Full Circle - Visiting HQ
It's been a while, I've been busy with life and other projects but have been planning on a big change for the M3. A little bit ago Mike Burroughs posted he was selling a set of E36 coilovers, a gnarly set of H&R NR-RS Nordschliefe spec coilovers that is. This is essentially track only suspension, which was originally ordered for my specific M3 when Riley owned it. I passed on buying the suspension when I bought the car and it sat for a couple years on the shelf. When it popped up for sale, I couldn't help but feel like it belonged back with the car it was built for. So after some thought, I caved and sent him some money. Mike suggested that I bring the M3 back to his shop for an install, since he's stockpiling E36 content for the YouTube channel right now, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to head out to California for the weekend and get the M3 sorted. But before that, the M3 decided to remind me that it was a BMW still and refused to go without a fight.
It's tough to see in the photos, but while going over the car I found the expansion tank was cracked. Of course it would start to fail just before needing to drive 1000+ miles in a weekend. Easy enough, I ordered a new one and got it slapped in. That said, for those of you who have ever bled the cooling system of an E36 will know I didn't have a fun time after that. For whatever reason it developed an air bubble deep in the system that I just couldn't fully burp. It took three tries and numerous drives around town to finally get the car fully bled.
(The above two are videos, I think you have to click to play them)
On top of that, the aux fan had been seized for quite some time. I'm rather embarrassed to admit I forgot it had gone bad, but knowing that I would be stuck in traffic at some point in California, it reminded me to finally change that out. The other fan was so seized it popped the fuse from sheer overload. Yikes. So fresh one in, cleaned up some zip ties and tightened some bolts and mechanically I was good to go.
Prior to this I actually changed out my exhaust as well. If you go back through the thread you'll remember I put on a UUC SystemU DTM tip exhaust. It was fine for the most part, but the exhaust was much too loud for me. I hadn't planned on driving to California yet when I swapped this out, but it ended up working out massively in my favor. I ordered a Stromung cat back on the recommendation of a few others. I very much miss the look of the DTM tips, but the drone from the UUC was driving me absolutely nuts. The Stromung still makes a good noise without being unbearable at highway cruising speeds. Additionally the old exhaust went back on incorrectly thanks to the fab shop that did my trailing arm reinforcement and it melted my rear diffuser pretty significantly. Fortunately I have a new one on the shelf ready to go on, but we were able to correct how that was hanging now with the new Stromung and it isn't melting plastic anymore.
Onto the fun stuff of this update though. Last Friday I took the day off work, loaded up the M3 and headed out to California. For reference, I live in Phoenix, AZ and it's about 400 miles to Costa Mesa where Stanceworks HQ is. The drive out was uneventful fortunately, and I made it in one piece. Shortly after I was at the SW shop, my car was going on the lift and suspension was getting installed.
One significant thing to note is the camber plate situation. With my Regamasters, I basically have to run -3.5 degrees of camber up front to clear. Minimum. There is little to no information about these coilovers online, and I wasn't sure what camber plates would be compatible with the struts and they do not come with plates out of the box. Mike took some measurements for me and I sent this all off to Vorshlag who recommended which of their plates to buy. They're pretty rad pieces, both camber and caster adjustable, but came with one fatal flaw. We test fit the plates as soon as I got to the shop, and we discovered that the strut top nut wasn't correct. The threads were about twice as large as the actual strut, which is about worst case scenario. It's easier to make something bigger, but the reverse pretty much leaves us stuck. I had brought stock strut tops just in case something didn't work out, but obviously that wasn't an ideal solution. Mike went to a nearby machine shop and they made new nuts from scratch in about an hour. I'm still blown away that they knocked that out of the park so quickly with no other instructions. It's a fairly complicated piece too, as it has a shaft to center the whole assembly on the strut itself. The new custom pieces fit perfect, and absolutely saved the day.
The suspension got installed. It's worth noting, I did not turn a single wrench. A massive thank you to Khalil who hammered out the install much faster than I could have on my own. After driving all day to California, I was a little relieved to just chill and hang out, but I still feel a little guilty for not being able to help haha. The suspension itself went in without a lot of hassle, minus the one custom piece that had to be made to combine the two brands of parts, it went together perfectly.
While hanging out, I actually ended up finding a home for my old Fortune Autos. That same evening they went on to Richie's Dakar convertible. So that evening ended up being pretty E36 intensive. The guys ended up hammering out the install in like an hour, which was wild to me. Pictured in the background is my friend Blake's new E90 M3, that has probably ruined my S2000 for me. I thought my Honda was hot-shit until I went for a ride along in that monster.
This was the final ride height I settled on. I'm pretty risk-adverse and refused to slam the car on the grounds that I was worried I'd rub through the tires or smash the lip on an expansion joint. Everyone rightly pointed out there's no way that was happening on these insanely stiff springs, but this was where we ended up. In retrospect, everyone was right. I could have driven with the frame rails on the ground and still been fine, but I guess some peace of mind with the drive home was nice.
The following morning I went to hang out with my friend Shane. He has a rad Dakar coupe, and we took the cars out to the Malibu canyons for an afternoon of cruising. Because my alignment was hilariously off post-suspension swap, I didn't push the car hard (on center steering was non-existent) but I still had a great time enjoying the weather and cruising around the Malibu area.
His roommate Keenan joined us, and took some really stunning photos of my M3. Despite the road grime and sludge coating it from all the driving, it looks awesome in these shots.
So there's my M3 packed weekend. The car made the drive home without incident and is now safely parked while I recover from putting over 1000 miles on in that weekend. I will say, the H&R suspension is baller, but insanely stiff. It's really designed for track only applications, and needs a lot of fine tuning. The spring rates are through the roof, and California roads specifically make it brutal to drive around town. I feel like I've been run over by a truck today. That said, once I got back into Phoenix (where our roads are a little better maintained) the suspension became pretty compliant and a non-issue. Up next, I need to obviously align the car and adjust a bunch of things post-trip. I discovered things I want to redo, and after talking to the guys at the shop I think I have a good idea of the direction I need to head in with the car next.
A very special thanks to Mike for the hospitality and opening his shop to me. I had a blast that weekend, and it was great catching up with some old friends and making some new ones. Hopefully more updates on the M3 soon, I'm definitely motivated to make some more progress on the car now.
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