My '05 Alpine ZHP "Daily"
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I also just received my M3 check panel in the mail. This will retain the speaker and heated seats buttons but give me the M3 “Sport” button which I was told is very important to how the car feels.
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Are you going to install the Mk60 ABS unit from the M3?
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You will want to spend the $25 or whatever on this program called ECUWorx so you can customize your settings and adjust your throttle mapping. Refer to the linked post here:
The S54 is one of the earlier adaptations of throttle by wire. It is a good system, but the stock throttle mapping drives me batty.
Normal mode/komfort mode throttle response is dead off the line and very flat, sometimes making you feel like you may stall the car if you are trying to get off the line very gradually. The rest of the normal mode throttle mapping is good and seems linear/natural enough.
Stock sport mode throttle mapping is insanity. Way too aggressive off the line and makes you accidentally slip the clutch if you aren't used to it/have been driving in normal mode for a while. The other reason I dont like the stock sport mode throttle mapping is it is so dead and flat near WOT, so when you are racing a Nissan Kicks SV for pink slips, teasing them along at 80% throttle and go for the WOT kill, you dont get 20% more throttle/power and can be disappointing. I have experimented a bit with the throttle mapping and tweaked it to something much more natural and enjoyable. Some people even tune it so WOT in normal mode is only 70-80% WOT as sort of an "eco mode" and then get 100% WOT only when sport mode is on. Fun idea, but ive had some hairball left turns where ive needed full steam ahead and need all of the beans in an instant.
What I ended up with turned out to be nearly identical to the throttle mapping on the Evolve tune. Since the MSS54 has dynamic timing advance, most tunes for the S54 wont do much more than adjust throttle mapping, remove top speed limiter, and will delete certain features that you ask them to. Some, like evolve will optimize the vanos maps a bit which is worthwhile, but a lot of the perceived gains are through throttle mapping, which is why ECUWorx is a badass little program.
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mk60 is the stuff of dreams
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And thats a wrap! (Almost)
The car runs and drives, after 5 hard working days! Things swapped were, S54 (OBVI), m3 fuel tank with pumps/lines, m3 cooling system, m3 DME, etc etc.
If anyone has any questions about the swap, please feel free to ask, I would love to help. It was very hard gathering all of the things needed to make this work and I want to help spread the word on whats all necessary.
the last problem I have to sort out is an o2 issue. I believe I have the ordering wrong, and am going to look into that tonight as the car is getting misfires on 1-3 and lean/rich codes.
I do have the air duct for the radiator support, just need to grab some clips for it.
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Update: o2's were backwards, flipped them and no check engine lights or anything. Motor runs great. Power is amazing
Bad news: Driveshaft CV joint couldn't hang and decided to take a poop. Oh well, at least the motor is all good. CV joint replacement time!
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I'm actually impressed you did this in 5 days. I had looked many years ago and all of the build threads talked about how hard it was and how the coding and combination of dme's was a nightmare. Nice job!
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I'm actually impressed you did this in 5 days. I had looked many years ago and all of the build threads talked about how hard it was and how the coding and combination of dme's was a nightmare. Nice job!
Thanks man! There were definitely a lot of parts involved and research.
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Took the car for a drive, everything is fixed and driving amazing! Just need a muffler setup welded on and we're done!
(also have to finish some coding to remove the DSC and engine light due to steering angle sensor which is to be removed)
Love this thing.
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Made some small improvements today. Got the tune setup to delete the Evap control circuit codes and realized I never plugged in my ambient air sensor. Got that plugged in and I finally have no check engine light. I also actually know what temperature it is outside now so thats nice. (Showed 128 degrees before constantly)
The one thing I am not going to run temporarily is a washer fluid reservoir because I never ever use my washer fluid and it's one less thing in the engine bay. I got rid of this light by putting a resistor on the plug.
Getting the AC charged and muffler put on Friday by a local shop! Need that ICE for the drive to Helen, GA in a few weeks.
I drove the car to Illinois and back for a cars and coffee and it did amazing. Very excited for the upcoming trip back to the cars home state to terrorize some twisty roads
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All check engine lights are officially clear! Exhaust is finished, ended up using full m3 exhaust into the ZHP muffler. In order for the m3 exhaust to properly clear the trans mounts, part of it had to be heated up and bent, but all worked out perfectly.
Some detailing/paint/brake work and then we are off to Sowo in Helen, GA for some mountain backroads!
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What are you running for diff mounts? Stock, or urethane?
New OEM mounts, I have urethane on some things like H&R strut bar. Wanted to keep a nice comfy ride on this thing
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New OEM mounts, I have urethane on some things like H&R strut bar. Wanted to keep a nice comfy ride on this thing
Im going to be changing to rubber soon. Was just curious if you had urethane and how the diff whine was.
What a great car!
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Helen was amazing! I cannot wait to go back next year.
The car did run into a few issues. With the 90 degree/high humidity weather, the car would get hot at idle. Came to find out that the M3's have a puller fan in front of the radiator that plays a huge roll in keeping the car cool at idle. So I will be installing that in the next few days. I will also be ditching the fan clutch and going back to the OEM ZHP electric fan. Other than that, the car handles absolutely amazing in the mountains and had no problem keeping up with my friends 997 C4S! We got to shred the backroads with a ton of R8'S, GT3'S, M2'S, M5's, a ton of nicely modified VW's, and a ton of other cars.
If this does not fix my problem, I am going to go ahead and do a complete cooling system refresh. Lets hope this fixes the problem. Here are a few photos of the car from the trip!
I also before I left spent a good amount of time cleaning up the engine bay, and polishing the VANOS unit.
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Also I forgot to add that I did refresh the brakes, the nastiest part of the car. The car is completely rust free, but these brakes were nasty. Was going to go with some 135i brakes, but ended up just doing stop-tech rotors/refinishing ZHP calipers for now. Maybe next year!
The entire front end of the car, along with the rear bumper also got resprayed before I left. The car had a decent amount of rock chips that always drove me insane & the back bumper got bumped downtown last winter.
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Yesterday I ended up ditching the Clutch fan and ACC fan in hopes that it would fix my overheating at idle issue. So far after about 2 hours of driving around in stop and go traffic, the car has been really good. It has never gone past half, as where before it went past half almost right away at any light. I still don't trust the setup fully, but it is for sure an improvement.
I installed my original ZHP E-fan in place of the old setup. In order to make this work I had to trim the lower half of the fan shroud to make it clear the oil cooler. I was able to re-use the top mounting bolt hole, but had to use radiator "ties" for the other 3 corners. This is an incredibly tight fit, but it works, barely! I am probably a quarter of an inch from my belts, and about the same from the water pump (where the clutch fan bolts to)
Excited to start enjoying this car again. I really believe this is a perfect all around car. I will forever own it!
***I ordered some custom plates finally! Can't wait to get them in 40 weeks!
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Finally got around to ordering a new center console for the ZHP. This is one of the things that have bothering me since I got the car. I ordered all new trays earlier in the year, but this was much needed! Makes the interior feel 10 years newer and makes the car feel like it has 100k less miles.
I also fixed my drivers window regulator yesterday. I bought a new one, but ended up being able to fix the existing one.
Going to clean all of my suede tomorrow. I am in search of a MINT drivers sport seat! Let me know if you guys know of any out there.
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