Robs E46M Rosso Corsa Street Build

[robgill]

What? Someone is happy with their Evolve alpha N tune? Blasphemy!

Hah yeah I kind of snuck that in there 😂. I'm generally pretty anti canned tuned but I'm exceptionally impressed with the drivability of the Evolve tune. The torque is down low (opposite of my track car) and its a blast to drive on the street. They have also been a pleasure to work with.

[BMWahba]

Man, seeing those TE's on your car makes me want a set just like that in pressed graphite. May have missed it, what's the specs on yours?

EDIT: Nvm, found it. Any reason you went with 22 offset versus the more commonly found 35? It looks perfect.

[robgill]

Man, seeing those TE's on your car makes me want a set just like that in pressed graphite. May have missed it, what's the specs on yours?

EDIT: Nvm, found it. Any reason you went with 22 offset versus the more commonly found 35?

They are 18x9.5 ET 22 with 265/35 PS4s. I had them on my track car previously so a little more aggressive. I would prefer to have ET 35 on the front for less poke. I'm also getting a little bit of rub in the back with a 7.5mm spacer so I'm going to drop down to a 5mm.

[BMWahba]

They are 19x9.5 ET 22 with 265/35 PS4s. I had them on my track car previously so a little more aggressive. I would prefer to have ET 35 on the front for less poke. I'm also getting a little bit of rub in the back with a 7.5mm spacer so I'm going to drop down to a 5mm.

Oh, they're 19s? I thought they were 18s

[robgill]

Oh, they're 19s? I thought they were 18s

My bad, that should be 18...

[D-O]

Hah yeah I kind of snuck that in there 😂. I'm generally pretty anti canned tuned but I'm exceptionally impressed with the drivability of the Evolve tune. The torque is down low (opposite of my track car) and its a blast to drive on the street. They have also been a pleasure to work with.

This got my attention. My car is strictly for the street, so "torque down low" sounds appealing. Is the Evolve tune generally considered subpar? How much top end does the tune sacrifice to improve the lower end? I don't want to completely alter the character of the car to gain more low and mid-range power, but some improvement would be welcome.

Thanks.

Jesse

[usdmej]

not sure if you noticed yet, but the rear view camera makes more sense mounted on the passenger side since it will obscure the light output onto the license plate when its on the driver side (i installed mine like yours and was pretty disappointed looking at the car from the rear at night)

[robgill]

This got my attention. My car is strictly for the street, so "torque down low" sounds appealing. Is the Evolve tune generally considered subpar? How much top end does the tune sacrifice to improve the lower end? I don't want to completely alter the character of the car to gain more low and mid-range power, but some improvement would be welcome.

Thanks.

Jesse

Hey best I can do is share my experiences with my own cars. My street-able track car is a similar engine build (airbox, SS V1s) but a bigger cam (288/280) and forged lighter pistons. Originally I tried the CSL tune and was pretty disappointed with it. The street drivability sucked with constant low speed hesitation and stalling. Eventually landed on a custom Alpha-N dyno tune from RK Tunes that was much better on the street and screams on the track. The torque peaks around 5k which works great on track where you are generally at 5k - 8k RPM.

When I got this car back together my plan was to go the same route; custom dyno tune. It happened that my DME was already running an Evolve Alpha-N tune loaded from previous owner. At first that was annoying because it locked my DME and there was some basic things I couldn't do on my own. This i why I'm not a fan of "canned tunes". But as I started to drive the car more I Immediately could tell a difference in the lower RPM street driving. Its a lot more zippy in 2nd-3rd gear at 2k-3k as well as pulling when in 5th and 6th gear highway driving. Regardless of the power it is making its a lot more fun to drive, just all around a better street experience. So I decided to stick with Evolve and they updated the tune for my mods, and very happy with the result . I'm still going to get it on the dyno at RK Tunes to check AFRs and see what power its making and compare curves to my track car.

This is my track car curve for reference:

[robgill]

not sure if you noticed yet, but the rear view camera makes more sense mounted on the passenger side since it will obscure the light output onto the license plate when its on the driver side (i installed mine like yours and was pretty disappointed looking at the car from the rear at night)

That is a very good point! I had not looked at the lights in the dark yet. I'll plan on swapping them eventually 👍.

[robgill]

Looks like last weekend may be the last favorable weather for a while in the North East. So spent some time putting some finishing touches (is it ever finished?) on the car and headed out for nice drive through Westchester County on Saturday. So far I have not put any of the factory stickers or badges back on the car so decided to get that done! First I made some templates off the track M3:



Then transferred them to the red car to get the correct factory placement. Especially happy with the Rosso Corsa paint code sticker 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Props to the guys at getbmwparts for hooking me up:





Went with the F80 gloss black M3 badge to match the black trim. Yes I'm aware that is not the proper CSL trunk badge location but whatever I like this better:



Then programmed two shinny new keys to the car plus key chains from forum member @duracellttu group buy.



Nice drive up to Ossining on the Hudson then packed the M3s away from the coming snow storm....

[antknee]

saw that this car was aligned at Ivan's on IG....how is that place? I recently bought a house a couple blocks over, and was planning on checking them out.

[robgill]

saw that this car was aligned at Ivan's on IG....how is that place? I recently bought a house a couple blocks over, and was planning on checking them out.

Yeah highly recommended, he knows these cars well. Been to a bunch of local shops and I like Ivan because he is super flexible to work with. I was on and off the rack several times to fix bushings and making sure the wheel was perfectly straight. All for one alignment charge.

[antknee]

Awesome great to know thanks!

[robgill]

Back at it over the long weekend with one of the last major upgrades: Porsche Brembos! Have this same setup on my track car and love the look and performance. I've been planning this one for awhile and started collecting parts over a year ago. I travel to LA a lot on business (pre COVID...) and there are a lot of Porsche salvage yards. First place I tried was LA Porsche Dismantler and yeah, they had a lot of Porsches:



Thanks for the sacrifice Boxster S! All four calipers for $600.



Shipped them home, stripped them down and dropped them off with Mario for paint:



Love the bronze Brembo color and wanted red logos to match the paint like this:



Closest match we found was the bronze color of Nissan GTR Brembos, so went with that color with a satin clear coat:


Fully rebuilt with new seals, bleed screws and a ceramic coating ready to install:


All mounted up with ECS Tuning brackets and new OE rotors!




Got them bled (took forever...) and had a quick test drive. Unfortunately we now have another winter storm coming so may be awhile before I can get the M3 back outside from some proper pics.

[bigjae46]

Nice! I bleed in new calipers with Walmart brake fluid and then bleed Motul through. Saves money.

Glad I’m not the only one that business traveled and went car part shopping at night. Scored quite a few deals - best one was a 210mm diff with the ZF LSD for $250.


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