Bernooo's E92 M3 Clubsport Build

[berns]

Originally Posted by Deebo

Loving this build! I am also considering the ST40 trophy kit on all 4 corners, did you happen to weigh those before putting them on?

Thanks!
I didn't weigh them, sorry... I usually weigh everything but totally spaced out that day.

I do know they're about 11 lbs lighter than the STR60 kit.

[fanatic1]

Originally Posted by berns

Not going back down till the cage arrives. Time away from the baby is limited...
So next day will be cage, pass seat, harnesses, Titan7's & Falkens, and then I need to corner balance and align this thing. Know anyone?

Guys at EAS recommended Cheworks and Robert did a great job.

[macdude357]

+1 for Robert. Been going to him for a couple of years now.

[dparm]

I've never seen StopTech friction rings that look like that. Is it a new design of theirs? Previously it was straight slots or drilled.

[berns]

Originally Posted by fanatic1

Guys at EAS recommended Cheworks and Robert did a great job.

Yeah, I was kidding with StripclubDJ because he does OK alignments too. Rob is a great dude and has been aligning my cars for the last 3 years.

Originally Posted by macdude357

+1 for Robert. Been going to him for a couple of years now.

Yep, Rob's the man!

Originally Posted by dparm

I've never seen StopTech friction rings that look like that. Is it a new design of theirs? Previously it was straight slots or drilled.

I don't see it offered anywhere but they do have it. It's their "bi-slot" rotor, I'm sure you can request it through BimmerWorld.

[StripclubDJ]

Originally Posted by berns

Yeah, I was kidding with StripclubDJ because he does OK alignments too. Rob is a great dude and has been aligning my cars for the last 3 years.

Yep, Rob's the man!

I don't see it offered anywhere but they do have it. It's their "bi-slot" rotor, I'm sure you can request it through BimmerWorld.

OK huh.... Take it back

[macdude357]

Originally Posted by Deebo

Loving this build! I am also considering the ST40 trophy kit on all 4 corners, did you happen to weigh those before putting them on?

I got a good deal on the STR40 kit so I'm going to be swapping out my existing STR60 kit. I'll weight them both and let you know the differences. I'm only expecting a few pounds difference based the difference between the ST60 and ST40 kit listed in this thread:
https://www.m3post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135122

[berns]

Well, the cage is delayed by a day and I have a bunch I wanted to do to the car before the track day on Friday. Not sure what I'll get done, but we'll see.

The Falken RT660s are mounted on the Titan7 T-S7's and ready to go, and in the midst of my epiphany that I didn't want a half gutted, gross looking interior for a car that sees some street time, the interior refresh is coming along nicely!

mjunkee GTS-style armrest delete
GW Garage made a two-piece delete plate for the CAE shifter
Coby Wheel handbrake & boot
all wrapped in OEM alcantera to match the M-Performance wheel

Cage should be here today, and maybe tomorrow I'll go down to EAS to install it, change the oil, bleed the brakes again, mount the wheels and install a 6-pt harness.

[e36clubracer]

Any pics of the 285/30/18s mounted up for fit in the rear? Curious of the clearance.... My 275/35/18s barely clear with a 22mm offset.

[berns]

Originally Posted by e36clubracer

Any pics of the 285/30/18s mounted up for fit in the rear? Curious of the clearance.... My 275/35/18s barely clear with a 22mm offset.

Haven't put them on the car yet, but these look just as wide as the 295 A052s and I had no issues with rear clearance on those. 25mm offset on 18x10.5 with a 5mm spacer = +20mm. The 30 sidewall helps in these situations. 275/35 is much taller.

[//steve\\]

Originally Posted by e36clubracer

Any pics of the 285/30/18s mounted up for fit in the rear? Curious of the clearance.... My 275/35/18s barely clear with a 22mm offset.

Barely fit in the rear? I've run 295/30/18 on 10.5 +22 and I've never once had rubbing. If anything the front should be more of an issue. On the flip side my newer setup using 275/35/18 is rubbing all over the place and I think it's due 100% to the larger diameter.

[StripclubDJ]

Can't wait to see the wheels and tires on the car

They are beef cakes

[berns]

Ok, ok -- cage is MIA at LAX... Thanks DHL.
I put the wheels and tires on today and they look awesome. The 30 sidewall is definitely short, but I think once the cage and pass seat are in, I can sort out the ride height and get it corner balanced to look a bit more proper on this setup.

To note, the wheels are 18x10.5 +25, 10mm spacer out back and a 5mm up front just to fill out the fenders.

Heading to Buttonwillow tomorrow -- needed an alignment but ran out of time, so I'm sending it as is. Updates soon.

[StripclubDJ]

Needs more low and more front brake caliper pistons
Other than that it's cool I guess

[StripclubDJ]

I love you btw

[//steve\\]

Originally Posted by StripclubDJ

Needs more low and more front brake caliper pistons
Other than that it's cool I guess

Less pistons, less weight, more fast

[berns]

Yesterday's track day was interesting... I was just about to bail, but checked the roads in the morning and took a gamble going over the Grapevine (over 5000ft elevation)
Drove through rain and light snow and somehow didn't get too scared once, even though this is far from what the Falken's are meant for.


It rained again when I got to Buttonwillow, and slowly dried up through the day. The new StopTech kit felt good for the most part, but I did have some pretty sever knockback issues at a few turns on the track -- not fun. I'm working with StopTech to resolve this issue ASAP, and I'll keep you guys informed.

Meanwhile, the RT660's felt better and better as the day went on, but track conditions never reached ideal with the cool temps, water and mud everywhere. I knew it wasn't right because the car was understeering a bit and it NEVER does that. Played with the suspension settings and found a decent spot to stay -- also worth noting, I've only ever gotten the first alignment on this car when I put the coilovers on months ago. I've been to 4 events since then and the steering wheel has been pointing left for a while. Dad life.

Despite the braking issues, I still hit a new personal best and reached my goal of running a 1:54! I had some predictive laps in the low 54s that I threw away, which only tells me we can definitely run a 1:53 on a good day with no brake issues.

The Falken's are predictable, have tons of grip, and they never got greasy yesterday. They're wearing beautifully and after my brief day on track with them, I can say they're up there with the best tires in the "street" cheater sector. For reference, my best time on A052 was a 1:55.1, best time on SUR4G was a 1:55.7, and now we're at a 1:54.69 on the RT660's.

Here's the video for now, let me know if you have any questions.

[rhyary]

Would you mind sending me the AiM data files from this session?

[berns]

Originally Posted by rhyary

Would you mind sending me the AiM data files from this session?

sure, I uploaded it here for you. https://file.io/a6QebUMfHlRq

Originally Posted by slcook54

No rubbing with the wheel / tire setup?

zero rubbing at the current height. I jumped as many curbs and drifted as much as I could.

[rhyary]

Originally Posted by berns

sure, I uploaded it here for you. https://file.io/a6QebUMfHlRq

zero rubbing at the current height. I jumped as many curbs and drifted as much as I could.

Alex,
I just got the drk file.
When you do export, there will be few files I will need, especially the gps file

Also, I don't see the STEER_ANGLE and BRAKE_PRESS

Is your solo connected to the CAN bus?

[berns]

Originally Posted by rhyary

Alex,
I just got the drk file.
When you do export, there will be few files I will need, especially the gps file

Also, I don't see the STEER_ANGLE and BRAKE_PRESS

Is your solo connected to the CAN bus?

I don't have a Solo DL. Just the regular Solo. Here are all the files from the session.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xfm1jh4vf...wND2JhDxa?dl=0

[berns]

And, overdue update time!

My Pinnacle GTS-style T45 cage finally showed up after major fuckups from DHL. They literally lost this thing... I have to give some major credit to Jamie at Pinnacle though -- not only is this cage gorgeous, and as light as advertised (40.8 lbs w/ powdercoat), but his packaging is second to none. It took me a good 40 minutes to unwrap it, but not a single bit of damage anywhere to be found.



I recommend tackling the install with a buddy, just to avoid damaging the cage and your car. Here's how I went about it.

Remove both seats, shifter forward, steering wheel as high and forward as possible. I put a moving blanket over the console and dash area. Passenger's window down, slide it in through the pass side, rotate and shimmy it into place. Impressive how quickly you can have it in position!

The rear brackets use existing holes and hardware. The bottom holes use existing holes but I had to go grab some hardware. I went to O'Reilly and grabbed some nice 10.9 flanged M8x20mm bolts, nuts and washers.

Start with the rearward hardware and finish with the forward bench hardware.

I had some trouble lining up the bottom holes on mine, but Jamie assured me this isn't the norm. Truth be told, slight movement in welding, cooling, shipping, is to be expected with any bolt-in cage. I elongated the holes slightly and actually used a ratchet strap to pull the cage a bit rearward with tension to aid in lining the holes up without struggling with my own (lack of) muscle. Worked great!

With the rear all bolted in loosely, I moved onto the front. You'll need something strong to get through the bench metal and you'll drill two holes on each lower end of the bench to get a nut and wrench in below the bolts. I used a drill with a big uni-bit. Took some time and made a mess but got the job done!



I finally picked up a Sparco 6pt harness, too, just in time for Round 1 of Bimmer Challenge last Saturday, 2/20 at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. More on that soon.



Next on the to-do list was making some changes to my StopTech kit. Now, before everyone gets super, duper stoked and starts asking me if my knockback is 100% cured -- I can't tell you that until I go back to Buttonwillow on 3/6 for Round 2 of Bimmer Challenge. BW is by far the worst for knockback, so that'll be the ultimate test.

Each caliper has 4 abutment plates, top and bottom, on the outside and inside. These plates maintain contact with the top and bottom of the pads, and the "street" kits come with kinked abutment plates on the top end. This kink adds extra tension on the pad and keeps noise down. The tolerances with the big pads are super tight, and the thought is, with too much tension, the pads aren't floating free enough to move back toward the rotors in high-g situations, even with knockback springs. So, I replaced the kinked plates for flat ones, and went even further to grind some material off the tops and bottoms of the pads to let them slide in and out of the calipers with ease. I can say, I have no added noise right now and the brake response felt improved and repeatable all day at Chuckwalla. Zero issues there. For the record, I'm running 4# springs in both the front and rear calipers and was running them since new.





Finally, I went to JMP Autowerkz for an alignment. Still haven't corner balanced the car or dialed in the ride height, since I know I'll be tearing the rear subframe and arms out soon, so I'll just wait for a final height set at that point. To this day, the entire rear of the car is stock -- bushings, mounts, arms, etc... All original with almost 100k on it.

I hit the road to Chuckwalla the night before the event since it's mega far from me, and I'm still amazed at how great a street car the M3 is. The only thing that's hurt it's streetability so far, in my opinion, are the AKG 95A trans mounts. They are just too stiff -- the NVH is pretty gnarly. I'm going to try to run something else down there. Even better is that this thing averages 21-22mpg on the freeway. Way better than my 4Runner.



Unfortunately, when I started my journey, I couldn't turn my DSC off. I couldn't find any info for this that made sense, so I began to think maybe I messed the wires up when reinstalling my console cover. Sure enough, two of the wires pulled out of the DSC harness. OOPS. I asked Steve from EAS to grab the button and harness from one of his employee's E92's at the shop and bring it with him to CVR. Score!



I woke up cold the next morning and took my time getting out the door of the cabin, and saw a massive line to get through the gates to the track. Nobody told me you could check in the night before and grab a bracelet to bypass the line in the morning. Great. I showed up with 8 minutes to spare before the first session, and Steve was already on the grid, so I ran session one super rushed, and found out how terrible it is to drive on track with DSC enabled. I couldn't get power down anywhere, and could barely take turns at speed. I guess now is a good time to tell you, I signed up for a time attack competition with Bimmer Challenge, in the stacked (16 drivers!) B3 class, driving on a track I've been to twice, in a configuration I've never driven (CCW). So, starting out like this was far from ideal. I learned a bit about the track orientation but not about how to drive it quickly. I managed a 2:03 with DSC on in session 1.



Session two came and with my new DSC button, and now an EDC button that had no place in my car, I was ready for a proper shakedown. I had 3 hot laps and managed a 1:57.35 before an E36 spilled oil all over the track and cut the session short. This was enough to put me in p1!

During the long lunch, a dust/wind storm started to roll in, killing some grip on the track surface but it was definitely still good to go. I got gridded in front of my track bud Nick, who drives a track prepped B3-class E46 M3 with DOT slicks. A bit of a different formula for fast than my build, but that's what makes Bimmer Challenge fun. With Nick behind me, I tried not to let him get too close to avoid towing him to a win, as his PB at the time was a 1:57.7. I managed a very, very sloppy 1:57.076 on my 5th (yes, 5 hot laps without DSC, the whole day), and Nick clicked off a 1:56.6! Hard fought battle, but such a good time. The following lap I pushed harder and lost it completely sideways at the back end of the track. I spend a lot of time sideways at CVR but I couldn't keep this one together. Too many nerves!

I ended Round 1 with a 2nd place podium finish, and I'm looking forward to Round 2 at Buttonwillow in 2 weeks. The Falken's were on their second day here and still felt great, and I'll run them again at BW to see how they do with some hard miles on them.



Here's my best lap: