Manda Marza's Pictoral Journal Thread

[Oakleyguy]

Holy detailing supplies batman! Great collection.

Those calipers are

[roastbeef]

bbk looks interesting. i'd like to see pics of it installed.

[SflBimmer8484]

Awesome thread !

[last1left]

Very nice

[Manda Mew]

I have some progress pics of my brakes being installed! We ended up being short on time and left the car at my dad's house, and won't be able to go back to it for another 2 weeks (ya, not well planned out at all!). But initial impressions is that both the rotors and calipers are SOOO much lighter than stock. Also, the rotor has a lot more clearly defined vents and channels for in them compared to the stock ones. Another thing is that there is a large space in between the middle part of the rotor (sorry I don't know what that's called.. the rotor hub?) and the surface of the rotor, which I assume helps with cooling - which the stock ones did not have. I googled other BBK's and noticed the gap on the WP Pro rotors are a LOT larger than other companies. This seems to be at the expense of having a skinnier rotor surface. But I believe their very long pads with extra surface area makes up for that by having more contact with the rotor. I am not an expert on this so I hope I didn't make anything up!

I also applied Ceramic Pro Wheel and Caliper. Lets just say that stuff is too advanced for me and that's the last time I'm using it unless its for a barrel of a wheel (that's the only easy application with it). Its a professional only coating for a reason.

[nick3753]

Put some shoes on. Don't want to mess up those pretty little toesies. Nice setup btw.

[Manda Mew]

Also, I didn't actually help with the install but was told that the trick that user JAJ mentioned in another threat to keep a stick pressed against the brake pedal against the seat with a towel to protect the seat in order to make fluid not come out of the brake lines when you disconnect them. Just thought I should mention that!

[r8ders]

Originally Posted by Manda Marza

Also, I didn't actually help with the install but was told that the trick that user JAJ mentioned in another threat to keep a stick pressed against the brake pedal against the seat with a towel to protect the seat in order to make fluid not come out of the brake lines when you disconnect them. Just thought I should mention that!

I've been following your thread and the brakes look great. Did the trick of keeping the pedal depressed help a lot and keep the fluid from leaking out? I'm planning to do a SS brake line and brake pad swap on my car soon.

Thank you

[Manda Mew]

Originally Posted by r8ders

I've been following your thread and the brakes look great. Did the trick of keeping the pedal depressed help a lot and keep the fluid from leaking out? I'm planning to do a SS brake line and brake pad swap on my car soon.

Thank you

It did! So they bled the stock calipers to release the pressure of the brakes. Then only a few drops came out of the brake lines when they were removed. Easy as that. We still bleed the fluid a lot though to make sure there was no air. And we never saw any. Extremely easy.

[r8ders]

Originally Posted by Manda Marza

It did! So they bled the stock calipers to release the pressure of the brakes. Then only a few drops came out of the brake lines when they were removed. Easy as that. We still bleed the fluid a lot though to make sure there was no air. And we never saw any. Extremely easy.

Great, thanks for the info. I'm going w/ a line and pad upgrade first to see if its good enough for now for the limited # of track days I plan to do this coming year on the e92

[Jimzym3]

Originally Posted by Manda Marza

One of the hardest decisions I’ve made (maybe harder than the car itself) was what wheels I would get. I finally settled on a set of forged Volk Racing G25 D-BK from Vivid Racing.

no, they didn’t all fit in the trunk of course… we took my husband’s truck
I met a higher up in Ceramic Pro recently and he hooked me up with a box of wheel and caliper coating (similar to their crazy expensive 9H paint coating but thicker and more focus on protection than clarity and optical performance) without needing the Ceramic Pro certification This stuff is good up to 1500F and lasts about a decade!
Applying it was definitely different than a non-professional coating, it gripped up SUPER fast and you had to be pretty precise with your application pattern to avoid messy blotches. And when it did grip up it would collect lint from your applicator and make a mess of things. I had a freak out moment but quickly got the hang of it when I realized exactly how much time I had to apply a layer of coating.


I only applied Ceramic Pro on the barrels of the wheels since I knew I would not always be able to reach the barrels (especially when I put on a BBK) and want protection from both heated up brake dust and water spots from washing and not properly drying.
I wanted maximum gloss on the spokes for pics, so I decided on not using CP on the spokes and using Swissvax Autobahn wheel carnauba wax with non-stick-PTFE (Teflon). This stuff only lasts 3 months but I don’t have any problem reapplying this every month or two since the spokes are easy to get to.


(such a cool pic in my opinion)
I then took the wheels to America’s Tire and had them mount them VERY carefully mount my old PSS and onto my M3. The tires are a bit stretched but I’m waiting a little bit until I install thicker PS4S tires.


Here is after 2 weeks of daily driving about 23 miles each way – there is some noticeable dust but still maintains a nice gloss. I used brake cleaner and a pressure washer and got all the dust off of the spokes and barrels (btw how fast the water shoots off of the sides of the barrels looks pretty cool, you can tell how hydrophobic the CP is even without being completely clean).

But, I didn’t dry it after my experiment and I got REALLY nasty water spots. I was happy when a light brush with my towel the next day VERY easily removed all water spots. I highly, HIGHLY recommend getting your wheels protected. My old ZCP wheels look like sh** and I’m going to definitely have to sand and repaint.
I love the wheels, and they definitely look wayyyy better than they did in online pics when I was researching them. I love the finish and they weigh a lot less than my ZCP wheels. Only thing I don’t like is that I was not expecting the little red accent decal to be a decal. I thought it was painted into the wheel. And it doesn’t come preinstalled and there’s no clear place to install the decal. I will probably remove my decals since I didn’t install them perfectly, and the decals look worse in person than in pics. The color itself though is what makes the D-BK edition worth it in my opinion.

Stay tuned for posts on exhaust, tune and some carbon fiber trim! Or maybe some more detailing related posts if you guys are interested…

It looks like from the pictures you applied the ceramic pro in the inner barrels prior to mounting tires. Will the layer of ceramic pro keep the wheel weights for the tire balance from adhering properly in the inner barrel? Thinking ceramic pro layer and centrifugal spin of the wheel weights will slowly fall off.

[Raek]

Not a fan of those wheels at all, but that's a decent amount of stretch if you decide to go lower.

[Manda Mew]

Originally Posted by r8ders

Great, thanks for the info. I'm going w/ a line and pad upgrade first to see if its good enough for now for the limited # of track days I plan to do this coming year on the e92

Nice! That's all anyone who's not a pro really needs. I would also upgrade the brake fluid though, BMW really goes cheap on that stuff... It cost me about $7 for a bottle from the dealership. They actually told me they use the same brake fluid on the M4 GTS as they do on a 320i. Not sure if that's true or not but its unsettling. And a brake fluid flush is hard to do, definitely a job for a pro.

Originally Posted by Jimzym3

It looks like from the pictures you applied the ceramic pro in the inner barrels prior to mounting tires. Will the layer of ceramic pro keep the wheel weights for the tire balance from adhering properly in the inner barrel? Thinking ceramic pro layer and centrifugal spin of the wheel weights will slowly fall off.

So I'm friends with Corey from Carpro (Cquartz) and he said it is theoretically possible that it would affect the adhesion overtime (he told me this after I already applied Ceramic Pro). Ceramic Pro is a lot stronger and more permanent than Cquartz, but its also much thicker which gives potential for it to come right off like a thick layer of paint on a wall. I don't think that will happen though and havnt seen it happen to others, but I will keep an eye on it. If I were to go back I still would have applied it before mounting it as it would be near impossible to do a good job with the wheels mounted. I guess if you're not lazy you could remove them after mounting and balancing and give a very intense cleaning before applying CP or another coating!

Originally Posted by Raek

Not a fan of those wheels at all, but that's a decent amount of stretch if you decide to go lower.

Really?? I can't get over how much I love them! And I should keep that stretch if I lower the car? I thought that amount of stretch was bad and was kind of embarrassed about it..

[r8ders]

Originally Posted by Manda Marza

Nice! That's all anyone who's not a pro really needs. I would also upgrade the brake fluid though, BMW really goes cheap on that stuff... It cost me about $7 for a bottle from the dealership. They actually told me they use the same brake fluid on the M4 GTS as they do on a 320i. Not sure if that's true or not but its unsettling. And a brake fluid flush is hard to do, definitely a job for a pro.

I'll be doing a flush w/ Castrol SRF after I do the lines and pads. I have a both a Motive Pressure bleeder and a vacuum bleeder so it should make the job a lot easier. I know I should bleed my clutch master also but it was such a pain in the butt to do on the e36 M3 so I may consider not doing it on the e92.

I'm still going to use your suggestion of keeping the pedal pressed to prevent air from getting in the rest of the brake system when I remove the lines

I like the way your rotors look and would like a pic of the car with your rims on. Your rotor style remind me of the full floating wave rotors I put on my track bike.

[Raek]

Originally Posted by Manda Marza

Really?? I can't get over how much I love them! And I should keep that stretch if I lower the car? I thought that amount of stretch was bad and was kind of embarrassed about it..

I might be a little biased.

[Beemdog]

Originally Posted by Raek

I might be a little biased.

I guess everyone has their own tastes, but showing a car in a stance that it clearly cannot be driven in, and has mechanical interference, to me doesn't look attractive. But I have lived around low-rider folks all my life and that is what my mind sees when a vehicle is dropped to the ground like that... not a sports/performance car.

[Raek]

Originally Posted by Beemdog

I guess everyone has their own tastes, but showing a car in a stance that it clearly cannot be driven in, and has mechanical interference, to me doesn't look attractive. But I have lived around low-rider folks all my life and that is what my mind sees when a vehicle is dropped to the ground like that... not a sports/performance car.

Drives just like OEM (not to mention much tighter AND smoother than my KW sleeve kit, 32-way adjustable damping on the shocks helps a bunch) when like this:

[e93 jonesy]

Gonna order that "Lady Driven" decal for wifey's CLS63... That's a nice touch. Thanks for the link!

[Beemdog]

That's more like it!

[Rat3d ///M]

Originally Posted by nick3753

Put some shoes on. Don't want to mess up those pretty little toesies. Nice setup btw.

Nope not creepy at all.

[Raek]

Originally Posted by Rat3d ///M

Nope not creepy at all.

Hahaha...I actually told my wife about that...she made the vomit face.

[Zeus69]

Originally Posted by Rat3d ///M

Nope not creepy at all.

#FootFetishLivesMatter