Ruining a Perfectly Good Stripper Like an Idiot

[iamtrashman]

Well, maybe not RUINING...



Hello all,

I am pretty new around here. I have loved the e9x M3 since they debuted in 2008, but I was 15 at the time and like most high school students my budget was certainly not M3 sized, working as a bike mechanic at the time. It was sort of a long term, "When I am a real adult" kind of goal.

I was always in to cars though, especially Japanese ones. I live in British Columbia up in Canada and there has always been a pretty healthy car scene regarding JDM cars. Maybe the 15 year import laws here allowed for us to get some special examples early on enough for them to not be molested too badly by the time they made their way to some car shows, which resulted in some pretty exciting cars having the chance to titillate the mind of a young trashman. I remember seeing 600+hp to R32 GTR's when I was still a preteen and they always had a crazy aura around them, a real presence to be around.

I ended up discovering the world of drifting while I was still in high school, and coming from a mountain bike and BMX background, I found the idea of being able to express a driving style incredibly exciting and appealing. I badly wanted an FC3S RX7, but after enough research decided a 240SX would be a more beginner friendly car. I set out to look for my first car and ended up with a fairly tidy, nearly stock 240SX with a cleanly swapped SR20DET and a welded diff. It was a pretty quick car for a 17 year old kid, especially as a first car, but it taught me a lot about how to work on cars. I ended up selling it and owned a couple other Japanese cars (CTR swapped EK hatch, a couple EF's, another 240SX) and eventually cleared house and got what at the time was a realistic dream car, a 1998 Kouki Nissan 180SX Type-X. I still miss that car and all the things I had done to it, even rebuilding it after totalling it on track in a 4 car drift pile up haha.

Here is a couple pictures of different stages of its life and a video of some drifting if you care to see and more importantly hear the car. I spent a lot of time going over how to design the manifold with a friend that built it for me. If any of you are into early 2000's drifting you may notice it sounds like the trust TD06 mid mount manifold, but we made it to be packaged in a factory bottom mount location. It was a lot of fun!

Anyway, Japanese cars seemed to be reaching stratospheric prices, especially late model JDM imports of desirable chassis. The cops were really cracking down on any modified vehicles in the province, to the point where I was paranoid to drive and enjoy the car. I really didn't have the time or space to put the car back to stock to pass an inspection should it come down to that.

At this point I started sort of looking at e46 M3's. I was at a point career-wise where I could probably afford one, especially if I cashed out on the Nissan. I had always liked the e92 more, but at the time the e46 was more in the budget and it seemed like it was still a lot of car for the money. I hadn't told anyone I was thinking of selling the 180SX, or that I had been dreaming of an M3, when one day a friend asked if I would ever sell the Nissan. I half-jokingly gave him an outrageous number and (to my disbelief) he said he would consider it. A week went by and he asked if I had any interest in an e46 M3! It turns out one of his friends owned a silvergray e46 M3 and wanted to trade for his K-swapped ITR, and he had the thought that maybe I would consider the M3 in exchange for the 180SX. I got some detailed pictures and we all ended up pulling off a three-way trade, sight unseen.

I really enjoyed the e46 actually. A lot more than I expected to, but every time I was about to order some upgrades for it I would put it off, make a justification of why I didnt need to, and the car kind of sat most of the time for 2 and a half years. It was pretty well set up when I got it. It has a set of KW v1 coilovers, H&R swaybars, and a 335d shifter to make the gear change a little nicer. I wanted some nicer tires and camber plates to make them fit but all I ended up doing was just cleaning the car up and modifying the backbox to get a sportier sound out of the rasp-factory.





At the start of 2020 I realized I should just stop messing around and sell the thing to fund an e9x M3. I insured the car with the plans of driving it for the spring and having it listed for sale. When it sold I was going to start looking for its replacement.

That is, until I broke my ankle mountain biking... On May 1st, 8 days after insuring the car...

I luckily didn't need surgery, but I was confined to the couch for what was expected to be 6 weeks before I would be allowed to start walking again. I was a little bit bummed to be missing the good weather, and I kept finding myself searching for e9x M3's, day after day. Nothing like a little retail therapy to cure the busted ankle blues, right?

I had the e46 listed the entire time and got my dad to help out removing the bucket seat and putting the stock wheels back on to prepare it for sale. I didn't have a ton of interest that early in the year, but it mostly sat, waiting for a new home.





I admired the s54 for the last time before putting it into storage



So, with all of this newfound free time on my hands, I was getting a pretty good idea of the e9x M3 market in BC. 6MT cars were out there but they were not nearly as common as the DCT cars. I honestly had no real spec I was looking for, and I was even open to DCT cars initially, as I had driven one before and really enjoyed it. The more I thought it through though, knowing it was a car I planned to keep for a long time, I figured that a 6MT would provide more enjoyment in the long term, especially as a car I planned to take on road trips and enjoy on back roads as often as possible. I did want to find a Space Gray car if possible, but every one seemed to be a DCT car. I also was open to sedans, but after some more deliberation I settled on the fact that the carbon roof was a unique feature and one I figured made the car kind of feel special. With those preferences narrowed down, I got to work looking for a 6MT coupe with a carbon roof.

3 weeks in to the search, I had come up with a total of zero cars that fit the bill, and the same number that were in the responsible budget range, especially because I was paying cash and would be out the entire cost until the e46 sold at an unknown point in the future.

I happened to look at some classifieds one province over in Alberta. Lo and behold, a 2009 6MT coupe with a carbon roof and 131xxxkm was listed for sale at the same price my e46 was listed for. It was Alpine White, and the pictures were pretty dimly lit in a dark garage, but I could see that it had the speed cloth interior. The dash wasn't captured in the photos, but I could see the lack of iDrive controller on the center console. I couldn't believe it! I called the ad right away and an older gentleman answered the phone. He gave me a rundown on the car and I told him I was leaving BC that night and to please not sell it to anyone else before I got to take a look at it! I borrowed my friends enclosed trailer and started the long drive to Calgary at 9PM that night, arriving in Calgary at 6AM the next morning.



The car seemed mechanically sound, and I got the owner to take me for a quick drive in it. I never even got to test drive it because I was still wearing a splint and walking on crutches. It needed a good cleaning, but it was in pretty good shape for an 11 year old car. I ran the vin and the only options above base that it had were a smokers package and the cold weather package, which is standard equipment on Canadian cars from my understanding. Strangely enough this car has the Individual Audio option as well despite not having Nav. Score! I made an offer, he accepted, and I was the proud owner of what I think is an example with about as close to zero options as they came in this country.




Eventually I made it home and we got it parked in the driveway. I was impatiently waiting to have two legs again so I could finally drive the car I had dreamed about owning since high school. Exciting moment for sure.



Because it was an Alberta car, it needed to pass an out of province inspection before I could register and insure it in British Columbia. I wasn't able to drive so my wife actually drove the car before me! She remarked how easy and comfortable to drive it was.



It passed with flying colours and it was ready to enjoy as soon as I was able to drive again! The interior picture is as close to stock as it ever was, I added the checkered mats right away. I feel like they really tie the room together.




The next post will be where the mods begin!

[iamtrashman]

So, I was finally able to walk again, albeit shakily. I had the chance to drive the car a little bit, and it was the manifestation of delayed gratification if there ever was one.

The first thing I did to the car after the mats was install a motorsport hardware 75mm stud conversion, 12mm spacers all around, and swapped the shift knob to the f10 M5 one, which made a huge difference in shifter feel, surprisingly. I also wrapped the reflectors with some white vinyl I had kicking around to hold me over until I found some painted ones. It isn't a perfect match, but it looks better I think in most cases.

the car looked a little more serious with the spacers and it was a nice simple look.




I seem to have misplaced the pictures I took but I refinished the steering wheel and drivers door window switch trim. I stripped the soft touch, sanded down to 1600 grit, primed, sanded down to 1600 again, and sprayed a matte paint on them. It turned out pretty nicely for a few dollars and hours of my time, although in the future I would like to replace it. I wanted to just try and repair what flaws I could on the car for minimal cost until I get around to replacing each piece that needs attention, same ideology as the reflectors.

The e46 ended up selling around here, I happened to get a picture of them together before it left. Two truly special cars. Timeless really!



I installed one of my old Zeta 2's that I still had in storage. The Bride mounts for e9x are a nice quality piece. I had Brey Krause solid floor mounts in the e46 which were amazing and could go too low for even a 6'3" guy like me, but I missed having sliders in that car. I found the Bride rails used for a decent price and figured I would try them out until I get the seats I actually plan to run in this car. Everything bolted in quite nicely, with the exception of the seatbelt pretensioner. The e46 BK mounts had a proper bracket for the pretensioner, and with the supplied hardware it was not going to work on the Bride rails. I ended up getting a rear seatbelt receptacle from a lower model e92 at a wrecker and was able to mount that safely to the rails. I lost the safety feature of the pretensioner, but I still have a properly engineered receptacle that actually fits through the belt hole in the seat. I figured this to be the lesser evil out of my options. with the BK mounts in the e46 I had to run the belt on top of the seat shell and it never felt all that safe. I feel much better about this solution until I get my hands on a set of Recaros that allow for factory belt use. Below are some pictures of this solution.





Because I removed the factory seat and receptacle, I now had SRS lights on the dash, and my seatbelt butlers were going crazy every time someone opened the door. It was time to learn to do some coding! I was able to use this site as a resource and I coded out just the airbags and receptacles that were affected so that all of my other safety systems were functioning. The best part was getting rid of the dash lights! big accomplishment that day. I coded out the seatbelt butlers and I also took that opportunity to code double impulse hazards and a couple other little things I wanted. I don't have any pictures currently but I swapped out the signals and sidemarkers with LED's from a company I came across from reading old threads here. I can't remember the name of the website at the moment! the new LED bulbs look awesome with double impulse hazards, just like an emergency vehicle or maybe a garbage truck blocking an alleyway..... ha!

At this point I took the car on a short weekend trip. I really loved driving the car even almost completely stock. They really do not make them like this anymore! The road to the mountain resort I was visiting was incredible with a dozen or more switchbacks that you had to be in 2nd gear for, and given my automotive history I couldn't resist making sure it would do at least one fat smokey powerslide... You know, for science...



Some tire boogers from said misbehaviour:




It's still a small car, see!



A fun milestone on the trip:



The trip, especially the twisty back roads really hammered home how much better a car is to drive with a proper seat! The stock ones aren't too bad, but they really let me move around a lot, and worse than that were way too high for my height. I was really enjoying the car like this.

I had to remove the headlamps to swap the LED signals in anyway, so I took the chance to polish the lenses. they were fairly pitted when I got the car and it bothered me a lot. I want to get new assemblies eventually, but I feel like while the job isn't perfect, it is a major improvement. Here are some before and after shots!





RTD Shifter had a 20% off sale at some point this summer, and I had driven with the shifter once in a friends e36 M3 about 6 years ago and the experience had always stuck with me. I knew at some point I had to have one and the sale was as good a reason as any for me to pick one up.



I knew it was a decent sized job to install the shifter and I figured while I was in there it was a good time to service my drivetrain. I replaced the driveshaft flex disc and center support bearing, changed trans and diff fluid, did an oil change, and installed the shifter with DSSR. I had to modify my shift boot to work with the shifter, and i actually hemmed it in by hand LOL! I think it turned out acceptably. I used a ziptie inside to keep the boot nicely secured.





While I had all of the underbody panels off, I took them to the car wash to try and clean them up. A bit of engine bay cleaner and a paintbrush to agitate did wonders for freshening things up. I have to say, throughout my time working on this car I am really finding this car is aging well. The build quality is quite durable on everything.



After the drivetrain refresher and shifter install the interior was looking pretty great in my opinion! I had gotten my hands on a full set of the carbon leather trim before the maintenance and it completely transformed the look! I absolutely love how it looks at twilight in the interior. The orange glow of the instruments will always scream BMW to me.



The car was coming along great but it was desperately needing some extra volume. The S65 is the centerpiece of the car and I find it sounds beautiful when it is uncorked a little bit! My friend and I got to work on making a backbox delete out of stainless steel. I could have modified the muffler but I wanted to keep everything I take off the car in factory condition in case I ever feel like returning it to stock. Here are a couple progress pictures, you can see we wanted it to be true bolt on so we flared the tubing to work with the OEM socket joint. I estimate we saved nearly 50lbs off the back of the car, the stock suitcase is heavy!!




The car sounds AMAZING now. It is a little droney on the highway in certain situations, but I drive it for pleasure and compared to my past cars it is very tame. Here is a video link for a sound clip and some more misbehaving at the end... tsk tsk...

I was really loving the car at this point, just in time to put it away for winter. I got out for a quick autumn drive to take a few pictures of it before it went into storage.






At this point I had some parts ready to go on the car and a laundry list of parts I still needed. Up next was the winter parts haul.

I had some NT03+m wheels in 18x10 to put on the car sitting since just after I had bought it. I was waiting on coilovers and some other stuff before installing them so I could fit them properly. I also made a pretty massive order through FCPEuro. My BE bearings and bolts also showed up in January after ordering them in June! Now that the weather is warming up I will have to book it in for service soon as its been on my mind since I got the car and holding me back from driving more!




I was ready to dig in over winter! More coming in the next post...

[iamtrashman]

So, I had a stack of parts and an off-season to install them, first up was the Öhlins R&T coilovers with Ground Control camber plates. After a bunch of research here it seems this is a tried and true recipe for a street car that may see some light track use. I didnt take too many pictures during the install, but it was quite straight forward even though the instructions were a little vague. Not the worst job even though I was doing it on jackstands in my storage unit, ha!





One tip if you ever find yourself installing these; don't cut the shock boots! they have a perfect little slot on the boot for a ziptie, even though the instructions tell you to trim them to length. I felt it would protect the shock shaft from the elements much better this way.

Here is a quick picture post install. I believe I set the rear to the recommended measurements using digital calipers, and for the front I went 10 or 15mm shorter than the recommended measurements on the ride height adjuster measured again with digital calipers.



I had been waiting since new years to order tires but everything everywhere in Canada was out of stock! I bought the Enkeis with no tires, the above photo was from the seller, so I was searching for a sporty tire in 275/35R18 that was reasonably priced enough that I wouldn't feel guilty spinning them and burning off doing many highway miles. The Firestone Firehawk Indy500 came back in stock before anything else with a 7% promotional discount, so I grabbed a set right away. Initial impressions are good, they are reasonably quiet, they dont tramline all over the place, and they are far stickier than it would ever be safe to test on public roads. I am pretty satisfied so far considering the price point. I do plan to try out a track day at some point, so I may change my tune, but truthfully I think I have realistic expectations of what a tire in this category and price point is capable of. I got the tires mounted up and fitted the wheels to the car. I elected to use 12mm spacers all around, although I could have gone a touch bigger, it has minimal rubbing and still looks athletic enough for my tastes.



After the wheel and tire install it was time to get it aligned! I brought it to a friend that works at a VW dealer who has a couple racecars, and he did an excellent job. Here are my current specs.



That pretty well brings things up to date! I am really happy so far with the car. Next on the list is rod bearings and I plan to enjoy the car like this for summer. If anyone knows of reputable shops that do rod bearing service in BC, likely Vancouver, please leave a suggestion! I have a couple shops I am leaning toward but would love to hear anyones experiences.

If you got this far thank you for reading! I hope you have enjoyed and I will leave you with some pictures I took today.

Bye-Bye for now!

TRASHMAN

[SilverSlug]

Nice write up. Fact that your wife can drive manual is worthy of Like at the very least.

Alpine white with a 6spd, cloth seats and no nav… Perfect base for a rad racer track car.

[FMLYSDN]

Nice write up. Thanks for sharing.

[94jedi]

Great write up and yea, you found a unicorn!!! Congrats on that.

Tell me more about the ohlins install, I have a R&T setup I need to install...been putting it off for a while now.

[iamtrashman]

Originally Posted by 94jedi

Great write up and yea, you found a unicorn!!! Congrats on that.

Tell me more about the ohlins install, I have a R&T setup I need to install...been putting it off for a while now.

Thank you! And definitely, what would you like to know?

I would recommend going to harbour freight or princess auto and getting a cheap set of digital calipers. I got a 300mm pair on sale for $60 CAD or so. It really made it easy to get everything perfectly even on both sides which I feel like is the best I was able to do without having the car corner balanced. I would need adjustable endlinks to properly balance it anyway from what I have read.

The front strut mount nut is not really possible to torque to the spec from what I could tell. There is a 6 or 8mm Allen slot in the top of the strut shaft, and I was able to use an open ended wrench to get it satisfactorily tight, but obviously I don't know the torque value. Because the GC camber plates have such a deep recess into the strut mount it is a bit of a precarious job as you don't want the wrench to slip.

I did notice though something was making some noise up front when I would wiggle the steering wheel quickly with the car off. I had read on here that 9/10 times it is usually the strut mount nuts being too loose, so I gave them a small blast with my tiny 1/4" electric impact. Since then I have not had any noises.

One tip that I had to dig for was that you need to rob the rubber isolators from your factory strut mounts to put on the GC plates. If you just let the metal spring rest on the metal perch you are likely to get some noises from spring bind in the future as debris and dust works its way in there. One of the vendors here even has pictures of the GC plates on an R&T kit without that isolator and I am not sure if it was just because it looks more attractive or what, but I would not recommend leaving that isolator out. At that point you may as well use race plates with linear springs.

[MisterClutch888]

Dude how can i miss this build thread lol. so freakin sick, cant wait to drive some canyons and take some pics together.

[sterile stork]

Very much enjoying your journal! Would you recommend the shifter setup?

[iamtrashman]

Originally Posted by MisterClutch888

Dude how can i miss this build thread lol. so freakin sick, cant wait to drive some canyons and take some pics together.

Absolutely! Very excited for this summer.

[iamtrashman]

Originally Posted by sterile stork

Very much enjoying your journal! Would you recommend the shifter setup?

I would highly recommend the shifter. The stock shifter is very lackluster for me, and has a rubbery kind of feel. Its functional but it never felt very great to use. The car has such long legs because of the high redline though, so the overall car is still really enjoyable, but the RTD really makes the car more exciting and engaging to drive.

One thing to note though, all of that rubber in the OEM shifter has a purpose. It isolates a lot of the NVH that the big old ZF produces. When you swap out to a chassis mounted shifter that uses a solid shift selector rod you will definitely experience more gear whine and shift lever vibration. It isn't unbearable, but if you are sensitive to noise in the cabin you may dislike that part of it. There is also currently no solution for a rubber shift boot on the transmission tunnel. I was recommended to try an e36 transmission tunnel boot by RTD and it did not end up working. However i retained the foam and carpet piece below the stock shift boot and when I zip tied the modified boot on to the shift lever, I found it cut down noise a good bit.

All that being said though, the noise isn't obnoxious. i wouldn't be embarrassed to drive a non car person around.

[CPWINCH]

Ohlins and Enkeis and a proper line up? wouldn't call it ruined haha. Looks great

What floor mats are those?

[ES BMW]

How is this ruined? Perfected is more like it!

This engine does sound amazing without a muffler, just too much for daily driving but the sound!

Congrats on the car and enjoy it!

[UPSROD]

It looks like you put Mineral White reflecter fillers on your Alpine White car.

[Frostynorth]

Cool build!

Originally Posted by iamtrashman

The front strut mount nut is not really possible to torque to the spec from what I could tell. There is a 6 or 8mm Allen slot in the top of the strut shaft, and I was able to use an open ended wrench to get it satisfactorily tight, but obviously I don't know the torque value. Because the GC camber plates have such a deep recess into the strut mount it is a bit of a precarious job as you don't want the wrench to slip.

If I understand this correctly, I built a tool for this years ago. Just change up the socket to an Allen.

[iamtrashman]

Originally Posted by Frostynorth

Cool build!

If I understand this correctly, I built a tool for this years ago. Just change up the socket to an Allen.

This is exactly what you would need to do it properly. I don't know if using a crow foot on a torque wrench will yield accurate torque values but you could certainly get it tightened enough to stop making noise with a setup like this.

[iamtrashman]

Originally Posted by UPSROD

It looks like you put Mineral White reflecter fillers on your Alpine White car.

It was just some generic white vinyl I had laying around. I would like to get painted ones eventually!

[Frostynorth]

Originally Posted by iamtrashman

This is exactly what you would need to do it properly. I don't know if using a crow foot on a torque wrench will yield accurate torque values but you could certainly get it tightened enough to stop making noise with a setup like this.

Yes, it doesn't have to be stupid tight, but it will give enough for piece of mind.

[TheJellyo]

Originally Posted by MisterClutch888

Dude how can i miss this build thread lol. so freakin sick, cant wait to drive some canyons and take some pics together.

We have canyons out here?

[iamtrashman]

Small update before I get the rod bearings replaced next week:

I have been enjoying the car all summer. It's been a joy to take on some road trips and it hasn't skipped a beat. Truly a special car!

Here are some pictures of the car out and about.

[iamtrashman]

Oh, I also weighed the car. I was curious what it might weigh considering it is fairly "low-option".

With just under half a tank of fuel with me in it and one with me out of it. The scale is for commercial transport, and goes in increments of 10kg. With no passengers, the car would weigh between 1576kg-1584kg which is a range between 3474lbs-3492lbs.

Weight reduction measures at this point would be the muffler delete, and the driver seat change.

I believe with a lightweight battery, an aftermarket X-pipe, and carbon seats I could get the weight below 3400lbs with half a tank of fuel, even if I add an aftermarket muffler back on (an aftermarket X-pipe with no muffler would be way way too loud.)

Considering the weights I have seen posted for other cars with more options and DCT transmissions I feel like sub 3500 is a good starting weight. I haven't removed a single piece of the interior (and I am not sure I even will, but I may go after some low hanging fruit in the future for fun like the tire inflator and maybe do a rear seat delete if I could find one that looked half decent and wasn't prohibitively expensive.)

Anyway, sorry the pictures aren't very great, but at least I have pictures of the fuel level and scale readout.

[nsogiba]

Great example of an E92, I love the fabrication on the muffler deletes.