As green as the mountains.

[anassa]

Well time for a update.

Got some redline tranny and diff fluid so got that done.

Lost my front bumper again! So I'm rocking the stock one. - full story will come with pics.

Got the X-Brace installed - tightened up the front nicely and doesn't over-steer as fast.

Got my half broke bracket on the front driver shock rewelded, camber is still a bit off but better then before.

Found some style 30's on craigslist, but even though it fills the wheel well better, I can definitely feel the difference in weight and I'm not sure if I like it or not. - I will do a more detailed write up later.

Lastly bought from IE rear subframe bushings and SS lines - gotta love tax returns! But still need to install that and it will take a while to get done.

Of course I will spam the thread with pics when I get some more time . So don't worry pics will be coming of everything.

Oh and lastly I finally convinced my sister that she doesn't need the z3 LSD diff . Again I got enough to keep my weekends busy!

[anassa]

Fluids are good:


So I was driving up the mountain and it seems like the snow plows were plowing during the storm helping a nice thin sheet of ice to build up, so I hit a large patch this was the result:


I think I got all the parts of the bumper back so when i get some time its time to go crazy with some zip ties and see if I can get it together again.

So here is a pic of the bumperless Ti with some style 30's:

Next I got the original bumper back on:


Its pretty amazing how it changes the feel of the car, now I don't have to drive cool anymore It makes it just feel more relaxed, I like it.

I'm not sure if you guys remember but my konis that I have on the car were used and one bracket seemed to be welded on wierd, and the camber was completely off, so it was re-welded and to more normal camber and strengthened. Thanks to Jared for that hard work on that! The picture really doesn't do it justice.

Honestly I am kinda skimming over all the things that have been done, but we did have to take into consideration a few things to get the angle and strength that would be safe.




And lastly the goodies:



I can't wait to see how the rear subframe mounts and SS lines will help the response of the car!

There you go. Another small step in the right direction!

I found a used set of tires with good thread for my stock style 27's, so for the fun of it I think I'm going to sand them down and Home Depot spray them black and see how it turns out.

Good idea? Or spray the style 30's? Or don't spray at all?

Its just I can feel the weight of the style 30s and its killing me! The car is fine, and it feels the wheel well more, but my acceleration and braking have taken a hit in return. If I had my m52 swapped in and vented front discs with good pads.. then I think the wheels will work well but for my setup right now the stock style 27s will work better I think.

[tiFreak]

I say paint the rims dark grey or bronze, not black

[anassa]

Originally Posted by tiFreak

I say paint the rims dark grey or bronze, not black

I was just searching but there was a very sweet picture online of a ti also with boston green and some nice bronze wheels and it looked sick.

For some reason I'm more hesitant to go bronze then a more neutral color.

choices choices!

[budget76]

Out of curiosity from your first post, did your koni front struts have any markings of brand name/model # on them? I ask because they look just like the setup I got used off a Z3, but mine had no markings of any kind. I know they aren't Racelands, but haven't figured out who makes em yet. The springs themselves had the spring rate on them, but I couldn't make out anything else.

thanks

[eurohb]

just dont have a bumper on ur car anymore

[anassa]

Originally Posted by tiFreak

I say paint the rims dark grey or bronze, not black

I think I'm going to go with a color that is going to be hated or turn out kinda cool. When I do it I'll make a separate thread just for responses... Its going to be neon green. Hopefully I will have it done this weekend.

Originally Posted by budget76

Out of curiosity from your first post, did your koni front struts have any markings of brand name/model # on them? I ask because they look just like the setup I got used off a Z3, but mine had no markings of any kind. I know they aren't Racelands, but haven't figured out who makes em yet. The springs themselves had the spring rate on them, but I couldn't make out anything else.

thanks

I'll take a look probably this weekend to see if I can find any type of identification info on them. Not sure though because I don't recall seeing any specific markings.

Originally Posted by eurohb

just dont have a bumper on ur car anymore

Ya thought about that, but where would I put my license plate securely and it would attract too much attention - actually I'm not sure I can use that as a excuse if my spraying of my wheels go through.

[eurohb]

when you down to meet up? i live like 15mins away from you hahah

[anassa]

Okay time to update again.

Its been a while..

I can't believe I have gone from 119xxx to 138xxx miles already!

Installed in the mean time:
-Ireland Engineering Urethane Subframe mounts
-Ireland Engineering Urethane Trailing Arm bushings
-Ireland Engineering SS lines Front and rear

Got my gutted cat replaced with a good working one, also my Alternator completely died - so I posted in the WTB section and both wodcutr and jiggerjosh helped out nicely - highly recommend.

-The serpentine belts also were replaced when the replacement alt went in.

A few pics of the SS lines on:




While replacing the brake lines (yes all 6 of them - oh and replaced Brake fluid with Super Blue - good stuff!)

I noticed that my random ebay replacement front shock tower mount was well..... bent!!

This was only after a few thousand miles! I guess in their defence I was running a higher then stock front spring rate = 375lbs and had a few hrs of spirited canyon driving.

Left is the OEM one (which i put back in) Right is the "new" aftermarket one.



Oh and I got a sticker for the car too (first time I put one on any of my cars... and its a BMW lol)... I know, I know, maybe I gotta work on placement but I like the message.



Love the canyon!! (sig pic is actually exactly same road)



And lastly how she sits now:



As for the Style 30 wheels - got those sold.. too heavy!

School is starting again.. well I went back to school and its time I finish up, so not much will be happening with the car, NO canyon driving at all, cleaning up the interior, some more maintenance, etc.

Thanks!

Oh and :

Originally Posted by budget76

Out of curiosity from your first post, did your koni front struts have any markings of brand name/model # on them? I ask because they look just like the setup I got used off a Z3, but mine had no markings of any kind. I know they aren't Racelands, but haven't figured out who makes em yet. The springs themselves had the spring rate on them, but I couldn't make out anything else.

thanks

Did I ever find those numbers for you?? I know when I was putting the SS lines in I did see that there were numbers on the front koni's.

[eurohb]

What road is this? please tell me so I can go test it ha

[anassa]

Originally Posted by eurohb

What road is this? please tell me so I can go test it ha

I'm kinda surprised you don't recognize it, I'm pretty sure you have driven it before. I'll just PM you

[anassa]

Finally a good update.

Lots has happened.

Short summery, tires died, needed to new tires but found wheels +tires for cheaper, removed headliner, installed rear z3m coupe springs, found a eibach upper strut bar, got m3 offset solid LCA bushings with e46 LCA and z3m coupe offset hats, replaced front sway bar with m3 one, got e30 2.93 LSD.

Now in detail and pics.

Old tires (I had way too much toe in):


New wheels and tires!


Quick review on it though, these are from a z4 16x7" ET47 10 spoke alloy wheels 19lbsish Style 104. Tires are 225/50/16bridgestone potenza runflats, together they weight about 43lbs!! (+or- 2lbs ~ margin of error) - weighed on bathroom scale. Compared to the stock ones that come in 30lbs total (+or-2lbs) , I got 10lbs more per wheel! 40lbs total added, as rotating mass too! So with these wheels/tires combo the peppiness feel of the ti definitely dropped along with the mpgs..

To make matters worse I got a 2.93 e30 LSD installed:


Bolt on my ass! I used a 2.93 LSD from a 86 325e, e30 Halfshafts 92 325i vert w/abs and then the sims for the ABS sensors. For those who want to install the e30 diff realize that if you don't want to bang the rear frame back to make room you need to remove one of the top leftish cover bots, which is not recommended. Every time I drive I can hear the clunk of the diff hitting the subframe. The reason for the 2.93 was for high way cruising and "mpg". Maybe its because of the 2.93 and z4 wheels combo, but the car is slow as can be, I need to give MORE gas to get the same place so I am actually using more gas now. The m44 just doesn't have the low end torque for the 2.93 ratio to be efficient. Now if you have some light weight wheels and don't mind driving like a grandma and having people tailgate you maybe you can squeeze out one mpg, but its not really worth it, tire pressure, lightweight wheels/tires, basic maintenance etc will do more for mpg. But I'm going to leave it to motivate me to get the m52 dropped in there eventually! (think 2 yrs eventually.... )

That being said it is nice to cruise at 75mph and like 3200rpm (estimate) .. . maybe not, since its lower rpm so I tend to speed more then.

As for the install and use of the e46 LCA (lighter!) using my bathroom scale the stock non m e36 LCA is around 9lbs (+or- 1.5lbs for margin of error) and the aluminum e46 LCA weigh around 7lbs (+ or -1.5lbs) - estimated around 2lb savings. Note: This is not bolt in, the end where the LCA goes into the bushing is hexagonal and will not fit the stock LCA bushings from the e36, I did see something about tree house racing selling hexagonal bushings that will fit the e36 LCA bushing lollipops, so that may be the way that wouldn't require grinding the ends down. There is more info on this online that I won't get into. Some more thoughts about the resulting excess neg camber and pics of how it looked when I had it installed HERE



I was also able to save some weight and have a more effective front sway bar with the install of the m3 one, I definitely like it. At first with the install it looked like it dropped too low, but turned out okay.

Found a old school strut bar:


The z3m coupe rear springs are a nice drop in. Nice and solid with a bit of a drop (full car pic above shows ride height):


The headliner was dropping and getting in the way so I removed it all and cleaned it a bit. Ended up looking acceptable. I got the idea from a friend who did the same with his e36 m3:




I really don't ever notice that its gone.

Thats a quick update for now, the car needs a good wash, oil change and tie rods and some other little things. Love it!

But I can officially say I have 3 generations of BMW! e30, e36, e46! hahaha

Thanks.

[Mr.Squeelerz]

Nice update! Keep it up!

[anassa]

Originally Posted by Mr.Squeelerz

Nice update! Keep it up!

Thanks!


So its two days away from my 1 yr relationship with 318ti.org. Time goes fast! I officially have had this car longer then any of my previous cars .

So a few updates:



Yup!! Lost my bumper again.
Nice wet weather with cooler temps is kinda fun . . even when I ended up on the curb .


So some more info on the E46 LCA swap, below is a pic of of all the parts used with my E46 LCA swap.

Driver Side:


Some more info: the red two vertical red marks with the horizontal line shows how much I had to adjust the tie road to counter the toe in, from the stock setting! The part with no horizontal line shows how far to the end of the thread on the inside. Its about the max, and NOT recommended, it still has too much toe in, to fix the toe problem with the extended track width apparently e90 inner tie rods help, more in the future on that once I have it done.


Close up on Passenger side of offset M Hat rotated for max positive camber.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Link to details of the e46 LCA adventure:

http://www.318ti.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37032

Results Copied and pasted from my e46 LCA thread:

To compare before and after numbers:
Before:

Caster: Left 3.0 Right 3.0

Camber: Left -2.3 Right -1.9

After:

Caster: Left 4.1 Right 4.0

Camber: Left -2.5 Right -1.5

Give or take ~.2deg for camber, as mentioned before I do have the problem of having one strut up front that has the welded bracket, resulting in different amount of camber for the driver (left) side.

BUT, since the goal was to have streetable camber with the aluminum e46 LCA's I have succeeded. Overall the Camber stayed about the same with a increase in the Caster. Mind you as you can see in the pictures the wheel is basically flush with the fender, and that is with 16x7 ET 47 wheels and tire is 205/55/16, so there is not much room for larger wheels without getting those fenders wider. Also at full lock the tie rod end will rub if the wheel was 15", with my 16" it clears all around perfectly.

Parts used:
- E36 inners and outers with 1mm washers x 4 on inners acting as spacers. (plenty of room for adjustment)
- Solid Offset M3 LCA bushing
- z3m coupe/roadster Offset M hats
- non-M e46 LCA (Looks like this=>):

I still want to play with putting on centered LCA bushing, or just finding a hexagonal one that will fit in the E36 lollipop etc etc, but right now what I got works and I couldn't be happier.





-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also thanks to bimmerbum (great Seller!!!) I was able to get my annoying screeching tensioner replaced, its nice and quite now. Also it wasn't too hard to replace for my first time try.

NOTE: My bleeder screw broke in half on me and started leaking coolant like crazy! If you have a old bleeder screw, replace it! Super easy to do and just a small thing to keep your car from the overheating.


Anyways after a few zip ties and bleeder screw/coolant the ti is ready to roam the roads again:

[anassa]

New mod coming this summer!!!!!










That's all for today (sorry no details, but feel free to use your imagination) and more details will come this summer when things will start moving.