Bad Om3n "Build"

[Bad Om3n]

Back down on the ground, lower on the ohlins now. Was curious to see how far off the alignment would be but it wasn't too wild.



To finish that CSL trunk off, I decided to go for a Status Gruppe carbon diffuser insert. Someone made an argument about tighter corners in the exhaust bumps and I bought it...



I also decided to try something out with the front. I'm not sure if it will stick or not, but I'm willing to try it.

I was deliberating between the two colours above. The yellow is definitely the DTM way, but the Orange matches all the brakes/ohlins/cinnamon stuff. Painted these can lids to compare. I did yellow on one, orange on the other, and then a half coat of orange ontop of the yellow to see if there was any magic to be had in laying the colours.







After several coats, we're here!


So at this point my car has:
- Primer front bumper
- Primer trunklid
- LSB Hood
- Unpainted rear valence insert.

I'm looking at painting almost half the car. Any reputable shop I call basically tells me that they won't touch it unless they do the whole car - with that "vintage" its likely the new parts won't match and I won't be happy after spending all that money.

Thats... an expensive thing I wasn't quite ready for. But after a bunch of deliberation, I decided i'm going to paint this car. The shop I chose is certified in BMW repairs - and I actually got an authentic BMW certificate of repair after it was all done! I was fortunate to be able to save some off the bill by doing the disassembly myself. The car also had a surprising number of stone ships and rash from tire spray. somehow the PO had a bunch of rock chips on the trunklid?? I knew this was all going to bug me once half the panels were flawless.











I also asked them to mimic the paint on the carbon valence, and it came out sooo nicely 🤤

[Bad Om3n]

Now its a mission to put the car back together. In the spirit of assembled cars, here are a couple pics from when it was together:





Poorer quality phone and camera at the time 😅

After the subframe and shifter are in, I can put back some heat shields and the drive shaft. I've got a Febji replacement guibo, bolts, CSB, and pilot bearing (ECS kit).


I looked into some other guibo options. Thinking that a stiffer guibo would produce better response and thus feel. Ultimately, many said it wasn't really worth it on a street driven car. but the thing that sold me on an OEM one is ability to absorb shock inputs in the driveline. If you run something like a revshift or whatever where the put little poly bushes in an aluminum ring - you will increase the peak loads on the gearbox bearings and gears. Things like suddenly gaining traction or dumping the clutch, even the changes in wheelspeed as the car travels over bumps.

With the driveshaft in, we get to move onto a bit of a fun part - the Exhaust! Ah yes what a topic. Let me preface this a bit: I grew up loving big American V8's. hated on ricers. I gotta be honest when I was trying to decide which car to buy at the time, the M3's exhaust note almost drove me away from its litany of positives. "This can't be right" I thought to myself. "No legendary car can sound like That". The aftermarket must have a solution I mused. But alas I went down a raspy hole of disappointment. This was a hard one. After some research, I learned about rasp pipes and resonators and found some appealing exhaust videos. One of which that caught me attention was this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pkz-fPlECY

So, I went on the hunt for a Status Gruppe SCZA Muffler. It had a somewhat deeper, more aggressive tone. Hard to get your hands on apparently, so I got a gently used one from a gentleman in Quebec who shipped it down to me.



With a piece of wood on the jack, it was pretty easy to install solo. With a friend would be even easier. The new muffler is much much lighter than the stock one. Damn that thing is heavy!😰

The exhaust is pretty quiet at idle, but to be honest - I still want a deeper tone out of it. Right now its all stock except the muffler - catted headers. I will be resonating the unresonated pipe, I know alot of people run AR20's - but isn't it a 2.25" pipe? I think I might be able to find something that fits a bit better, I will update on that front later. And, if i'm going through the trouble I'll probably just replace the oem resonator with whatever one I land on - the resonators aren't too pricey on their own.

As a result of the accident, the Aluminum hood got crunched up a bit.


The Damage isn't too bad to be honest, maybe someone can pop it back out but I looked behind and the two sides of the "C-channel" between the grilles were cracked. Also, Aluminum isn't meant to be worked like that. Sadly, the hood was toast. The grilled wouldn't stay in too well either.
In the search for a new hood, I found a guy with one that had been repainted. I didn't notice until it was home and too late - but the hood had some rivet repairs done to it - no bueno. at this point I have exactly 0 expectation of finding a used Oxford Green hood in good shape lol. I know I'm painting. And if i'm painting, It isn't going to be some rivet repair job. So I kept looking and eventually found another replacement - and LSB! I think LSB is probably the coolest colour on its own. The oxford green only stands out to me so much when its combo'd like this [cinnamon]. Sum of its parts and all. So, here we are:


While we're talking about suitable cored for painting - I should mention the bumper is completely trashed. It has cracks everywhere, can't attach a belly pan properly, clips are broken. this thing. is. a. mess.


So now i'm looking for a new bumper. The obvious choice is to go CSL. Here's the thing though: I don't like the CSL bumper *flamesuit* 😱
Honestly, those two little carbon lips just seem... unfinished to me. I kind of like having fog lights. So I guess OEM it is. Let me tell you it is Damn Hard to find a good clean M3 bumper these days. I ended up deciding the bite the bullet and go brand spanking new OEM front bumper. But hey, if we're doing this, why not get a EURO bumper - the one with no reflectors. Besides, those reflector insert companies literally don't even offer oxford green inserts I'd have to get them painted individually. I suppose when only 430 or so were ever produced...

Here is my shipment, delivered From Germany with help from a firm called Renn-Haus.


I present to you, one fresh Euro E46 M3 Bumper.


Now, you might have noticed there were a couple other boxes. Well, I've always been a fan of the way the CSL Looks. With their help, I was able to get my hands on a genuine set of CSL Wheels. Proper fat fronts (that help combat factory understeer). And these magnesium wheels are Light!


you see, I drew alot of inspiration from this car *not my pics*:




I thought that car looked really sharp. However, I believe that one is on VMR's? No hate for VMR's I think they're awesome. I just nerd out on being able to say I have genuine CSL wheels. Weird flex but okay 💁♂️.

But I'm going to take things up a notch, It turns out theres one other thing I have a soft sport for. Ducktails. I love ducktail spoilers. yummm. and it turns out the CSL has one of the yummiest ones! At this point, I'm kind of invested in some higher shelf stuff so i'm goin for a genuine bmw oem CSL trunklid.

[Bad Om3n]

timmo Yeah I noticed some bars in other threads were coated and it "appeared" as if they came this way. The sparks from grinding got your windshield!?!

Str8f4c3 Thank You! I was actually sitting in the car recently and the "dry shifts" felt atrocious. I chalked it up to sitting for so long. I know it feels better once its running so we'll see. At the moment my '90 Miata's shift feels better..... .....

[Str8f4c3]

Excellent build thread, very well detailed and you're definitely doing this thing up right.

My 2 cents on your transmission detents being uneven: I've found the same issue on my car, but in the opposite directions. It's harder to push towards 5-6 than 1-2. For reference the car is a factory 6mt with 150 thousand km.

I'm convinced the only upside to the 420g is it can handle near 4 digit horsepower without blinking. The feel is trashy and it can't be serviced.

I've considered more than once swapping in the zf 6 speed. It was used in the z4m, the feel is ten times better, and it should fit fairly easily given it was used in 330's. Downside its it's rated for less torque, but in an n/a build I don't see why it wouldn't be a viable option.

[timmo]

Nice work! I can definitely attest to taking the time and properly isolating the cabin from the trunk. I just had a few towels lying around, which didn't do much. I managed to clean my interior real well but it took some time, and my headliner has some small craters from all the sparks, and the inside of my windshield has a bit of pitting.

Also last summer I ran the corner of a MF towel in that crack between the armrest pad and the "door card" in the rear, the corner came out black with metal shavings lol. And that was more than 3 years after I got the vincebar in!

Odd how the V2 vincebars don't come powdercoated as my V1 epoxy version did. I ended up POR15'ing all the areas that were bonded due to the exposed metal, but the rest of the bar was fine

[Bad Om3n]

Great Saturday morning read for me, thanks for sharing. That's a great color combo you have there and you've done a great job bringing the car back to it's former glory. It looks like we've done a lot of the same work, just on different cars! Looking forward to further updates.

thank you, I'm glad you enjoy it so far!😀

[Bad Om3n]

Now its time to drive into the meat and potatoes of this whole thing. Time to finally tackle the subframe reinforcement.

For my reinforcements, I did both the bottom and top side reinforcements.
For the underside, I went with Reddish plates. They seemed to have the best design of my options with more weld length and surface area compared to some other kits you can buy. To be honest, I don't know if this is really worth much. I don't think I've ever heard of any style reinforcement plate ripping out afterwards. But nevertheless, for the amount of trouble i'm going through to get these in, a couple extra bucks for peace of mind seemed reasonable.
For the top side reinforcement I went with an epoxy V2 Vincebar. Epoxy was the only one available at the time, no welded batches. but to be honest, epoxy solutions are serious business these days - in fact, if you go to a high end body shop they'll tell you that factory procedure to repair new high end cars is to epoxy panels together now. No more welding. the epoxy you have to use is some obscure industrial stuff you have to order separately because there are shipping restrictions on it or something haha. I went with the vincebar because I like the idea of topside reinforcement - especially with the solid subframe mounts. The vincebar will be hidden out of sight when everythings put backtogether for a clean look.

I'll start with the bottom side plates. They have to be done first since they're welded in and the heat risks cooking the vincebar epoxy if I did it otherwise.

Before any welding happens - I've got to drop the gas tank. Generally, a pretty easy tasks but there are alot of hose connections and plastic barbs. I ended up breaking one of the plastic-welded spigots:


I was wondering how the hell i'm going to fix that. Was I going to cut a patch off the top of the tank and epoxy something on? In the end, I ended up buying some 1/8" brass tube which I sleeved in there.


Sleeved it with some jb weld. added some more JB weld on the outside. So far, So good.



OK, so here are the reinforcements laid out ready to go:


First step is to sand it down to the metal which I did mostly with a flap discs.



Great News! No Cracks!! Like I mentioned earlier, good bones! This is one of the benefits of SMG cars - much less clutch dumping and such. Phew 😅

With the metal clear, I can set the plates in place and start banging them to a rough shape.


A freshly welded plate


Seeing this is a bit sketchy.


Primed and seam sealed:


POR15'd:

In retrospect I could have taken my time to do this more cleanly. I was trying to get everything done in time to drive it last season but it didn't end up playing out that way. At least you'll never see under here and the coverage/sealing is good.

Now that the underside Reddish plates are welded in, I can start on the top side epoxy vincebar reinforcements.

To start, you have to cut some sheetmetal away from the trunk area to expose the subframe mounts from the top side:



*Notice the garbage bag blocking the cabin. Cutting this plate out is going to cause alot of dust that I don't want getting into all the cracks and crevices. you can see a bunch collected on the tape at the base already.

You're supposed to cut and pound-flat the "Upside Down T" shaped bumps where the bolts come through. I went a bit overboard - but at least it gives you guys a good idea of whats underneath:

Above you can see a sort of metal disc. This is a basically a super-thick-walled threaded tube and this is where the subframe mounts from the bottom come through (or, rather, Will come through. From the factory they terminate here).

The VinceBar kit actually comes with plates for the top, which is why I wasn't too concerned about my method:


These plates are supposed to be epoxied in. In my haste, and with the welder out and fired up, I welded them instead. To be honest, I think epoxy is the smarter solution here. The whole point of this is to be a shear panel anyways. Tensile loads will be carried by the bolt. By only reinforcing the edges *welding) I'm leaving room between the edges, and the bolt, for the plate to bow and flex.



With some trimming and several test fits the bar is finally "in". But I'll get the front sorted before finally epoxying and riviteing the bar in.

*I've sprayed the bar in primer to prevent rust before its in the car (and even once its in the car, for areas I can't get to).
You can see I've removed more material than necessary. Fortunately, I can literally just re-use that same removed material to weld it back up!

Moving to the front, you have to cut the sheetmetal again to expose those same threaded mounts but on the front side.

You will also have to grind away the spray damping / sealer stuff and do a bit of massaging to get these guys fitting up right and clearing the seat mounts/bolts.



With all the pieces fitting up, I painted them separately with some chassis black before installing them so they don't rust out on me. Time to get Epoxying!

*You'll notice the primer has been ground back on the surfaces to be epoxied. Be sure to properly clean and etch these surfaces for the best bond. I used POR Metal Etch 💁♂️. You may also notice that the weld beads on my plates have been ground down so I'm not clamping the bar on peaks.


Be sure to torque down the bolts (I used wheel studs, same thread in this case) First, before drilling and riveting so that you anchor it down in the compressed position and avoid pre-loading the bar.





Last step is to hit it all with some rubberized undercarriage paint as I've stripped back more primer than was required for the epoxy joint - I want to seal everything back up again.


Oh yeah, I also came back a while later and closed up those gaps:


With the reinforcements done, I could put the subframe back into the car with the new hardware. Take your time setting the position of the long studs. you can fasten it more than one way so take your time to try and balance the leftover threads. Remember, you only have to do this once. Also: The gas tank goes back in before this. I show nothing about it - but its pretty straightforward. Connect the lines that really only fit one way, and fasten the straps. The one center bolt helps locate everything nicely for you - thanks Toyota!



Victory! This was the whole point of all of this! Now I can have subframe peace of mind + plus some extra driving feel 😁

[Mike0032]

Great Saturday morning read for me, thanks for sharing. That's a great color combo you have there and you've done a great job bringing the car back to it's former glory. It looks like we've done a lot of the same work, just on different cars! Looking forward to further updates.

[Bad Om3n]

Lets talk about that shifter now. Shift feel is super important to me and is the icing on the cake after a good shift. This was an area I knew I could elevate the M3's feel.

I did a bunch of research and settled on an AutoSolution kit. I did not want to shorten the throw to be honest, I was never a big fan of short shifters. I felt they compromised feel for ... "speed". The guy behind the AS kits offers a bunch of bespoke options. But generally he offers something called the "Ultra" kit. When I called to discuss it he mentioned something to me called the "AutoCross Kit" which was an evolution of the shifter everyone had been raving about. But I had to go with a 25% reduction if I wanted to get into the batch.

The thing with the AS SSK is that its actually a spherical bearing solution. The reduced resistance overcomes the increased force from the shorter throw. It also has a super beefy billet arm.

Here is the AS SSK next to the ... whatever contraption was in my car. likely a 330 shifter or something.


Look at the size of the main beam. The swivel links in the lower beam are super tight have no play. The bushing at the transmission side is stiffer. The shift rod has a larger diameter.

To support this marvelous shifter, I also upgraded the shifter mount bushing (the rear side one the "spike" goes into) as well as the trans mounts.
For the Shifter Bushing, I went for a polyurethane Turner replacement.
For the Trans Mounts I went with Rogue Engineering mounts. I didn't want gear whine so I didn't want poly. The RE Mounts have a similar durometer to OEM however their geometry is stiffer. This should hold the trans better without impacting NVH.



I don't know if any of you have installed a Turner shift bushing. but its a royal pain. For context, not only did I destroy the first bushing. But I also destroyed the carrier its supposed to slide into.
Here is the Turner bush, next to the OE bush: you can easily see the stiffness.


Turns out its so stiff, that the case will crush before it yields to the bracket - Even with the bracket outside of the car!



After ordering a new set of parts - I still didn't have a plan to get the damn thing in there. I ended up making a press jig thingy like this with the idea being I press around the shell more evenly.


It sort of worked. But not quite. In the end, I shaved the bracket a bit to reduce the interference slightly until it popped in. Then I epoxied it with that hardcore frame epoxy stuff.


Now that the shifter is in, I can tell for sure that it is precise af. At this point, the poor feeling I feel is the transmission itself. In fact, the resistance when moving in neutral from left to right (so between the 1-2 gate and then to the 5-6 gate) is not equal. Its harder to push left than right. I suspect the PO messed up the detents or something. Can anyone with a proper 6MT confirm how this should be? Shifting feels super notchy when you're sitting there, but once the trans is spinning and the synchro's can work its quite nice actually. The shift isn't too short - but its getting close. I think it would be too short with a lower quality shifter.

I topped the shifter off with a weighted alcantara ZHP Shift knob, wearing a Coby Alcantara M-Stitch boot. That boot is also matched on the e-brake and I have a spare wheel I will be wrapping to tie all the tactile driving inputs together. Say what you want about Alcantara getting dirty - you feel Special when you're in a car with an Alcantara steering wheel. At least, I do.





On the bottom side, We have a UUC Braided Clutch line, paired with a CDV Delete. Of course, the clutch pedal was also treated to delrin bushings as well.



The transmission itself was flushed with OE BMW Fluid (again, trusting the engineers here - it has proprietary modifiers in it). By the way, anyone who's used liquimoly - that funnel cap they have is awesome.


With all this in place, there isn't anything left for me to improve shift feel other than the trans and clutch themselves.

Maybe another time. I would like to rebuild and possibly SC this motor someday So who knows.

[Bad Om3n]

Next I'm going to talk about the suspension a bit, since I've already teased this one.

After much deliberation, I decided that the car had to be lower to achieve the look and impression I was aiming for. Not stance nation, just.... fitted. BUT I didn't want to compromise the handling of the M3. After all, this was the whole point of going down this path in the first place. how the car FEELS to drive. I ended up settling on Ohlins Road & Track DFV Coilovers. From my research, they appeared to be an excellent compromise between sharp handling and street mannered. The DFV Technology is perfect for an application like mine. Of course - they were yellow/gold too so you know, there's that.



And I must say, the quality of these pieces is top notch. I found myself just holding them and looking at them. 🤤🤤

I decided to mount the rear shocks using a set of ECS isolated monoball mounts, reinforced with a set of ECS Tuning Reinforcement plates. With stiffer suspension comes more bushing deflection and I want to FEEL the road! but with stiff mounts comes more stress in the chassis - hence the reinforcement plates.

New V Old Rear Shocks. Notice the diametral difference.


Rear Shock Mount + Reinforcements



Front Shock Reinforcements (look closely at the top of the mount) - I'm not sure how much these actually do considering they aren't really much larger than the OE part. Maybe someone can shed some light on this? They were cheap though.

[Bad Om3n]

Ok, I've been avoiding talking about Brakes the whole time I discussed the subframe. I took the brakes off when I disassembled everything and it would have been easy to get lost on a tangent.

At first, I knew I would be upgrading the pad setup to improve brake feel and performance. I also knew I would be switching to braided lines in pursuit of that "feeling" goal. I also know that "caliper rebuild kits" [two seals] are pretty cheap so I figured I'd rebuild the calipers while I'm at it.

Here are the calipers as removed:


Nothing wrong with them. Could us a cleaning I suppose. BUT, I had time on my hands now. With all the other work going on, and the delay on components during pandemic, I decided to have them powdercoated! Still wayy cheaper than a big brake kit (which, hey, one day I'd like to do the Porsche swap).

I decided to go with a bronze/copper colour to try and tie into the Cinnamon interior and contrast the Green nicely. The shop sold me who their suppliers were and I settled on something called "Dorado" and it looks like this:


It actually ties into the SDW rear monoballs - too bad you'll never see em! Also, nobody was going to pick up on that ///M from behind the wheel. something had to be done!


Once assembled, the calipers were loaded with a set of HAWK Street 5.0 pads, plumbed with Stop Tech stainless braided lines, and assembled over a set of StopTech drilled and slotted rotors.




Once it all comes together it looks like this:



All of this was power bled with Brembo DOT4 fluid, and the brake pedal bushings were upgraded to delrin units which help eliminate side-side slop of the pedal and make it feel solid. Again with all the feelings.


OE Bushing on the left, Delrin on the right. Without the split, the delrin ones are much harder to install! I can report improved pedal feel.

[Bad Om3n]

Yeah, the housing market is insane here. I actually lived in Windsor for 4 months, I did my first coop at Centerline. My poor car was just street parked for that time, but what can you do.

Haha I'm guessing you were on another FSAE team? I spent most of my free time in undergrad on it and looking back on it I'm super appreciative on the things I got to do and learn. Like for example I tuned our 600RR from scratch with a Motec M150 - if I wanted that sort of experience now I'd have to pay big bucks for a live training session on a dyno.

Yeah, I did Formula for 3 years and Baja for 1 year. FSAE is where I learned to weld! We also ran a 600RR - I learned how to use GT Power to design some more appropriate cams for the application / restriction. But we never ended up producing them 😅

[Bad Om3n]

At this point I've got the interior out. I was fortunate enough to find someone who was turning his E46 into a track car and basically sold me all of the interior from the beltline up. This way I don't have to deal with the PO's suede covered mess.

The PO also put a bunch of sound damping everywhere in the trunk, pulling that off was a challenge - but I didn't do it all at once. I just kind of wrestled with a piece at a time with each trip out to the Garage.






Generally, quite a pain. But we'll get through it with some patience.

Next, my plan is to get the subframe out of the car for the rear reinforcements. So I get to work removing the exhaust, heat shields, driveshaft, rear suspension bits, all the trims and whatnot. I know while I'm in there, that I'm going to replace the shifter. It didn't feel too great, and the mechanic who inspected my car at the BMW dealer told me the PO shaved the guibo and stuff (presumably a non-M shifter arm). I also decided to upgrade the shifter because as I mentioned, the goal here is to focus on how the car feels - and I rather enjoy it when a cars shifts feel right. I ended up going with a AutoSolutions kit which i'll talk about in more detail later.


Below, I'm removing the drive shaft. I want to talk about the jack in that picture for a moment. I did some research on a good jack to try and find something better than the crap I grew up using. I settled on this Arcan XL2T. I don't think they're in production anymor but I noticed Sunex and other now selling jacks with the same frames. Two things must be said
1.) This frame is amazing. Fantastically low and long, amazing lift height, made removing these parts possible/easier as a solo guy.
2.) The hydraulics are garbage. This thing leaked from like week 1. I've been feeding it more and more jack oil because its a relatively cheap way to kick the can down the road but damn I need to find a solution here.

If that leak is solved I'll content this is The Best jack to work on car.

Once I've got the driveshaft out, I've got this masterpiece staring me in the face.




I mean, I guess it works 💁♂️

Eventually, I got the rear subframe out. Working on a car from the states (this one spent some time in the south, too) it was pretty refreshing to see all the bolts just like... come out. remarkably drama-free experience! Although, wiggling the subframe down was a bit sketch as I was afraid to bend the long bolts it mounts to. This is much better with a friend. Thanks Covid!



The exhaust was loose in several places, sounded rickety whenever you'd turn the car off. Unsurprisingly.



Victory!


So now I have to disassemble this rear subframe / suspension combo and I'm about to learn all about BMW splines. I don't know how many of you reading this have ever had to pop your rear axles out but holy hell I've never encountered anything like this. Allow me to tell you a short story.

So, I try to pop the axles out with a deadblow, maybe even a small sledge with some wood as is par for the course with every other axle i've removed. This was not working. Fine, time to get serious and bust out the puller to pop this thing out of the hub flange.


NOPE, after tightening it up as far as I was comfortable, and THEN reefing on it with a full blown sledgehammer, I end up here:


At this point my mind is blown, and the internet tells me this is a thing. Ok, fine. I decide to find a local BMW indy to press these bad boys out for me. While I'm at it, I bring them a host of other bushings to press in. At this point I'm rebuilding the entire rear suspension with all new bushings and mounts. I'll talk more about those later. I bring them all the parts and ask them to do all the presses. a couple days go by and I call them since I figure this should take them an afternoon to just do the pressing. They complain that my parts "broke their 30T press". and that they can't get the bushings out. Not only that, but they broke my rear trailing arm too. They then proceeded to charge me for all their hourly time regardless. I was going to cause a shitshow over this, but It just wasn't worth the time. I ordered the tools to do it myself for less money than their hourly rate added up to... and did it myself. Rather embarassing. Here is how that went.

Here is the broken part:

They didn't support the bushing bore from the opposite side. they just clamped the whole arm somehow and let the bushing ear bear the entire load. Rather amateur. No wonder it broke.

Here is the "broken press":

The press didn't break, but the tech bent the plates he was using. I'm not even a mechanic and I did it with a press 1/3 the size easily.

So I took to Amazon and this is my haul:

Bearing Press Kit
Bushing Press Kit
C-Clamp Press Kit
Spring Compressor
5lb Slide Hammer
10T Hydraulic Gear Puller *****

That last tool is the secret sauce to this axle-removal recipe. If anyone is stuck, this is the tool to use. But even then, I needed to use an extended lever from something else and it made me uncomfortable. I ended up hiding behind a plywood shield until it let go.

Below is the replacement Control Arm + Axle off eBay to replace the broken one from the shop. Hence the mangled dust shield.


Safety Third!


I got myself a 10T press from Princess Auto (Canadian Harbor Freight). I use all the dies from the press kits with this instead of the c-clamps. It all ended up being less than the tech's hours! Of course, just like my jack, the hydraulics on this press are dying the moment its assembled. I ended up replacing the bottle jack with a 12T husky unit and everything's been peachy since. I've used these on like 5 or 6 other cars by now so money well spent.


So now I noticed that the ends of my axles are peened over from all this fighting:


I figured I might be able to grind it down. Did some research to see if anyone's done this, apparently its common. The internet will have you think grinding down the peened over part is hard but it really wasn't. This area is also beyond the threads so I figure it isn't being stressed the same.


Now that everything is finally apart. Its time to put things back together! Here is how I approached this:

-Differential Mounts -> OEM [From my research, any stiffer mounts translate significant gear whine NVH - this aligns with my understanding and I don't want such NVH]
-Subframe Mounts -> CMP Auto Engineering Solid Aluminum. [Solid subframe mounts will improve response and *Feel without dramatic NVH increase *(depends on how other parts are connected to the subframe) - CMP Mounts actually compensate for the lower mounting plane as a result of reinforcing plates. This helps maintain suspension geometry.]
-RCAB -> Synchro Design Works Isolated Monoball. [Isolated monoballs appear to be the move here from all my research. Improved response with minimal NVH
-Control Arms -> OEM [If you study the OEM design, you'll notice that the outboard "bushings" are actually monoballs. They have no play and are solid. No aftermarket bushing is going to improve upon this. The inboard bushings are rubber. And this is where all the compliance comes into play. I left these OEM rubber in order to help soak up some of the crap roads we have over here. But to be honest, after doing a full poly swap on my buddies STi it really didn't seem too stiff and I may consider poly inboard mounts in the future.

Of course, I'll replace the wheel bearings and parking brakes as well! Lets take a look at some of that part candy 🤤🤤


Old Diff Bushings


New Diff Bushings:


In this case, unless you go for poly I think you have to buy the bushings with the case if I remember correctly. At least it feels real nice putting this together.


Standard DIY bushing removal:


Cleaned up and POR15'd the parts before pressing in the new bearings.


New parking brake hardware:


Trailing Arms Ready to Go:


OOPS - Pay attention to the orientation of your Bearings! Encoder Inside!

Was very frustrating to have to do that over. Not only do you have do disassemble the entire trailing arm again. But once those bearings are pressed in, they don't come out without getting destroyed. Had to buy another rear wheel bearing (pricey bearings!). Make sure they're in right!!!!

Here are the old wheel bearings for reference. They didn't make any noise or anything, but they sure look crusty.


I decided to throw a set of ECS adjustable rear lower control arms in. I ended up deciding to put coilovers on the car. We'll get to those soon - but the point here is that I realized there would be no way to properly align the car after it was lowered without a set of these. Once I got them it was very clear how much stronger and stiffer they were than the OEM ones. Keep in mind that the OEM ones are likely designed this way to collapse on purpose in an impact. But this means there may be some Feel Gains on the table! I mean, I can squeeze this thing with 2 fingers...


OK I *Think* that covers the rear subframe! I'll be filling the diff with OEM Spec fluid - at the end of the day you don't change diff fluid often. and considering how finicky some LSD's can be I decided to trust the engineering at BMW on this one.

You know, when I put this together and looked at it before slapping it in the car. I thought it looked pretty good! But then I saw some of these other build threads. I need to step my game up 💪

[timmo]

I *used* to always park in gear along with the handbrake too. Thanks I spent a bit of time trying to find a place with a descent detached garage. This one is kind of sneaky, its 2 cars wide but deep enough that it has a 3-car footprint! I'm down in the Windsor area, to be honest probably the biggest factor in making this all possible. I grew up in the GTA, with the housing costs there none of this would ever be possible. But I do miss it still.

I see your FSAE car 👀👀

Yeah, the housing market is insane here. I actually lived in Windsor for 4 months, I did my first coop at Centerline. My poor car was just street parked for that time, but what can you do.

Haha I'm guessing you were on another FSAE team? I spent most of my free time in undergrad on it and looking back on it I'm super appreciative on the things I got to do and learn. Like for example I tuned our 600RR from scratch with a Motec M150 - if I wanted that sort of experience now I'd have to pay big bucks for a live training session on a dyno.

[Bad Om3n]

I moved your thread and left a pointer for a week in the main forum.

Just read through this, holy cow. I'm glad your friend is OK, what a crazy story. If you need another HVAC unit, I have a spare in the garage you're welcome to have...although it does not have your cool clear peak through window.

TYVM for the shuffle Sir 🙏
I appreciate the offer but I'm not looking to pull a dashboard right now. perhaps down the road I'd like to set that straight though 😀

Holy crap, glad to hear your friend recovered. Remote start on a manual car is just asking for trouble, I usually park in gear anyways along with using the handbrake. Glad you got the wiring mess cleaned up. I'm also jealous of your garage space, coming from a guy living in the suburbs of the GTA. Where in Ontario are you?

I *used* to always park in gear along with the handbrake too. Thanks I spent a bit of time trying to find a place with a descent detached garage. This one is kind of sneaky, its 2 cars wide but deep enough that it has a 3-car footprint! I'm down in the Windsor area, to be honest probably the biggest factor in making this all possible. I grew up in the GTA, with the housing costs there none of this would ever be possible. But I do miss it still.

I see your FSAE car 👀👀