What's going on in my shop currently...

[George Hill]

We are still back in May for these updates...

Scrapped a shell that we bought for the SPECE46 engine replacement (last year).





A set of rod bearings for an S65.








My buddy Todd owns a shop in Houston (TMJ Bimmers) came in to town to pick up some bell housings I machined for him to convert M3 SMG to full manual.






AND he is a big E36 guy, he heard I had the cleanest driver 328i and wanted to sell it so unexpectedly he drove home with it as well, lol. You'd never believe this car has almost 300k on it, it is quite possibly the nicest over 100k mile (let along almost 300k) car you'd ever see. Which was made it hard to justify owning. Luckily it went to a good home and he is enjoying it immensely.






We are now to June and had a track weekend with BMW CCA at CoTA. Are buddy Daniel convinced us all to go in on a garage together and it was really the best thing ever. It was WELL over 100* all weekend but the way the garages are laid out it really was quite "pleasant" in the garage.

We brough Daniels S54 E36, which I need to do a big write up on, Jason's 330 swapped Touring, Brandons "SPEC E46 Lite" coupe and of course Eileen.

Eileen ended up going 2:37.xx which I am super happy with, lots of room on the table, but it's a good baseline to improve upon in the future.

[heinzboehmer]

The rear shock comes out for that repair and was found to be missing the paper gasket between the mount and the body. This will cause an audible noise and even when these cars were new people would complain about it, BMWs fix was to just add a second gaskets so for her we added (2) new gaskets per side.

I'm chasing a noise in the rear of my car and am thinking it might be related to the shock mounts (sounds like it's in the trunk).

Have you been able to reproduce this sound you're talking about when the car is up in the air? If so, how?

I've unbolted a lot of stuff and wiggled it around, but can only hear the noise when driving. Would be awesome if the fix was just to add another paper gasket to the mount

[George Hill]

Its been awhile since I've updated the thread here, I'm more active on IG as far as whats going on in the shop but I just did a bunch of work to our shop wagon and made me think about bumping this thread.

For those that don't know Eileen is a 2002 325iT that was originally a 2.5L/Automatic. Shes had a bunch of different combinations but presently the setup is S54, ZF8 automatic and an X3 4.44 ratio diff with wavetrac LSD. The rear suspension is a mix of Non-M subframe and CV shafts with M3 trailing arms and brakes. The interior is gutted, but still has AC and a Carbon Fiber roof which gets the weight down to about 3050# wet w/o driver. Wheel/Tire combo is 275s on 18x9.5s and I fit those with the use of HARD MS fender flares. Now onto the updates....

Finally knocked out some work on Eileen. Some of these parts I've had for literal years so it was nice to get this checked off the list.

Here's the initial parts pile:

• M3 control arms
• M3 spindles
• M3 TMS Monoball "FCABs"
• M3 Brake calipers and rotors
• M3 tie rods
• "ZHP" yellow tag rack
• (2) P/S hoses
• M3 GAZ coilovers - these ended up being junk and I kept the Konis on while I decide whats next, likely FatCat Motorsports custom valve setup.
• "New" subframe - When I installed the S54 I swapped subframes for ease and I used an M52tu one. Those are the same except they don't have all the threaded inserts for the reinforcement plate. I had RivNuts in them but it was only a matter of time til I was ham fisted and killed one.
• Carbon Fiber reinforcement plate - bigjae46 made this for me who knows if its better than stock, but its pretty fun!
• 330 Core4 MS press in stud front hubs
• SPL rear LCA
• VAC MS rear UCA spherical ends - I had these from some leftover customer project I parted out.
• RaceMagic "Race" brake pads

How it started...




Going together






How its going...




Onto the rear






I bought a kit to start doing string alignments for the hot rods. I then happened to be at DrVanos.com picking up some parts and we got to chatting about string alignments and he had a kit he wanted to sell. Gave me a smoking deal I couldn't pass up on this CSM hub stand kit and these tables to set the car on. So I broke these out and setup the car. Got some things to work out with the kit but its awesome so far.






My shop is not large, I used to have a tire machine and balancer but they just took up to much space so I sold them. But my buddy and I were about to buy a ton of tires and we decided it made sense to buy machines and then keep them at his shop. I'm not sure if this is a service I will offer to clients but its soooo nice being able to do my own tires again.




Loading up the pallet of tires along with a shell yall will see more about soon...

IMG_7105 by George, on Flickr


Last step for Eileen before the track was a tires. I had been running Hankook RS4s forever and they have been great. But after being completely blown away by a "less prepared" M3 in the Carousel of CoTA I said I wasn't going back to the track with those tires. I got a set of 275/35/18 Bridgestone RE71RSs and so far I love them.


I got everything on the car and set it on the ground and....








I forgot the M3 suspension was going to widen the track width. I thought I would have enough room, but with the HARD MS flares they can be manipulated to increase or decrease the flare and mine were not installed optimally to clear this setup. So at this point it was the night before the trip to the track in Oklahoma and I decided to call it and throw in the towel. There were so many unknowns this was the final straw and the last thing I wanted was to drag the car 500 miles and then find out there were other issues.


So she sat a coupple weeks and then I got back to work. I had a set of overfenders that I had planned to put on so I could fit 295s but that plan got moved up. I also felt the HARD MS flares were getting a little tired looking and the fitment really wasn't that great overall. So off they came...




Marking out the clearance for the vents.




Chop Chop




Test fit, they are going to work.




And testing a 17mm spacer to see if the 295s will work, gonna be close, IDK.




All assembled. I'm not a huge fan of these over fenders but they are cheap, well made and fit pretty dang good. So the plan is to get the car sorted to meet some made up goals and then I will start backing it back into a more "streetable" and stock like car (kind of).

[bigjae46]

Nice! Thanks for the shoutout! I'll try to knockout a non-reject CF front plate for you over the winter. I want try something so won't be a big deal other than getting it to you.

I was thinking about going to a non-M rear subframe/diff on my car to shed some weight. Do you know if I can use the M3 axles with a non-M diff?

[George Hill]

Nice! Thanks for the shoutout! I'll try to knockout a non-reject CF front plate for you over the winter. I want try something so won't be a big deal other than getting it to you.

Love it, I'm sure we can meet up at a TDE event.

I was thinking about going to a non-M rear subframe/diff on my car to shed some weight. Do you know if I can use the M3 axles with a non-M diff?

No they are different lengths. But you won't have any issue with non-M shafts. I drag raced this setup with 325 shafts/Trailing arms AND tracked it for years. Our cars don't make enough power to worry me and your car is way light so 330 shafts shouldn't be an issue. You have a ZF5 correct? You can use a stock driveshaft at that point too.

So you'll change the diff, subframe, CV shafts and driveshafts, thats it. 4.44 ratio came in an X3, but they also had 3.91 and 3.73s as an option too.

[bigjae46]

Love it, I'm sure we can meet up at a TDE event.



No they are different lengths. But you won't have any issue with non-M shafts. I drag raced this setup with 325 shafts/Trailing arms AND tracked it for years. Our cars don't make enough power to worry me and your car is way light so 330 shafts shouldn't be an issue. You have a ZF5 correct? You can use a stock driveshaft at that point too.

So you'll change the diff, subframe, CV shafts and driveshafts, thats it. 4.44 ratio came in an X3, but they also had 3.91 and 3.73s as an option too.

Cool...so no need to press the hubs out?

I can always find a reason to go to Austin. Are you going to Cresson 3.1 in 2 weeks?

[George Hill]

Cool...so no need to press the hubs out?

Correct, knock the CVs out and replace with the 330 shafts.

I can always find a reason to go to Austin. Are you going to Cresson 3.1 in 2 weeks?

Presently I am signed up to instruct, so I plan to be there.

[George Hill]

The goal is to get to the track more often and not "work" so much. I've been instructing with some of the HPDE orginzations lately and we just had an event at Motorsports Ranch in Cresson, TX. So it was the first outing in Eileen since the changes.

To say I was thrilled was an understatement but the car has worked better than it ever has. So much grip with these RE71RS vs the RS4s and I'm not even at the limit yet. The RM brake pads really have allowed much more control over the car throughout the braking zone its really impressive.

Saturday I could tell the car was better but really hadn't made huge improvements over previous times. I had a conversation with a racer friend a while back and we were just talking hypotheticals and he said if you wanna go fast you can't drive like a bitch. So Sunday I was thinking there was still time on the table and I decided to take his advice and immediately knocked 1.5 seconds off and ultimate landed nearly 2.5 seconds faster than Sat and didn't even get a clean lap. Theoretical times were still another 1.8 seconds faster so I can't wait to go back and really explore the limits of the car.

My "fast" laps:

https://youtu.be/ycCnbn-8dYk

My buddy Jason joined and thats his black touring, its basically a SPECE46 legal setup with AC and no cage.