My new E46 M3

[Gaygle]

Ah I see!

And yes, £230 for brackets and front hoses or £260 for brackets and hoses all round. They are custom made by Goodridge as they have to be a specific length. Should have my set here in the next few days or so so will be able to comment more on the quality then, but many others say that the kit is excellent so fingers crossed!

 

[Gaygle]

Where can you buy genuine CSL wheels for £500 from?

No where unfortunately. A guy was selling a good pair on the forums the other day and had them up at £1000. They were sold within the hour.

 

[Gaygle]

Nope. No rears with the brake upgrade. It can be done but there is no bespoke kit at the moment. The BMWP rears are only a single piston affair anyway and offer very little over standard.

Engineering types have already done the calculations and it only shifts the brake bias to the rear by something like 1.4% over standard. To put it into context, the CSL has the brakes biased to the rear by something like 3% over standard. According to many miles on track and the Nurburgring the brake bias remains spot on.

 

[Gaygle]

A new week, a new project. Finally got around to fitting my shocks and struts! What prompted this was that previously, I had an annoying issue where the steering wheel would shimmy if you hit a bump or rut in the road, especially at higher speeds. I thought this might be a failed strut so I bought a new set all round. I didn't realise just how failed it was, as the video shows! For anyone else, my car is on 93k miles, and the when I took it to the garage to get the guy to check out everything on the car, I asked him to check the strut. He said there was a tiny bit of leakage but so small that he wouldn't even mention it on an MOT. Now, having owned BMW's for quite a few years now, I know that when there is ANY leakage whatsoever, the strut has already failed, and probably was passed it's best 30k miles previous. I'm glad I changed them!

I took the passenger side all to bits, couldn't get the strut out of the pinch collar, so gave up and put everything back together. Posted up on M3Cutters and I got some tips so I decided to try again, with renewed determination, and it turned out all I needed was a cup of man the **** up. For info of anyone else who may be reading this and struggling, you have to pull the collar/disc/hub downwards as well as towards you and it's then and only then you'll get enough clearance. You must also only untighten the nuts on the strut bearing a very small amount and when you get it clear, start undoing them more. Helps massively if you have another pair of hands on standby, especially when you have to get the strut in!

Having never done struts on a car before, it took about an 1 hour to do the passenger side. But then I put everything back together, wheels back on, torqued up etc.... and i discovered I had forgotten to carry over the bottom rubber pad that the spring sits on. I said lots of four letter words, threw a few tools, and set about taking the passenger side again for the 3rd time. This time it only took 25minutes, which was quite impressive!

The driver side took about 40 minutes. Videos below - passenger side strut was literally doing absolutely nothing! The car feels so compliant now, and it absolutely sticks like glue when cornering.

 

[Gaygle]

So any mention of "small" leaks on the struts during MOT/inspection then it's new strut time, got it!

Although to be fair as you say, any "small" issue on an M car will only lead to a big issue soon enough

Yeah, I'm surprised really as that shock hadn't leaked much oil at all and yet you can see that it just wasn't doing any dampening at all.

Driving on a blown shock is really obvious would have been felt right away when driving?

Not at all. The only thing that gave it away was the mild shimmying in the steering wheel when going over bumps at 50mph+.

It didn't roll excessively, didn't lose grip on that corner, didn't feel overly firm (although when getting a new car, you're not sure what is normal or not) and didn't rock at all.

 

[Gaygle]

Having some more bits fitted today!



- BMW Performance front calipers with customer CNC aluminium carriers.
- OEM ATE 345mm front discs
- Goodridge braided brake hoses all round
- ATE Typ 2002 (aka Super Blue)

I also attempted to have the car fully KDS aligned last week but one of the trackrod assemblies were completely seized. Also one of the FCAB was factory original and had a small amount of play. So also having the following done (with part numbers should anyone else need them):

- Lemforder track rod assembly x 2 (Lemforder part 27115 and 27116)
- Lemforder FCAB x 2 (Lemforder part 27016 and 27017)
- Meyle HD RTAB x 2 (Meyle part number 300 333 2104/HD)

Hopefully all of this work in combination with the new shocks and struts all round should see the suspension sorted.

Also have a new steering wheel being delivered from Royal Steering Wheels on Monday which will be nice! A few detailing bits are also en route (Aerospace 303 and Gliptone leather conditioner) and I think (hope) that will be it for a while!

 

[Gaygle]

Can you use 303 on nappa leather?

I should hope not!!

 

[Gaygle]

Right! New stuff fitted. Car has never been better - pictures below.

If you have 56k:

A) you need to upgrade your internet connection
B) you don't deserve to see photographs.

Anyway, as promised, the brake went straight on without any faff. Only thing that needed to be done is the backing plate bent by about a centimetre. The brakes feel utterly wonderful. They feel so powerful, but they haven't lost the lovely feel that BMW brake have. I appreciate that some of this is from braided brake hoses, but certainly not all. Now that they've had a few days to bed in etc, I'll start leaning on them a bit more, but I will be expecting BIG things from them. Even if they suck so bad that a Fiat Multipla could out brake me, I won't care because they just look so beautiful.







The other bits that were done were a std 4 wheel alignment (not KDS though at the moment), new FCABs, new RTABs (which were like new so they have been changed previously) and new track rod assemblies/ball joints.

I have also just today taken delivery of my new steering wheel. I went for a full nappa, with only *slightly* thickened, with ///M stitching and a red band at 12 o'clock for the yobbo in me. Basically I wanted it to look like the E92 M3 steering wheel, which it does. And again, it is wonderful. Popping out the airbag wasn't as easy as I remember it being on the E92, but when I realised that the retaining springs were much stiffer, I knew what i was doing. 16mm steering nut was very tight, but came off instantly with the impact wrench (if you haven't got an impact wrench - GET ONE!). Changing everything over was childs play with just a variety of Torx bits needed and took about 15 minutes. The job took about 30 minutes in total.

Before:



During:





After:







No more mods from now on! Spent way too much already.

 

[Gaygle]

I'm not so sure about the red centre point marker on the wheel since your leather isn't red so doesn't have a contrast point to go with it!

I really like it, and it is small and subtle enough to not need to match anything else on the interior (same with the ///M stitching). I also think it adds a bit of hooligan. I wish I did have red leather though!

Are you going to get matching colour for the rear calipers?

I can get a refurbished Porsche rear caliper, painted Phoenix Yellow with the BMW Performance decal on it for £400. Would just need to get the bolt on bracket for £100 more and job's a good 'un. It uses the same disc so that'd be fine. However, that said, i'm not really bothered about the rear. It's not like the standard caliper is silver or anything that stands out, it kinda just bends away behind the wheel.

 

[Gaygle]

Dino on Cutters is selling his BMWP BBK set up for £1100 with the aluminium brackets. Good price?

If you could knock him down to £950 and tell him to keep the Pagid RS29's, then yes, very good deal. That's assuming you weren't going to be using your car for many/any track days? I've got some £50 Textar OEM ones on mine and with the improved, lower temperatures from the new calipers anyway, they won't cook anywhere near as quickly as the standard brake system.

Also, the RS29's squeal like a mother. I had to take them off my old 330ci, even though they were utterly fantastic, but it just became embarrassing when i was driving around town.

Like the wheel bar the silly red bit though, seems pointless tbh, what does it achieve? It looks more derp than hooligan to my old eyes!

It's so when I'm drifting around every corner, i know where the centre of the steering wheel is...duh

Nah, I quite like the little red band - some of the Audi's have it and it is useless on a road car, much like half the things on road cars (spoilers, diffusers, splitters etc), but I just like the little styling tweak.

Loving the look of the brakes though, car looks lovely!

Yeah they really are great, and I'd be lying if I said that I bought them only for the improved braking. I'd be lying if I said I bought them mostly for the improved braking.

Have you noticed any improvement with the feel of the car after the alignment? - my 530 has started munching the inside of its n/s/r tyre rather badly, just deciding where to get it done and what type of alignment to opt for.

No not really. I haven't had a full Hunter alignment done yet as everything was seized up when they tried. But my tyres are wearing more or less very evenly, except at the back where I have some excess wear to the outside edges of the rears.

Does the new brake set-up now change the 50/50 brake distribution?

The brakes have never been 50/50 - by virtue of the fact that the front brakes will always have to work harder.

Standard M3:

67FR/33RR

M3 CSL:

64FR/36RR

M3 with BMWP fronts:

65FR/35RR

So that puts the BMWP fronts with standard rears very close to the CSL setup, but only shifts it a couple of % away from the STD M3. It therefore doesn't affect the bias or dynamics under braking at all.

 

[Gaygle]

I use Justcarclinic for alignment.

Since I used them for the Porsche which took them 2 hours to do and cost a flat fee if £49.99 I've thrown all my cars at them.

If it needs 1 adjustment it will cost you £49.99, if it needs everything adjusting it will cost £49.99. I like it.

Oh and it is certainly Hunter.

See this is what annoys me about some of the places in our area. £39 + VAT for a Hunter alignment....plus £10 per adjustment. And there are 10 possible adjustments apparently. So I could be getting a bill for £43 or £150. Ridiculous way of doing it. Others charge £75 for all adjustments etc which is a bit better.

Ah so not much in it then. I've gone back to umming and ahhing about the BMWBBK, I would want matching rears though too and as you've said, extra cost, it's not like a small cost either. I don't do hard braking or track days, only road braking, so for that kind of use it just seems like it would be a big session of throwing money into the air

With that in mind I think I'm leaning more on the refubing my existing calipers, probably DIY refurb, clean, sand and paint black. Once I need new disks, it will look neat no doubt. I can then just get new pads when needed too, the OEM pads are quite dusty and the fade can be felt after a couple of heavy braking sessions from "speed", I hear good things about Performance Friction pads though.

Doooo it! The way I justified it is I needed new discs/pads anyway and I make an outlay of £800 on the calipers and fitting kit. When I come to sell the car, a bolt on BMW/Brembo branded caliper kit will be a sought after piece of kit which I will have no problems moving, whilst making minimal loss on it. In other words, I am certain I will get most of my money back from it!

awesome!!

exactly the same colour/spec as my old one, miss it!

has the subframe been checked/repaired?

Thanks

I do really like the colour combo, but every time I see a dark blue M3 I long for one. I've always been a dark blue colour fan! But I am loving the fact that this colour never really looks that dirty, but when you clean it, it still looks really shiny.

Subframe was fixed by BMW in June 2014 so hopefully job's a good 'un!