Cerealwars' 128i Fun Daily/Occasional Track Car

[cerealwars]

What’s up 1ers! This is my 2010 128i 6-speed base model, here's a couple dealer photos.





Drove my old daily Saab 4 hours into Ohio, and with the help of my wonderful fiancée, caravanned both cars back. We made a quick stop at FiveGuys for some celebratory burgers.



I’ve been into driver-oriented cars since I was 7 years old. Cheap, RWD, manual, and lightweight all top the priority list. Sadly over the last few years, cheap ones don’t exist anymore, but I have a big boy job now that can help compensate for that.

I’ve had a little crush on the 128 since I first saw one hit the track at Grattan Raceway back in 2013. The styling is a little doofy, but I find it endearing, especially compared to the tryhard styling of the contemporary 3-series and so many other performance cars today.

Most recently I dailied a Saab 9-3 wagon, and complimented it with a well-setup NB Miata to drive on nice days and at the track. However, I needed to downsize my garage, and I realized I could sell both of those and break even buying a 128. I’ve also got a ‘62 Chevy C10, a Geo Tracker for cheap offroad fun, and an S13 240sx with a 1UZ-FE that I’m building from the ground up to be a clean grip car. My driveway brings me a lot of pride some days.



There were a few years there where I wasn’t dailying a sports car, and I’m so happy to be back. I daily this car to Detroit and back for work (50 minutes one way), and I find it hits that sweet spot between simple fun and comfortable luxury.

I picked it up just outside of Cincinnati on April Fool’s, and drove it 4 hours back home in Waterford. The paint turned out to be a little rougher than I thought (it looked great in the rain lol), but the price seemed fair to me at 10k. Outside of some blown rear shocks and the irritating delay of electronic throttle, it drove great. Gobs of torque compared to the cars I was accustomed to. 109k on the clock.

I ordered a clutch stop about five minutes after I got home from Ohio. My god, what an improvement. No earthly idea why the lower 80% of the pedal travel does absolutely nothing. Guess it's handy for bleeding the clutch though.

So far I’ve done a couple of things - mostly catching up on the inevitably neglected maintenance and trying to tighten it up a little bit as a driver’s car. I had a track day on the horizon. More to come on that later…

Fresh wiper blades, trans fluid, OFHG, oil change, and a new air filter were all knocked out in the first couple weeks of ownership.

Then, after a few weeks of trying to adjust to the weak factory throttle mapping, I caved and ordered a throttle booster for it. Found a decent deal on a new Injen one for $180 shipped. It can’t quite match the perfection of a cable throttle, but it is a LOT better for quicker rev-matching.



Another thing I noticed was that there was a little window noise at highway speeds. Seemed like my window was a little loose in the frame. Took the door panel off, and it seems someone replaced a regulator at one point but didn’t torque the window fasteners down enough. I reefed down on the Spacely Space Sprockets that attach the window and crossed one more thing off the list. Door sounds more solid when you shut it now, too.



Also, did a quick clean-up of the engine bay. Amazing what that does for the car. Simple Green, garden hose, and a toilet brush (unused of course).


^^Before

^^After

Now I was on a mission to get the car sorted as some of my friends had rented out Gingerman Raceway for a bachelor party track day. On blown rear original shocks, I needed the car to be track-worthy and I used that deadline as motivation to get her sorted... More in the next post.

Nice to meet you all! I grew up learning so much through forums. I’m excited to see some of that grassroots community knowledge being accumulated and shared here. I've learned so so much already, so thanks for that. Hopefully my cheap ass is tolerated here. Never thought I'd willfully own a German car, but here we are lol.

One more pic here before I'm done (snagged some rough E90 takeoffs with non-RFTs for the track day)



I'm playing catch-up now as I've done a bit of wrenching and driving, so look out for more coming soon. Later!
--Bob

[WrathOTM]

How have you liked the Injen throttle controller? Have my eye on doing one of those sometime soon.

[cerealwars]

I think it does it's job. For $180 (and a 5 minute install) I'm happy with it. It will never feel exactly like a cable throttle, but it drastically reduces the amount of pedal needed to downshift smoothly. I only keep it set to 2/10 but it's MUCH better. I'm heel-toeing and downshifting like 95% of the time I'm driving.

Another thing is that my 3 other vehicles are all stick so it helps it to not have a drastically neutered throttle pedal on one car. I also adjusted the clutch to bite the same in all 3 cars.

Keep reading for inane details, I'll make you regret asking lol

One small catch/downside is i feel like the throttle no longer quite as smoothly tapers off. I'm not sure how perceptible it would be to most drivers. If you like to let gears trail off a little before shifting (IE just driving smoothly in traffic, not being binary with the throttle pedal), you might notice a little choppiness compared to stock on occasion.

Another thing people might not like is that the throttle doesn't ramp up exactly the same. I think the factory pedal is designed to give you a little more "punch" feeling with the power delivery. With the throttle controller, it sort of falls flat.

Note that I don't actually think the car is any slower or less driveable - I just think that some of the fine-tuned "smoothness" is gone. This makes sense, as when you crank the sensitivity up the pedal basically becomes an on-off switch.

Maybe other brands would differ a little better on this. I know they are all basically the same design-wise, but I know there's at least one out there that lets you program more of each step in the throttle map. This one was half the price of the Dinan one, and if I'm spending Dinan money, then fuck it I'll spring for a proper tune instead lol.

From what I hear, a tune would help some with the throttle response. If the clutch ever goes, I might throw a lighter single-mass in there. Right now it's not a priority - trying to finish my 240, put a 383 in my c10, and also start a home.

All things considered, I like the throttle booster a lot, mostly because the stock throttle sucks. I get in my 80hp Geo Tracker and it downshifts like a racecar compared to the BMW, all because of that numb factory throttle. You have to STAB it to like 60% for it to react in any timely manner. It may only be milliseconds but it's enough to significantly improve my shifting. The throttle controller addresses this issue pretty well and it's relatively cheap.

[WrathOTM]

Thanks for the response and details, I'm still considering it either way. I know there are couple brands that make these, but need to re-find them once again.

[Spielmp3206]

I have almost exactly the same config black base slick top 6 speed 128i

I am planning on taking my 128i to the remaining for the year Waterford Open track days it would be cool to see another 128i on track !

[cerealwars]

Originally Posted by Spielmp3206

I have almost exactly the same config black base slick top 6 speed 128i

I am planning on taking my 128i to the remaining for the year Waterford Open track days it would be cool to see another 128i on track !

That's awesome! I'm surprised at all the slicktop cars I see on here, I suppose I should have looked harder when I was looking for my car.

I live walking distance from the track. It's my favorite track in Michigan out of the 3 I've been to. Feel free to hit me up when you sign up, my life is getting pretty busy lately but I really want to make at least one more Waterford track day this year.

I don't have an oil cooler on my car, and I'm on stock brakes so I'll still be taking it a little easier. When I was in my Miata I had a pretty good line figured out there. Miss that car.

[tracer bullet]

Originally Posted by cerealwars

I live walking distance from the track.

Nice! That would certainly make a person get more interested in actually having track car!

[cerealwars]

Man, I keep saying I'm gonna update this thread and I keep falling further behind. I have been having a lot of fun in this car. I still find the balance between comfort and fun to be remarkable. The powerband, the silky gearshift, and that luxury/fun balance weirdly reminds me of my old Z31 300zx (my first fun car) that I had about 14 years ago.

Onto the car's first track day!

Two of my buddies got married this summer (to women, lol) and they're not real big partyers, so they rented out Gingerman for a track day. It made it pretty light-hearted since most of us know each other from college. Coming from a well-sorted Miata, I thought it would be fun to get back into something a little looser/less track-focused. Gingerman is a big track, so you're napping on the straights in a 110whp car, so I was excited for the improvement there also. I hoped the electronic nannies wouldn't hold me back too bad.

I made a last-minute effort to swap my base/comfort suspension over to the factory 128i sport suspension. Shoutout to Spidertri for shipping his stock springs (packaged like a pro btw) over to me on short notice. Despite my best efforts, I messed up and forgot to order front bumpstops. The good news was that I did manage to replace the rear stuff, where the shocks were completely toast. No fluid at all left in the one.





Made it to the track!

I had a great time. My first session I was re-learning the track, and feeling out the car. Haven't driven hard on all-seasons in a few years so there it was all a big adjustment. I also managed to get the brake fade power reduction to kick in. Kind of a dangerous "safety feature" on the track lol.

By the second session I was becoming more comfortable and consistent, but I noticed the car understeers atrociously regardless of how I turned in. No matter what, I could not get the car properly loaded up in the corners, it simply wanted to push. I guess the comfort front & sport rear suspension combo was terrible, but at least the car was holding up fine. It seemed very strange to me that this combo resulted in understeer.

By the third session, it had started raining steadily. This disappointed many of the other drivers, but me and my buddy Mike (stock Lexus SC400) were excited to fool around with our cars in the wet. The corner marshalls were surprisingly cool with our shenanigans, even encouraging us a few times. Probably because everyone else brought 400+hp or FWD cars, they went into the paddock once it got slippery. We made sure to be courteous with point-bys to the few guys still attempting to drive quickly.

We had so much fun taking turns driving each other, learning how to link some turns together and how to get our cars sideways. Really wish I got a picture of our cars together, but luckily we got some action shots.

[spidertri]

Definitely jealous that you're within walking distance to the track, that's awesome. Car looks great!

[cerealwars]

Originally Posted by spidertri

Definitely jealous that you're within walking distance to the track, that's awesome. Car looks great!

Thank you! She's a good 20-footer for sure. Unfortunately things have since gotten worse cosmetically.

---

Let's bring this thread all the way up to date.

I got the front sport shocks/springs on. Along with some Dinan camber plates and giving the tophats a good shove inboard, the car handles 1000x better. Still some understeer at the limit, and these all-seasons squawk a lot, but a MUCH better car to drive now. Very enjoyable. Ultimately I want it to take a nice set mid-corner, instead of pushing like it does. I see M3 control arms far off on the horizon, maybe next year. But before I do that, I need to finish the sport suspension conversion by adding a rear swaybar. I'm still debating on 13mm vs 15mm, since it's probably not a job I want to do twice.





Here's the fitment with E90 style 285s wrapped in 225/45/17, combined with the camber plates and dowel pin removal. Zero issues rubbing front or rear.

I came across some heated sport seats for sale, so I jumped on them. Thanks gixxracer for the easy transaction. Dude is super knowledgeable, and it was cool of him to show me some of his serious projects (they're all E82s!). I disconnected the battery, waited 20 minutes, took the seats out, swapped my seatbelt receivers over, and plopped them in. They're amazing! I still need to get the lumbar/thigh supports working though. I believe I'm missing some wires on the vehicle side to power these features. If anyone has insight here, I'd love to hear it.

On Tuesday morning I was headed into work, just cruising about 45mph on Detroit surface streets. All of a sudden I hear what sounds like a weak gunshot above my head.

The fuck was that?!

All of a sudden there's a cascade of glass raining down on me. I'm looking around, there's not a single car in front of me. No trees either. Nothing overhead.





Well, that sucks. Not only did my sunroof explode, the shrapnel wrecked my paint on the roof as well as the decklid. It was already a bit scuffed to begin with, but now it's really trashed.

Since then, I've learned this actually happens a lot more than you'd think. There's dozens of examples of it on BMW forums. And after consulting with both a reputable bodyshop and a close friend, we arrived at the decision that having it fixed under my comprehensive insurance just isn't worth it. I'm ordering a used sunroof ASAP. If anyone has any leads on a jet black decklid, let me know!

_____________________________________________




Well, let's remember how she was. Last decent pic I took before the explosion happened (lol, so dramatic).

Until next time. --Bob

[Blau]

Originally Posted by WrathOTM

How have you liked the Injen throttle controller? Have my eye on doing one of those sometime soon.

Originally Posted by WrathOTM

Thanks for the response and details, I'm still considering it either way. I know there are couple brands that make these, but need to re-find them once again.

I did the burger PBX. I like it. It's definitely made the car a little more jumpy. Kind of like a puppy when someone gets home. It can be fun, but it's not perfect.

I'll keep it till I do headers. Then I'll get a "real" tune.

[cerealwars]

Updates! All minor stuff, but still important to me.

Fixed my sunroof with one from ebay for ~$80.

My hood release cable broke while at the track. Replaced just the front cable and now the hood release feels buttery smooth! If your release is hard to pull, like mine was, I recommend replacing it before it breaks completely and you have to deal with doing a B&E on your own car's engine compartment.

First off, I did another track day, this time a proper one (good weather) at my local track. Waterford Hills is my favorite track in Michigan, I'm lucky to live so close to it. In preparation, I ordered up the parts to complete my sport package conversion by adding a 15mm sway bar off an AWD E90.

Did you know? You can fit the sway bar in the car backwards, with zero interference issues until you drive the car! You will hear it clunking on the frame, and you will feel like an idiot.


If your installed sway bar looks like this, your job is not even halfway done. You dope.

Other notes from the install:
-Be prepared to tap every sway bar mounting hole. You can use generic M8 hex bolts for the bushing brackets as well as the endlink mounts in the knuckle. This part probably took longer than anything else. Embrace the suck.
-Having a friend to help you feed the bar through is extremely helpful! Especially if they're experienced in finaggling car parts through tight places.
-I had to remove 3/4 bolts from the subframe, and leave the front driver's mount bolt threaded in only a few turns in order to achieve the clearance required to snake the bar in. It can definitely be done, again it is much easier with a helper. Just watch your brake lines and make sure they don't stretch too much!


Fitting the tap in there. Couldn't fit a standard tap handle in there, so I used a tiny (~4" long) crescent wrench to torque on it.

-Driving impressions-
Oh my god the car is finally balanced!!! After being turned off by the understeery nature of this car, I'm so happy I had reserved my judgment until my sport package conversion was complete. It's amazing now! Holds a very good set mid-corner. It still tends to push a bit when you give it throttle mid-corner, but at least it feels 1000x more balanced. As in, all the tires are being utilized 90% or more to adhere the car to the pavement. This completely made my track day.



Those are my two friends in the background. We all pushed each other to get our shit done in preparation for the track day. My buddy with the MR2 had some basic maintenance to finish, but he was seriously busy at work. My other friend has a really sick E30 he just finished building, but his differential blew up two days before the track day. Yet, we all made it! Mission success.

With no oil cooler and stock brakes, by the end of the day I was roasting both. Good! I must be getting faster. Oil temps hit 285* a couple of times, and my front brakes were pretty smoky coming in after only 6 laps on the track. Looks like I will have a few more junkyard upgrades in store for this wonderful car.



Couple of bonus photos. Cheers!