Switcho-changeo... steering wheel and shifter swap

[hpc3]

From this:



to this:



I've been on a quest to do some sort of (accurate) shift light for the car (why BMW didn't think it important enough to include the LED cluster on the 6sp cars I'd like to know) and sort of settled on the V2 Performance wheel. I had planned on recovering it in black Nappa or similar however with GTMotoring's alcantara stock knob option I decided to give this a try first. Thanks to Greg and Austin there for adding the BMW "Performance" matching stitching. Turned out really nice. The wheel is pretty nerdy but I like it... alcantara is working ok for now.

On another note - I'm enjoying the stock shifter style again vs the M5. I liked the weighted feeling and all but it was just too short at times to be quick with it IMO. Also I have a tendency to wrap my hands/fingers around the front of the shifter when driving casually and the M5 one is so short it would bang/pinch a finger occasionally going into 3rd. Lots of little nuances with both but stock isn't so bad afterall.

[THE TECH]

Looks good.

[darnelld]

I wish I could see the shift lights in action..If you have the ability to do so, that would be awwwessome! I totally agree that BMW should have made shift lights on the cluster standard for us 6MT guys.

[hpc3]

that shows all the feature/functionality...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI2lLzgOalI

This thing is a lot more complicated than I originally thought...

In the video:
- Efficient Dynamics Mode (Blue / E icon) with options:
(1) Fuel consumption (upper display line), stopwatch/trip timer (lower)
(2) Fuel consumption (upper), Avg speed (lower)
(3) Fuel consumption (upper), EffDynamics Index (lower) = fuel usage vs driving style
(4) Water temp (upper), Oil temp (lower)

- Sport Mode (Orange / Stopwatch icon)
(1) Longitudinal/Lateral G meter (upper), stopwatch (lower)
(2) Lateral G meter with memory
(3) Water temp (upper), Oil temp (lower)

- Race Mode (Red / Checkered flag icon)
(1) Lap mode (upper) - think it stores up to 30 laps and associated telemetry, Stopwatch (lower)
(2) Section mode (upper) - allows you to divide a lap into multiple sections for tracking timing/telemetry for each, Stopwatch (lower)
(3) 400m/0-60 Race (upper), 1/4mi Race (lower) - has a christmas tree with staging, countdown, start and finish based on distance

- Settings Menu (White / Sprocket icon)
(x) all the various settings for E, Sport, Race and country/measurements settings

There's an IR sensor kit they sell(didn't buy it) that you can use at the track for consistent lap counts/timings too. It ties in with the Race Mode section, good bit of telemetry and statistics are collected and recorded here. Doubt I'd ever use that, doubt most people would ever use it honestly. Probably good for a serious club racer or something, guessing.

The LEDs on the wheel also do different things based on what mode you're in ie in "ED" mode they are up/down shift lights for manual cars(I haven't bothered to code my car for this since the M3's throttle response is so slow in Normal mode, mine stays in Sport mode by default and M-Mode for playtime). In Sport mode they correspond to RPM and shift points - probably the most useful thing on the wheel for me. They do the same in Race mode too unless you're doing a 0-60 or 1/4mi pull in which they do the countdown/finish functions. They still do the shift points too during these fwiw.

Only gripe I have is it defaults to "off" every time you drive. It remembers everything and what mode you were in last and all, just have to power it up every time you start the car, would be nice if it had a setting to activate automatically... I'll chase this to see if there is some way to trick it into activating.