As Green as the Touge - Just Cause!

[anassa]

Background:

I bought my 318ti over 3 years ago, and the thread that documented some of that is here: http://318ti.org/forum/showthread.php?t=34892

In the mean time I moved to the awesome little country island of Taiwan for a year. I actually grew up in Taiwan but haven't been back for over ten years. This got me a chance to reconnect to my childhood and also see the kind of styling they have here. Of course much of it is very heavily influenced by Japan, but it does have its own flair too. Its been roughly ten months here and I will be going back to the U.S. and my 318ti very soon. As a result I have started to think what I would do with my 318ti. I was going to do nothing and just drive it... But that probably won't happen.

Sooooo . . . here is my concept of what I will turn my car into... just because I think it is cool. Thats it. Form or function I am not too worried. I will be daily driving it, so other then it being able to drive me to work and being reasonably comfortable I want to build something more from my imagination , sometime maybe a bit different. It will see the occasional canyon run too. Oh and do it on the cheap too.

Concept!

First a rough draft of a sketch just so I can imagine how it looks a little better.



Here is some horrible mspaint put together:



v2




To help show what my concept comes from I have some pictures/images that I find cool and are part of my inspiration.
Why not try to bring some parts of these cars to life. If it works it works and it will be awsome!
If not, oh well, whats next?







We shall see how this goes.

***Above pictures are not of my car and I claim no ownership of them! They just help me develop a mental image by using some styling ideas from other car enthusiasts.

The Details

Front:

- Headlights: I have some glass euro headlights so I can take them apart, clean them, and tint the inner class yellow - like the French headlights, then use electrical tape (? or something else) to make that "X" on top of the inner lense. This is inspired by cars that are tracked as well as driven in the street and would use take to try to keep the glass together if the glass broke and keep the track free of the glass. In my case I think it will just look cool.

- Bumper: I have a M3 rep bumper so I will probably just use it - since its a rep I don't mind cutting into it either.
- The front will use some home depot garden trimming or something for the splitter/lip/air dam, it will also help the car look lower.
- I will most likely have fog light deletes.
- The licence plate might be in the middle or off to the side, mounted by ? ?? ? - still not sure.
- The inner holes next to the fog lights will have ducting to direct air towards the brakes, i will probably cut a hole into the dust shield and have the hosing go from the front to the brakes. Hopefully cooling the brakes a little for the canyon runs since I get brake fade pretty quickly. Oh and cause it might look cool too.

- Front Blinkers: Thinking of pulling the front blinkers out all together, and putting in some e30 style front blinkers under the front bumper support below the headlights.

Rear:

- Exhaust: Nice and quiet . . more then a weird looking car, the exhaust note pulls the polices notice! But with the 90 degree bend at the exit of the rear and go up a couple inches - dual tip.

- Spoiler Still not sure, leaning more towards a duckbill style but made with garden trim and rivets, kind of like the front.
- Stubby antenna.

Side:

- ACS cup mirrors! Yes those are going to look good!


*****WILL UPDATE AS IDEAS CHANGE ETC.

[anassa]

INDEX:

In order to keep organized and easy to navigate I will try to link posts and topic! I will also include links to other members threads that I found very helpful!

Suspension/Brakes

1. H&R z3m Sport Springs

2. Widening the 318ti - Info/Idea

3. 318ti OEM Brake upgrade options: My own 300mm brake upgrade

4. 300mm Brake upgrade and 15" wheel clearance, Best budget brake upgrade?

Power/Drivetrain

1. M52 w/ s52 Cams Dyno Run

2. Engine Weight Comparison - M44, M52, S52, M60, M62, S54

Misc/Other

1. M52 w/ 3.46 LSD MPG

2. My M52 Swap Cost

Helpful Info:

**All linked information/threads are property of whoever posted it! I will remove any links if the owner does not wish me to link to his/her thread!

1. BlackBMW's 2017 (s52 318ti) and (m44 318ti) weight results!

2. Another 318ti weigh in tread with some numbers

3. Brake rotor sizes+models, Pads and other Brake info.

OEM Part Numbers and Specs/Info:

1. https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/select

2. http://bmwfans.info/parts-catalog
..

[Bwwaaaa]

Sounds like you have a solid plan, looking forward to seeing what you do!

[BMW_Hatchback]

Love everything except the mad max metal bar rear bumper

[anassa]

Originally Posted by Bwwaaaa

Sounds like you have a solid plan, looking forward to seeing what you do!

Ya! Honestly I will probably be cringing when I do some of it, but I really want to see how it will look "completed" . . . . if I get there or how long it will go.

Originally Posted by BMW_Hatchback

Love everything except the mad max metal bar rear bumper

Thanks! The exhaust picture is mostly to show how the exhaust style will look like... I don't have the skills to make that mad max style rear bumper lol . . . or the willingness to pay someone to do it for me.

I will be trying to use the parts that I have already lying around, and only keep money on reliability/maintenance issues for daily driving, since that is what it will still do mostly.

Two months and counting till I get home... feels so long.

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One more month to go!

I do have to say the .org is probably one of the slowest forums I know...

[ORGASMSrfun]

Check out the front end on my 318ti and let me know if you'd like some pointers?

Would be more than happy to help.

[anassa]

Originally Posted by ORGASMSrfun

Check out the front end on my 318ti and let me know if you'd like some pointers?

Would be more than happy to help.

Well I took a look at your pic:



It seems like the style is uhm a little different then what I am going for, but I appreciate the thought though!



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EDIT: (Project related)

I am back in SoCal and busy with school (again.. sigh) and work, but most importantly working to get my car to what I consider "Stage 0". What I mean by that is that the car has to be fully functional first without anything little thing wrong before I dig into it. A/C, windows, trim parts, mechanical parts everything has to be fully functioning like it came from the dealer. I have already gotten the 80k miles clutch replaced with another OEMish clutch, window regulators are fixed, new tires, A/C needs a little more looking at as well as the radio, trim and small interior pieces.

The car will end up looking kind of beat/rugged/aggressive but instead of those beater cars that always have something wrong with it, door latch, radio, A/C, windows etc - everything will work fine and it will be more of a stylistic choice.

[ORGASMSrfun]

Different indeed.

I like to think of it as fun factor.

[anassa]

Originally Posted by ORGASMSrfun

Different indeed.

I like to think of it as fun factor.

Very true, if it wasn't for the fun factor I wouldn't have endeavored to try it in the first place!

[BMW_Hatchback]

Need an update

[anassa]

Originally Posted by BMW_Hatchback

Need an update

Look at post number 7 - under "EDIT"

I said: "I have already gotten the 80k miles clutch replaced with another OEMish clutch, window regulators are fixed, new tires, A/C needs a little more looking at and fixing as well as the radio, trim and small interior pieces."

I do have some parts and things are moving forward in the background but I want to be able to show something concrete, and considering that the 318ti is pretty low on the priority list its going to take some time.
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To be fair here is how it looks at the moment, nice and stock looking. I want to have everything good and start with a clean sheet, in order to avoid problems later on.

[anassa]

So things are moving forward.

Picked up some parts:

- ACS Type 1 monoblocks 17x8.5 et13 (SOLD later on, never used them!)
- Z3 steering rack, finally!
- Ugly CF fenders that are "z3 style"
- Fiberglass front bumper support beam
- Clear front, side, rear lights
- M side trim (Thanks to Bwwaaaa!)

Next weekend I will be picking up a whole rear 6cyl rear end: Subframe, trailing arms, axles - no diff.

This is actually a continuation from a widing idea with e46 LCA's I tried back in 2013: http://318ti.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37032

The idea is that the e46 LCA's widen the front track, And the 6cyl z3 rear trailing arms do the same thing effectively widening the whole width of the wheels without running low ET wheels.

Also this way I can get the camber/toe weld in plates separately and have less downtime as the car is a daily.

As it has been the case for the last 4 years the car desperately needs more power, but considering I drive ~250 miles a week now with work/school I will enjoy the MPG as I fix the small things and work on suspension/widening the car.

The ACS wheels will wait for a while as they are ugly chrome and bubbly, and with the et13 + widening, I will need to figure out a suitable way to widen the fenders, if the ACS go on they will be going on with at not much of a stretch, probably 235 tires. Since I picked up the carbon fiber "z3" style fenders I might get those cut into with a simple set of flairs. Not too sure yet.


Sorry for the slow progress! But this is a long term project so expect this thread like my last build thread to continue for a while, aka couple years.

[anassa]

Originally Posted by anassa

So things are moving forward.

Picked up some parts:

- ACS Type 1 monoblocks 17x8.5 et13
- Z3 steering rack, finally!
- Ugly CF fenders that are "z3 style"
- Fiberglass front bumper support beam
- Clear front, side, rear lights
- M side trim (Thanks to Bwwaaaa!)

Next weekend I will be picking up a whole rear 6cyl rear end: Subframe, trailing arms, axles - no diff.

This is actually a continuation from a widing idea with e46 LCA's I tried back in 2013: http://318ti.org/forum/showthread.php?t=37032

The idea is that the e46 LCA's widen the front track, And the 6cyl z3 rear trailing arms do the same thing effectively widening the whole width of the wheels without running low ET wheels.

Also this way I can get the camber/toe weld in plates separately and have less downtime as the car is a daily.

As it has been the case for the last 4 years the car desperately needs more power, but considering I drive ~250 miles a week now with work/school I will enjoy the MPG as I fix the small things and work on suspension/widening the car.

The ACS wheels will wait for a while as they are ugly chrome and bubbly, and with the et13 + widening, I will need to figure out a suitable way to widen the fenders, if the ACS go on they will be going on with at not much of a stretch, probably 235 tires. Since I picked up the carbon fiber "z3" style fenders I might get those cut into with a simple set of flairs. Not too sure yet.


Sorry for the slow progress! But this is a long term project so expect this thread like my last build thread to continue for a while, aka couple years.

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UPDATE: 11/22/2016

So instead of bumping my thread with a post that doesn't have any good content I am just editing this one to add the following:

The project is on indefinite hold. Working two part time jobs and full time school + regular life is smashing me now and I need to turn it around a bit. I had some good stuff to show, but I am going to wait, I have some more drawings/print out and real parts for continuing the concept and bringing some reality to it. At this point of time I can't spend any more distracted time thinking about the car as anything other then transportation.

For the concept to work it has to be a complete package and not half-baked or else it will just suck, so patience until I can put in the proper time is required. Sorry!

******Oh wow... turned out I clicked response instead of "edit" to my thread... this is embarrassing!

[baystint]

What desgin program are you using ?

[anassa]

Originally Posted by baystint

What desgin program are you using ?

I should definitely mention that the 240z/e28 definitely are not what I drew, I know the 240z is done by Khyzyl Saleem, I don't remember the e28, otherwise the other are just picked up images online and first two are done in Paint.


Update!

Drove down to San Diego to pick up something!



Hmmm so what I can do with a 328is + 318ti ?

Looks like finally I will have a chance to have a 6pot swapped compact! After all these years of ownership!