Dawson's 2002 Silverstone Metallic M3

[Liverpoolreds8]

Definitely does! I appreciate the reply.


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[Str8f4c3]

Not sure if you’re still on here man but loved the M3 and even more the Coupe! I’m looking to run a similar suspension and wheel set up and I was wondering what your specs were to make the NT03s fit properly? Tire sizes and camber?

Sad to see it go!


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Thanks for the kind words man!! I definitely miss the m3, was a really nicely set up car. But the coupe is awesome, and a dream car of mine so I don't regret the change. Will probably have a new build log for that one up on bimmerforums soon, lots of work coming in the next couple months.

I ran a couple setups with the nt03... First was 255/35 front and 275/35 rear. That setup was pretty low and ran almost 4 degrees of camber up front. Then I went 265/35 square, raised the car and ran 3.2 degrees of camber in the front. Both times I ran about 2 Degrees of camber in the rear with a 7.5mm spacer, but I had shaved fenders so definitely could've had more spacer, maybe 12.5mm with no rubbing from what I've read.
I would recommend the square setup so you can rotate front to back and get more life out of the tires. You can probably also run less camber with a little bit more ride height. Hope this helps!!

[Liverpoolreds8]

Not sure if you’re still on here man but loved the M3 and even more the Coupe! I’m looking to run a similar suspension and wheel set up and I was wondering what your specs were to make the NT03s fit properly? Tire sizes and camber?

Sad to see it go!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Str8f4c3]

One last update for this one - I managed to complete a bucket-list mod for me - a CSL Trunk - in July. It's nothing fancy, but fit pretty well for a no name. Always wanted one and glad I got to make it happen.


In September, I made the tough decision to sell the car. I really enjoyed it for the 14 months I owned it, but the crazy car market pushed me to try and grab a dream car of mine before the prices got out of reach. So, I ended up with this:


It's a 99 Slicktop, Originally Estoril Blue but painted Ferrari Yellow in the early 2000's. The car has a crazy history and buying it was one hell of a story, but I'll save that for another build log :P

[Str8f4c3]

Part 7 :Continuing on with little bits and pieces

Just rolled over 1 year of ownership, and 3 years since I got my first M3. Car is driving really well, and I'm looking forward to enjoying it lots this summer. In early May I finally got around to having my AC-Schnitzer Replica rear diffuser painted and installed. The piece wasn’t in great shape but actually fit really really well.

Holes drilled and test fit prior to paint



And installed. Really happy with it, something a little different from the CSL diffuser. Also makes the exhaust tips look a little more flush to the body which is a nice plus.




Another little project I’ve been wanting to get around to is rewrapping the roof, as the vinyl that came on the car was about 4 years old and absolutely toast. Initially I used the 3m 2080 series gloss black, but that turned into an absolute disaster. The vinyl doesn’t lay down well at all, and the finish is very poor and has a ton of orange peel effect. So the car sat for a week for a Titanium silver roof while I waited for some Avery gloss black to come in. Avery is miles better to work with and the overall finish is very nice. For my first time wrapping I’m very happy with it!



Other than that, just some basic maintenance. Fresh oil change with Motul, and new Mann oil, cabin and intake filters.



Gave the car a wash today too! Ceramic is really nice. Car was covered in tree sap from sitting outside while the door to my parkade was broken, but it washes right off with regular car soap.



That’s all for now! Still hoping to get some more projects done this summer before I head back to school in the fall.

[Str8f4c3]

Part 6: Graphene and interior work
Been a minute since the last update here, time to get caught up!

In late Feb/early March a couple buddies and spent three weekends detailing each of our cars. We did a full detox with soap/clay/bug and tar, then a two step paint correction with meg’s 105/205, then we did 2 coats of Ethos Matrix graphene ceramic coating. All three cars turned out great.

Foam cannon. Think we hit the car with foam probably 5 times haha



Aaaand all finished up.





All three cars we did. Me, Space Grey over Fox Red e92 M3 6-speed, and an 08 Cayman S with a 400hp built M97.



Also done a little interior work of late. After missing out on 3 (!) Euro consoles on the forums over the last couple years, I finally found a new one on FB Marketplace. Also picked up new cupholders and coin tray from the dealer.

Mmm OEM Parts



Old Console out. Pulled the console at my friends house, but forgot the mounting bracket at my house, so drove it home without a console lol.



Installed. Armrest delete is awesome and totally worth the money, should’ve sprung for one sooner. Forces you to have better posture, and makes shifting much easier for big people like me because you’re not banging your elbow into the armrest on the 1-2 shift LOL



Also started doing a little more sprucing up. The suede on the door seals was in absolutely horrid condition. The PO did include a set of seals in great shape, but I sold those to Tbonem3 for his Steel Grey project. I have a pretty solid method of repairing these after dealing with them on my last car, and the funds from the seals went to other goodies :P

Looks like someone or multiple people had attempted to repair these. From what I could tell, about 3 different types of glue were used, (This elmer’s craft glue lookin shit, and two clear adhesives, one very rubbery and the other pretty rigid) and none of them worked haha, Not sure which of these was from factory. Most of the time spent on this project went to peeling out the old glue.



Then, I Lightly scuffed the inner plastic on both the rubber and suede side, and applied E6000. Then, I used these clips to hold the two pieces together. Works like a charm. Just a few spots along the upper edge and rear corner for now, I may need to pull the rear door cards for sound system reasons sometime soon, and I will do the rest of the seals at that time.



Also decided to hunt down deflating lumbar/bolsters on my driver’s seat. Pump seemed to work just fine, but air would escape within two minutes or so. Pulled the back of the seat off, no leaks in the air lines, so decided to swap the entire pump/valve setup from the passenger seat. The whole unit is in a little plastic shell at the bottom of the seat. Pull the harness, cut the zip tie, and remove the air lines from the barbs. Overall a pretty quick job, even having never done it before.




This did end up fixing my issue! I assume that one of the valves was bad in the defective unit, so at some point I will find one at a junkyard.

[RoyalFlushness]

Looking good bro!

[Str8f4c3]

Since I bought the car I’ve never really been happy with the suspension setup, and I’ve slowly been trying to sort it out. After the subframe job, the car is now sitting on all poly/composite bushings, and I’ve been really happy with how tight and connected it feels, but the shock/spring situation has been… less than ideal.

The car came with a set of TCKline Single Adjustable Coilovers, which were setup from factory with 300f/400r Springs, according to receipts I had from the previous owner. The fronts were switched to a set of shorter 550# springs up front at some point to get the car lower, and the rear was left at 400#, which really wasn’t the greatest and the chassis was often upset. I then swapped 350# springs into the front, and moved the 550’s to the rear. This definitely improved things, but I wasn’t getting low enough up front, and was getting spring bind in the rear on bigger impacts.

Sometime in December I decided I needed to either throw a bunch more money at new springs to get where I wanted, or sell the coilovers and get a set that did everything I wanted them to. I ended up selling the coilovers to a forum member here, and got to work researching different setups to find exactly what I wanted. My requirements were:

Independent Shock body. I like my cars low, and I didn’t want to sacrifice travel like I was on the TCK’s.
Customizable spring rates/spring upgrades. In my experience, getting close to flat ride spring specs helps with ride comfort and chassis stability immensely, so this was important. Also, I find that standard springs tend to be less compliant, so being able to choose swift springs would be a big plus.
Digressive shocks. I had a set of BC Racing BR series coilovers on my first M3, which are linear shocks, and I found them a bit harsh on awful island roads, so I didn’t want to mess with that again.
Caster adjustment. A lot of aftermarket coilovers that include camber plates are on-center mounts, where stock M3 mounts are off center. From what I’ve seen, you lose about 4 degrees of caster with an on-center mount, so having either an offset top mount or caster adjustability was a big plus to get the car lined up properly and to keep it more stable at speed.

After doing a ton of research to figure out what I wanted, and then a ton more to find a set of coilovers that would deliver that, I settled on a set of BC Racing DS Series coilovers. The DS Series is a step up from the BR series that is so popular on our cars. I had them custom built with Swift Springs, 7k front rate and 12k rear, and a camber/caster adjustable pillowball top mount.

For me it came down to these or a set of Fortune Autos, either the 500’s or Muller 1-ways, but the dealbreaker was that Fortune Auto doesn’t offer a caster adjustable top mount for the E46 M3, and a set of Vorshlag plates would’ve added a ton of cost.

Build time for these was estimated at 4-6 weeks, but ended up being about two and a half, plus a week for shipping. Not bad!

When the box came in the mail! I was pretty darn excited lol.



Unpacking. BC packages all of their stuff very well, very impressed.







And out of the box. Everything looks very quality, and is obviously very pretty to look at haha.





Close up of the camber/caster plates. They aren’t the best design as you need to drop the coil to adjust, but overall I’m pretty happy with them and they do what I want them to.



The coils sat in my living room for about a week while I waited out the 10 inches of snow we got to melt, which concludes Victoria’s four day winter. I then spent Saturday getting them installed. Here’s a shot of one of the front struts next to a stock strut, which I’d been rolling around on since selling the TCK. Stocks are massive, and absolutely miserable to remove as a result.



Fronts in!


I also took the opportunity to refresh the rear end links with a set of Lemforder Replacements, which from what I can tell are the OEM replacements, given they are exactly the same with the exception of the BMW logo stamped on the rubber of the genuine links.



One rear came out without issue, the other was pretty much toast, and ended up shearing the bolt. The lemforder links also come with replacement hardware, so I wasn’t worried about saving the bolt.


I didn’t get any more photos of the install, but if you’ve seen coilover installs on these cars, these are the same. Everything went on without a hitch. Here’s a couple more after install. I’m pretty happy with the ride height, the rear may have to come down another half inch or so, and possibly bring the front up a touch, though it is a touch higher than it looks in that side shot.





First impressions are very good! Flat ride rates and the swift springs help a ton with ride quality, it’s really hard to tell how low the car is from the driver’s seat. It handles big bumps very well, takes corners nicely, and inspires a ton of confidence. I haven’t had an alignment yet, but no rubbing so far. Overall I’m extremely happy with my choice on these, and I’d say swift springs at the very least are worth their weight in gold. While it’s to recommend a setup like this for everyone, what I would recommend if you’re on the hunt for coilovers is sitting down, researching what’s out there, making a list of what you want, and choosing the kit that fits that the best. In all likelihood you’ll be happier with your setup versus blindly going on recommendations from people who may have different preferences than you.

Sorry for the long post haha, but that’s it for now. Next up will be a few interior bits and then in a couple weeks, a full paint correction and graphene ceramic coating!

[Str8f4c3]

Awesome journal and great progress so far!! Would love to see those door jambs painted one of these days, I feel like that would kill me every time I stepped in the cabin haha.

Thanks! The door jambs thankfully aren't super far off when you see them in real life, but they certainly bother me haha. I feel like I'd probably go overboard if I went to fix it though, as the inside of the door is also not done, along with the trunk jamb. I've toyed with the idea of wrapping the jambs gloss black, may tackle that this summer.

[ejendow]

Awesome journal and great progress so far!! Would love to see those door jambs painted one of these days, I feel like that would kill me every time I stepped in the cabin haha.

[Str8f4c3]

Having any car while still in high school is such a blessing - if it has 4 wheels and an engine, as far as I'm concerned you're one of the lucky ones haha.

Interesting choice by the PO on those spring rates and glad you got that mostly sorted at the time. What's your new setup?

You are absolutely right - and I loved that car dearly. I ran a company with my brothers through high school and then sold when I went to university - that's the only reason I could even remotely afford one of these cars. I am thankful every day for that experience, and for ownership of my car.

I believe the TCK's were set up from factory as 300/400# rates, which means a 7.5" spring up front. The previous owner wanted to get lower, so moved to a 6" spring up front with the 550# rate but I guess didn't bother swapping the rear to something a little stiffer. I'll go into a little more detail as to why I swapped in the next post, but I got a link on good BC Racing pricing from a member here, and ended up with a custom built set of their digressive DS Series coils.

[timmo]

Having any car while still in high school is such a blessing - if it has 4 wheels and an engine, as far as I'm concerned you're one of the lucky ones haha.

Interesting choice by the PO on those spring rates and glad you got that mostly sorted at the time. What's your new setup?

[Str8f4c3]

Since November, things have been fairly quiet, with less and less driving being done, mostly just putting around town. Got some M Rain Shift boots from 2M Shift Boots for Christmas, which I was super excited about.


Before the swap. E brake Boot was OE, Shift boot was a not great Ebay unit with red stitching that matched exactly nothing in the interior except that hazard light switch lol






Boots Out. Cracks me up that BMW uses a zip tie to secure the E Brake boot. The Shift boot pretty much disintegrated as I pulled it off the frame, should've gotten a pic of it.





Gluing new boots to existing frames. I used two part epoxy for this, which means it took wayyyyy longer than it should have to do. 2M recommends gel type super glue, which is more of a 5-10 minute wait than a 30-60.





All done. Hit the ZHP Knob with the Magic Eraser while it was out.





Aaaaaand Back in the car. Don’t see a ton of this fabric in the E46, I think it fits well with the interior. Would love to get some Pole Positions and have the centers done up to match. Hopefully in the not too distant future.






Also picked up an ACS Rep Diffuser. Huge thanks to GhostGrayM3 for picking this up for me, he's a real one. Plan to paint it gloss black when the weather warms up, and affix with black hardware for a clean look, and a departure from CSL everything. Trying my best to keep the car free of Carbon Fiber.





Whew, that’s just about caught up to where the car is at today! Lot’s of plans for the coming months, including some brake work, Graphene coating in March and some other goodies. Next update will be about suspension, I sold my TCKs (Can’t wait to get tarred and feathered for that one) and the new setup arrives next week. Excited to continue with this shitbox! Thanks for reading up till now!

[Str8f4c3]

This winter has been all about ironing out kinks in the car. Previous owner took care of the big stuff but didn’t really bother with the little stuff, so going through the details and general maintenance has been the name of the game.


In late November I decided to tackle the front passenger hub assembly, as the car was emitting a high pitched noise at highway speed from that corner. Didn’t turn out to solve my issue (and I haven’t run it down yet, but I suspect tires at this point) but seeing as the other front hub was done under previous ownership, I enjoy the symmetry of both front hubs being new. Used an OEM FAG Hub. Not a hard job, just a bit of a pain is all.





Also was getting a popping noise from the front suspension on both sides, so I swapped the endlinks and that took care of that. Yup, they were toast.





Also took care of the fuel filter, which was original-no surprise there- and new spark plugs. Still get the occasional miss so the Coils will need to be done too, which from what I can see are original or at least very old.








I also did the Final Stage for the blower, which is still just as infuriating the second time doing it haha. I managed to brake the mount for the duct actuator, just like I did on my first M3.

[Str8f4c3]

Nice to see you here man.

Let me ask you, did this car come from Massachusetts?

Because a local friend of mine had a Tiag M3 that he resprayed to Silverstone and sold a while ago. And it had a full VCSL body on it.

Can't be many of them running around haha.

Car looks great and while I may be biased, I like the interior a lot. It's different.

Thanks man! The car was local to Vancouver, pretty crazy coincidence to have two cars specced exactly like that!

The two-tone was incredibly well done and so different, but I just didn't think it fit with the silverstone. I put it in the Carbon Black car, and it looked friggin baller.



My other worry was that it would be just about impossible to replicate when I inevitably put some buckets in the car down the road, I hate stock seats lol.