jc43089

Hey Guys, unfortunately the crack on my rear 225M is too bad to safely repair and I've had zero luck finding a replacement without buying a new one from the dealer. 
 
If anyone comes across a clean/reasonably priced set of staggered (19x8.5 and 19x9) style 351M wheels from an F10 Msport in the Milwaukee area let me know, looking to buy a set before the spring.
They look fantastic on E91's in my opinion.  

Im aware of the DMV 5 day pass, but I'm a risk taker and snow slop seems easier. Besides I'm mostly driving back roads anyways with an occasional stop at the Starbucks for a white gurl frappe. 

White knuckle riot in the snow. Traction is limited with these old mud tires, and a welded diff makes almost any throttle input spin the tires. 
I will be sure to post here when I end up stuck in a ditch 🤣.

SPOILER ALERT
I ordered a Turner Motorsport rear spoiler and had it painted. Test fitment shown while waiting on some 3M adhesion promoter wipes to arrive from the amazon.
 

 

 

Got a box just before Christmas but didn't open until after I got back in town as I didn't have my gift totally squared away yet. Opened it up and found a really awesome promotional poster for the first 318i (the other side has tons of cool info and pictures), an original sales brochure for the E91 (space gray one on the cover too!), and an 8 foot wide BMW Motorsport banner that will look excellent hanging in my garage! Thanks a ton @YoungCR!!!

 

Do it for Dale

Some of the guys at work did a quick edit of my car for me from a different video we shot.  I fucked the definition quality some how but you get the idea.
 

Opened up my box this morning to find one of @B C's famous christmas renditions
Do you Hear What I Hear?
Said the girl friend of the 5er driver,
do you see what I see?
Right there on the dash, 5er driver,
do you see what I see?
A light, a light, flashing in the night
With a noise that gives you a fright
With a noise that gives you a fright
Said the brother of the 5er driver,
do you hear what I hear?
Clanking from the front, both could hear,
Yes I hear what you hear
A knock, a knock, coming from the block
You have got to be kidding me please
You have got to be kidding me please
Said the 5-er driver to his brother,
do you know what I know?
In your drain pan there's a shiny thing,
do you know what I know?
It's wild, it's wild the filter's not that old
But the drain pan is all filled with gold
But the drain pan is all filled with gold
Said Blackstone to the 5er driver,
Listen to what I say
Pray for luck, because we think you're fucked,
There is copper every-where!
There is copper every-where!
The oil, the oil, it really isn't right
That five twenty Is much much too light
That five twenty is much much too light
Enclosed was a Official BMW safety vest kit for when I inevitably get stranded by German reliablility and some hot sauce! Thanks Brian!

Crazy right? I would think something ran by the government would have a 100% success rate 

Here's a variety of things happening. 
The car has been parked since the rally. So far I have Bilstein Sport shocks/struts, HR Race Springs, Supersprint Catback (Black Friday sale from Turner), ST sway bar kit, new rotors and pads, and DSSR. On my list of things to get yet are coolant hoses, better short shift kit, new fuel pump and some other odds and ends. This last round should address all of the major systems that I haven't touched yet and hoping it will give me extended periods of driving with only minimal/routine maintenance. 
Our house addition is progressing. The inside is drywalled and I believe they will be starting on 1st floor floors next week. Our contractor is hoping to have the interior done around April. And my conversion of the garage into a shop continues. I put in cabinets to accommodate the fridge that was in the house that will now be in the garage. Painting some walls tonight so I can rotate things from unfished walls to finished walls to continue working.
Winter projects in the garage include: 
Building a garden shed so the existing garden shed can become a toy shed.  Building built-in cabinets and shelves in the house that we took on ourselves to save some money Laying carpet and floating floors myself on the second floor of the house to save money

VAC rear sway bar reinforcements installed. Yay!

Tank is in, everything clears...

Those thread inserts are excellent.  We used them at the Hormel shop frequently when threaded holes were needed in plastic or UHMW parts so that the threads wouldn't tear out.  They are much better than a helicoil for things that get disassembled frequently, like a drain plug.  Now it will be stronger than new.  Please torque to 150 ft/lbs for science.

Watching!

The year was 2020. It was an unseasonably warm November evening, just after sundown on the outskirts of Milwaukee. I hopped into my E46 M3 with my 9 year old daughter who pleaded with me to go for one last drive in it before putting it away for the winter.  On our drive we passed some dealerships and I decided to take a quick look at what was on the lot. As we walked towards the new car section of the local BMW dealership. It was dark enough that the parking lot was illuminated but still easy enough to see a new G22 chassis code 440i x-drive with its controversial front grille. I took a look around the car to see if the polarizing style would be better from different angles and wondered if within time I would get used to it and realize that perhaps BMW was brilliant and ahead of their time, but I just wasn't seeing it.  
Parked next to the 440i was a new fwd-based 228i listed for $45k and scoffed at both the price tag and how small the interior was, immediately thinking about who might buy such an expensive and impractical car. I kept walking expecting to see some kind of M-sport model that would catch my attention that perhaps I could look forward to owning sometime in the next 10 years. 
My daughter shares a sliver of my BMW enthusiasm. With her curious excitement, she asked me which of all these new BMWs I would pick. As I paused and looked around, taking her question fairly seriously,  I glanced at the 4-series, a row of 2-series, some more basic 330's. 

"None of them. I honestly would not pick any of them.”

 In that peculiar moment I was surprised by my own response.
Once upon a time in Salt Lake City I was a 9 year old boy in the parking lot of an Acura dealership, struck with awe at a single car that captured my attention and completely changed my perception of a brand. Today, I am struck with awe that I cannot find a single car that captures my attention on the BMW lot. 
Once upon a time in Munich, the Ultimate Driving Machine was not so hard to identify.
 

 
END

Finally got the carriers, so the calipers are on. Still need to get some anti-rattle clips. The e46 caliper piston is about 5mm larger than the e30. On another good note i've got the flex sensor harness run through the firewall and wired in, I will be working on mounting and plumbing that in soon. It's going to be badass not ever worrying about the fuel you put in the car. With the flex sensor the ECU will automatically adjust the VE table and ignition table for ethanol %. 

Relevant 

Starting the 5 lug conversion on the front end using the IRP kit, e46 bearings, and e46 325i brakes. Threw on some new sway bar end links while I was at it since those were crusty. I'm still waiting for the carriers to come in the mail. I will update with some comparison of the calipers, the piston diameter is quite close from e30 to e46. 


e30 (260mm) vs e46 rotor (300mm)


e30 Hawk HPS (which are trash) vs e46 Textar, not a huge difference. The textar is taller and wider.

 

It has been a beautiful week of driving! I even remembered to disconnect the battery tender before I pulled it out of storage and drove off.
I received my Blackstone report today. The big question was if a 3,000 mile OCI is just right, or too late for an engine that makes a lot of revolutions per mile. Also beneficial is establishing a benchmark for future bearing condition estimation.

 
I have not been fond of the high speed stability. It is stable enough but there isn’t much aligning torque and sometimes it tramlines way too easily on the freeway. Last summer when Big Bear checked the alignment, they set the camber plates at minimum caster since it leaves all of the camber bolts visible. I think they assumed I wanted to be able to adjust the camber easily (my best guess, see pictures below). The toe is fine within stock spec, but caster is less than stock which would explain the excessive tramlining. I’ve had enough and wanted to see how much difference it would make without wasting a trip to Big Bear and finding out something unsavory about running more caster.


 

 
At full negative caster the steering is slightly heavier and the excessive tramlining issue is gone! This means I will need to schedule another appointment next time driving season starts up to get the alignment precisely dialed again, this time with an added helping of caster.

One of these is not like the other.
Great shots.

new suspension, just in time for winter 

Weird looking racelands
 

Hey man, need some Z3 parts?   *sniff*  
Who’s going to inquire and see if they have an LSD?

@Bassboy3313 
@Rekpoint
@Jdesign

I successfully seated the piston rings last weekend. The engine sounds amazing. I installed my s54 swap cluster from "e30 clusters" on Facebook. They did an awesome job. I installed a check engine light and hooked up the oil temp sensors.

#Merica!