Well, shit, I got pretty swamped after I got this thread up and running, and have been wrenching and playing with the car quite a bit. Haven't made it back out to the track since the first outing at GTA Super Lap Battle @ Buttonwillow back in November, but I'm going back out to BW at the end of the month with Speed Ventures, both days I think, so come on out if you're around. Hopefully I'll break that 2-minute barrier, but I'm just stoked for more seat time in this thing.
Better late than never, so here goes...
This time around, I wanted to give upgraded inlets a try. I hate pushing these tiny stock turbos so hard, and I also hate the powerband just falling on its face after 5500rpm. So, with this build I'm aiming to keep these things alive and moving the powerband as far to the right as possible. Now that the hardware is there, the rest will be done via custom tuning from Jake @
Motiv.
I went with the
VRSF Stock Location Silicone Inlets. I heard the install isn't fun at all, so I let Rob @
Speed Logic handle it, per my neighbors recommendation. While he was at it, I had him do a Walnut Blast and fit a larger bung onto the intake manifold for a better source.
Also had him toss on the
charge pipe and BOV since it was all out at that time... and the
downpipes. Honestly, I didn't want to do any of this crap, and I'm glad he did! At a great price too.
Pretty amazing how tiny the stock inlets are!
Charge pipe has a nice wrinkle black finish and it's super light. Fitment was spot on.
And the downpipes fit perfectly as well, with pretty welds and solid flanges. Pretty impressed with this stuff.
After this, I pretty much just flashed a stage 2 MHD OTS map and left the motor alone while I went much further with the chassis...
I ordered a set of 18x9 +42 APEX ARC-8's, despite everyone telling me they wouldn't fit. I did a lot of math before ordering, and I was right. 18x9 squared with 255/35/18 Nexen NFera SUR4G's, which run super wide. I'm running no spacer out back, and a 3mm up front, but that's just for piece of mind. Front clears the strut and lower perch with no spacer as well. 7" springs ftw!
Also, I think it's common knowledge, but if you haven't done a stud conversion, just quit cars all together. I went with a 75mm kit from Macht Schnell. Best thing you'll ever do. Go with the 90mm kit if you're running lager than 10mm spacers.
Then I was presented with an opportunity to own some of my favorite seats, ever... These are kind of a "keep it in the family" deal, previously owned by two of my friends and now passed onto me. I love them dearly. Recaro Pole Positions, Macht Schnell floor mounts and a VAC extinguisher mount to finish it off. Roll bar will come next.
Next up was brakes. You might know, I had a basically brand new front and rear StopTech ST60/ST40 kit for my last E90. I thought this swapped right over to the E82, but I was wrong. Welp, cut my losses and sold that kit and decided to go big for the Trophy kit. I've wanted these forever and BimmerWorld was a huge help in pulling it together.
Install day was fun. I'm really good at doing brakes now. I've had them on and off the e90 and the e82 probably 10x.
With the brakes sorted and my KW Clubsports, M3 front lower arms and BimmerWorld adjustable rear arms installed almost on day one, I had a laundry list of upgrades to get in, with very little time to make it out to November's GTA Super Lap Battle. I am SO fortunate to have become great friends with the owners of EAS in Anaheim. Tom and Steve are the best dudes, and Sammy is a magician of a tech. Together, myself, Steve and Sammy did a shit ton of work in 3 days.
First up, we had to drop the rear subframe for most of the bits. Not exactly the view you want to see 4 days before a track day..
PowerFlex track-spec front/rear rear subframe bushings
PowerFlex track-spec front/rear diff bushings
Warning -- these are a huge pain in the ass to install compared to the standard Street bushings PF sells.. We struggled with them for a while, until I decided maybe we should just mill off a tiny bit of material on the bottom edge, to help get it started in there. This worked, thankfully. Almost gave up and just installed solid aluminum subframe bushings! Boy am I glad I didn't, though. While the car was still down, I drove a Solid Bushing E92 M3 home for the night and hated it on the street. Diff whine, clunks and bangs -- no thanks. The PowerFlex bushings on the other hand? Just as firm, ZERO noise.
James Clay @ BimmerWorld also suggested I install their Rear Camber Arm Bearing Kit and Precision Front Upper Control Arm Bearing kit. I didn't have these pieces on my E90, and honestly, I'm blown away by the difference. The car is SO stable under braking, and everywhere in between. Turn-in is awesome, especially for this little car which loves to understeer. According to James, these are the most critical suspension bushing/pivot locations on both E8X/E9X. Can't recommend these pieces enough. If you're prepping your car for track duty, and spending on all the other usual parts, don't skip this.
Here are the front bearings:
And the rears (sidenote - these require a sleeve to be tack welded into the subframe.)
You guys still with me? There's more.
I ran a Wavetrac LSD on my E90 and it was bulletproof and generally fucking awesome. Great company, amazing service, and a solid product. I knew I wanted to go with one again, but this time I really wanted to try the shorter 3.46 gearing from the automatic 128i. I always felt like the 3.08 was too long on the E90, especially on track, so why not. I hit up Dan @
Diffsonline . Pretty awesome that you can order the whole pumpkin from him. All you have to do is swap your cover on and fill it with fluid. ZERO downtime with the core exchange, too. Even nicer is that you don't end up with some gross, rusted, weathered diff. Dan cleans everything and hits it with fresh paint. Can't recommend him enough.
Finally, with the rear end all sorted away and almost no stock parts left back there, I moved on to the transmission mounts, motor mounts and shifter.
I really didn't want this car to vibrate and shake at all times, but of course its purpose is to be a track toy. Rather than go all out with bowling ball level hardness, I decided to go with everything from AKG Motorsport. I spoke to them directly about my goals for the car and my fears of gratuitously adding NVH, and we settled on the following pieces.
Poly 95A Motor Mounts (softer than 75D)
Transmission Mount Upgrade Set, basically E21 OEM hard rubber trans mounts with beefy bolts, nestled inside AKG's aluminum cups. Note** you have to drill out your stock mounting holes just a bit. Easy peasy.
Motorsport Quick Shifter & DTM Selector Rod - seriously, this is one of my absolute favorite parts of this car. Anyone that's driven it has said the same. I was nervous to go for it but I could never go back. With a transmission that's in good shape, and proper fluid, your shifts on track are lightning fast, super direct and take no time away form the steering wheel. This thing RULES.
Oh, and about the install. I already had my driveshaft out since we were doing the diff. Obviously that made this way easier. Getting the stock stuff out isn't too bad, and install this is SO easy as far as shifters go. I've installed a CAE before and it's not fun, since you have to drill.. With the AKG, it utilizes existing holes for the baseplate. There is only forward and rearward adjustment, strictly for preference. No guesswork involved at all. The quality of these parts is incredible, the prices are SUPER reasonable and they're made in the US. Rad!
As for the mounts, you will definitely notice a significant increase in NVH, however, for me, it's totally livable. There is literally nothing to hear or worry about once you're up and moving, but at idle, AC on or letting off the clutch to get going in 1st gear, you'll have some vibration. Other than that, the motor and trans mounts are awesome and you need them to run a solid chassis mounted shifter.
While I was up here in the front of the car, I did another install of my favorite mod from my E90: the E9x M3 steering rack. 12.5:1 vs our stock 16:1. Not a fun install by any means, but not terrible either.
IMPORTANT NOTES if you want to do this swap:
You must make sure your steering wheel is straight when you disconnect.
You have to swap your tie rods onto the M3 rack. The stock M3 tie rods are way too long, so unless you want 58* toe out, you have to do this.
Lastly, and this is a big one. You must ensure the rack is centered. Mine is actually off by a 1/4 turn, meaning I have more steering angle in one direction vs the other. I'll address this soon. Sorry, no pics.
Instead of throwing my stock exhaust back on the car, and since I was already down in Anaheim, I hit up
Berk Technology to see if they had their mid pipes and Race axle back in stock. Lucky me, I got the last one on the shelf. This is a seriously beautiful piece. And together with catless downpipes, this is a sound I didn't know the N54 could make. Also? It is super light. Win all around.
We're almost there guys! I'd been waiting for a while, but finally my intercooler and radiator showed up. Also, I'm installing an E92 M3 rear sway bar to match the E92 Front. I don't know why it became a "thing" for everyone to run a stock bar and an upgraded front bar, on a car that inherently understeers, but DO NOT FOLLOW SUIT. Also ordered some Hotchkis adjustable front and rear endlinks. Cheap and well made, and nice to have adjustability everywhere. Haven't installed this yet, and sure wish I did it when the subframe was out, but it doesn't look too bad.
As far as the radiator goes, I went with the
CSF unit. I ran a CSF radiator on my E90 and it was bulletproof. Temps were never a problem, even when IAT and Oil Temp were suffering, my water temps never got out of hand, lap after lap. This radiator is a bit thicker than stock, so if you're running upgraded stock location inlets and a huge intercooler, get ready to finagle everything into place. I actually had to zip tie my front turbo inlet to the fan shroud to keep it away from the pulleys. Not the best setup, but it should be ok. This is a solid amount of work paired with the intercooler of this size, but good to do both at once.
The radiator is a quality piece and fits without much struggle. The fan shroud is tough to get back in place with the inlet there, but just be patient. Here's the tight clearance issue.
Now, you might be wondering why I opted for the
VRSF 7.5" Race Intercooler for a stock turbo car. Well, there are a ton of options out there to start. I ran a Forge FMIC on my E90 and my IATs were too high for my liking on track. The stock turbos probably generate more heat than a nice, efficient single. I don't like upgrading things twice and I'm sure, at some point, I'll have a single setup and be running in the 550whp range. I went big instead of going home. With that being said, this intercool is seriously HUGE. If you want to keep your stock front plastics, don't get it. If you want bulletproof IAT's and additional weight hanging over your front wheels, this is for you! Your stock intercooler weighs 7lbs, this weighs 35... I wish I was half the weight, but I'll trim elsewhere. With all that, this is a quality piece from VRSF and it works. I took some logs last night and monitored temps on the dyno. Temps actually dropped during pulls... Insane! I might open up the mesh on the front bumper, or ditch it completely and build some proper ducting. Impressed that it does indeed fit behind the bumper with no trimming though!
And look at those IAT's! 3rd gear, started at 68*, ended at 68*. Way to go VRSF.
Once I was done with this stuff, I decided to just see how much wider I need to make my car to fit the wheels and tires I want to be running for optimal grip. The goal is 18x10 +25 squared with 285s. In case you want to know what that looks like, with plenty of camber already, here you go. These are actually 275s though** FYI, these are
Titan7 wheels. So awesome and only 18lbs each, and forged! Maybe they'll make a 1-series fitment. Would you guys be interested?
Being that it was Friday and I knew I had traffic ahead of me, Steve at EAS was nice enough to let me run on the dyno to get some baseline numbers before we do custom tuning and ethanol blends. A note here. Not sure if 4th is still the best gear for this, or if I should be in 5th since I run the shorter 3.46 gearing. But whatever, man. I also flashed the Stage 2+ map on the car right before the dyno session, so the car was definitely not adapted and was still figuring out its boost. You can hear it wanting to overboost and correcting. Numbers are ok for 91 octane, maybe? Nothing crazy. The higher run is 5th gear. Here's a video.
Log here:
https://datazap.me/u/berno/09-135i-m...22-23-24-25-26
That's it for now. Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and let me know if you have any questions.