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

ChrisO

Update

Did a few things the past week, I found out where my interior water leak is coming in. I first cleaned my cowl and cowl drains in the firewall, and unfortunately the water is coming in where the AC/Heat unit goes through the firewall. There is a gasket that goes between the firewall and the unit and mine has failed apparently. When water goes into the cowl under the windshield, most drains out like it should but a good portion leaks past the gasket into the cabin. This is a stupid big job, and now I have to get my AC released and drain my coolant as well as remove my whole dash and dash bars to remove the unit

Also the foam gasket I had to order was $44...

Anyway, for now I have to wait over 10 days for my gasket to come from Germany. Most places wouldn't ship it until late June.

I'm still going to move forward with the car and just keep it out of the rain until my gasket comes.

I put my glass headlights in and aligned my front end up the other day

My shifter was supperrr sloppy and hard to find gears, I found out that it's possible to replace the shift lever bushing from the top so that was a good start. Feels much better and is tight, but 3rd gear is pretty hard to distinguish from 5th. The shift linkage will need further work, my previous M3 shifter felt much better I want that feeling again

After I picked up the car from Chicago, the car started Idling like shit pretty much right after I got home. I found that the ICV hose had cracked in 4 places where it connected to the intake. While I was at the junkyard I cut a chunk of ICV hose from a e36 and cut off the cracked part of mine and made this. This seems to work great, and I made sure it doesn't hit my throttle cable. I wasn't about to pull my intake manifold...

3.5in maf came on this car for absolutely no reason also

No pics, but my LTW seats wouldn't just plug into my new M3 because the seatbelt plugs are different on a 98.5+, so yesterday night I swapped pyro seatbelt tensioners from my vaders onto my LTW seats that had mechanical tensioners. It was absolutely horrible and involved me having to constantly remove and replace my 700lb electric vaders in the car so I could adjust them to swap bolts around from the seat frames. It took forever, but if you take the time to swap everything over the seat frames are the same. Managed to stay airbag light free

Finally, today I threw in my rear BC coilovers and leaned how to set preload on the springs and adjust the shocks. Never had nice suspension before, so that was fun.

Deja vu, basically looks like were I was at with my old car lmao

Final rear ride height, digging the wing.

ChrisO

Did a few things this past week, hopefully I can offer more technical updates soon haha

I'm a huge fan of vinyl windshield banners, DTM or Supertouring style

I went to the craft store looking for vinyl that was the length of a windshield, it just so happens that Joanne Fabric sell 4ft by 12in strips of vinyl in every color for those Cricket cake and vinyl machines, $9.99

Wide enough to have up to 8in of reduced visibility

After my exhaust gaskets came, I threw on my Billy Boat catback that I picked up from @Rekpoint

It was actually pretty hard getting that right pipe to slide off of the midpipe, I didn't know they slide into eachother.

yea, thats a jack and 4 jackstands to support just the rear of the car. ️

I want to not cut corners with this car, but here I am cutting corners. Instead of buying fog light deletes, I just prepped and painted my fog lights because I had some color matched paint laying around. I did this because my fog lights aren't OEM, and it was free basically. If I wanna go back I'll buy nice ones. I also removed the bulbs so I don't accidentally turn the lights on.

No hanging plugs too

After wet sanding and installed, they need to be adjusted along with the bumper still.

Bassboy3313

keep in mind that I make custom vinyl decals for cheap, including windshield banners. Check out my facebook page ... Rage Drift Designs ... for some pics of previous work I have done. I give a WIBIMMERS discount too.

straight6pwr

Bassboy3313 said:

keep in mind that I make custom vinyl decals for cheap, including windshield banners. Check out my facebook page ... Rage Drift Designs ... for some pics of previous work I have done. I give a WIBIMMERS discount too.

+1, you do great work!

YoungCR

I wouldn't call the fog lights "cutting corners", its a creative solution!

Rekpoint

Looks good! I demand an exhaust demo...

ChrisO

I know it seems like I keep posting pretty much the same thing over and over, but soon I should be able to change it up.

Something fun will be here on Monday, and I should be getting something from @Bassboy3313 soon too

Cleaned the inside of my front arches today and installed and adjusted my front BC coilovers

Although I forgot to take a pic of the arches cleaned and coilovers installed ‍️

Went with 12mm spacers

Everything installed, close to how I want it to sit

The rears aren't on anymore because the rear springs settled and the tires started to rub when I rolled it in my garage. Gonna adjust them tomorrow and throw the rear wheels on

Bonus pics, cleaned my engine bay up a bit

Missing a hose clamp on the intake still, I'm not sure why the PO went though all the hassle to put a 3.5in MAF in without any other mods. Kinda don't like seeing 5 hose clams in a row and all the extra couplers. Also this intake flops around and Isn't attached to anything

Daggerty

Engine bay looks nice, don't touch your washer reservoir with dirty hands mine is permanently ruined.

Well that 3.5 inch maf works wonders when you have a 3 inch pipe feeding it and then it going into a 2.5 inch throttle body.

Daggerty

I would sell it and just get a stock one it looks a lot cleaner

B C

Daggerty said:

Engine bay looks nice, don't touch your washer reservoir with dirty hands mine is permanently ruined.

Well that 3.5 inch maf works wonders when you have a 3 inch pipe feeding it and then it going into a 2.5 inch throttle body.

Yep, any and all gains come from the tune required to run the MAF

ChrisO

snap said:

Yep, any and all gains come from the tune required to run the MAF

I figured that, injectors are still pink and rev limit is still 7k so I doubt I have any sort of performance software flashed on the DME. Just thought it was strange how out of there way someone went to put this MAF in.

Rekpoint

Dude... Is that a Schwinn?

ChrisO

Rekpoint said:

Dude... Is that a Schwinn?

It's my sisters

ChrisO

So today this came:

My brother thought that it was garbage when he saw it on the porch because the box was so badly beaten. You couldn't even pick it up without it folding in half, so it's a miracle it's all mostly here.

It's a UUC branded SSBC BBK kit. It's probably pretty old, but the seals and pistons all look nice, and the brake lines are in good condition.

I'm pretty sure stock M brakes up front would have been sufficient for anything I ever do, but I always wanted a BBK and it was $200 for everything so I really couldn't pass them up!

The pads still have compound on them, but they are cracking it looks like, so new pads will be probably $100

All of the crush washers are stuck crushed so I need new ones. I don't really know where all the washers and stuff go so that'll be interesting. I figured out that the pins hold the pads in and the little cotter pins retain them

The seller said the rotors were junk but I said send them anyway, and sure enough they have plenty of material left to be put on a rotor lathe. + for slotted!

I cleaned them up the best I could, they are pretty stained but I think it looks kinda cool. Might try harder later.

Rekpoint

HAWT

YoungCR

Can’t go wrong with that for $200! Nice score.

SteelBlue

ChrisO said:

wheels are lookin thicc

ChrisO

Did some suspension adjusting today and threw the rear wheels on finally

Rear wheels rub when I hit bumps, I might have to go up a hair all around. My front and rear arches are mildly rolled already, so i'm going to rent a fender roller and roll them a bit more. I have adjustable rear control arms sitting in my garage, but I don't wanna have to run excessive camber and it's a pain moving the diff forward to put them in etc.

I was going to do my rear sway bar bushing and links today, but the bushings don't seem like they could possibly fit

I was trying to force the bracket around the bushing, and there is no way it's going in like that. I don't know if ecs sent me the wrong bushings on accident, or if I'm doing something wrong. A few years ago I was going to do the front sway bar bushings on my old M3 and I had the same problem. Bad luck twice?

B C

I hate those parts that are tough to install and dont seem quite right. It could just be that the bushing is designed such that it requires stretching in order to ensure that there is no slop. I have only ever dealt with urethane replacements. Rubber is the superior material but urethane is so much better for a DIYer to work with and easier for aftermarket production so urethane usually wins.

those beebs lookin’ real nice!

Jdesign

Looks like a bushing for the wrong DIA Sway bar.