Karter16's Silbergrau E46 M3 Journal

[karter16]

Recently I picked up a matte screen protector for the headunit. I wanted to give it a go and see if it would be an improvement over the glare that you get from the glossy head-unit screen.

I wasn't able to find one exactly the right size so had to cut to size (which I got wrong slightly as you'll see in the photos). But it's good enough to try it out. If I decide I want to do this permanently I'll pull the head unit out and disassemble it so that I can get the screen protector across the entire surface of the screen so it sits perfectly behind the bezel.

It's quite a big improvement. In the photos below I intentionally didn't clean the surface protector once it was on, so it has my fingerprints all over it. With direct lighting from behind onto the screen this was the most reflection I could get:



And here's a couple of other photos (again with the same lighting conditions but photo taken slightly off-axis.





I'm very happy with this so will try it out in driving conditions over the next few weeks and if I decide I want this permanently I'll pull the unit out and do it properly :-)

[karter16]

Ah ok, technically the connector is 1928403966, just making sure you got all the parts you needed. The kit from 3way even with international shipping is ridiculously cheap, nice find. I'll be ordering from them from now on.

Thanks for double checking - yep I ordered the kit (this one: https://www.3waycomponents.co.uk/pro...it-1928403966/) so it comes with the terminals, etc.

Yeah I live in New Zealand so we get screwed over with shipping on absolutely everything - I think I spent about twice as much time finding the cheapest combination of item cost + shipping for this lot of parts as I did assembling the list of what I needed! 🙈

[George Hill]

Yep 1928403966 is indeed the one I've ordered. (From 3 Way Components in the UK). Like you for the minimal extra cost I'd rather have genuine Bosch.

Ah ok, technically the connector is 1928403966, just making sure you got all the parts you needed. The kit from 3way even with international shipping is ridiculously cheap, nice find. I'll be ordering from them from now on.

[karter16]

Also, the COVID-19 and all of the other kits I found online for the wiring look like they are using replica terminals. I've used them in the past with success but I just found the OE Bosch numbers:
1928403966
1928498056 x3
1928300599 x3

Bought from Chief Enterprises, LLC in Illinois

Yep 1928403966 is indeed the one I've ordered. (From 3 Way Components in the UK). Like you for the minimal extra cost I'd rather have genuine Bosch.


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[karter16]

I just trimmed some material off the nose of the sensor and it fit ok. I did use a larger o-ring (no idea what it was from) and with the larger o-ring the slight misalignment of the mounting bolt hole doesn't really matter, it sits relatively flat. I know you are already going with this adapter and it certainly is going to look cool, just not sure its 100% needed functionally wise.

Also the BMW MAP sensor bolts are to short, you'll need something longer, I used a cam/crank sensor bolt IIRC.

Oh agreed - I think I said a few posts back that you can just trim the nose (and change o-ring) and do it that way. I'm not suggesting this is the only way to do it. I'm making up this adapter just because and because the end result should look nice and tidy.

Haha yes it occurred to me yesterday that the bolts will be too short. I hadn't paid enough attention to what the original CSL sensor looked like and missed that the mounting points were a lot shorter.


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[George Hill]

There is also this version if you want the cool locking feature

My thinking was to get the Bosch terminals, the 966 connector is already hideous enough, lol. Luckily its not visible with the microfilter housing on.

[Slideways]

Also, the COVID-19 and all of the other kits I found online for the wiring look like they are using replica terminals. I've used them in the past with success but I just found the OE Bosch numbers:
1928403966
1928498056 x3
1928300599 x3

Bought from Chief Enterprises, LLC in Illinois

There is also this version if you want the cool locking feature

[George Hill]

Also, the COVID-19 and all of the other kits I found online for the wiring look like they are using replica terminals. I've used them in the past with success but I just found the OE Bosch numbers:
1928403966
1928498056 x3
1928300599 x3

Bought from Chief Enterprises, LLC in Illinois

[George Hill]

I just trimmed some material off the nose of the sensor and it fit ok. I did use a larger o-ring (no idea what it was from) and with the larger o-ring the slight misalignment of the mounting bolt hole doesn't really matter, it sits relatively flat. I know you are already going with this adapter and it certainly is going to look cool, just not sure its 100% needed functionally wise.

Also the BMW MAP sensor bolts are to short, you'll need something longer, I used a cam/crank sensor bolt IIRC.

[karter16]

This evening I also managed to make some progress on...

CAD Project 1: SMG Expansion Tank bracket
With the SMG expansion tank in hand I was able to measure up and design a copy of the bracket that the tank clips into. I measured up the tank:



And was able to draw up the two profiles at the top and bottom of the clip, which results in a bracket looking like this:



Again I've sent it off to Dad to have the first prototype printed.

The second part of this is to 3D scan the strut tower and design up the other part of the bracket - if I get time tomorrow I'll get started on that.

[karter16]

Dad dropped off the the prototype this afternoon:



And here it is fit to the sensor - I'm very happy with how well this fits for a first prototype.






Very happy with how well it fits together and seems I even got the radiuses of the beveled edges right!

It fits up nicely to the rail:




Planned changes for the next iteration:
- Enlarge mounting holes a bit to allow some wiggle room for the mounting bolts
- Enlarge hole for sensor nose as I had to file it out slightly in this proto.
- Reduce the thickness of the spacer plate. The piece is very solid and I think it will be better to reduce it back to approx 1.5mm so that the o-ring on the nose will sit a little bit lower in the air rail.

Dad will also print the next prototype with CF reinforced PETG which should be a suitable end material with sufficient heat resistance for this application. Printing in the target material will allow us to check for any dimensional variance with a different material (proto 1 is just PLA).

I think this should turn out well!

[0-60motorsports]

This is very exciting, you give us hope yet for the CSL air rail folks.

Exactly. Nice one op.
I am tuning OE CSL everything so this is a good backup or shall I even say upgrade

[ugaexploder]

This is very exciting, you give us hope yet for the CSL air rail folks.

[karter16]

The CSL secondary air rail and SMG reservoir were waiting for me when I got home from work this afternoon.

I took the opportunity of having 1 out of 2 children with the grandparents and made a start on...


CAD Project 2: Adapter for Bosch *101 MAP sensor

With the air rail and sensor now in hand I was able to check the fit and measure up:



I was aware that you either have to trim the nozzle or stand off the sensor and that's fine, but I wasn't prepared for this:



Now in practice this probably won't matter too much, but it's not as good a fit as I was expecting.

Also as I had read elsewhere the o-ring will need to be replaced for a correctly fitting item. It's far too loose in this application. If people are buying this sensor and just chucking it on it's not going to be a good seal/fit, there's work to do to make this fit decently.

So I decided to get on with it and draw up the stand-off plate + second mounting point. For reference here are a couple of close-ups of the mounting point on the rail.





And here's some close-ups of the sensor:






And this is the stand-off that we need to account for:



It measures in slightly more than 1.5mm but I'm going to make the standoff 2.5mm thick to allow a little wiggle room.

I knocked this up and have sent it off to Dad to have a first prototype printed for fitment checks:



I'll report back on this when I have the prototype in hand. I expect there will be fine-tuning adjustments to make.

[karter16]

It's been a wintery weekend here and as I'm waiting on parts from Schmiedmann (they're on their summer break now - boo) I've been limited to more theoretical planning for future projects. While my main parts order from Schmiedmann is waiting on a few bits to come in they did manage to ship out my order with the CSL secondary air rail and SMG expansion tank in it. RockAuto have also shipped the *101 Map Sensor which means that by next week I should be able to get underway with prototyping for 2 of my little CAD projects.

CAD Project 1: SMG Expansion Tank bracket
The CSL has a mounting bracket that you rivet to the shock tower. Given one of my key goals with my build is to be able to reverse out my changes in the future I don't really want to drill holes in my shock tower. I therefore plan to adopt the same approach as others which is to fabricate a bracket to attach to the threaded stud on the shock down (which is a bit inboard and further back than where the SMG reservoir sits). Others have made a simple bracket out of aluminium which they attach the CSL bracket to. I plan to go one step further and create a 3D-printable piece that is moulded to the shock tower and incorporates the little bracket for the reservoir into it (to save having to purchase the little bracket and keep things nicely fitting and more streamlined. This of course won't look completely original as it will be somewhat visible in the engine bay, but I'm happy to accept this compromise to save mutilating my shock tower. I intend to use the faceID scanner on my phone to capture a mesh of the shock tower with which to design against. I had a play last night with the faceID scanner and it is very impressively accurate - looking forward to challenging my CAD skills a bit more (I used to know how to do this 15 years ago, so hopefully I can figure it out again).

CAD Project 2: Adapter for Bosch *101 MAP sensor
As I mentioned above I plan to design an adapter for the Bosch *101 Map sensor to space it out from the air rail appropriately and add on the second mounting point. With the rail and sensor due in my hands next weekend I should be able to measure up and have everything I need to prove out this idea. Looking forward to seeing if this will work.


The other think I've been doing is some deep dive research into the "tune" side of things for my future CSL airbox conversion. I studied engineering at university, majoring in embedded systems engineering, however haven't really dived into the engine management world at all previously. It's an interesting area though and something that would be fun to figure out. I mentioned this somewhere previously but I've always thought that it's a shame for the CSL airbox conversion that there isn't a standard tune that can be applied for those who are swapping in just the airbox. If you think about it fundamentally BMW had standard tunes for the M3 and the CSL (well, actually more variants, US vs Euro, etc. etc.) but they were standard tunes that they applied for each difference vehicle configuration. The same thing should be possible for those swapping out the airbox, a standard tune that suits the specific configuration of the car. This would then save the hassle of getting your car tuned (which as we know really only focuses on WOT mappings anyway, so isn't really getting to the root of the problem anyway.

Well, anyway, since I had those thoughts Bry5on has made breakthrough strides in this area with his Mullet Tune, which combines the VANOS and ignition tables from the standard M3 tune and the CSL tune together to get the best of both worlds. When applied along with the fuel map tuning process described here the outcome is all of the high end boisterousness of the CSL map along with the round-town refinement of the standard tune. For what I want this is ideal. I don't need to eke out a few more HP at the top end, or push timing to the max. I want a reliable OE-like tune that handles the CSL airbox on an engine with standard M3 internals.

I spent some time this weekend with TunerPro and the CSL tune and the actual tune from my car currently, getting a handle on the various tables involved and looking at some of the differences between the two tunes - it's really very interesting looking at the VANOS tables and seeing just how much adjustment is made in the mappings for different conditions. Fascinating stuff.

One thing I haven't figured out yet is the WOT tuning side of things. I need to work out the best place/way to install a Wideband sensor. I really only need this during the tuning process, so just need to figure out for a Euro-spec car where to put it while I'm datalogging. My presumption is that the standard CSL map is probably conservative enough anyway that running too lean wouldn't be a major concern in my case anyway, but will need to validate this.

Beyond those specifics I'm just working through the significant amounts of documentation on the process in general, and documenting my planned workflow/steps to prepare the tune.

Good fun.