we used an enamel black paint for most of the pieces, and 8 years on they still look amazing - wipe the road dust off and they look brand new still. There were a couple of pieces (the sway bar brackets and v brace) which we painted with exactly the same stuff, only silver instead of black. Unfortunately the silver kind of sucks in comparison to the black - presumably whatever they put in it to make it silver makes it more susceptible to surface rusting.

So anyway - I took them off, stripped the enamel with acetone and then cleaned up the surfaces with some fine sandpaper before cleaning again with acetone and then undercoating.

The pictures are a bit average because it's pretty late in the day here, but I'm sure you've all seen undercoated things before:





Had something interesting happen when I was spraying the undercoat on. It went on beautifully and then I noticed along some of the edges that it looked like it was bubbling. *Cue confusion*. The surface was prepped well and was very clean so I wasn't sure what was going on - I've used this undercoat a bunch of times and it's always been lovely.

Closer inspection revealed it was moisture beading on top of the paint. Actual paint surface is fine and the moisture evaporated again. I'm guessing that it must be close to dew point here right now and the propellant from the spray paint has cooled the surface of the metal just enough at the edges for moisture to condense.

Anyway - the moisture evaporated after some minutes and the paint surface seems good. I'll double check it when it's set to make sure it has good adhesion.

[0-60motorsports]

Thanks! My car is RHD which makes a relocation a bit more involved as both the "drug bins" are already full.

Oh I didn't realize that LOL. Makes sense now.