Derek's E90 slicktop OEM+ Project

[Powashiftin]

Originally Posted by derbo

""Might as well" makes some changes"

I realized I haven't really posted a full detail post on what has happened post-spin!

This is a longer post on changes to the car after my little spin at Laguna Seca. My original plan before my Laguna Seca off-road experience was to run the PS4S tires till the end of life. Also before the event, I ordered a set of Volk wheels that will arrive sometime in Spring 2021. The spin left me working on what the next steps were for me. I developed a checklist of items I wanted to address while it was "down."

# Goals List

• Assess the damage and order new parts
• Explore the idea of a set of dedicated track wheels.
• Increase wheel clearance with shorter coil-over springs
• increase spring rates with a higher priority for track use vs street.
• Redial the suspension
• Enjoy the car!

# Evaluation
During the Laguna Seca T1 spin, I hit two pit exit cones @ 117mph and spun into the gravel trap at T2. The damage report was as listed: GTS lip cracked, cracked bumper center grille, scuffed front bumper, under tray damage and face pitted and barrel scored BBS GT4 wheels from rocks between ST60 calipers. I was fortunate enough that this was all that was damaged. Luckily everything was pretty much easily replaceable except the BBS GT4 and GTS Lip. The GTS lip was just a pain in the ass for driveways, speed bumps etc and I decided to forego replacing the lip. As for the BBS..

# Wheels replacement time?
The GT4 faces all have pits from the gravel flying at it and the front barrels received scores from pebbles lodged between the barrel and the ST60 calipers. I asked myself, are these still structurally fine? Are they repairable? Should they be used on the track? Would they be okay on the street? With these questions in my head, I had to alter my original plan I had for these wheels. The original plan was to use the BBS GT4 for the street and my incoming wheels as my track set. Since the incoming wheels are taking at least 6 months to arrive, this incident made me realize 6 month wait rims probably isn't an ideal set of track wheels. This led to the decision to find a set of readily available rims that also were easily replaceable. With a track set to purchase, a set incoming from Japan, and the BBS GT4, thats 3 sets of wheels for a car that barely can use 1 set of wheels! Something had to go. Back and forth in my head, I ended up deciding to list the BBS since the I wouldn't just sell the wheels I've been waiting already a few months for and I didn't need two sets of street wheels.

My game plan became this: sell the BBS GT4s, use incoming wheels for street duty, and find a decent forged wheel for track use. I debated between Apex, BW, and Titan7s and ended up favoring Titan7 for track use. I ordered a squared set of 18x10.5 ET25 TR10 from Vividracing on a Tuesday afternoon and I receive them the next day! That is what I call availability! EC7R was a contender but it was so close to the GT4s that I wanted to try something new visually. I also bought a set of 5mm spacers to match the 18x10.5et20 on the other set of wheels.

# Titan7 TR10
I picked the TR10 because the radial TR10 looks more at home on a sedan. The TS5 seems more appropriate on the E92 and I didn't think it flowed as well for an E90. I opted for 10.5" rim so my options for tire sizes could be 275 through 295 tires. For now I wanted to keep the 275/35/18 and focus on a 200 treadwear tire. When I ordered tires, RT660 was not available just yet, so I went with Hankook RS4s. This should be a fun set of tires to run! With a 18x10.5 wheel up front, the inner wheel clearance needed some help from a shorter main spring. I also wanted to raise my spring rates so this was the perfect opportunity to switch over.

# Springs
Without a question, the 400lbs/in || 700lbs/in springs were on the softer side of things. The original build of the MCS 2WNR was to emulate Ohlins R&T Spring rates of 342/685 for the sake of being more street use than track use. After a few HPDEs now, I got the feel of the car and felt I could raise the rates a bit, sacrifice a bit of road comfort for better track use.

With all that said, the parts were starting to pile up!


VT Motorworks handled mounting the tires onto the R10s so I could do the rest of the work.

# Installation.

I ended up removing the front bumper too to readjust. Talk about a relaxing Sunday right?!



I set the wheels to 18x10.5 et20 (net)





Initial ride height adjustment

The shorter springs and stiffer spring rate altered my ride height dramatically so I had to reset it back to where I wanted it.
I ended up with F/R -25mm/-20mm from stock, or F/R -15mm/-10mm from ZCP springs. This gave the front a little less fender gap while not veering too off from the factory geometry too much. It is very similar to what I originally did years ago.

The final measurements fender to bottom center rim edge.
Front : 585mm ~ 23"
Rear: 572mm ~ 22.5"

# Alignment and Tie Rods
I went to VT Motorworks last Saturday for new tie rods and alignment after finalizing the height. wyatth and inviktus59 were also there doing a wheel swap so it was cool to see 3 slicktop E90s there. SuperSprint, Eisenmann Sport, and MPE were also all there for roll call.








My alignment was set with minimal toe-in front and rear and -3.0 front camber, -2.0 rear camber. We will fiddle more with this if we need to in the future but I think its a good place to start.

Thanks for reading the long post!



Car is now ready for last track day of the year next month!

On a final note, Venoxy Gauges and Apple CarPlay truly makes the interior feel a little bit more modern. It reaffirms my choice to keep a CIC screen.




Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Awesome stuff. Which CarPlay unit ?

[derbo]

Originally Posted by Powashiftin

Awesome stuff. Which CarPlay unit ?

It's a Kremersino V2. If you hop into the apple carply thread in the technical electronics section, its is a very long winded thread about other options now.

[derbo]

Thunder thunder thunderhilllll!

2000th post!!




On Dec 12th, 2020, My wife and I went to our last track day of the year.

Location: Thunderhill West.
Host: It was hosted by BayE30 and there were only 20 cars!

This would mark the first time driving the west track on its own and it was safe to say we had a good amount of laps in. I lapped a total of 83laps and my wife got in 44 or so in her M2 as well! It was a great day to just learn the track and get familiar with the M3 again.

# New setup
As I mentioned in the previous post, there were a few changes. A spring rate increase and shorter spring lengths were to address low rates for track and front wheel fitment for wider 10.5" rims. New 10.5" square rims+ 275/35/18 200TW tires to replace the BBS GT4 as my dedicated track wheels. There were definitely enough changes to make the car feel a little unfamiliar!

• 600lb || 900lb Hyperco spring replacement
• Titan7 TR-10 18x10.5et25 squared with 5mm spacer up front
• Hankook RS4 275/35/18 squared

I also added a Stand21 Club 3 series head restraint along with Quickfit Pro harness to help with the fatigue of holding myself in the stock seats during these days. This worked as good as I could ask them to. There is a little slack on the lateral support but it substantially helped me holding my torso during heavy deceleration. This allowed me to be able to downshift instead of pushing the dead pedal to hold myself in place.

#Impressions
My original intentions this track day was to test and tune the dampeners. Unfortunately, I was so keen on getting consistent times first that I ended up driving more than setting up. I did end up fiddling with the dampening settings but I think there is still need to address how it interacts with berms/bumps. Next year I'll try to lower the rebound setting in attempt to minimize what felt like jacking down. I'm not 100% sure if that was what I felt but it will be a good start to figuring out how to make the car float better over bumps.

My best lap was 1:27.224. The laps were getting fairly consistent as the end of the day and I think it was very good for my first time at west! There are definitely places I didn't feel comfortable pushing harder due to my lack of familiarity of how the RS4s will behave at the limit. The RS4s did wonderfully at 36PSI hot for the weight of this car and I truly enjoyed driving on it.



#Aftermath
I ran into a few things on this extended track time. I started to experience pad knock back when the pads started to run low. It is safe to say, there are a bit low! As a workaround, a few left foot taps before the braking zone will have to do. I will have to decided what I want to do with the calipers. Either, install anti knockback springs and Cerrakote the calipers, or buy AP racing..hmmm


## Video from Obsessed media
BayE30 's crew media was present doing coverage and it was pretty cool to see it from an artistic point of view. The supersprint F1 race muffler sounds good!

I was around 5:38 or so in the video and scattered around the video as well.

## Video of best lap of the day
Unfortunately, my new GoPro Hero9 did not work with their own GoPro Hero USB-C to 3.5mm adapter for an external mic (firmware came out this week, few days too late!). All you get is wind noise..

Thanks for reading/watching! See you next time when 2021 season starts!

[cyberkaa]

Nice. Very smooth driving.

[94jedi]

You did some work there Derek! Man...what an awesome track. The video was awesome too! I'm voting AP brakes lol

[derbo]

Originally Posted by cyberkaa

Nice. Very smooth driving.

Thanks man! we need to do one soon together.

Originally Posted by 94jedi

You did some work there Derek! Man...what an awesome track. The video was awesome too! I'm voting AP brakes lol

Ha!



On another note,

I forgot to mention the car gave me a check engine light at the last sessions. A quick read of ISTA+ showed it was a coolant temp sensor.

When I looked at the AIM Solo data, the sensor actually was reporting back prior to the last session! It was showing under 180Fs all day then suddenly shot to 185F...and the next lap it went to 404F. That defintely looks real.


Turns out a chat with the folks in the track chit chat thread, that this was a common occurrence and a harness replacement is the only permanent fix! So common, that BMW even shows the harness pigtail in ETK as #17 on the diagram!!



Here is the link to the issue if anyone else wants to know.
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...44020-3150.pdf


Safe to say, I will need to replace that and it might be a good idea to change other items as well since the intake plenum is being removed. I'm not sure what the normal coolant temps are but it looks awfully low. It might be a good idea to swap the thermostat while I'm in there.

[reidetailing]

Hey Derek,

Great driving! Care to share a picture of your Go-Pro mounting setup please?

[dj_dub]

Good times Derek and great driving that day! ...hopefully we'll get to do another private trackday at T-Hill East next time.

[BayE30]

Originally Posted by dj_dub

hopefully we'll get to do another private trackday at T-Hill East next time.

[derbo]

Originally Posted by reidetailing

Hey Derek,

Great driving! Care to share a picture of your Go-Pro mounting setup please?

Thanks man! It is a tackform mount for the seats with metal headrest posts. https://www.tackform.com/collections...ount-for-gopro

Originally Posted by dj_dub

Good times Derek and great driving that day! ...hopefully we'll get to do another private trackday at T-Hill East next time.

Hopefully next time it won't be as cold/wet and I could focus more on tuning the suspension!

Originally Posted by BayE30

Thanks again for the invite!! Till next time

[Space Fox]

That video is bad assss

[94jedi]

derbo you're going to have to help me w/ a video/mic setup for the spring! That way, y'all can see how much of a noob I am lol

[derbo]

Originally Posted by 94jedi

derbo you're going to have to help me w/ a video/mic setup for the spring! That way, y'all can see how much of a noob I am lol

Nothing special! a GoPro mount, with an external mic. I set it to 1080p@60fps with spot meter pointed at the windshield so the outside doesn't get overexposed. It does make the interior underexposed but thats okay.

[derbo]

Happy New year everyone!

Just some extra artsy photos from the Obsessed Media from 12/12 Thunderhill.

Can't wait to go back soon! That's me in the helmet chatting about lines.

[Epoustouflant]

That video from Obs Media is dope! That front end shot on the track is beautiful - new wallpaper?

[derbo]

# Jan-Feb Update

Just a minor update as not much as happened recently.

#Check check engine lighttt

From my last major post, the car registered a CEL for coolant temp sensor. As many mentioned in the track chit chat thread, it was actually an issue with the wiring too.

Sometime around mid-January, I replaced the coolant temp sensor, sensor wire, and the fuel breather valve as well. Nothing to report besides no more CEL and coolant temps are accurate again.

#Driver engagement changes

Two items have been on my "to buy" list for god knows how long. Ultimate clutch pedal and Autosolutions SSK.

## Ultimate Clutch Pedal
Why?
The stock pedal definitely leaves the driver wanting a little more for engagement as it is too soft. Short throw pedals have been around for earlier generations of M3s. Mason engineering makes it for E46s and Ultimate Clutch pedal makes one for E9x, Fxx models.

EAS said it best so I'll just quote them.

Features
- 6061 Billet Aluminum Construction
- Anodized Black
- Pedal Shape Compatible with OEM or Aftermarket Rubber Pads
- Self-lubricating Bronze Bushings
- 3 Spring Mounting Locations for Adjustable Feel
- Shorter Throw Allows for Quicker Shifts and Sporty Feel
- 15mm Lower Pedal Resting Location
- Includes Hardware and Adjustable Clutch Stop
- Easy ~30 minute installation Requires No Modifications or Special Tools

## Autosolutions Short shifter
Ronald is a 1.5-man shop and friends praised him for a few decades now. The made to order spec short shifters are no strangers on this forum and the best stock looking shifter one can order. I had hesitations on what to do as there were folks wanting reductions between 12%-25% and I didn't know what I wanted. This stalled for at least a 2 years.. It will be a shame when he retires as I don't know anyone else doing this type of custom work.

So the reason I mentioned these two items is because I met up a few old coworkers last Sunday. One of them bought a Silverstone E90 ZCP awhile back and it also just so happened there was an ultimate clutch pedal and an autosolution ssk in it! He specced it to be 20% + 80A shifter bushings. The biggest question I always had was if 20% was too much or not enough. With one sit-down in his car, I knew I would be ordering some parts during the week.

Monday, I ordered the ultimate clutch pedal from EAS.
Tuesday I spoke with Ronald@Autosolutions for 30minutes on the phone. We chatted about what I wanted to do with the car and ended up at 22.5% reduction, 80A shifter bushings and 13mm height . The 13mm increase is raise the F10/ZHP knob back to OEM height . He is in the middle of moving his shop so ETA is end of April but he may push it back to June if it misses his cutoff.
Sunday, I installed the Ultimate clutch pedal without much fuss. I removed the bigger outer spring as many have done on this forum and set it to the middle position on the pedal. So far it feels more fluid and slightly stiffer without overdoing it in case I do get stuck in traffic.






Cheers! I also did track prep by swapping pads and doing an inspection as I'll be at Thunderhill 3-mile next weekend 3/6!

[cyberkaa]

That pedal looks like a great upgrade.

I've tried a 20% autosolutions SSK before and it was really, really good. I'm not surprised you were sold on it so quickly.

[derbo]

Originally Posted by cyberkaa

That pedal looks like a great upgrade.

I've tried a 20% autosolutions SSK before and it was really, really good. I'm not surprised you were sold on it so quickly.

Yes! I think if Ronald makes one for F87, you should order one before he retires. He is approaching 63 now and who knows how long he will do this for. No one does anything like him that I know of. It's a damn shame.

It will be nice to see my Autosolutions setup at 22.5% reduction with OEM height ZHP knob. As many on this forum has mentioned, it changes the driver engagement on this car. Can't wait! ETA April!

[cyberkaa]

Originally Posted by derbo

Yes! I think if Ronald makes one for F87, you should order one before he retires. He is approaching 63 now and who knows how long he will do this for. No one does anything like him that I know of. It's a damn shame.

It will be nice to see my Autosolutions setup at 22.5% reduction with OEM height ZHP knob. As many on this forum has mentioned, it changes the driver engagement on this car. Can't wait! ETA April!

That's a good point. The F87 pedal is the same as the one used in the F80/F82, though it looks like there's an updated part, too. 35316761310 was replaced with 35006878300 for my M2C and M2CS. Should be a direct swap!

Looks like you'll have to do another track day and test the SSK out, haha.

[derbo]

Originally Posted by cyberkaa

That's a good point. The F87 pedal is the same as the one used in the F80/F82, though it looks like there's an updated part, too. 35316761310 was replaced with 35006878300 for my M2C and M2CS. Should be a direct swap!

Looks like you'll have to do another track day and test the SSK out, haha.

For sure man, If anything, next time I end up driving it and you see nearby.

[MisterClutch888]

deng i need to order one right away then. Still waiting for my friend's 18% reduction to go in, then i will try his right away.

I have a feeling i want lots of raised height and like 30% reduction.

[derbo]

Originally Posted by MisterClutch888

deng i need to order one right away then. Still waiting for my friend's 18% reduction to go in, then i will try his right away.

I have a feeling i want lots of raised height and like 30% reduction.

Well get him to get it installed already?!?!!!!