Cockroach Individual M3 5/15/2026 Floating rear rotors, steering coupler, dyno

[samthejam]

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

41k miles of love and 75W-140.

[samthejam]

Diff pinion shaft seal reached critical mass
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr


Only real pictures I got of it were the marks I did for the pinion nut.
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

Pressed in another diff bushing
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

A random pic of reassembly
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

Oh I also installed some used takeoff Bimmerworld Race Camber Arms, my originals definitely were tired and deflecting

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr


Had to weld up the Bimmerworld exhaust some more
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

Also on Epic DME software now! MAF is no more, per his recc I went that route. Super happy with drivability and idle. I was worried about that, I have a dyno day scheduled soon, so going to get that soon.

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

[samthejam]

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

Painted the bumper came out good, very happy with it. Probably won't even end up doing a cut and polish on it.

I think I will have to redo the hood at some point. It is like hazing? idk what it is but in most cases it doesn't really show up. Here I was able to catch it in the camera well. Now that the wax is off you can tell in direct lighting. I will probably just wax it often Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

But for a daily/track beater thing. It's more than good enough for me. Just want to finish up fixing some fitment issues on right side and call it a day.

Redoing hood will be much later down the line. It's been great to learn how to do all this and not have to take it a shop.

[samthejam]

bigjae46


That rotor went on for years after lol
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

[bigjae46]

Turn 6, I have that picture somewhere. He is completely out of it now, he is building a datsun roadster and a E12 rehab. He is into just doing projects in his shop mainly. I have been woring on getting him to come out in that. I doubt he will take his E92 M3, or his E28. Just my dumbass carrying the torch.

I remember that because I had the same wheels on my car that day. I was quite worried...but I drove anyway lol

[samthejam]

Is your dad going to ever be back on track? Wasn't he the victim of a D-Force wheel failing on the front straight at TWS.

Turn 6, I have that picture somewhere. He is completely out of it now, he is building a datsun roadster and a E12 rehab. He is into just doing projects in his shop mainly. I have been woring on getting him to come out in that. I doubt he will take his E92 M3, or his E28. Just my dumbass carrying the torch.

[bigjae46]

Is your dad going to ever be back on track? Wasn't he the victim of a D-Force wheel failing on the front straight at TWS.

[samthejam]

So there have been two thing growing fairly annoying somewhat exponentially. I have been using this to focus on my E28 (https://forums.mye28.com/viewtopic.p...6811&start=300) so I can kind've more slowly approach the M3.

I just got it patched up in a more enjoyable state to daily drive but it still needs more times and money to be cherry. Anyways, the two big annoying items is the diff clunk. I'm glad it isn't the rear floor. I refreshed all of that, so I am surprised it is that front bushing but that is okay. I can replace it and will reseal the front of the diff at the same time. Not sure if I will do OE cover at that time.

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr



The other thing is I can tell the front FCABs are getting tired with clunks, lack of front end precision and some tire wear. It had some used AKG ones, I put in to make an event and forgot they were in there. They did what poly does on rotating parts, fail.
I was going to do Ground Control FCABs bought them used and pressed them into housings. I much preferred the GC design on paper, however they were a pain in the ass due to how tight their tolerances are on everything. Not sure if it was my drivers side control arm or what but it did not want to go together. I gave up and went back to the Bimmerworld TrackCABs which I also don't really like but they are very easily serviced and rebuild is cheap with overnight always available.

Now when I got the car and did the rod bearings, I was delighted to find two crossthreaded FCAB bolts. I was able to tap both and get some threads to hold torque. This is the side that had the control arm fail with the 50lb 20 inch wheels so it has had a lot of trauma. One of those FCAB bolts would require a retap any time it was disturbed. This side is so questionable, I'll stage the torque. Start at 10 and work up the 44 ft lbs. Threads came right out on the one I usually have to retap. Simply just no more material.

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr


As you can imagine, I begun to panic. I called my dad as I remembered on his he had the same issue. He still had a fixture to drill it straight and all the tools to helicoil as well as the helicoils from when he did it 11 years ago. Sometimes you have to ask for help, so I did and he saved my fucking ass. I also saw someone selling TrackCABs new in box, so picked those up locally. I plan to modify my other set to better retain the bushing as that is my main gripe with them, I like how easily serviceable and cheap to rebuild but its stupid that bushing isn't retained. As you can see I have hoseclamp to help retain this. I have seen this around the paddock on other cars.

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

[samthejam]

Random Side Quest,

I believe long term is to just buy a tune from Epic be locked out, because having knobs to play with will make me go insane. I also want to do time trial this or next year moreso next year.

But anyways, if I will be locked out it will be on separate DME not my only one. The engine I bought came with it, so it has been test mule for learning some more, I refuse to buy the ECUworkz tool.

Don't have a pic of the final harness tidied up, but validating I did it correctly. Was very straight forward.

Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr
Untitled by Sam DaJam, on Flickr

Fun little side quest, was to make a bench harness, flash euro firmware on it and do all the deletes. So I did a full program flash and did all the specific changes like GPS stuff for my car and all the other mods with headers. EWS Delete etc. Also to validate everything I need for no CEL on my car as well. So went to the yard bought connectors from a non-m and pinned in the canbus, soldered it up and got a power supply off Amazon.

The Euro software definitely isn't as strong but you can tell it's much better calibrated for idle and all that. Which of course makes sense. I have an HTE flash, on my other DME. I have a few experiments I want to give a gander, but can't find a tool I found on wayback from m3forum where someone made a tool to better visualize cam timing changes. But I want to verify some injection timing changes with some vanos changes see if there is a correlation with how they are messed with together.
But anyways yea random side quest to make sure the DME works. I want to see if I can give it ago applying the performance changes to the euro firmware, also need to research playing with the axis values or just interpolate it with python or excel in some way.

[George Hill]

Maybe, my car is likely going to get a fuel cell in the trunk, but until then… and depending on costs I might be able to get one or two others on board

[Bry5on]

You still want one?

Yessir! Maybe George Hill would too?

[bigjae46]

One vote for removing the rear floor panel and making that your next carbon project

You still want one?

[samthejam]

Contact info for that car? I'm looking for a rear subframe and maybe some spare axles.

It's on marketplace I''ll dm you on facebook

[Bry5on]

Contact info for that car? I'm looking for a rear subframe and maybe some spare axles.

One vote for removing the rear floor panel and making that your next carbon project

[bigjae46]

As y'all know these cars are getting pricey for better or worse. So finding good deals on coupe anything is getting tough. There was a local part out, on a M3 that got wrecked hard. It looks like it was garaged and well kept so a shame it died. However the guy usually parted out E90s so I was able to score some items that Ive had trouble finding.

Contact info for that car? I'm looking for a rear subframe and maybe some spare axles.