Liam821's Phoenix Yellow

[RoyalFlushness]

They are brand new. I bought them from Scuderia Car Parts USA which is a US importer of Aston, Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc parts. You can get them, brand new, in yellow, red, black, grey, and silver. Mine are silver. They are direct from Aston and include the two brake pad pinch hardware and spring plate.

https://www.scuderiacarparts.com/par.../151/659/23823

Make sure to select a right and left caliper. I paid $394/each plus shipping and duties. Came out to about $975. I was going to get them used, but after shipping, I was looking at $600-800 and then would most likely have to replace all the seals and have them repainted. So it was a wash. I'm not sure keen on the Aston Martin logo...I wanted them to say Brembo, but I'll deal with that at a later date. The calipers are also used on the V8 Vantage as well as the DB9, also the Audi TTRS 8J model or RS3 8P model (but you will have to flip the calipers since they are reversed from Audi).

You can also buy them from Vagbremtechnic (the place you buy the brackets from) and they come out to about the same price, although shipping might be a bit more. But they'll do custom colors and logos if you want.

https://www.vagbremtechnic.com/front...lipers-bk0014/

For the money, I think this kit is hard to beat. With new CSL/ZCP rotors & pads (from FCP with a lifetime warranty), you're looking at under $1500 all in. The Aston calipers have the same piston size as the older $4000 Brembo 355mm 4-pot setup for the e46m3 and you don't have to machine the calipers like you do with the Porsche. They also look better, IMHO.

Buildjournal has a nice review here: https://thebuildjournal.com/reviews/...e46-m3-review/

Appreciate the detailed information sir. Yes, they look like a great way to tackle to the front brakes on these cars. Perhaps once you get them fitted you can get them painted during the off season.

[Slideways]

Yeah, those Redish RACP videos are pretty helpful in displaying all the common failure points.

The OE grills and side vents make the front end look showroom fresh 👍. Are the bumper and headlights staying?

[liam821]

Yeah, those Redish RACP videos are pretty helpful in displaying all the common failure points.

The OE grills and side vents make the front end look showroom fresh 👍. Are the bumper and headlights staying?

I'll give them a watch. I had a pretty good look under the car and found no other damage, thankfully. I'm going to remove the angle eyes and put them back to stock - the driver's side one has fallen out of place and is sideways anyway. The bumper is not an OE bumper but fitment is good and the paint match is excellent and I like the CSL style so I'll keep it on for the time being.

I'm planning on doing a slicktop conversion and will replace the trunk with an OE CSL trunk at the same time since I'll have to paint the roof might as well do it all at once. So I may do the bumper with a Mile End or something ...not sure yet.

[cbean]

That Phoenix yellow, OMG, I am totally in love. This is an incredibly epic post, thank you for taking the time to share this. I have so many questions, but will ( am ) sound like such a noob Subscribed, cannot wait for the next set of pics.

[timmo]

Yup, had the same cracks on my ZHP. When I had the plates welded in, I made sure to have them also weld that split seam back up:

[liam821]

That Phoenix yellow, OMG, I am totally in love. This is an incredibly epic post, thank you for taking the time to share this. I have so many questions, but will ( am ) sound like such a noob Subscribed, cannot wait for the next set of pics.

Thanks!! If you have questions, feel free to PM me. And you won't have to wait long for an update, because here you go!



I've had almost zero time in the last few weeks to work on the car, unfortunately. Work has been just out of control...but I snuck out of the house a few times late at night while everybody was asleep and was able to get a few hours in here and there.

Finally got the rest of the engine put back together. Nothing super exciting here just cleaned all the throttle bodies, cleaned the icv, refilled the coolant since I swapped out the whole hvac system, reconnected and checked all the bolts, etc etc


Next on the list was putting back together the whole underside of the car. Again, nothing exciting, just getting the driveshaft back in, exhaust, all the underside panels. The hardest part was remembering where I put all the screws and bolts... haha Finally back on its feet for the first time in 6 months. You'll also notice I removed the shark fin antenna from the roof since it was painted black and half the paint was falling off.


It was probably like 3 in the morning at this point, but I couldn't wait. I connected the battery, put the key into the ignition, crossed my fingers, and turned. To my surprise, it started right up on the first crank! A little bit of a rough idle but smoothed right out and purrrred away. Amazing! Then it promptly sputtered and ran out of gas. Oh yeah, I drained the tank when I removed the gas tank.

The following day I got a few gallons of the good stuff, poured it into the gas tank, and reversed out the garage. I did not set the ride height or do the alignment at this point. I just made sure the left and right sides front/rear were set about the same and figured I'd see where the car is and go from there. She's a bit low..


First drive!! Amazingly, everything just worked great. A few lights on the dash, they just need to be cleared. But drove perfectly. Thankfully the stalling issue it had was gone, pretty sure that was caused by a vacuum line to the bottom of the intake manifold that wasn't plugged in. The suspension was pretty low but still rode pretty good. I don't have a review on the Fortune Auto Mullers yet, but my first impressions are positive. More to come on that. The only problem I had is there is something loose in the rear right suspension - a clunk. Sounds like a shock strut isn't tight or something. I'll have to do a bolt check and figure out what it is before I drive it again.


Quick stop into Fred Meyer... hrm, yeah, it's really low. I also forgot to remove the tint off the front windows since the windows were down and the car didn't have a battery for the longest time.


Took a few beauty pictures by our lake in our neighborhood




Hard to see, but I replaced the black M3 badge with an OEM one.


I gotta say, Phoenix Yellow is an amazing color. It's really grown on me!


So what's left? Lots. Gotta adjust the ride height, an alignment is greatly needed, install the PureTech Sweden subframe X-Bar, do the BMW subframe foam injection, bleed the brakes (again, there is still air in there somewhere), remove the halos and restore the headlights to OEM, replace the smoked corner lights with OEMs, and weld/fix the crack in the rear driver-side fender area.

The next big thing will be picking wheels and tires. I'm not really sure what I want to do yet. Do I restore the 19" ZCP wheels? 18" Enkei NT03+Ms? Apex ARC-8s or perhaps SM-10s? The rear Michelin PSSs are basically old and shot, and on the front one side is a PSS and the other side a Contential... Hey, it's what the car came with. My top two choices right now are keeping the ZCP wheels or the NT03s. I think I'd rather an 18, but I gotta say the ZCP wheels look great.

[enjoy_m3]

Very nice! looking forward for the suspension review. I'm looking at ohlins or FA Muller at the end of the year.

[Epsilon]

Very nice! looking forward for the suspension review. I'm looking at ohlins or FA Muller at the end of the year.

Same!

[liam821]

Few more beauty pictures

[Ob917]

Great build, love the color. I'm really interested in the brake feel and suspension review. Thanks for posting it all.

[big greasy taco]

Very impressive build!
What are your impressions on the Fortune Muller coilovers so far? out of curiosity, do you have experience with any other setups to compare them to?

[liam821]

Very impressive build!
What are your impressions on the Fortune Muller coilovers so far? out of curiosity, do you have experience with any other setups to compare them to?

I've had Bilstein PSS9s and KW V3s as well. I still need to do an alignment and adjust the suspension a bit before I give a proper review. And thanks!!

[Maxima SE]

Excellent work so far. Glad you went with all black interior. it flows much better than Imola. And the ZCP dash trim is a nice finishing touch.

It saddens me to see pix of the Lagos blue in that shape. Such a rare specimen. Any pics of the Imola beast?

[liam821]

Excellent work so far. Glad you went with all black interior. it flows much better than Imola. And the ZCP dash trim is a nice finishing touch.

It saddens me to see pix of the Lagos blue in that shape. Such a rare specimen. Any pics of the Imola beast?

Yeah, it saddens me too. It sucks having to see it in the garage. I'm hoping to get it out and scrapped - if I can ever find any free time to work on that. Ian might kill me if I don't find some free time (ha ha!) I'm really happy with the interior as well, it came out really good. Still a bunch more to do, but you know, time...

Imola? You mean my red e93m3? It's not super interesting, it's completely stock...but here is a snap of my wife and kids. We don't drive it much and keep threatening to sell it, but honestly, it's not really worth much and its paid for...but it's a 6MT and v8 sounds with the top-down is pretty amazing.



I did do a small project though. A friend of mine, he is also a forum member here and also has a PY e46m3, ended up having to replace his headlights so I bought his old stock headlight housings off him. You can see in the pictures above the headlight housings were painted black and had the angle-eyes installed. I wasn't really a fan of either. As I was swapping the housings though I noticed that the white plastic clip that holds the bottom of the housing in place so they can tilt/be adjusted was broken. So the housings wouldn't stay in place. ugh To make matters worse its not a part you can buy from BMW unless you buy a whole other headlight.

Here is the clip:


You can see the side that snaps into the headlight is broken


So before I tried to buy the cheapest headlight I could find just for a $0.14 clip, I figured I'd give it a go of modeling in Fusion 360 and 3d printing a new one!

Looks pretty good, lets print it.


3d printed using PETG on the left, original on the right


Right off the printer, I cleaned it up a bit before I tried to use it


I popped the piece into the back of the housing, it fit perfectly! Put the headlights back together and put them back on the car. My phone camera caught the light weird, but you get the idea. Our clone of Ian's i3 in the garage on the left.


I also replaced the smoked corner lights with OEM corners off my old blue car


Still have to do the alignment/suspension setup/bleed the brakes/blah blah. Hopefully, I can get a day to myself to catch up on things. More to come!

[heinzboehmer]

Nice, looks so much better with the stock headlights.