M-sport Bumper Upgrade for 128i

[crowtrobot]

I recently purchased and installed a new M-sport bumper for my 128i and wanted to write about it a little to help out anyone else considering the option.

My reasons for the new bumper were:

• Getting some airflow to the brakes, as I track the car.
• Car is a pseudo-DD, so I didn't want to cut things up or have to deal with running flexible ducting
• Tons of bumper holes from front plate and poor install by dealer (GAH!).
• Aesthetics aren't bad either

Start:



Purchased a kit from getbmwparts. They were very helpful and easy to deal with, and was able to get a decent deal. I preferred the kit rather than trolling through realoem to make sure I got each individual part (needed to do this anyway eventually, but hopefully this will help anyone else looking). Paint was done by a local guy in Bucks County, PA, who does a lot of vintage race car restoration. Really happy with how it turned out.



Installation was pretty straight-forward with the numerous front-bumper removal DIYs and workshop manual. Remove the belly pan, disconnect the fogs and RDC, pull up the weatherstripping in front of the intake, remove the 4 bolts on top, remove the 3 bolts in the fender liners, then pull the corners out from the clips next to the headlamps. This last part may be easier said than done. Mine had about 60k mi of upstate NY grime built up in there, so it was quite reluctant to release. Eventually got it using a trim tool and some brute force.



From here, replaced the fender liners with the new 135i liners with the pre-cut holes for the ducting. They look pretty similar aside from that, but I think the shape of the bottom portion is slightly different from the 128i's, and the 128i liners have the little rubber spoilers integrated, where the 135i/M-sport bumper "pressure seals" fit in between the bellypan and the fender liners and are screwed in. I also had to drill some holes for the RDC/TPMS controllers. Used some spare 8mm screws and metal clips to hold them in, couldn't figure out what the P/N was for the plastic studs holding them in originally.




Mounted the brake ducting. At first, I thought the only necessary parts were the two inner ducts that connect to the fender liner. These are really only held in place by the locater plate attached to the front panel, and being pressed between the grill and fender liner. This seemed a little flimsy to me, but I went ahead with installing the new bumper and belly pan. Installation of the new bumper was just the reverse of removal; easy, but stressful in that I didn't want to mar the brand new paint at all.



The new belly pan has two parts, I found it was easier to take them apart, fit the smaller bit up front, then attach the larger part once the fender liners, bumper, and smaller bit were all tightened up. Also, had to remove the radiator seal included with the 128i. Seems like a small thing, but I was happy to install a new bellypan, my old one had seen better days, and was an annoying, floppy piece of crap to take in and out when working on the car. NOTE: The fitment is slightly different for the M-sport bellypan than the old 128i one, something to watch out for if you are upgrading.



At this point, I was happy with how things looked, but then I realized that the wires for the RDCs were exposed. After some googling and looking on realoem, I found that the blankoffs for the front grills were not included. I special ordered them from a local dealer, who got them in very quickly (had a trackday the following day, so very thankful for this). These blanks connect to the brake ducts and also bolt into the bumper, so this anchors the whole assembly a bit better. The right hand side looks like it mounts to a bracket for the oil cooler on the 135i, which I don't have, so this was just zip-tied together and held into place by friction. Seems ok for now.



Everything's together now and looks better, IMHO! Held up to two days at Watkins, so seems like the assembly is good. Now I am debating whether to bother with a front lip to prevent scraping the brand new bumper up (and maybe help with performance, who knows). I know a few people were asking about using the 135i ducting with the BMW Performance bumper on the 128i, I imagine that one would need the new bellypan and fenderliners to go this route as well.





Cheers!

[ShocknAwe]

Looks sharp!

[autosense]

wow, it looks great!

I actually came back to the forums because I might pick a 128i up tomorrow morning and it has a crack on the front bumper. So this thread was exactly what i was looking up! lol

BTW- i'm located in Saratoga Ny, where do you track your car? That's why I'm picking up the 128i.

Thanks,

mike

[crowtrobot]

Thanks! Glad it was helpful for someone.

autosense If you want a good condition replacement for your cracked stock bumper, I have the original with fogs spare now- it'd be great for it to go to a fellow board member.

I track the car at Watkins Glen with the local BMW and Porsche chapters. I have a few others (NJMP, Summit, Tremblant) on the schedule this year as well.

[autosense]

Originally Posted by crowtrobot

Thanks! Glad it was helpful for someone.

autosense If you want a good condition replacement for your cracked stock bumper, I have the original with fogs spare now- it'd be great for it to go to a fellow board member.

I track the car at Watkins Glen with the local BMW and Porsche chapters. I have a few others (NJMP, Summit, Tremblant) on the schedule this year as well.

Thanks!

I went to the shop where the car is for sale, and they were closed?? My work schedule is insane, so I won't have time until next weekend. Let's cross our fingers.

Hopefully I can make it out to limerock and NYST. Between work and my 2 year old, literally time is a luxury these days.

[bender128]

What did you plug the fog light connectors with?