Quote:
Originally Posted by andrey_gta
So nice - Aero & Euro LCI. My dream.
How much lower is the front bumper vs 128i ? Are you more careful now
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Yes, it is noticeably lower up front, and I am being more careful. I'm generally very careful with the front bumper anyhow, after scraping the old one once on a curb stop while parking. The new one doesn't seem low enough to scrape on normal speed bumps of moderate inclines, though, so as long as I don't pull up too far when parking I think I should be good. Just having this bumper makes it really tempting to go with the carbon fiber splitters (just because you can), but maybe that's flirting with disaster, I don't know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andrey_gta
For the ducting, just use the 135i brake ducts for Aero bumper and cut holes where the duct joins the wheel liner. Its the most elegant clean solution outside of making e39 style pot light shrouds/sink drain mod on the 128i Aero brake duct blanks.
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That's what I'm looking at doing right now. I don't want to mess with some custom-fabbed yet unsightly ductwork on my daily driver. I think if I use the air inlets designed for the Performance bumper plus retrofit the brake ducting from the 135i, I should be okay. I will have to either cut my wheel well liners or retrofit the 135i ones as well. I think this setup will provide adequate airflow to the wheel wells, and then F30 backing plates will direct some of that airflow to the brakes. At least, that's the idea.
In other news, I got the LED eyebrows working today:
See
here for the how and why, if interested.
Last night I also flashed the ECU with the new tune from Active. This morning I took the car out and it felt pretty darn good. I wasn't sure if the off-road tune did much more than clear the SES light, but I know it at least contains new throttle mapping, per the tech that did my tune file. It may modify the fueling as well (just a guess) but either way, it felt pretty snappy and responsive, even if it's just a throttle remap, and the headers definitely make power.
So if the car is more or less done cosmetically, I think I'm getting closer as far as performance mods go. I've got a few suspension tweaks to make, but the only other really big thing is an LSD. I want to live with the headers for a while before I decide, but I'm strongly leaning towards doing a more aggressive final drive at the same time. The torque multiplication just seems too good to pass up, especially at the lower end, which is sort of this car's Achilles' Heel, IMO.
Of course, I will probably never be done modding this car, but the only performance stuff after an LSD is sort of the crazy stuff: stroker kits (I'd love to stroke this thing to a 3.2L...too bad the Noelle Motors kit doesn't seem to be around anymore, although IIRC it was stupid expensive) and superchargers (the ESS kit is somewhat tempting, but besides being spendy is sort of anathema to the spirit of this car, I think...but then again...).