I done did it now... A new toy!

[i_love_cars]

there is a Meijr that opened up in Sussex that has E85 on pump. That now makes 2 gas stations within 5 miles of my house that have E85 on pump. I love ethanol.

[Rowleym]

Man some days I wish I lived near a city... I used to daily drive on e85, closest pump being 30 miles away haha.

[suspenceful]

patsbimmer1 said:

FBO, i've dabbled in ethanol.

Stock fuel system, or stage 1 inline pump?

Let's meet up soon! I want to see how the cars compare.

[patsbimmer1]

It's been awhile since I've updated this but not much as changed.  I got a great deal on some front drilled and slotted rotors that I threw on.  They work for normal street driving but I won't have any clue if they have any performance benefit until I get on the track with them.  I'm not expecting any difference between these and my solid rotors but they look cool.

I attempted to clean plastidip off of my two front winter wheels before putting them on a couple months ago and didn't get horribly far.  Plastidip is the work of the devil!  I tried peeling, then scraping, then goo gone and finally found that PB Blaster softened it but still wasn't very easy to clean off.  Finally I took a pressure washer to the wheels after softening the plastidip with PB Blaster.  I still didn't get it all off and haven't had the time to go at it again.  

I picked up a carbon fiber M Tech spoiler from ECS for a really good price and couldn't pass it up.  I have a buddy in Madison who does carbon fiber work touch it up a bit and I love it!  Right now I only have some crappy cell phone pictures.

Next mods will be coilovers and steel brake hoses.

[Daggerty]

Didn't like the spoiler at first, then I saw it from the side, can't wait to see it in person.

first picture made it look like the 10 dollar little 1 inch eBay spoiler.

[patsbimmer1]

Daggerty said:

Didn't like the spoiler at first, then I saw it from the side, can't wait to see it in person.

first picture made it look like the 10 dollar little 1 inch eBay spoiler.

The profile is definitely the money shot.  It kind of squares off the rear end a bit.  I like it more than the performance spoiler but i'd prefer to have a CSL trunk... maybe some day lol.

[Earl]

I don't remember the CSL trunk being so odd looking from the rear to me...

[patsbimmer1]

Earl said:

I don't remember the CSL trunk being so odd looking from the rear to me...

Depending on the angle it does look odd on the e90.  This looks better to me.

[Earl]

I think it might be how it looks with the non M bumper that makes it odd.

[patsbimmer1]

Shaping young minds this week and teaching an alignment class at work.  Of course my car is a training tool.

[Jdesign]

Where is this at? Does not seem to look too low friendly..

[patsbimmer1]

@JdesignI'm a Regional Service Manager with Farm and Fleet.  My car was pushing the limits of low to get over hump from the ramps to the lift BUT I have gotten much lower cars on the racks to align them.  Ask Justin Torres or Brian Luck if you know those guys.

[Jdesign]

I do know those guys, Justin better than Brian, but I am just looking for someone that I know personally that has a low friendly lift. String alignments are only so accurate.

[patsbimmer1]

Jdesign said:

I do know those guys, Justin better than Brian, but I am just looking for someone that I know personally that has a low friendly lift. String alignments are only so accurate.

I aligned Justin's Passat Wagon when he worked for me, an mk5 Golf that was slammed on static and a few other low cars from either customers or friends of those guys.  It's possible to get low cars up with the help of some strategically placed boards but it's hard for me to commit to showing up to a store to do it.  A guy that used to work for me is at Big Bear and I've talked to a few people who use them for alignments and it's always positive.

[Jdesign]

Yeah, I got an alignment there many many moons ago and have always heard good things.

[patsbimmer1]

A couple updates:

I put my new clutch in this past Saturday.  My old one started slipping in 4th-6th at WOT so I bought a 335is/550i clutch.  It took me about 9-10 hours to get it done, book time is 7 so I was pretty happy with that.  My brother in law was there to help me get the trans out/put in but other than that it's a pretty easy job.  There are 2 top bolts that are a real pain but once I figured out that I could get them from up top it went a lot easier.  The clutch alignment tool I had also wasn't going to work with the OE pressure plate because of the SAC lock that comes on it so I ended up making my own tool with a socket and duct tape.  Worked perfect!  I did have an urge to spray paint my trans silver while it was out... I'm spending too much time talking to Earl.  I didn't paint it.

Now for the test drive... that didn't happen.  Why you ask?  Because my DME fried itself on Friday.  I was driving along when all of a sudden I lost power, CEL came on then started flashing.  I pulled the codes immediately and had a slew of codes that all pointed to bank 2.  I pulled over and immediately thought it was coil packs so I started swapping coil packs between the banks with no change.  I checked wires, wiggle tested components, etc.  I cleared codes and scanned it again and I got a 30bb code which is Internal DME Failure.  Finally, I limped it home (literally) and pulled my DME.  Watched a quick tutorial and learned how to check the mosfets.  Found that I had a bad mosfet for cyl 5 which caused the 30bb which shut down bank 2.  There's a TSB out there for this that confirmed everything.  Snap got me the part # for the mosfet and I found out it doesn't exist anymore so I ordered what I hope is right.  I paid for next day shipping on Friday only to wait until today to get it.  It hit Milwaukee on Saturday am at 5:30am so I was very hopeful i'd see it by late afternoon Saturday.  No such luck.  Thanks for fucking me UPS.

Now, desoldering the old mosfet was as simple as putting my heat gun really close for a few seconds until I could pull it off (which I figured out after attempting to desolder it with my soldering iron).  Tonight I will learn how to solder a surface mount component onto the board and hope it all works.  I'll let everyone know how that works out for me.

[Earl]

Good luck=)

[patsbimmer1]

I got the part today, rushed home and nervously attacked it with a soldering iron while my son attempted to "help" by climbing up to the table and smacking his car on it.  I'm not good at soldering so it looked like shit but it held.  I plugged it in and hooked up my battery to find i had no power at the key.  I freaked out and started probing fuses.  I rechecked the battery and realized I missed a cable.  Got that hooked up and voila!  Power!  I started the car and it ran perfect!  Then I noticed smoke coming near the dme, took a small shit in my pants and shut the car off.  After a quick inspectiom I remembered that my downpipe gaskets were nonexistent and it was exhaust smoke.  Phew!

I went for a drive on a stock tune and she drove great!  One wot in 2nd just to make sure it was running alright and put 5 miles on flawlessly.

#n54problems

[B C]

The anxiety caused by the exhaust smoke and battery cable would surely take a few months off of someones life. How much would a dealer have charged for a new DME had you been an average BMW owner?

[patsbimmer1]

Snap said:

The anxiety caused by the exhaust smoke and battery cable would surely take a few months off of someones life. How much would a dealer have charged for a new DME had you been an average BMW owner?

Well, Brand new I believe is north of $2000 but you can buy used MSD80 DME's for $300~.  It wouldn't have been the end of the world but I wouldn't have been happy.