Bringing my dad's car back to its former glory and beyond

[2mAn]

Car looks great, its come quite far!

[dadsbmw]

Happy 4th of July!

[pandaboo911]

Where abouts in SF Bay are you? greetings from campbell :P

I noticed you 3d printed a hose barb for your booster where normally a check valve would go. Might want a check valve so you have brakes if your engine dies.

The vibration you have could be the oreilly axle. I broke several OEM axles with an N/A s52. in my experience the diff and DS are not the weak point.
The oreilly axles also have a smaller CV joint than OEM judging by your pictures. Does the vibration come through to the gear lever?

I have to agree with you about fitment issues. Your wheels are square width so I don't understand the purpose of staggered tire sizes. You'd be a lot better off with something like 235/40 square, which the the widest size you can realistically fit on stock fenders. That would require a fender roll and front camber plates though.

here's 235/40 on my car




cheers

[dadsbmw]

After having them on for a couple days and trying to get the fitment dialed in, this is fuckign BEEFCAKE status. They're 215/45/17 in front and 235/45/17 in the rear, which I know everyone here will complain that this sizing is way too large but they're only 1/2" taller/wider than my old setup in front and 1" taller/wider in the rear. I hear a lot about Federal 595's running much larger than other tires, so I feel like that's part of the issue, because frankly they are too big. Unfortunately I'm always one to try new things, and often this means making mistakes, but what are you gonna do!? Despite being the wrong look for the car, they do look pretty freaking buff!

Part of the issue is certainly fitment. Because they're 8.5" +20 all around, I have to run spacers in front to clear the struts (the wheel lip sits exactly on the spring mount of the shortened struts). I started off with 6mm spacers in front with the coilovers raised almost an inch, and 8mm of spacers in the rear with the coilovers raised slightly more than an inch. After driving it around and realizing what a friggin monster truck she was, I made a few adjustments. It's hard to really capture how beefy she is in a picture, but the one below does the best job.


In an attempt to rein them in a bit, I moved to 5mm spacers in front and 3mm in the rear, and dropped it down all around by about 1/2".

Anyways, I can finally put the power down! It's like a whole different car! I can't always keep traction going WOT in 1st, but on grippy roads it'll hold, and damn does she move. This is literally the first time I've been able to feel the acceleration in 1st, as it would previously just spin. It also pulls HARD shifting into 2nd gear. Previously, as seen in my exhaust videos, it would spin all through 2nd gear if I shifted hard. Now it will get a bit of slip but absolutely freight train once it grabs. The car feels seriously fast. Unfortunately I think my brand new guibo is already starting to give out, or my diff going out. She's starting to get a pretty awful vibration when going WOT.

Anyways, I think I've got the fitment about as good as it's going to get. Doing a bit of testing on the direction I want to go with the look of the car:

• 80's- Blacked out window trim and front kidneys, gunmetal/grey wheels, tinted windows, stock pinstripe
• Classic- Polished window trim, windshield trim, rear window trim, and front kidneys, silver wheels with polished lips, non-tinted windows, lose stock pinstripe

Will have some example pics to follow

[dadsbmw]

New tires came today so I got them mounted on the rims and installed the drivers side for a test fit to see how it's all going to go down. Anyone care to take a guess on the tire sizes?












And when I parked her back in the garage, the difference from drivers to passengers was pretty stark

[dadsbmw]

So I did a thing...

[dadsbmw]

Thanks Mike! After lookin at my old setup and thinking it stuck out a bit too far, I feel like this one doesn't stick out far enough. When I get new welding wire I'm going to probably pull the tips out another 0.5 to 1 inch/

Completed another little project today. My drivers side tweeter pod was already broken and basically falling off, and when I went to put the drivers side back on after the side mirror painting, that one broke too! Remembered seeing a while back that someone was selling 3D printed parts to fix it, so I decided to just make my own. Took a couple design edits, but wasn't particularly tough. I've definitely got some calibration to do for prints this small, but it gets the job done.


Stuck it in the mount




Threw a little glue on that sucker, and stuck the pod in place


Unfortunately don't have any clamps or anything to hold it tight while it dries. I'm sure this isn't the type of thing that will hold up to removal and reinstall, but I have no issue redoing it every time I take out the tweeter pods, which is basically never.

[mike.bmw]

Tips look great. Exhaust sounds amazing!

[dadsbmw]

As promised:

Honestly the original exhaust (stock headers, stock midpipe, 2.5" Varex muffler) had a bit more throat and rumble to it, which I think I like better. This new setup has MUCH better flow however, and surprisingly a deeper and more mellow tone, despite being straight through from header to tip. And frankly, none of them hold a candle to my old M20 setup (stock headers, stock piping, CA legal replacement cat, 2.5" Varex muffler). That thing rumbled like a beast! Was listening to some videos my GF shot of me driving and man was that thing gnarly!

[dadsbmw]

As promised, got the exhaust finished up today. There were 13" between the back of the muffler and the end the rear valence, while the y-pipe and tips added up to 22" in length, so some cutting would certainly be required. Cut a couple inches off the inlet of the y-pipe, about an inch off the inlet of the exhaust tips, and then sectioned another few inches from the middle of each exhaust tip




Then welded the exhaust tip upper and lower sections together and went for a test fit. After much laborious lining up I got them pretty much where I wanted them.






Then tacked them into place. Unfortunately the left tip moved during the tacking process and I ran out of welding wire, so I had to stop, but this is how she sits for now. Will order some more wire and go take a video of the new exhaust later today.

[dadsbmw]

Ended up removing the driveshaft to get balanced at a local shop. Guy looked at the adapter and basically refused to work on it. Oh well! However, upon reinstalling, the vibration is gone! Score 1 for me!

Paint finally came in this week and I got the side mirrors and rear bumper painted to my satisfaction, however the rear trunk lid came out very uneven. I'd ordered from a different supplier this time, so with a heavy heart I ordered from ScratchWizard again. Let me give a little review...

ScratchWizard.net:

• Price per can- $30 plus $12 shipping- $42 for 1 can!
• Need to order clear coat separately (not 2k uv resistant clear coat)
• Shipping times- we shall see!
• Pros:
  • Color match
  • Full coverage in 2-3 coats
  • Lots of flake in the Sterling Silver Metallic
• Cons:
  • Last can ran out of propellant with half a can of paint left in it! WTF!
  • Poor/narrow spray pattern

Paintscratch.com:

• Price per can $27- Free shipping over $100
• Can buy clear coat from them- they have 2k uv resistant clear coat
• Shipped in a few days- Potential Covid delays
• Pros:
  • Color match
  • Great/wide/consistent spray pattern
  • Sprays the entire can!
• Cons:
  • Full coverage in 5+ coats
  • Not much metal flake

Automotivetouchup.com

• Price per can- $20 plus $9 shipping- $29 shipped, not bad!
• Can buy clear coat form them- they have 2k uv resistant clear coat
• Shipping times- Waited over a week and a half and still hadn't shipped- when I spoke with support they could give me no timeframe for when it would. Cancelled my order.
• Pros and cons- not yet known.

Anyways, here are the results from the side mirrors and rear bumper








And the trunk lid that didn't turn out quite right...


So now I'm waiting on another can of paint to come in to get the lid finished. But in the mean time, I had a coupe more exhaust pieces come in. I had a hell of a time finding a 3" inlet dual outlet tip that would do a good job of mimicking the stock exhaust, so I ended up just ordering separate parts to make my own. The space will be a little tight and I'll have to cut all these pieces down, but think it'll look pretty buff when it's done! 3" inlet and dual 2.25" outlet y-pipe and two 2.75" inlet 3.5" outlet exhaust tips.


Plan to get this welded in tomorrow am and then some new exhaust videos for you guys that afternoon!

[dadsbmw]

Driveshaft has been taken off a couple times since the initial install and vibrates every time, so I don't think it's the bolts. Pretty sure I either have it slightly misaligned from when I swapped out the center bearing, or the adapter which allows the stock 325i shaft to mate to the e36 M3 guibo is causing an imbalance.

In terms of it being louder, this muffler can get loud or quiet at the push of a button. It's currently on the "loud" setting, and making the noise you heard above. I think I'd be much happier having that volume on the quiet setting, and something more aggressive on the loud setting.

[Nader393]

Nice project! Your old man would have been proud.

Check your driveline/giubo bolts, the extra power might have snapped one; happened to me (with less power). Car sounds pretty great as is. You sure you want it louder? Probably get there by deleting the mid-muffler. I had a single rear Magnaflow on my last engine (with cat), and it sounded really good. My current setup has two smaller Magnaflows with no cat, has a higher pitch snarl, and if I had a longer commute, might be annoyingly loud.

[dadsbmw]

Pretty much finished her up this afternoon. Ran out of welding gas last night but luckily found a shop that was open today. Took a little trip to pick that up and also dropped off my wheels to get a free balancing at Americas Tire.

Came home and finished up the last of the welding and reinstalled everything to give it a listen. As suspected, it's too quiet. The Varex has 2 modes as previously pointed out, open (straight through) and closed (think turbo muffler). In the open position, it sounds how I'd like it to in the closed position. Right now the closed position is basically useless, as there's no reason to ever close it!

Rear half mocked up


Everything fully welded


And installed


Still waiting to do the rear tip... want to finalize everything before committing.

Took her for a quick drive to see how it sounds. Have also confirmed, by getting the tires balanced, that there's definitely a vibration in the driveshaft. Oh, and it now pops out of 3rd pretty much every time I go WOT, so that's fun. But man, she's a quick one! Not only is 1st useless, but 2nd is as well! It will seriously break the tires loose and spin at WOT past 4.5k in 2nd. Not dropping the clutch, just rolling into power. DEFINITELY need some wider/better tires!

Quick video of everything in the open position. For some reason the muffler won't close, gonna have to look into that... opened last night without issue. Will soon have a driving video similar to my last, but need to get the trunk lid, bumper, and side mirrors on first. This idiot company that I ordered paint from has taken over a week to even ship it. So frustrating.

Camera is a bit too close which has a bad outcome with the sound, but gives you an idea. Should have good speakers/headphones (aka not your laptop/phone speakers) to listen, as it's very deep and requires good bass to hear correctly!

[dadsbmw]

I'll be doing a similar tip to what it had before, which you can see in previous pictures. Trying to keep it looking close to to the stock exhaust. Just waiting till the end to do it, as I want to make sure the exhaust is fully in place before aligning the tips with the bumper.

Switch has already been placed, as I've had this style setup for a while now... just moving up to larger piping and from a 2.5" muffler to a 3.0". Used a stock window switch in one of the blanks in the center console above the radio, to open and close the bypass