Mike's Alpine White 1991 318is

[mike.bmw]

The Vintage 2020

I booked my room at the Clarion! I'll be bringing my wife. My kids will have 3 spoiled/pampered days at Grandma's house. Very excited to attend my first Vintage!

HPDE Prep

I'm registered for the 2 day BMW CCA NCC HPDE next month. I'll be taking my car to RRT for the required tech inspection (RRT does this for free) and an alignment (because I still haven't done this).

What's that smell?

I've been tracking down an intermittent fuel smell. I tightened down all the hose clamps in the engine bay. I inspected under the rear seat. Everything looks good and the smell hasn't come back. Very clean under the rear seat!



Dash Protection

After swapping in a crack free dash nearly 2 years ago, I've become very dash-crack conscious. I apply 303 on a regular basis. I always use a sunshade when parked. I picked up a Dashmat (limited version from Covercraft). The fitment is so-so. It does a good job of keeping the dash cool while driving on long trips in direct sun. It rolls up and stored easily when not in use. For $35 shipped from Advance Auto Parts, it's not a bad deal.



Garage Organization

I've found some time to thoroughly go through my garage and organize it. Things are binned by type (paints, lubricants, new car parts, old car parts, and so on). I moved a few things around based on frequency of access. It's always nice to work in a clean, organized garage.



Fresh_TD snapped this when I was leaving C&C the other day.



And I got this one parked near his super clean E21.

[dmanb2b]

Looks great Mike!

[mike.bmw]

Haha nice! Better safe than sorry. Jealous of your “correct” 318is Natur perforated sport seats and beautiful shape. My sport seats (though saved my life in my old car’s wreck) are ugly Pearl beige.

Thanks! The seats are in pretty good condition, except the driver's side bolster next to the door. The vinyl is cracking and needs to be replaced. I may just replace that section if I can find something that matches. I think the Pearl Beige looks good too!

Nice work with the extinguisher, been thinking about installing one and this is one of the nicer, cleaner setups I've seen

Thanks! The mount has been solid and rattle free. The only change I've made is I've rotated the extinguisher so the handle would face the floor. It's pretty much out of sight, but still easy to access. The only modification I had to make to the bracket was cutting off the ends of the U shaped brackets. Ideally I'd make new brackets that would fit/reach UNDER the sliders so that the bracket wouldn't prevent full forward movement. Either mounting option, the extinguisher would be in the way so the seat can never go fully forward.

[Albie325]

Nice work with the extinguisher, been thinking about installing one and this is one of the nicer, cleaner setups I've seen

[freeride53]

Haha nice! Better safe than sorry. Jealous of your “correct” 318is Natur perforated sport seats and beautiful shape. My sport seats (though saved my life in my old car’s wreck) are ugly Pearl beige.

[jeenyus]

Thanks, all!







Respectfully disagree. ;D



This is exactly how I want my car to sit. I spent a significant amount of time researching springs, shocks, mounts, etc and refurbished most of the suspension. If I did go the coilover route, I'd raise the car to it's current height, pick dampening settings similar to the Bilsteins on the car, and choose a spring rate similar to the H&R OE Sport Springs. :)



I don't disagree that a lowered E30 looks great, but it's just not something I want to do with this car.

I can respect that.

I have a super low car and I don't like it, but I do like the performance it yeilds in certain driving conditions. To find the sweet spot between those two is what I'm referring to I guess. For example my e91 is on stock suspension and the height is perfect, but definitely needs some stiffer springs and that's hard to get without dropping the car a little. Coilovers I feel could encompass both ideas in one without much compromise between the two.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[getouth]

Mike you have a pm

[mike.bmw]

Safety First!

freeride53 recently inspired me to get a fire extinguisher based on a post in his thread. It's something I've been meaning to do since I bought the car (after recognizing and replacing all the leaking fuel lines). I just never spent the time researching brackets and extinguishers until last week.

I ended up with The Bracketeer and a Buckeye 13315. The Bracketeer is a universal fire extinguisher mount and the Buckeye extinguisher had good ratings and came with a vehicle mount.



Initially I mounted it driver's side, but then decided to move it to the passenger side. I modified the bracket so that it could be bolted to the seat rails. The way I've mounted this it does prevent the seat from moving all the way forward, but the does still have a good amount of forward movement. It also allows the seat to be tilted forward to so I can get the kids in their car seats.









Moved to passenger side:





So for less than $100 I have a fire extinguisher mounted in the car. Hopefully I never have to use it.

[mike.bmw]

Thanks, all!

This should be on a nice set of coilovers. It totally deserves it.

Respectfully disagree. ;D

This is exactly how I want my car to sit. I spent a significant amount of time researching springs, shocks, mounts, etc and refurbished most of the suspension. If I did go the coilover route, I'd raise the car to it's current height, pick dampening settings similar to the Bilsteins on the car, and choose a spring rate similar to the H&R OE Sport Springs. :)

I don't disagree that a lowered E30 looks great, but it's just not something I want to do with this car.

[jeenyus]

This should be on a nice set of coilovers. It totally deserves it.

[fresh_TD]

It was good to see you this morning, Mike. Car looked great, as always!

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[jeenyus]

This is sick.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[mike.bmw]

Some photos around town...

[mike.bmw]

It has been about a month, here are some updates.

Transmission Mounts

I replaced these a few weeks ago. The old ones were in decent shape, but the new ones were $7 each and it's a very easy install so why not. I haven't noticed much of a difference to be honest. There was a noticeable difference when I replaced the engine mounts about a month ago.



Intermittent Ticking (Lifters) Issue Resolved?

At the risk of jinxing myself, I believe I can close the book on my ticking lifters.

Over the past couple months the loud ticking became more and more common. It never affected drivability or performance. I posted about it here.

I dropped the oil pan to verify everything looked good, which it did:



I removed the valve cover to inspect everything, which also looked good:



I replaced the timing chain tensioner, which had no effect.

I checked the spark plugs, wires, and coils. No effect.

I added Liqui Moly Lifter Additive, which quieted them down somewhat for half a day, then it came back louder.

I changed the oil from Mobil 1 15W50, to a thinner Rotella T6 5W40. The seemed to have no effect as well.

Eventually I became fed up of not being able to properly diagnose this and I wasn't 100% sure it was lifter noise. For all I knew it was a crazy loud injector or an odd exhaust leak. I made an appointment at RRT to have them figure out the issue.

I took the car to RRT earlier in the week and gave them the list of what I've done, photos, videos, and other information. After looking at the car they called me back to the garage. The car was totally silent. No ticking. It's like my kids: angels at school, but not always the best behaved at home.

So Alex, JW, and I chatted for a bit and they sent me on my way. That was 5 days and 300 miles ago. The car has not ticked since then. The car went from ticking on a regular basis to not ticking at all. I have some theories:
- RRT fixed something in ~15 minutes that was glaringly obvious and didn't want to tell me because I'd feel like a moron.
- The thinner Rotella T6 5W40 cleaned out the oil passages and removed varnish from an offending lifter. It just took a few hundred miles to do it's work.
- The Lifter Additive, which was only run for 500 miles with the Mobil 1 15W50, may have continued to work it's way through the system after draining the M1 and filling the T6.

As of right now the engine sounds like the regular old M42 sewing machine and that makes me happy.

Mileage turnover
I always miss these, but I was stopped at a light, looked down, and saw it about to roll over 144K miles. Yes, I synched the trip meter with the odometer when I got the car. :)



Track Days (bro)
I'm signed up for a 2 day HPDE with BMW CCA NCC in September. Looking forward to that! This group requires a shop to perform a tech inspection. I'll be taking the car back to RRT next month for that and an alignment.

Cars and Coffee
I've been busy, but I've managed to make it out to a couple C&C events and catch up with friends.





Steering Wheel Search
I may have eaten my steering wheel budget with the track day registration costs, but I'm on the lookout for a good condition Nardi Blackline steering wheel. Please let me know if you come across one!

[econti]

Ok, so I've confirmed mine doesn't move more than 1/4". Here's how I measured it:

I placed some tape on the wiring harness cover (static point). I marked a line on the tape which lined up with the 90 degree elbow for the ICV attached to the engine. I then (not pictured) taped a straight, thick coat hanger wire to the top of the intake manifold so the end would line up with the mark on the tape. I rocked the engine back and forth and never saw the wire move more than 1/4" past the mark. Not perfect measurement, but a quick and easy way to gauge how much the engine moves relative to a static point.

Absolutely perfect, that's 100% what I needed. You're a total gentleman.