Bernooo's E92 M3 Clubsport Build

And, overdue update time!

My Pinnacle GTS-style T45 cage finally showed up after major fuckups from DHL. They literally lost this thing... I have to give some major credit to Jamie at Pinnacle though -- not only is this cage gorgeous, and as light as advertised (40.8 lbs w/ powdercoat), but his packaging is second to none. It took me a good 40 minutes to unwrap it, but not a single bit of damage anywhere to be found.



I recommend tackling the install with a buddy, just to avoid damaging the cage and your car. Here's how I went about it.

Remove both seats, shifter forward, steering wheel as high and forward as possible. I put a moving blanket over the console and dash area. Passenger's window down, slide it in through the pass side, rotate and shimmy it into place. Impressive how quickly you can have it in position!

The rear brackets use existing holes and hardware. The bottom holes use existing holes but I had to go grab some hardware. I went to O'Reilly and grabbed some nice 10.9 flanged M8x20mm bolts, nuts and washers.

Start with the rearward hardware and finish with the forward bench hardware.

I had some trouble lining up the bottom holes on mine, but Jamie assured me this isn't the norm. Truth be told, slight movement in welding, cooling, shipping, is to be expected with any bolt-in cage. I elongated the holes slightly and actually used a ratchet strap to pull the cage a bit rearward with tension to aid in lining the holes up without struggling with my own (lack of) muscle. Worked great!

With the rear all bolted in loosely, I moved onto the front. You'll need something strong to get through the bench metal and you'll drill two holes on each lower end of the bench to get a nut and wrench in below the bolts. I used a drill with a big uni-bit. Took some time and made a mess but got the job done!



I finally picked up a Sparco 6pt harness, too, just in time for Round 1 of Bimmer Challenge last Saturday, 2/20 at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. More on that soon.



Next on the to-do list was making some changes to my StopTech kit. Now, before everyone gets super, duper stoked and starts asking me if my knockback is 100% cured -- I can't tell you that until I go back to Buttonwillow on 3/6 for Round 2 of Bimmer Challenge. BW is by far the worst for knockback, so that'll be the ultimate test.

Each caliper has 4 abutment plates, top and bottom, on the outside and inside. These plates maintain contact with the top and bottom of the pads, and the "street" kits come with kinked abutment plates on the top end. This kink adds extra tension on the pad and keeps noise down. The tolerances with the big pads are super tight, and the thought is, with too much tension, the pads aren't floating free enough to move back toward the rotors in high-g situations, even with knockback springs. So, I replaced the kinked plates for flat ones, and went even further to grind some material off the tops and bottoms of the pads to let them slide in and out of the calipers with ease. I can say, I have no added noise right now and the brake response felt improved and repeatable all day at Chuckwalla. Zero issues there. For the record, I'm running 4# springs in both the front and rear calipers and was running them since new.





Finally, I went to JMP Autowerkz for an alignment. Still haven't corner balanced the car or dialed in the ride height, since I know I'll be tearing the rear subframe and arms out soon, so I'll just wait for a final height set at that point. To this day, the entire rear of the car is stock -- bushings, mounts, arms, etc... All original with almost 100k on it.

I hit the road to Chuckwalla the night before the event since it's mega far from me, and I'm still amazed at how great a street car the M3 is. The only thing that's hurt it's streetability so far, in my opinion, are the AKG 95A trans mounts. They are just too stiff -- the NVH is pretty gnarly. I'm going to try to run something else down there. Even better is that this thing averages 21-22mpg on the freeway. Way better than my 4Runner.



Unfortunately, when I started my journey, I couldn't turn my DSC off. I couldn't find any info for this that made sense, so I began to think maybe I messed the wires up when reinstalling my console cover. Sure enough, two of the wires pulled out of the DSC harness. OOPS. I asked Steve from EAS to grab the button and harness from one of his employee's E92's at the shop and bring it with him to CVR. Score!



I woke up cold the next morning and took my time getting out the door of the cabin, and saw a massive line to get through the gates to the track. Nobody told me you could check in the night before and grab a bracelet to bypass the line in the morning. Great. I showed up with 8 minutes to spare before the first session, and Steve was already on the grid, so I ran session one super rushed, and found out how terrible it is to drive on track with DSC enabled. I couldn't get power down anywhere, and could barely take turns at speed. I guess now is a good time to tell you, I signed up for a time attack competition with Bimmer Challenge, in the stacked (16 drivers!) B3 class, driving on a track I've been to twice, in a configuration I've never driven (CCW). So, starting out like this was far from ideal. I learned a bit about the track orientation but not about how to drive it quickly. I managed a 2:03 with DSC on in session 1.



Session two came and with my new DSC button, and now an EDC button that had no place in my car, I was ready for a proper shakedown. I had 3 hot laps and managed a 1:57.35 before an E36 spilled oil all over the track and cut the session short. This was enough to put me in p1!

During the long lunch, a dust/wind storm started to roll in, killing some grip on the track surface but it was definitely still good to go. I got gridded in front of my track bud Nick, who drives a track prepped B3-class E46 M3 with DOT slicks. A bit of a different formula for fast than my build, but that's what makes Bimmer Challenge fun. With Nick behind me, I tried not to let him get too close to avoid towing him to a win, as his PB at the time was a 1:57.7. I managed a very, very sloppy 1:57.076 on my 5th (yes, 5 hot laps without DSC, the whole day), and Nick clicked off a 1:56.6! Hard fought battle, but such a good time. The following lap I pushed harder and lost it completely sideways at the back end of the track. I spend a lot of time sideways at CVR but I couldn't keep this one together. Too many nerves!

I ended Round 1 with a 2nd place podium finish, and I'm looking forward to Round 2 at Buttonwillow in 2 weeks. The Falken's were on their second day here and still felt great, and I'll run them again at BW to see how they do with some hard miles on them.



Here's my best lap: