My 1997 M3 (That I'm not going to part out anymore)

[Jdesign]

patsbimmer1 said:

 Mogies and Dooleys and you went to Mondovi to Norske Nook in Osseo.  

[GunMetalGrey]

I'm so stoked you did that for me Jason ^ 

I read it and felt the same way.

[patsbimmer1]

Up nort things

[Rekpoint]

ChrisO said:

I'm an absolute idiot

When are we getting a 10 month update?

[ChrisO]

Rekpoint said:

When are we getting a 10 month update?

Heres my year and a half update lmao

This past summer I basically did nothing to the car, my Passat sat dead in the street and I just daily drove the M3 in near stock form.

In early November I got the Passat going and the M3 went into hibernation, I've slowly been doing random things here and there and put in a big order recently

My goals for the spring are to have the suspension completely sorted, lose a ton of weight and do some engine upgrades to try and make a little more power, I really want to get into doing some autocross and make a all around nice street car for the weekends that feels a little bit more raw to drive

The first thing I did was a deep clean, the interior and engine bay got pretty dirty driving the car every day last summer

 

The LTW seats are going to be washed and extracted soon. For a while I really wanted bucket seats but I decided the best thing to do for the car is to just keep the full factory airbags and restraints in place.

Pulled out my broken SAP and got the delete plates

The harness for my HK amp was cut when I got the car, and the radio was missing. All of the speakers were replaced with cheap Infinity ones so I just pulled them all out. I dont really ever listen to music when I drive the car, and believe it or not I probably saved about 40lbs between all of the speakers, the amp and the cassette player

Factory LTW radio delete panel

Next I wanted to pull some more weight, so I moved to the rear of the car to pull out all of the trunk carpet, sound deadening and rear seats. I want to keep this clean, so the factory wires will all be loomed and I'm thinking the rear seat area and trunk will be sprayed and glossed in the factory color by a friend of mine at a body shop in the spring

everything forward interior wise I'm keeping, all of the carpet and interior panels

I've been looking into light weight batteries so I can shed another 25lbs from the rear

I'm going back to plastic headlights because they weigh a lot less then my glass ones, and they also look gross missing all of the inside covers

Brand new floormats

New flex disc, center support bearing, fuel filter, all the bolts and exhaust hangers etc.

For power upgrades I picked up a bimmerworld 3.5" intake elbow and got rid of the asc throttle body.

I also picked up a AFE intake used, but unfortunately the head shield weighs like 20lbs, is rusty af and it doesn't fit quite right with the 3.5" maf even with trimming the bimmerworld elbow a ton. The intake is for a 3" setup, but the inside diameter of the pipe is close to 3.5", it bottle necks right before it to probably around 3.25", but I don't think it'll make a noticeable difference? As long as I can prevent heat soak

Picked up a M50 manifold kit from bimmerworld, and Gibsons came through with a absolutely perfect M50 manifold for like $10

Soon I'll be looking into getting some headers and a tune of some sort

I also picked up a UUC clutch stop, poly trans mounts, shifter rebuild parts and the bimmerworld pedal cover set in black (that I forgot to take pictures of installed)

I'd couldn't recommend the covers more, they are super grippy, not flashy and improve the pedal feel so much

After 2 months, my custom race height RTD V2 shifter and DSSR came in the mail, so I'm really excited with how it's gonna feel

Another thing that I had to wait for and got lucky with, a factory BMW motorsport shift knob to go with the RTD shifter.

 @Rekpoint sold me some kind of GT style low rise wing, probably gonna try and get risers for it

Also tracked down a pacific BMW plate frame, from the dealership that my car was sold new at

Andddd on Saturday I'll be picking up a first gen Max Velocity Evo splitter from the Plymouth area!

Sorry this update is all over and I'm a incompetent writer

[KaiserRolls]

https://antigravitybatteries.com/
 

Good luck on your hypermiling adventures

[YoungCR]

Nice touch on the license plate frame

[Rekpoint]

You sir need a cool momo steering wheel.

[B C]

Nice update, great things are happening!

[patsbimmer1]

Looking good!  I like all of the little touches.

[m42b32]

Golfball gang!!

[ChrisO]

Small update

Old shift linkage is out, new dssr and RTD shifter are in! This shifter is absolutely worth the money and it feels great 

I also wanted to make sure everything lined up good so I put in the poly trans mounts first. Really pleased that they only took about 5 minutes to put in

Crawling around under a car really takes a lot of energy 🥵

 last weekend I picked up the Max Velocity Evo front lip and will be messing around with that tomorrow

[ChrisO]

The weather has been great the last few days, not ready to hit the roads but I was able to pull the car out and give it a wash 

Super happy with how the car looks

Heres a shot of the black Bimmerworld pedals up close

And a closer shot of the shifter set up

[Rekpoint]

Looks great. Did you use the boot trick when installing the RTD? People take the stock rubber boot that seals off the trans tunnel and they turn it upside down and install it with the RTD

[SteelBlue]

I think RTD is the same one that @suspenceful has? Maybe a different model, but the feel of his is like a bolt action shifter, feel was awesome.

[suspenceful]

SteelBlue said:

I think RTD is the same one that @suspenceful has? Maybe a different model, but the feel of his is like a bolt action shifter, feel was awesome.

Yup, I have an RTD in the 135i and his looks almost identical. Great shifters, can't mistake which gear you're putting it, that's for sure!

[ChrisO]

Graduated college and moved back to Green Bay for a month, then Ill be moving down to the Madison area!

Went to the local pick and pull today to get some parts for my Passat, and found a 99 vert out in the yard. It was 100% rust free and I managed to snag the x-brace, the guy behind the counter let me have it for free

It had a bit of surface rust so I cleaned it up with the wire wheel and sanded it down for paint

Painted it with some high temp caliper paint

Nice that the M3's have the mounting threads in the subframe already, and thankfully all the holes lined up perfect. Took maybe 15 minutes to put it in, start to finish

Pretty happy that I now have an x-brace and it cost me nothing and took little effort to put in!! I was also looking to get a x brace soon because when I dropped my exhaust I found that the OEM cross bar had taken a nasty hit at some point and wasn't even close to straight anymore

[P_Roloff]

Looks great! I hope to see the car when you move down to Madison!

[SteelBlue]

Do you just screw those pedal covers into the existing pedals?

[ChrisO]

SteelBlue said:

Do you just screw those pedal covers into the existing pedals?

Drilled and bolted in with lock nuts, the brake pedal is steel so it’s extremely solid. The gas pedal cover is just screwed in