Bernooo's E92 M3 Clubsport Build

[TPS65]

Congrats on the purchase bro, can't wait to see the suspension upgrades and setup!
Keep us posted...

[86Zed]

Originally Posted by berns

Bit about me -- this M3 marks my 15th car, and my 4th BMW build. I've worked on staff for car mags for a number of years, and now shoot commercial ads for the car manufacturers, and in (all of) my spare time, I look at car parts, dream about building, and like to go to the track.

Looking forward to the next build. Congrats on the newborn, a huge adventure and plenty of late nights ahead to research and dream about parts!

[berns]

Found some time to wrench on the car last Friday and ripped it down to European Auto Source for suspension day, which I've really been looking forward to since this M3 has felt like total garbage with blown shocks and missing front endlinks.

Here's what went on the car:

• MCS 1WNR coilovers
• Eibach Springs (600lb front / 900lb rear)
• Ground Control camber plates
• Ground Control rear weight jacks
• PowerFlex front swaybar bushings and rear shock mounts
• SPL front lower control arms
• SPL front tension rods
• SPL tie rods
• SPL front swaybar endlinks

You'll notice a lot of attention was paid to the front end, here. In my opinion, the front takes priority over the rear, and with the front tension rod bushings needing replacing, along with needing specific length endlinks to pair with the MCS, I started piecing together the parts I wanted and decided to just go all in with SPL. One phone call to their Texas facility and you'll be sold. Their engineer, Turner, always answers all of my questions and he made sure everything got out to me ASAP.



Not sure if you've ever bought an SPL arm, but honestly, they're works of art. They are light, strong, easy to adjust and they keep your alignment dialed, even after track abuse. They're designed properly, and contrary to what others will say about converting to monoball arms, they are virtually silent on the street. I had great success with the lower arms on my e82, so I plan to outfit the e92 with every arm they make.











Let's call this Phase 1 of the suspension/drivetrain build. This should be plenty to shake the car down, set some baseline laps and see what needs improving, but the plan will be to handle Phase 2 sometime later on. Phase 2 will probably be rear subframe mounts/bushings, rear arms, a 4.10 diff from Diffsonline, carbon driveshaft from MFactory and a CAE shifter.

Despite all of these parts being pretty simple and bolt-on, we did have a few issues.

First, GC sent out camber plates spec'd for 60mm springs, not 2.25". Nothing like putting brand new anodized parts on the lathe. Thankfully Steve at EAS milled them down to fit, since we'd never get a replacement in time. After this, we realized the spacer/bearings inside the camber plates were different on each side. One fit perfectly over the 12mm shock, and the other was huge, leaving lots of room around and even measuring slightly taller. Thankfully BimmerWorld got GC on the phone and they're sending out a new part, but we had to get the car off the rack and back on the road, so I'll have to swap the part out next week and double check the alignment again.





Next up, was an issue with the rear shock mount. The PowerFlex bushing issue was totally my fault, as I thought the e9x non-M upper bushings were the same, and they actually are for stock non-edc M3's, but the MCS have 12mm bodies, so the center bearing in the bushing needs to be 12mm, as do the OEM cups/washer that sandwich the bushings. Again, this is a special order part, so I took the 10mm bearings and cups to a machine shop nearby to bore them out to 12mm perfectly. I tried this on my own with a drill, a vice and some WD40 at first -- wasn't going well, so I quit before I ruined everything. Thankfully the guys at Arrow Machining took me in and did the job while I waited. +1 for awesome oldschool machine shops!

The SPL arms went in easily for the most part! Clearances are tight, especially for attachment point of the lower control arm into the subframe, but overall, this really isn't hard work. Just make sure you eye out your alignment and dial it in the best you can before ruining your tires on the way to the alignment shop.

We finished wrenching with some time to spare, and I'd been eyeing this Akrapovic titanium rear section on the shelf all day. It belonged to a track buddy of mine who had recently sold his car, and in the name of weight savings, I had to try it on.




Honestly, the car lost a lot of its violent IMSA character compared to the old Remus exhaust that was on there, but we saved weight and it looks a lot nicer back there. Paired with the Macht Schnell resonated x-pipe, it's got a nice sound on throttle, especially up top, but cruising and off throttle is muted, and overall, the exhaust note is just much cleaner -- not really what I was looking for. I'm going to remove the resonators from the x-pipe and see how that changes things. Hopefully the grunt comes back!

Good news is, with the 26lbs saved on the rear section, and the 24lbs saved from the x-pipe vs stock, we're down 50lbs in exhaust parts alone, and I'm sure the Remus weighed less than stock too. The Akra is only 13lbs a side... pretty impressive.

There's a weight savings on the SPL parts and coilovers as well, so I think we're on the right track. Finally took some turns, power-on oversteered in 1st and 2nd gear a few times, and put over 100 street miles on the car already, and it feels completely transformed.
The MCS/Eibach/SPL combo is awesome on the street. The car feels more compliant and stable in every possible way, and with the dampers set at +10 clicks all around, out of 18, it's not too firm or aggressive for the road at all. Really looking forward to Chuckwalla on 10/11.

Next up: Recaro's and a badass 13lb battery.

[Redd]

In the name of weight saving and noise, why not just straight pipe that bad boy?

[berns]

Originally Posted by Redd

In the name of weight saving and noise, why not just straight pipe that bad boy?

still a street car and the only thing that would be lighter than the akra would be a custom titanium straight exhaust. I think removing the resonators from the x pipe will do the trick.

[berns]

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.

[reidetailing]

You my friend are a great driver! Fairly aggressive driving with great counter-steer control. It's 1 thing to say you track your car, but another to say you know what you're doing...you definitely know what you're doing!!!

Keep up the engaging build thread.
~Alex

[slcook54]

Awesome update.

Making me consider Titans over the forged ARC8's. Any rubbing with that setup? How much camber F/R?

Also, was curious where did you source your MCS 1-ways?

[Kelse92]

Antigravity Battery is definitely the single-best money I have spent on my car in awhile. Great choice!
Also nice power numbers and looking forward to seeing some more laps in it

[berns]

Originally Posted by Kelse92

Antigravity Battery is definitely the single-best money I have spent on my car in awhile. Great choice!
Also nice power numbers and looking forward to seeing some more laps in it

So funny, I always see people spend thousands on carbon trunks and hoods and door cards and all of it, and they'll run a stock battery or something from Sears, or a heavy Optima because it's red or yellow on top. Nothing else shaves more weight for the money, and comes with technology and features to stop you from ever needing a jump. Hope to see Antigravity become more of a household name in the community!

Originally Posted by slcook54

Awesome update.

Making me consider Titans over the forged ARC8's. Any rubbing with that setup? How much camber F/R?

Also, was curious where did you source your MCS 1-ways?

I wouldn't waste time with forged ARC8's. Old design, new tricks, they are super heavy, too. Titan7 stands behind their products and as you can see, I drive with little mechanical sympathy. I've bent every Apex wheel I ever owned. After 10+ track days on the e82 with Titan7's, not a single bend or issue. I'd never consider another wheel for the track at this point.

Get your MCS from BimmerWorld along with camber plates and springs. They'll give you the reco on rates and I'm sure they'll work with you if you if you get it all from them. Plus, gummy bears.

[DRLane]

Originally Posted by berns

So funny, I always see people spend thousands on carbon trunks and hoods and door cards and all of it, and they'll run a stock battery or something from Sears, or a heavy Optima because it's red or yellow on top. Nothing else shaves more weight for the money, and comes with technology and features to stop you from ever needing a jump. Hope to see Antigravity become more of a household name in the community!

I wouldn't waste time with forged ARC8's. Old design, new tricks, they are super heavy, too. Titan7 stands behind their products and as you can see, I drive with little mechanical sympathy. I've bent every Apex wheel I ever owned. After 10+ track days on the e82 with Titan7's, not a single bend or issue. I'd never consider another wheel for the track at this point.

Get your MCS from BimmerWorld along with camber plates and springs. They'll give you the reco on rates and I'm sure they'll work with you if you if you get it all from them. Plus, gummy bears.

The Haribos are truly a touch of class!

[//steve\\]

Love how this is coming along!

I think you've found what most do with the Akra. Nothing is really lighter, it always sounds super clean, but it loses some bark to it.

What length are your front springs?

[HELROTM3]

Well done!

[StripclubDJ]

Yawn

[berns]

Originally Posted by //steve\\

Love how this is coming along!

I think you've found what most do with the Akra. Nothing is really lighter, it always sounds super clean, but it loses some bark to it.

What length are your front springs?

Yeah I never thought I’d hate something so beautiful and expensive. Don’t really want to hack up the Macht Schnell X pipe to remove the resonators but might be worth a try.

5” main springs with helpers up front. Thanks for the good words!

[Redd]

Akra is the most boring sounding exhaust for our V8s. Ppl buy it cos it's Ti and #BecosAkrapovic. I personally think it sounds dull.

[b4hand]

Originally Posted by Redd

Akra is the most boring sounding exhaust for our V8s. Ppl buy it cos it's Ti and #BecosAkrapovic. I personally think it sounds dull.

I agree

[berns]

Originally Posted by b4hand

I agree

Originally Posted by Redd

Akra is the most boring sounding exhaust for our V8s. Ppl buy it cos it's Ti and #BecosAkrapovic. I personally think it sounds dull.

I'm with both of you, as you can tell.. I had an old Remus that came on the car and sounded wicked, but hated the tips. Sold it and got this Akra for a "steal" used, but I'm really not into it. What else is similar weight and sounds good? Only thing I've seen maybe comparable is the Meisterschaft Ti.

[berns]

Combined a few of my oversteer moments from Chuckwalla. Love the way this car rotates. Hard to believe it's my first time driving it, but I guess I've been in such a similar chassis over the last 5 years that it just feels familiar and predictable. Suspension setup seems so perfect out of the box. Blown away.

[//steve\\]

What alignment did you settle on? Think it need any tweaks for optimizing contact patch or pretty good on the first try?

If you need someone else to "steal" the Akra let me know.

[berns]

Originally Posted by //steve\\

What alignment did you settle on? Think it need any tweaks for optimizing contact patch or pretty good on the first try?

If you need someone else to "steal" the Akra let me know.

-3.6 front & -2.5 rear, with a little toe out back. I don't think I'll change a thing. Could maybe soften up the rear a tad to gain a little grip but honestly, it feels great and I think the new slick surface and high heat contributed to the slides, as did my driving style.

Not really used to having response like this, and was also pushing my absolute hardest to set a fast lap there. Driving 9/10ths the car didn't slide at all. The speeds on this track with the stock FD placed me right at the fun end of 3rd gear which unsettled the car easily, where 4th would have gripped but it felt too slow. Time will tell.

[DRLane]

Originally Posted by berns

-3.6 front & -2.5 rear, with a little toe out back. I don't think I'll change a thing. Could maybe soften up the rear a tad to gain a little grip but honestly, it feels great and I think the new slick surface and high heat contributed to the slides, as did my driving style.

Not really used to having response like this, and was also pushing my absolute hardest to set a fast lap there. Driving 9/10ths the car didn't slide at all. The speeds on this track with the stock FD placed me right at the fun end of 3rd gear which unsettled the car easily, where 4th would have gripped but it felt too slow. Time will tell.

You're running toe out in the rear? Wouldn't that explain the loose rear end?