Chunky Osiris's 2008 135i Build - Blown Clone

[Bimmer TV]

OK, not a huge list of things accomplished this past week but I definitely still spent a good amount of time on my 1.

Spent 2 or 3 hours detailing the engine bay and under the hood. Looks way better now!








New TiAl BOV spring came in and my new Verocious Motorsports T-Shirt. I ended up ordering the Black 6psi spring but it seems as it's not strong enough so I'll be ordering the White 8psi spring this week. Crazy thing is, no wastegate rattle with this spring in but no boost either Maxes out at about 6lbs.

I also managed to pinch the BOV O-ring when reinstalling it which was causing a pretty bad boost leak on top of it. Ended up sourcing one at the local pool supply store of all places and I have 2 more actual ones coming in today. I used a little RTV the second time around to make sure it would stay in place and not got pinched/torn when putting the BOV back onto the collar.

Got to take a trip back up to the shop today to grab the original spring that was in there so I can use that for now as I managed to forget it there. NO fun driving with no boost!




Installed 4 more LED strips to light up the bottom 3 grills. My original intention was to do just the kidney grills as it's BMW's trademark but after getting the chance to see everything in the dark a few times, it just looked like the bottom ones should be done as well. I'm not loving the placement of the end ones so I'll likely end up moving those. The problem is my wheel wells are not fully there in the front so you can literally see the strip from the right angle if you're on either side of the car. Here's a shot of her with just the kidneys lit up.




I also replaced all of the roundels with new White/Black "carbon fiber" ones. Did the engine cover, steering wheel, hood and wheel caps. They sent the wrong size for the trunk so I'm waiting on that one to come in. No pics yet but I'll add some soon.

Added new valve stem covers as well. They're all black grenades. I have some ones coming to match the roundels I used as well but I kind of like these.






I think that pretty much covers it for this week other than the usual maintenance/detailing I'm always doing

[Bimmer TV]

Just a quick update today that I forgot to mention. When I bought this car, the glass on the side mirrors was really water stained. It made using them at night pretty difficult. I tired a few things to get rid of the spots to no avail. I then came across a YouTube post about using Bar Keeper's Friend. I read the comments and everyone seemed really impressed. So, I ran over to the grocery store and picked up a bottle of the dry powder for about $2.00. Taped of around the glass on the mirrors. Then made a little paste on a clean microfiber towel with a bit of water and lightly rubbed the mirror surface for 1-2 minutes. Wipe clean and BAM, no more spots! This stuff worked so damn good! I've also read you can use it on your windows which I will probably do on my rear window as it has some water spotting. Just thought I'd share this as it was cheap, easy and worked better than you'd expect with minimal effort!

[Bimmer TV]

So the BOV spring situation has finally come to an end. Here's a bit about what happened.

I ordered a new spring for my Tial Q BOV as I had read that the proper spring for our cars is the White 8psi spring and they usually come with a Plain 10psi spring. After checking my vacuum numbers and contacting Tial, I ended up going with the Black 6psi spring. Put it in on Saturday July 1st and headed home to find that I had no boost (well 7psi max on an 18psi map) and no wastegate rattle.

We figured we had pinched the o-ring on installation as it was a tight fit and that ended up being the case. So I ordered two Tial O-rings on Amazon but also ended up sourcing one from the local pool supply store of all places. Get the new o-ring on and nothing, same weak boost and could get it to throw a code (30FF) under heavy load in 4th or above. Must be the wrong spring then. Checked the BOV at idle and sure enough it's wide open. OK, time for the White 8psi spring. Got one ordered and in my hands within two days and was excited to get my boost back. Put in the new spring and, nothing again! So I check the BOV at idle again and it's still not fully closed.

I had left the original spring up at the shop so it took me a few days to get back up there. That was on Sunday, 1 week and 1 day after making the 1st swap. Put the original spring back in and head home and I'm still maxing out around 7psi and have no wastegate rattle, WTF! So for shits and giggles, I swapped out the pool filter o-ring for an actual Tial o-ring but that didn't do anything either and I didn't think it would. Now I'm at a loss and am not sure what is going on! So I headed back up to the shop again last night to see if we could figure out what's going on.

After doing some poking around, we discovered that the rear turbo's wastegate arm had come off of the actuator! After close to an hour, Jeff works his magic and get's the arm back on without removing a single part! Problem is, we couldn't find a C clip anywhere around the shop so while that did fix my boost leak and bring back the wastegate rattle, it ended up coming off again halfway home. In the end, it looks like it was just a coincidence that it happened at the same time that I changed the BOV spring.

One positive is that we now know that only one wastegate is rattling after making the adjustments on them a few weeks back and we know which one. Going to adjust it a bit more next time I can get up to the shop and get a C clip on it as well.












While I was up at the shop last night, we managed to get another item checked off the list which will allow me to do a pretty big one. I still don't have an inspection sticker (well I have a green R for Race LOL) and I am now over my 2 month grace period. I have two not ready state codes, one from the catless DPs and one from the DTML we are pretty sure. I can get the sticker with one not ready being a 2008 but not two. We swapped out the DTML pump in about 10-15 minutes so hopefully that will sort out the code it was throwing and I can get my inspection sticker!
















Lots of parts coming in everyday too. Some big, some small. What could this be




New valve cover gasket. That's going in very soon along with a bunch of other stuff that's on the way.






Another mystery box

[Bimmer TV]

Apologies for letting this thread go quiet for a bit! Summer was pretty crazy busy and I have been focusing all of my free time and attention on my new project, Bimmer TV!

I've still been getting a lot done on my 1er though this Inspection sticker business has kind of been occupying my time with her. She was also hit when parked 4 weeks ago tomorrow and the hood was crumpled up so I haven't opened it since. She goes in for repairs from the accident on Monday. I'll get back into posting updates once she comes home from the autobody shop but for now you can see what we've been up to with her on Bimmer TV. Part one of the first episode just went up yesterday and you can watch it here -

[Bimmer TV]

I haven't been keeping this thread as updated as I should be! Mostly because keeping up with the YouTube channel on my Bimmer takes up so much time! I've actually put a lot of work into her and finally just this Wednesday after almost 10 months, got my inspection sticker! Some pretty serious mods coming up in the future and new videos will be coming again soon. Until then, here is the last video that I did before taking a break to remodel my house.

[chris_flies]

Gorgeous car! I love the color (see my signature), lol! I was hit in the right corner of my rear bumper two nights ago, so I sorta understand the pain of it...

Good luck with the build!

[Bimmer TV]

Originally Posted by chris_flies

Gorgeous car! I love the color (see my signature), lol! I was hit in the right corner of my rear bumper two nights ago, so I sorta understand the pain of it...

Good luck with the build!

Cheers Chris! Maybe We'll meet at a show some time

[Bimmer TV]

So there are a ton of things that we have done to my 1er that I have not posted here or posted videos of, yet! They will be coming! I'm in the middle of remodeling my house right now and don't have time for the production end of things but we've still been working on my 2008 135i pretty much every Sunday or Saturday.

This past weekend we first attempted to repair/unstick my fuel level float. After installing a stage 2 Precision Raceworks feul pump, the level would not show above half a tank. The next time I went up to the shop, we pulled the bucket and messed around and I then filled the gas tank and it showed full, success! NOT.... this time it wouldn't show below half a tank, DOH! I actually ran out of gas on the way to the shop last Sunday (an hour away from my house) because of it. I knew it was going to be close but I wanted the fuel level to be low to work on things within the tank. After sitting at a red light on a decent uphill incline, she stalled out on me exiting the highway. Thankfully I was able to just barely coast to a level point and give it about 10 seconds before managing a restart. I punched it and coasted to the Shell station at the bottom of the hill!

I'm not sure at this point whether or not it's working 100% after putting in $20 when leaving the shop. I feel like it should have showed a bit more on the meter but I've also never run her out of gas so...
It's winter here and there is so much salt on the roads this year (especially mine for some reason!) it makes me sick so I am driving her minimally, mostly just to go to the shop. When I fill her up tomorrow morning and head back up to the shop, I'll know for sure if we actually got it right the last time. We are pretty fast at getting it in and out at this point now though, I'll tell you that much! If anyone needs tips on getting your fuel pump out, etc, hit me up!

We also replaced the oil filter housing gasket and oil cooler housing gasket last weekend as well as the oil cooler line O-Rings. This weekend we are doing the Oil Pan Gasket, an Oil Change and adjusting the one (and harder to reach) rattling wastegate while we have the subframe lowered for the oil pan gasket replacement.

We had already adjusted both of the wastegates last summer but one still rattles on deceleration which is quite annoying though not so much in the winter with the windows up. I am getting 19lbs of Boost and have almost 170,000 miles on the original turbos though so if we can't eliminate the rattle, I won't be terribly upset. I'll be upgrading the turbos this year so I'm pretty happy where things are at for now.

Side note: I know which wastegate is rattling and that it is only one by just disconnecting the vacuum line from one of the vacuum reservoirs. They are the little (maybe 6" tall) black ribbed cylinders mounted to the left of the engine. If you have rattling wastegates, disconnect a vacuum line from these one at a time to see if 1 or both of your wastegates are rattling