Karter16's Silbergrau E46 M3 Journal

[heinzboehmer]

Excellent work! Looking forward to the complete c style disassembly that you're gonna share with all of us

[karter16]

Excellent work! Looking forward to the complete c style disassembly that you're gonna share with all of us

Haha well it might not be the entire binary but I will be sharing everything I do figure out. I find it crazy that after 20 years there isn't more information available around the MSS54 and how it works. I do appreciate people who put the effort in on stuff like this often want some return for their efforts so it makes sense perhaps. Anyway I certainly don't want to make money out of this or gatekeep anything I figure out, so will absolutely be sharing for the benefit of the community.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Slideways]

Haha well it might not be the entire binary but I will be sharing everything I do figure out. I find it crazy that after 20 years there isn't more information available around the MSS54 and how it works. I do appreciate people who put the effort in on stuff like this often want some return for their efforts so it makes sense perhaps. Anyway I certainly don't want to make money out of this or gatekeep anything I figure out, so will absolutely be sharing for the benefit of the community.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There was a massive thread on M3F which had a lot of disassembly stuff in it, but that got lost with the old forum.

You've probably seen the new thread, but it is a fraction of what it once was - https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/s...me-information

[karter16]

There was a massive thread on M3F which had a lot of disassembly stuff in it, but that got lost with the old forum.

You've probably seen the new thread, but it is a fraction of what it once was - https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/s...me-information

Yes I remember perusing the old thread many years ago. Such a shame it was lost 😭

[karter16]

Got a few bits and pieces done this weekend.

On Saturday morning dad and I welded up the cracks in the top of the front right RACP mount. As usual I did a bad job of taking photos as we went, but I did get a couple here and there.

As a recap, this is what the front right looks like from the top:



As you can see in the photo above the crack coming down towards the bottom of the photo is hidden behind the rear seat sheet layer. So that we could see how far this crack went we inspected the bottom side of the top layer of the RACP with my boroscope.



As can be seen the crack extends just to the point that the RACP bends down to layer up with the rear seat sheet. For reference the threaded insert visible on the right hand side of the image is for the seatbelt buckle.

Knowing how far down the crack extended meant that I was easily able to cut the small section of the seat layer out so that we could access the end of the crack to drill and weld. We found that a rounded nose carbide burr in the die grinder was the best way to clean up the surface around the cracks.



Dad then MIG welded the cracks up - I unfortunately didn't get any photos of this as I was running extraction and lighting while dad welded. A couple of comments though:

- We used some ceramic fibre insulation segments to pack the RACP cavity to prevent sparks, grindings, etc. from traveling inside the cavity. the ceramic fiber insulation is good in that it's non-flammable.
- I had previously measured the thickness of the RACP layers to be welded and dad had obtained some equivalent sheet metal to run some trials on and dial in the settings on the MIG.
- We went slow to avoid heating everything up too much, even so the cavity wax on the underside of the top RACP layer tends to melt and smoke along where you've welded, good extraction is advised.
- We used the boroscope again to check the other side of the welds (where they are on a single layer of sheet) and confirm good penetration of the weld.

With the welding done I then cleaned up the top surface with the carbide burr to level out the welds and leave an, as flat as possible, surface for the brace to mount to.

I unfortunately didn't get any photos of the welds prior to cleaning up and putting a protective layer of undercoat on.




As you can see the surface is not perfectly smooth (the flash from the phone actually makes it look more pronounced than it is in reality - it is less than 1mm, which will be perfectly fine for this situation. The OE welds stick up a couple of mm anyway. I didn't want to take away too much material at any point with the burr, so played it safe and left a small amount of extra material in place.

You may also notice that we welded the little cutout that we made to access the end of the crack back in place and smoothed it out with a little body filler. Not really necessary given it's going to spend the rest of its life under the seat again, but for the sake of an extra 20 minutes work it's worth it in my opinion.

I hand painted on the under coat as I wanted to make sure I could get it into all of the corners well, there's not a lot of room in there to rotate a spray can. I'll do another layer of undercoat, and then sand it back a little, mask up, build myself a little spray booth inside the car and do a couple of coats with the e-coat matched enamel I have. I'll then dust on some A08 on the seat bench (when I can finally get some, whole other story) to replicate the original surface as much as possible.


Secondly the DIN7984 hex head bolts for the MAP sensor arrived, they're identical to the original items except 18mm long to address the greater thickness of the 101 sensor mounting point, plus they're stainless rather than the zinc-coated original bolts. I'm happy with how these have turned out:

[karter16]

Today I cleaned up the top front RACP points and sprayed with the e-coat matched enamel I have.

First up I masked the area around the mount (photo taken prior to clean up).



Then I used a ziploc bag as a miniature spray booth by taping it to both the RACP and the spray can. I also made sure to cover/block every other hole/exit point in the RACP so I didn't get any over spray wafting out anywhere.




And the end result (paint is still wet here):




I have some clean up to do on a few rust spots on the seat bench, but will do this once I have the A08 in hand and can touch it up properly.

At this point though the front mounts are ready for the installation of the brace (drilling and tapping will be done at the time of installation of the brace as I need to take the subframe off to tap the threads.

[karter16]

I've been going through the public XDF for the 0401 binary and sorting out some of the incorrect references. They're usually pretty easy to confirm by looking at whether the data makes sense. This one made me chuckle 😛

[karter16]

I've spun up a thread (https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/s...assembly-notes) in the Coding section which I will keep updated as I work through the disassembly. Aim is to make the info easy to find and also splits it out from this build thread.

[karter16]

Finally made it to my summer break! Did a quick fitment check of the airbox, filter and Haimus snorkel to make sure I don't get any surprises during install. I've noted others have found the hose attachments to be tight so am prepared that I might need to do some adjustments there like heinzboehmer did to get them to click in correctly.

The CSL dipstick tube is finally with the local courier for delivery, more than 6 months after I ordered it, so should get it in the next few days. The only other thing I'm waiting on is the silver replacement screws for the two halves of the airbox, but they aren't a blocker given I can use the ones the airbox came with and swap out easily later.

[karter16]

Yesterday afternoon I conditioned the intake boots and clamped them to the airbox. The tool for the Oetiker clamps works out at about $100NZD however you approach it so I saved $85 dollars by using the dremel to modify some standard $15 SuperCheapAuto clamp pliers.



This worked very nicely - I'll paint the pliers so they don't rust and they can go in the toolbox for next time.





I also installed 2x new rubber isolators - Being 20 years old the rubber in the current ones is probably soft and perishing.



Plans for between now and whenever the dipstick tube turns up is to remove the LHS radiator cowl shield in preparation for installing the airbox.

Yesterday I also took the car for a drive and logged the relevant variables with TestO to get a baseline capture before I go making any changes to the car. I want to make sure I'm as prepared as I can be for moving across to the 0401 program. To that end I will also be doing another full review of each change I've made to the partial as part of v1 of my tune. It's been long enough now since I did it that I should be able to do a good review of it and make sure I haven't made any mistakes.

[karter16]

This morning I removed the LHS radiator cowl. My objective with these modifications remember is that I retain the ability to return the car to stock. I therefore didn't want to cut-down or cut off the cowling. It was a quick job to detach the top radiator pipe and slide the cowling out.



Then right on cue the CSL oil dipstick tube showed up (along with the silver-coloured hardware I was waiting on for the airbox as well).



So I carried on going...

I didn't have a turkey baster for removing the SMG fluid from the reservoir, but I do have an abundance of my son's old enteral syringes and feed pump tubing :-)



All pretty straightforward - the little connector on the bottom at the back is a bit of a pain, but all done without too much fuss.




Next up will be a quick general clean up, as well as cleaning the ICV and throttle bodies (might as well while I'm in there) :-)

[heinzboehmer]

This morning I removed the LHS radiator cowl. My objective with these modifications remember is that I retain the ability to return the car to stock. I therefore didn't want to cut-down or cut off the cowling. It was a quick job to detach the top radiator pipe and slide the cowling out.

Man that's some dedication. I would have cut it off and bought another on ebay if I ever wanted to go back

All pretty straightforward - the little connector on the bottom at the back is a bit of a pain, but all done without too much fuss.

Next time, stick your hand into the intake hole and push from the inside. Pops right out!

[karter16]

Man that's some dedication. I would have cut it off and bought another on ebay if I ever wanted to go back

Yeah being in New Zealand by the time you add shipping unfortunately everything is expensive, so decided I'd go the extra mile

Next time, stick your hand into the intake hole and push from the inside. Pops right out!

Ah thanks! I did have a look/feel of it from inside the intake - sounds like I should have just pushed harder on it and I would have been sorted!

[karter16]

Forgot to add as well that Dad made up a threaded guide for a long 5mm drill bit for drilling through the RACP mounts :-)