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Hello, been looking around this forum for a while now and thought it was time for me to sign up and share my own ride with you guys. 
Hope you like it.
This is the car day after i purchased it and was already thinking what could be done on the journey home from collecting it. It is a 2006 BMW E92 325i 3 series.
First things i did was only small but needed doing and was easy with not much expense.
Front Halo Lights replaced from the standard yellow ones.
Rear Number Plate bulbs replaced with LED ones, and also pressed number plates.
After doing the simple and cheap alterations it was time to tidy a few things up on the car and have the front end smoothed of the 2 number plate holes that was there. Also with the car going to my friend who does all my spraying i thought i might aswell get the aero front lip splitter that i had intended from day one and have that sprayed and fitted at the same time. The splitter is maybe not everyones 'cup of tea' but i personally think it makes the front end look so more aggressive.
Before Went to get sprayed and the new splitter:
When i got it back and after a good clean:
Now i was finally happy with the exterior of the car and the quality of the paintwork it was time to concentrate on the most important thing for this car which was stance and wheels that would transform it from been normal car to something a little different. When it came to ordering coilovers there was many to choose from and would have liked to go for some well known branded coilovers but money with me been tight fisted i ended up just ordering prosport as i just to myself they all do the same can't be that much different, however i wish i had go fk ones as they are well known, well priced and go lower than these.
Fitting them took a good day but managed to get it all done
So with the car finally sitting low and me deciding i ideally needed 19's but 18's could work the hunt for some wheels began. When i say hunt i don't exaggerate as i wanted to do something deferent and also there isn't lots of nice wheels in 5x120 fitment in my eyes. here are a few wheels that i came across whilst i was looking but nothing took my fancy till i found the ones i knew would be perfect. ha
A few wheels i looked at whilst hunting:
OZ Futuras
Rial Daytona
After a few months of looking and nothing that wowed me enough to instantly think they are the wheels for my car, i started to look for different fitment alloys and maybe run adapters as i knew this could be done. Within a week at looking at pretty much any fitment alloys i found the ones that i just had to have and the next day after spotting them i went and collected them they where 19' Artec 3 Piece Porsche Splits 8.5J fronts and 11j rears. The night before i did few calculations and worked out they they should fit but either way i was going to collect them as i just had to have them ha, when got there i finally realised how wide 11j actually was and made my old standard 17' 8J wheels look like nothing.
Was so excited after getting them i had to put them next to my car to get an idea what would look like
First thing to do with the wheels was get the old tyres taken off and the 2 front tyres on eBay as they had 4mm thread and where continental sport contact 2's. i needed to get rid of all the tyres as they was the wrong fit for what i needed. After taking the tyres off it was time to try and judge what size hub adapters i needed as they was going to be made to order, from my calculations i had narrowed it down to 18, 20 or 25mm and was pretty set on ordering 20mm all round. so just to be safe one weekend when i had some free time i jacked the car up found 2 10mm spacers i had in the garage taped them together and held the wheel against the spacers and then the hub. this was the out come:
Seen as though i was happy with 20mm and the wheel cleared everything i went ahead and ordered 20mm H&R hub adapters all round.
Because i knew the adapters where going to take a while i decided to split the wheels and give them a tidy up even though they was in amazing condition.
Whilst splitting the wheels i realised the Lips had lacquer on them so decided to buy some paint stripper and take this off back to bare metal where i could polish them up and they would be brighter than what they was (i now regret this as you will see later).
After about 4 weeks of waiting one morning the post man brought me these and made a normal day little more exciting
With the delivery of the adapters this made me finish the cleaning of the wheels and the polishing of the lips and got them built back together as soon as i could.
Valves Polished as well:
With all the wheels built back up it was time to order some tyres and i wish it was as easy as it is to say but i needed the right amount of stretch but not too much as this is my daily car and didn't want to be running loads of risk all the time. In the end i decided on Nankang NS2's 265/30/19 on the 11J rears which would hopefully just give that nice little bit of stretch, on the front 215/35/19 on 8.5J wheel little stretch if any.
So after taking delivery of the tyres was time to get them fitted whilst i watched like a hawk. ha
The only thing left to do after the tyres been fitted was get them on the car and finally see what the end result was.
Here are a few pictures with the wheels on the car:
After fitting the wheels i realised the front needed to come down that little bit more as it wasn't quite sat how i wanted it. In order to do this i looked into taking the helper springs out of the coilovers and with me reading a lot of people do it with no problems i decided to do that the weekend before Early Edition 38 where i also fitted yellow Lamin X to the front fog lights.
Here is the last group of photos on the way to early edition 38 that my friend www.jakelewisphotography.co.uk took.
I am really pleased with that car at the minute and how it looks the only slight problem i have got at the moment is the lips are not stainless steel and are alloy which has meant they started to corrode about 2 weeks after fitting them too my car and keeping on top of them on a regular basis. I have taken them to a polisher who is confused like myself why they have corroded and the only solution we have come to is split the wheels and have the lips repolished and then lacquered again.
Aswell as having the lips repolished i am considering having the centres sprayed a candy apple red colour to match the interior and make them stand out that little extra, would love to hear your feedback on this idea and maybe help me come to a decision.
I am also going to camber the rear when i get chance but will update accordingly.
Hope you all enjoy my thread and it doesn't bore you too much, love to hear any comments and all feedback
Thanks Tom
Hope you like it.This is the car day after i purchased it and was already thinking what could be done on the journey home from collecting it. It is a 2006 BMW E92 325i 3 series.
First things i did was only small but needed doing and was easy with not much expense.
Front Halo Lights replaced from the standard yellow ones.
Rear Number Plate bulbs replaced with LED ones, and also pressed number plates.
After doing the simple and cheap alterations it was time to tidy a few things up on the car and have the front end smoothed of the 2 number plate holes that was there. Also with the car going to my friend who does all my spraying i thought i might aswell get the aero front lip splitter that i had intended from day one and have that sprayed and fitted at the same time. The splitter is maybe not everyones 'cup of tea' but i personally think it makes the front end look so more aggressive.
Before Went to get sprayed and the new splitter:
When i got it back and after a good clean:
Now i was finally happy with the exterior of the car and the quality of the paintwork it was time to concentrate on the most important thing for this car which was stance and wheels that would transform it from been normal car to something a little different.
When it came to ordering coilovers there was many to choose from and would have liked to go for some well known branded coilovers but money with me been tight fisted i ended up just ordering prosport as i just to myself they all do the same can't be that much different, however i wish i had go fk ones as they are well known, well priced and go lower than these.Fitting them took a good day but managed to get it all done
So with the car finally sitting low and me deciding i ideally needed 19's but 18's could work the hunt for some wheels began. When i say hunt i don't exaggerate as i wanted to do something deferent and also there isn't lots of nice wheels in 5x120 fitment in my eyes. here are a few wheels that i came across whilst i was looking but nothing took my fancy till i found the ones i knew would be perfect. ha
A few wheels i looked at whilst hunting:
OZ Futuras
Rial Daytona
After a few months of looking and nothing that wowed me enough to instantly think they are the wheels for my car, i started to look for different fitment alloys and maybe run adapters as i knew this could be done. Within a week at looking at pretty much any fitment alloys i found the ones that i just had to have and the next day after spotting them i went and collected them they where 19' Artec 3 Piece Porsche Splits 8.5J fronts and 11j rears. The night before i did few calculations and worked out they they should fit but either way i was going to collect them as i just had to have them ha, when got there i finally realised how wide 11j actually was and made my old standard 17' 8J wheels look like nothing.
Was so excited after getting them i had to put them next to my car to get an idea what would look like
First thing to do with the wheels was get the old tyres taken off and the 2 front tyres on eBay as they had 4mm thread and where continental sport contact 2's. i needed to get rid of all the tyres as they was the wrong fit for what i needed. After taking the tyres off it was time to try and judge what size hub adapters i needed as they was going to be made to order, from my calculations i had narrowed it down to 18, 20 or 25mm and was pretty set on ordering 20mm all round. so just to be safe one weekend when i had some free time i jacked the car up found 2 10mm spacers i had in the garage taped them together and held the wheel against the spacers and then the hub. this was the out come:
Seen as though i was happy with 20mm and the wheel cleared everything i went ahead and ordered 20mm H&R hub adapters all round.
Because i knew the adapters where going to take a while i decided to split the wheels and give them a tidy up even though they was in amazing condition.
Whilst splitting the wheels i realised the Lips had lacquer on them so decided to buy some paint stripper and take this off back to bare metal where i could polish them up and they would be brighter than what they was (i now regret this as you will see later).
After about 4 weeks of waiting one morning the post man brought me these and made a normal day little more exciting
With the delivery of the adapters this made me finish the cleaning of the wheels and the polishing of the lips and got them built back together as soon as i could.
Valves Polished as well:
With all the wheels built back up it was time to order some tyres and i wish it was as easy as it is to say but i needed the right amount of stretch but not too much as this is my daily car and didn't want to be running loads of risk all the time. In the end i decided on Nankang NS2's 265/30/19 on the 11J rears which would hopefully just give that nice little bit of stretch, on the front 215/35/19 on 8.5J wheel little stretch if any.
So after taking delivery of the tyres was time to get them fitted whilst i watched like a hawk. ha
The only thing left to do after the tyres been fitted was get them on the car and finally see what the end result was.
Here are a few pictures with the wheels on the car:
After fitting the wheels i realised the front needed to come down that little bit more as it wasn't quite sat how i wanted it. In order to do this i looked into taking the helper springs out of the coilovers and with me reading a lot of people do it with no problems i decided to do that the weekend before Early Edition 38 where i also fitted yellow Lamin X to the front fog lights.
Here is the last group of photos on the way to early edition 38 that my friend www.jakelewisphotography.co.uk took.
I am really pleased with that car at the minute and how it looks the only slight problem i have got at the moment is the lips are not stainless steel and are alloy which has meant they started to corrode about 2 weeks after fitting them too my car and keeping on top of them on a regular basis. I have taken them to a polisher who is confused like myself why they have corroded and the only solution we have come to is split the wheels and have the lips repolished and then lacquered again.
Aswell as having the lips repolished i am considering having the centres sprayed a candy apple red colour to match the interior and make them stand out that little extra, would love to hear your feedback on this idea and maybe help me come to a decision.
I am also going to camber the rear when i get chance but will update accordingly.
Hope you all enjoy my thread and it doesn't bore you too much, love to hear any comments and all feedback
Thanks Tom
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