Diaries of a Daily Driver

[GunMetalGrey]

@patsbimmer1 has gotten out his crystal ball and predicted that in 6 months time I will be going single turbo on this. 
The clock has started. 

Anyone wanna place bets?

[GunMetalGrey]

Did some preventative performance this weekend and installed a new pipe from the upper intercooler connection to the throttle body. Apparently these like to blow apart so I figured I may as well take care of it before then. 
Old one out

New one in

I also realized that the lower connection to the intercooler is plastic, so I will likely be finding a replacement for that.

Picked up some heavily discounted inlets because I can't help myself.

Those will likely go in some time this week.

I also fixed the rusty plate holder that was dripping rust and had the plate held in with cable ties.

Jake pointed out how spotted my rotors were getting, which isn't surprising given the fact that they seem to start vibrating fairly aggressively when hot, and the whole brake setup has never been that great in my opinion. 

I may end up changing out the pads and rotors. We shall see. 

I am pretty sure the exhaust gaskets I just did are blowing out again as well. Time to find MLS variants

[suspenceful]

Sweet.

That lower charge pipe is an upgradable option via VRSF. I'm sure you can contact them and they will sell it individually if you want it.

PS: Make sure the allen screw is tight in the charge pipe. A lot of them are sold loose, then eventually fall out and people get a massive boost leak.

[GunMetalGrey]

suspenceful said:

Sweet.

That lower charge pipe is an upgradable option via VRSF. I'm sure you can contact them and they will sell it individually if you want it.

PS: Make sure the allen screw is tight in the charge pipe. A lot of them are sold loose, then eventually fall out and people get a massive boost leak.

Yeah I found the lower pipe as a standalone from them this morning. 

I assume you are talking about the two small set screws in bungs on the upper pipe. I tightened them down, and could see that being a real problem if you didn't lol. Thanks for the heads up!

[GunMetalGrey]

My passenger side headlight was aimed at the ground yesterday. 
Either the adjuster popped out, or it was grumpy about the humidity. 

Time will tell.

New brake rotors are needed badly, it pulses now and the wheel shakes under braking, very similar to the first time I test drove it.

[GunMetalGrey]

The brakes were getting irritating so they got replaced.
I forgot to buy wear sensors, but it looks like the plugs were cut and the sensors must have been coded out at some point because there are no sensors and no codes. 

Centric high carbon rotors with EBC red stuff pads. I also adjusted the parking brake while I was in there, and everything is feeling much gooderer. 

Only one rotor retaining screw gave me hell. 
Tried drilling and that wasn't going super well, so I welded a bolt into it, and twisted the bolt head off, then welded a nut to it and luckily that solved the problem.

Initial impressions of the brakes are good, they bite better than whatever was in there before and the lack of a shaking steering wheel is oh so nice. 

Headlight returned to normal operation as well.

[suspenceful]

Nice. The wear sensor wires are probably shorted. If you cut off the sensor and twist/solder/crimp the wires together, the light goes away.

[patsbimmer1]

They were shorted after the plug so new sensors could be put in if you wanted.  I inspected the brakes frequent enough between regular rotations that I didn't find them necessary.

[straight6pwr]

suspenceful said:

Nice. The wear sensor wires are probably shorted. If you cut off the sensor and twist/solder/crimp the wires together, the light goes away.

a design that BMW hasnt changed since the 70s. i'm honestly surprised they didnt muck it up with some techno-wizardry sensor apparatus that needs coding.

[suspenceful]

patsbimmer1 said:

They were shorted after the plug so new sensors could be put in if you wanted.  I inspected the brakes frequent enough between regular rotations that I didn't find them necessary.

I did the same thing on my car

[Daggerty]

straight6pwr said:

a design that BMW hasnt changed since the 70s. i'm honestly surprised they didnt muck it up with some techno-wizardry sensor apparatus that needs coding.

That gave me a horribly great idea. They should put a sensor inside the caliper that measures the extension of the piston. So you have to replace or rebuild the caliper when it fails. Also it will need a module too control the inputs because it's tied into the abs system.

[GunMetalGrey]

Can I post truck things here?
Because I bought a truck...

The rabbit hole is real with this thing, so many fun things to do to it. 

(Pic next to previous daily for thread relevance)

[HipMF]

GunMetalGrey said:

Can I post truck things here?
Because I bought a truck...

The rabbit hole is real with this thing, so many fun things to do to it. 

(Pic next to previous daily for thread relevance) 

Nice rimz brah.

[SteelBlue]

HipMF said:

Nice rimz brah.

I think the wheels are pretty decent.

This thing made unloading the crane a breeze.

[GunMetalGrey]

I know no one like the truck, or the Subaru, so I refrained from posting anything about them. 
Subaru will be gone Friday (never ended up touching it), and the truck is still in the stable, and I'm pretty sure it will be for awhile. I love that thing, and so does anyone that drives it. The titan doesn't seem to handle like a normal truck.

Anywho, I got bored not posting in here, so I made the fiscally responsible decision to change that. 

I bought me one of them big ol' V8 things!
It's dirty as hell so I don't have full body pics, but it's a 2000 540 6mt with the M sport suspension and steering wheel. 132k on the clock, texas titled 4 years ago.
She needs a bit of love, but I think it will make the perfect winter beater

Step 1: Cut rear muffler out and replace with pipe
Step 2: Get it to idle on all cylinders (pulls smooth as hell, but doesn't like idling smoothly)

I can tell this is going to be a bit of a headache with weird chassis issues, but hey, what else would I be doing?

[Jdesign]

Is this the one that I posted that people were saying had a salvage title? Either way it seems like a fun buy!

[GunMetalGrey]

Jdesign said:

Is this the one that I posted that people were saying had a salvage title? Either way it seems like a fun buy!

It is, we shall see if that sticks though. I'll explain more later.

I've wanted a V8 of this nature for another chassis at some point, so the salvage title didn't bug me as I will likely just end up stealing the motor and trans out of it. 
I also ended up paying about 25% less than what it was posted for on FB, so I've got a bit of a budget to clean it up a bit!

[SteelBlue]

GunMetalGrey said:

It is, we shall see if that sticks though. I'll explain more later.

I've wanted a V8 of this nature for another chassis at some point, so the salvage title didn't bug me as I will likely just end up stealing the motor and trans out of it. 
I also ended up paying about 25% less than what it was posted for on FB, so I've got a bit of a budget to clean it up a bit!

[Jdesign]

GunMetalGrey said:

It is, we shall see if that sticks though. I'll explain more later.

I've wanted a V8 of this nature for another chassis at some point, so the salvage title didn't bug me as I will likely just end up stealing the motor and trans out of it. 
I also ended up paying about 25% less than what it was posted for on FB, so I've got a bit of a budget to clean it up a bit!

NICCCCCCEEEEEE. You got a good deal.

[YoungCR]

congrats on the purchase! Replace the spark plugs and see if that fixes the idle, could just need a basic tune up. The fuel pressure regulator is another cheap preventative maintenance item.