Decided, if for no other reason than my own "record keeping" to create a thread with my build.
Oct 14, 2019 I pulled the trigger on my first ever BMW. In 2019 I made the decision to sell my 2019 S4, which was my 3rd S/RS Audi that I'd used as a dual duty track/daily and instead buy an F150 and eventually a BMW track car. I wasn't sure what that car was going to be when I set the plan, but I ended up with a 2004 M3 with 160k on the clock. Verified maintenance history of rod bearings, rear subframe and 6MT swap by a local shop, AR Motorsports prior to purchase. Those 3 services were more than I paid for the whole car. I was confident I had a good one. Car had several shades of "phoenix gold" on it and it was clear that it had quite a history (which I didn't know at the time, but turns out it started life in NJ and I'm the 9th owner!).
Being a noob to BMW, I had no idea that the interior in the car was "M texture" and something special. By happen stance, someone messaged the seller the morning after I bought it and wanted to swap their interior for his, plus $2k. Long story short, within a week of ownership, I had the interior pre-sold for $2500. So project #1 was to carefully pull the interior pieces so the buyer could come get it! I was stoked, as that paid for seats and harnesses quite nicely!
From there, I set out to strip the interior, from the front carpet back, entirely. I did this with an intent to do it nicely and break as little as I could along the way. Which meant lots of youtube videos and forum reading to understand how this or that piece actually should be removed. All of that work paid off as I've sold nearly every reasonable piece that came out of the car at this point. Including the seats, I've sold over $6k in parts from the car.
Fast forward until Feb 2020 when I was finally able to get the car into AR again, for a 1/2 cage build and to address the known VANOS issue (I changed the solenoid myself, but there were serious internal issues I wasn't confident enough to tackle). After that visit, which included 2 cages being built in the car (tubing supplier notified AR that there may have been defects in the tubing, so AR cut the cage out and built a new one. HUGE respect for them on that as it cost them extra labor. Clearly the right thing to do, and they did it!). VANOS is not bullet proofed with cryo hub and basically all new everything.
Next up, deal with the sticking starter and bum thermostat. I decided to tackle these things myself...my first DIY mechanical work ever on a BMW. I've got to say that "ShopLifeTV" on YouTube was a HUGE asset. His videos are very comprehensive and actually show you every step as opposed to 95% of the videos that skip the hard steps and just tell you to do it. Anyways, I successfully got those things done, including new water pump, thermostat, upper/lower radiator hoses, belts and cleaned the throttle bodies while the intake manifold was off for the starter. I used FCP Euro for pretty much every part I could.
Then COVID hit. Which in all reality, was a massive boost for the tidiness and thoroughness of the build. In a normal year, I would swapped the suspension (I installed some hand-me-down lowering springs and "new" struts. New meaning not 160k miles old...but everything was some level of used) and more or less got the car safe and track season would have hit. But instead, I had the time to really go over the car. I had the time to replace the jacked up brake duct brackets and front under carriage that included hunks of wood and sheet metal screws! I had time to carefully remove the entire windshield/headlight washer system and scrape a decade's worth of mud out of the rear fenders. I put new fender liners in up front, and a new engine tray. Learned how to take apart the headlights to remove halos and put them back together. Also replaced a lot of screws here and there that were simply missing. Swapped out the brake lines for SS and put new pads and rotors on and flushed the fluid (which looked like motor oil!). I went with FCP's Zimmermans as a way to keep costs down.
For more fun stuff, I installed the OMP HTE-R seats (using VAC's mounting system), Schroth 6-pt harnesses and a Sparco wheel.
Next up, new track wheels/tires. Got a deal on some used Apex wheels from AR and went with them. Here it is at Track day #1 in June:
After driving it 2hrs each way for the track day, I decided fairly quickly I wanted this to be a trailer car. So, I splurged and made it happen:
I ran it more or less trouble free all of the 2nd half of 2020. Other than oil changes and little things here or there (mostly cosmetic "clean-ups"). It wasn't until this winter / off-season that I again started making some changes.
Black Friday sales got me for sure:
Bimmerwold pedal covers
Turner Race pulleys
Hard Motorsports door panels
Got the RS door pulls from a member on here who wasn't happy with them. The door panels themselves aren't great. They look great from 5 feet, but the fit, at least with my install, wasn't as nice as I'd hoped. And the install itself was not fun. But, I'm pleased with them none the less. Much better than the "mess" of the open door. Pedals are nice and grippy which I really like, as sometimes it's only the big toe on that brake pedal going from 120 > 45 so I think it will be very nice to have. The pulleys are as much for potential performance gain as they are to minimize wear on parts they're hooked to considering the high rpms seen on track. Replaced the tensioner and idler pulley as well while I was in there. Also had to replace the coolant overflow line as it cracked when I was in the process of removing the cowling. I think it was the original one, so not surprised. I probably shouldn't have gone OEM, but ordered it in a hurry as it wasn't a part I'd planned to deal with.
Swapped the likely original motor mounts for some of the Bimmerworld "Group-N" mounts. A bit of a pain to get the pass side, but all in all a nice upgrade. No noticeable change to NVH, but considering the car is stripped already, and pretty loud, I didn't expect much of a change.
Next up, power steering. Under the car, the lines were soaked in fluid and generally it was a mess. After reading that OEM lines/res are prone to fail again, I decided to go with the Chase Bays full setup: Reservoir, lines and cooler. The products themselves are very high quality and the email support when I had some questions / issues with the install was amazing. It's clear that they are a company that actually cares about cars and their customers. Very impressed!
I noticed a small oil leak where the lines enter the cooler...turned out to be 2 gnarled o-rings and fixed it for the cost of 2 small o-rings. Felt like a nice win!
Final mod I've done is the solid mount race shifter. Considering the 6MT swap was done in the last 2 years, the setup that was in the car wasn't sloppy or anything, but I just really wanted a legit race shifter. I'm not sure how I happened to see Kinnematic Speed's brand new offering, but I came across it before they'd even launched it. After reading all of their materials, I decided to take a bit of a risk and ordered it on pre-order pricing. I've since installed it, and while I've not been on the track with it yet, I can say that I'm happy with it. Fit/finish on it seems to be very good. I was able to install it myself (not without a decent amount of struggles, mostly my own fault due to having never worked on that part before) and Sam at Kinematic was awesome when I emailed with a question. It didn't require any trimming of the interior and other than having to cut a seem on the shift boot, everything installed back in perfectly. I didn't upgrade the trans mounts as the ones on the car are more or less like new OEM...will swap with the vorschlag if it seems like it's an issue.
Track season '21 starts next weekend. I've got an AiM Solo 2 DL on order. Next mod will likely be some proper suspension...MCS setup.
"mod" list:
Kinematic Speed Race shifter
Turner Race Pulley set
Chase Bays power steering reservoir, lines + cooler
Bimmerworld aluminum pedal covers
OMP HTE-R seats
Schroth 6pt harnesses
Hard Motorsport door panels + RS door pulls
Sparco wheel
NRG gen 2.5 quick release + short hub adapter
AFE Stage 2 intake (on the car when I bought it)
Mystery section 3 (on the car when I bought it...ebay I think)
Mystery red lowering springs
1/2 cage welded in
Apex FL-5 18x9.5 ET28 w/ 275.35.18 Hankook R-S4 tires
Hawk DTC60 pads (front/rear)
Zimmerman solid rotors
Motul RBF600 fluid
S2R Tuning CF sunroof filler panel
Oct 14, 2019 I pulled the trigger on my first ever BMW. In 2019 I made the decision to sell my 2019 S4, which was my 3rd S/RS Audi that I'd used as a dual duty track/daily and instead buy an F150 and eventually a BMW track car. I wasn't sure what that car was going to be when I set the plan, but I ended up with a 2004 M3 with 160k on the clock. Verified maintenance history of rod bearings, rear subframe and 6MT swap by a local shop, AR Motorsports prior to purchase. Those 3 services were more than I paid for the whole car. I was confident I had a good one. Car had several shades of "phoenix gold" on it and it was clear that it had quite a history (which I didn't know at the time, but turns out it started life in NJ and I'm the 9th owner!).
Being a noob to BMW, I had no idea that the interior in the car was "M texture" and something special. By happen stance, someone messaged the seller the morning after I bought it and wanted to swap their interior for his, plus $2k. Long story short, within a week of ownership, I had the interior pre-sold for $2500. So project #1 was to carefully pull the interior pieces so the buyer could come get it! I was stoked, as that paid for seats and harnesses quite nicely!
From there, I set out to strip the interior, from the front carpet back, entirely. I did this with an intent to do it nicely and break as little as I could along the way. Which meant lots of youtube videos and forum reading to understand how this or that piece actually should be removed. All of that work paid off as I've sold nearly every reasonable piece that came out of the car at this point. Including the seats, I've sold over $6k in parts from the car.
Fast forward until Feb 2020 when I was finally able to get the car into AR again, for a 1/2 cage build and to address the known VANOS issue (I changed the solenoid myself, but there were serious internal issues I wasn't confident enough to tackle). After that visit, which included 2 cages being built in the car (tubing supplier notified AR that there may have been defects in the tubing, so AR cut the cage out and built a new one. HUGE respect for them on that as it cost them extra labor. Clearly the right thing to do, and they did it!). VANOS is not bullet proofed with cryo hub and basically all new everything.
Next up, deal with the sticking starter and bum thermostat. I decided to tackle these things myself...my first DIY mechanical work ever on a BMW. I've got to say that "ShopLifeTV" on YouTube was a HUGE asset. His videos are very comprehensive and actually show you every step as opposed to 95% of the videos that skip the hard steps and just tell you to do it. Anyways, I successfully got those things done, including new water pump, thermostat, upper/lower radiator hoses, belts and cleaned the throttle bodies while the intake manifold was off for the starter. I used FCP Euro for pretty much every part I could.
Then COVID hit. Which in all reality, was a massive boost for the tidiness and thoroughness of the build. In a normal year, I would swapped the suspension (I installed some hand-me-down lowering springs and "new" struts. New meaning not 160k miles old...but everything was some level of used) and more or less got the car safe and track season would have hit. But instead, I had the time to really go over the car. I had the time to replace the jacked up brake duct brackets and front under carriage that included hunks of wood and sheet metal screws! I had time to carefully remove the entire windshield/headlight washer system and scrape a decade's worth of mud out of the rear fenders. I put new fender liners in up front, and a new engine tray. Learned how to take apart the headlights to remove halos and put them back together. Also replaced a lot of screws here and there that were simply missing. Swapped out the brake lines for SS and put new pads and rotors on and flushed the fluid (which looked like motor oil!). I went with FCP's Zimmermans as a way to keep costs down.
For more fun stuff, I installed the OMP HTE-R seats (using VAC's mounting system), Schroth 6-pt harnesses and a Sparco wheel.
Next up, new track wheels/tires. Got a deal on some used Apex wheels from AR and went with them. Here it is at Track day #1 in June:
After driving it 2hrs each way for the track day, I decided fairly quickly I wanted this to be a trailer car. So, I splurged and made it happen:
I ran it more or less trouble free all of the 2nd half of 2020. Other than oil changes and little things here or there (mostly cosmetic "clean-ups"). It wasn't until this winter / off-season that I again started making some changes.
Black Friday sales got me for sure:
Bimmerwold pedal covers
Turner Race pulleys
Hard Motorsports door panels
Got the RS door pulls from a member on here who wasn't happy with them. The door panels themselves aren't great. They look great from 5 feet, but the fit, at least with my install, wasn't as nice as I'd hoped. And the install itself was not fun. But, I'm pleased with them none the less. Much better than the "mess" of the open door. Pedals are nice and grippy which I really like, as sometimes it's only the big toe on that brake pedal going from 120 > 45 so I think it will be very nice to have. The pulleys are as much for potential performance gain as they are to minimize wear on parts they're hooked to considering the high rpms seen on track. Replaced the tensioner and idler pulley as well while I was in there. Also had to replace the coolant overflow line as it cracked when I was in the process of removing the cowling. I think it was the original one, so not surprised. I probably shouldn't have gone OEM, but ordered it in a hurry as it wasn't a part I'd planned to deal with.
Swapped the likely original motor mounts for some of the Bimmerworld "Group-N" mounts. A bit of a pain to get the pass side, but all in all a nice upgrade. No noticeable change to NVH, but considering the car is stripped already, and pretty loud, I didn't expect much of a change.
Next up, power steering. Under the car, the lines were soaked in fluid and generally it was a mess. After reading that OEM lines/res are prone to fail again, I decided to go with the Chase Bays full setup: Reservoir, lines and cooler. The products themselves are very high quality and the email support when I had some questions / issues with the install was amazing. It's clear that they are a company that actually cares about cars and their customers. Very impressed!
I noticed a small oil leak where the lines enter the cooler...turned out to be 2 gnarled o-rings and fixed it for the cost of 2 small o-rings. Felt like a nice win!
Final mod I've done is the solid mount race shifter. Considering the 6MT swap was done in the last 2 years, the setup that was in the car wasn't sloppy or anything, but I just really wanted a legit race shifter. I'm not sure how I happened to see Kinnematic Speed's brand new offering, but I came across it before they'd even launched it. After reading all of their materials, I decided to take a bit of a risk and ordered it on pre-order pricing. I've since installed it, and while I've not been on the track with it yet, I can say that I'm happy with it. Fit/finish on it seems to be very good. I was able to install it myself (not without a decent amount of struggles, mostly my own fault due to having never worked on that part before) and Sam at Kinematic was awesome when I emailed with a question. It didn't require any trimming of the interior and other than having to cut a seem on the shift boot, everything installed back in perfectly. I didn't upgrade the trans mounts as the ones on the car are more or less like new OEM...will swap with the vorschlag if it seems like it's an issue.
Track season '21 starts next weekend. I've got an AiM Solo 2 DL on order. Next mod will likely be some proper suspension...MCS setup.
"mod" list:
Kinematic Speed Race shifter
Turner Race Pulley set
Chase Bays power steering reservoir, lines + cooler
Bimmerworld aluminum pedal covers
OMP HTE-R seats
Schroth 6pt harnesses
Hard Motorsport door panels + RS door pulls
Sparco wheel
NRG gen 2.5 quick release + short hub adapter
AFE Stage 2 intake (on the car when I bought it)
Mystery section 3 (on the car when I bought it...ebay I think)
Mystery red lowering springs
1/2 cage welded in
Apex FL-5 18x9.5 ET28 w/ 275.35.18 Hankook R-S4 tires
Hawk DTC60 pads (front/rear)
Zimmerman solid rotors
Motul RBF600 fluid
S2R Tuning CF sunroof filler panel
Attached Files
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