88' Zinno M3 (Progress Thread)

[jhaurimn]

The previous owner replaced the driver side pop out window from a early model e30 with chrome top and bottom pieces. So he (quite poorly) painted all the trim pieces. You can see it doesnt match the front trim.




So I bought a window from a late model, that had the top trim black. That way only one piece would have to be painted. I scuffed the chrome, primed, then painted with duplicolor trim paint. It came out very close to the original shadowline. I still have one little spot to touch up.


Shout out to mn tint pros for removing the crappy tint off my car. It took nearly 3 hours. Thankfully I timed it well with the canadien bruin game.


Looks sooo much better

[jhaurimn]

Original spare should be a 15" basketweave, not a steel wheel, FWIW.
See below from 41,000 original mile car.


-Chris

Yup, you are right. That's what I thought too, but when I saw the tire was a Pirelli, it threw me for a second.

Edit: spare appears to be an original e34 spare

[UNHCLL]

Original spare should be a 15" basketweave, not a steel wheel, FWIW.
See below from 41,000 original mile car.



-Chris

[reelizmpro]

You were supposed to use an impact gun on the thermostat bolts. I almost did the same thing but stopped after I noticed the housing being deformed. Hopefully, you didn't cause too much damage.

[blunttech]

damn, Really nice work. I just spent all day working on my new one. i have a long ways to go to be able to park next to yours.

[jhaurimn]

Got some stuff to report. My wiper arms had seen better days


I decided to fix them with some duplicolor trim paint. Came out great.




Didn't take a before picture, but I cleaned the spare area. It was pretty dirty before. I cleaned up the spare. Just has some surface rust. I also took the rusted wingnut and spare holder out, and put in my clean ones from my 325i. I hope it doesn't get mad at me


Woah, got a huge box. What could it be? It's not pizza...


Ah


The reason for the big box is the new passenger side inside window seal, and to prevent bending it. I love blunttech, but bmwmercedsparts is the shit when it comes to shipping huge boxes for $11 flat.

So here's what I replaced. You can see overspray on the thermostat...


The coolant was green, and very old and nasty. Bleeding was a breeze as my driveway has a hill at the end. Just went up and down with the expansion tank cap off, and bled itself. Revving the motor a bit helps too. The hardest part about the install however was taking the thermostat plug out for the the sensor. I nearly broke the thermostat taking it out, you can see the area around the hole is deformed for the force it took to get the nut off. I will watch it for leaks.


I replaced the expansion tank and all the hoses connected to it, both radiator hoses, and the thermostat to heater pipe hose. I also took this opportunity to install the remaining wire harness cover, and the distributor cover.

This is how the engine bay looked back in December when I got the car


And here's how it looks now :)


Reason for the new window seal


And I got my plate. Purple Tint is coming off Tuesday. Yay

[jhaurimn]

Thanks guys. The muffler still needs some tweaking to sit perfectly level, but I'm just glad the old muffler is off.

[reelizmpro]

Nice work. All the little stuff adds up. The VHT job came out nice.

[e30m3s54turbo]

The Stromung muffler looks much better. I am glad you found your oil cool trim piece.

[Bimmer_man]

Nice what's next that car looks amazing I can't imagen what you would do next.

[jhaurimn]

That new muffler looks way better than the old one and I bet it sounds even better than before.

It sounds a little better, but the s14 sound still overpowers the exhaust sound. The center section is pretty restrictive, so to make dramatic sound changes, the center section needs to be changed. Will be something I do for the future, but not on my priority list as of now

[Bimmer_man]

That new muffler looks way better than the old one and I bet it sounds even better than before.

[jhaurimn]

Thanks to some help from my buddy erik, the stromung muffler is now installed.

[jhaurimn]

I got a new oil cooler in the mail today. I was free all day after work and decided I wanted to put it in. Its easy to replace, plus when I changed the oil on this car initially, I couldn't get the oil up to temp beforehand -- so I was able to properly change the oil this time. I changed the m1 0w-40 out for m1 15-50.

As you can see, it was beat to hell


I also got lucky and managed to find this piece that directs air into the oil cooler. You can't buy it from BMW, as it comes with the front bumper. A new bumper costs $1000. So yeah...not doing that lol
*edit* after looking at the picture i used to have here, i realized i put this piece on upside down initially. i fixed it


Had to stop and grab some pictures...

[jhaurimn]

i would crash into something if I was driving through a neighborhood and saw a garage with two same color e30 M3s parked inside!

Hard to tell from the lighting, but the one on the left is brillantrot, and the one on the right with no license plate is zinno.

But yeah...I know what you mean. This was a pretty surreal moment having two of them in my garage. I am still getting used to having one in there!