Update time!
Prepped the car for its first event that took place on Sunday at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. This was a time attack challenge and a great event overall put together by Club Racer Events for NDF Attack Challenge. They're trying to bring the Japanese TA style back here with an exciting, high pressure format.
Basically, the Advanced run groups have their regular morning session. The top 30 fastest times of the morning will count as qualifying runs. The goal is 10 cars per class, as there are only 3 classes: Real Tuning, NA Unlimited & FI Unlimited. The M3 was in RT since it has no aero and <90tw tires.
Before the event, I wanted to do some more maintenance and upgrades. I replaced both throttle actuators and all 8 injectors with OEM-spec Bosch injectors. Cost on these is pretty cheap, so it was a no brainer. Did both primary o2's as well, and an accessory pulley was making some noise.
I needed to put some track pads in and figured I'd take the track pads I've used on my e82 StopTech St60/St40 kit, but turns out this car has 4-piston St40's front and rear. Didn't even know that was an option. Luckily I had two sets of rear pads with good life on them.
I swapped StopTech SR32 pads up front and SR33 pads out back, and fitted a set of Titan7 T-S7 wheels with 1-trackday-old Yokohama Advan A052's. It's a square setup with 18x10.5 +25 and 295/30 all around. 3mm spacer up front for peace of mind and 5mm out back for style points. Fitment is killer and I'm in love with this setup!
I want the car to be easy to get back to street trim, so I was curious how light we could make it easily. I pulled the trunk liner, stock front seats in favor of a single Recaro Pole Position, and removed the rear seats as well. That's it.
To top off the weight loss program, I removed the dying original battery in favor of an Antigravity Batteries H6-30-RS. This battery fits in the stock location, weighs a little over 13lbs and has a RESTART feature, with a remote, that can be used to start the car up if it's been sitting long enough for the battery to drain. This is amazing stuff -- the battery will simply reserve enough energy to start the car, and it'll shut itself off before it ever reaches a depleted state. I don't see this happening as it should hold a charge for 3+ months, but I'll report back either way. Just happy never to have to jump the car or worry about any of the nonsense that used to be associated with lightweight batteries. The guys at Antigravity are local in LA and they're all motorsport enthusiasts. They provided amazing support on my last build and I'm stoked to continue working with them on this one.
So, with that out of the way, we were all pretty surprised with the weight of the car. Got it down to 3239lbs with a little less than half a tank in the car. Much better than I was expecting!
To keep the good vibes rolling, we put the car on the dyno at European Auto Source to get some numbers. Shop temps were over 90* but we sent it anyway. The M3 put down a healthy 391whp on 91 octane. Since we're all nerds, we wanted to see what a splash of e85 (less than half a gallon) would do to the numbers. Bam, 398whp... On average, EAS sees 375-ish whp from the S65 with a tune and bolt-ons, so maybe the new injectors and plugs helped matters, but there's no denying the Epic Motorsports tune is doing its job and Randy knows what he's doing!
Just for laughs, we overlaid my 135i's dyno... You can tell which might be a little crazier to drive.
I sent the logs to Randy and we're going to make a few small adjustments -- we're confident the car will hit 400whp on 91 octane once it cools down a bit here.
Numbers are just numbers, and I was excited to finally shake the car down on the track. That's one thing the M3 really doesn't have over the 1M build... You can exploit a lot of the fun from the 1M on the street because of the massive turbo torque and power. The car is just a riot in any situation. The M3 is nice on the street and the freeway, but you need space to wind it out. When I drive it, I only wish I was on the track instead. And man, was I right.
The car is phenomenal. So much balance. So much grip. Response like I've never felt before. CVR is freshly repaved, so there isn't much grip, and I was definitely driving under pressure, staying at the limit basically every turn in order to run the lap I did. What a blast. Other E9x M3's there were running 2:05+, so I'm happy with my 1:59.2!
Really blown away by this car for how minimal and basic the setup is. Can't wait to take it to Buttonwillow to see what kind of time it'll do out of the box in the current spec.