Simple M3

[Freddye]

Damn, i think this car is THE definition of clean

[bwwaaaa]

Feels Good

I love it when a plan comes together.

Off to alignment on Wednesday. Adding camber all the way around, removing toe up front. But I am so happy with how this looks.

[bwwaaaa]

The Inpro's work on silver. I have a set but they contrast too much with my car. Love the wheels!

Thanks! Yeah after really looking at them in the light, I think they really only blend well in silver/white cars. It's taken a little getting used to visually, but I definitely love them now.

Ambers on red will always work though, in fact ambers on silver would look awesome aswell, big fan of the Inpro's and the wheels work perfectly with the car :-)

Thanks! I'm not a huge ambers fan to be totally honest, but I'm not opposed to running a set someday. I think with some LTW wheels, it would be much more OEM+ worthy haha.

Bonus Shots

Took my M3 over to my friends house today real briefly to reroll the rear fenders. I took exactly zero pictures of this process because we were speeding through it. My fenders were like "half rolled" before. Clearly someone had started the process, but they really didn't try all that hard to make them really flat. Prior to this, the Rega was tire on fender, now it has a little breathing room. Post-realignment, they should fit perfectly.

Some bonus photos though. First being with the Rega and the tail light together. I only brought one wheel with me to his house, so that's the best I could get. The second, just admiring how the car looks now with the tails. It's grown on me a lot pretty quickly. Spacers should (hopefully) be here next week for the front. Likewise, alignment should happen then too. So then I'll finally be in business.

[Steven_318ti]

The Inpro's work on silver. I have a set but they contrast too much with my car. Love the wheels!

Ambers on red will always work though, in fact ambers on silver would look awesome aswell, big fan of the Inpro's and the wheels work perfectly with the car :-)

[cblock406]

The Inpro's work on silver. I have a set but they contrast too much with my car. Love the wheels!

[bwwaaaa]

Rare Parts

Small update, but I ordered these tail lights direct from Germany a month or so ago. They finally arrived, authentic InPro sedan clears. Not 100% sure how I feel about them yet though.

Took some time to test them out on the car yesterday evening. I had OEM euro tails on the car, and I loved the look. So that's probably why I'm so conflicted.

More photos to come soon, just wanted to post these while I was thinking about it.

[bwwaaaa]

I think I ran -3 camber 0 toe front, -1.5 or 2 camber 1/8 toe in out back

Thank you! I imagine I will be doing the same here soon. Especially after this update haha.

not boring at all.... keep the updates coming. looking great so far.

I appreciate it! I guess my own impatience was killing me

Test Fit

So the day has come. My hubs are on, the car is officially 5x114.3 and I can test fit these wheels I have been preparing for what seems like forever. One small note, I did get these wheels professionally ceramic coated. I figured I've gone to all this trouble so far, and my brakes generate so much dust, I may as well get them protected while they are fresh out of powder coat. No photos of this because, well they look exactly the same before and after haha. I've never done this before though, so I'm looking forward to seeing what difference they make in a real world applicated. I struggle to keep my fifteen52s at all clean, so it's definitely something I hope makes a big difference. But enough on that, here's the good stuff.

Here's the front and rears for you. You can see on the front, both patterns are usable at any time. On the rear, you have to rotate the rotor to change patterns. But both 5x120 and 5x114.3 are in fact usable on the car itself. That's a big deal for me, because I'm sure I'll find 5x120 wheels I'll want to swap to at some point. Or possibly even stocks when I'm feeling extra OEM. My wheel addiction knows no bounds, this has opened up a world of bad decisions for me.

So there's the first test fit, and the wheels on the car fully bolted on and on it's own weight. I'm stoked, I can't explain how cool this is to me. Bolt pattern swaps are something I've talked about for years, which is stupid but true. I keep getting into cars with bolt patterns that just don't have cool options. Or, at least not as easily and widely available as 114.3. I would have killed for 4x114.3 conversion hubs for my Miata. I'm fairly anti-adapter after some bad experiences with them in the past, so really this is the best solution. Plus I now have fresh wheel bearings at all corners. It didn't need them, but I have them. So that's kind of nice.

In terms of fitment itself, in these photos I have an 8mm spacer up front, and no spacer in the rear. With my current alignment, it's about flush in the front and 100% rubbing in the rear. I need to realign the car as previously discussed, and I'm hoping that'll solve some of the clearance in the rear. In the front, I'm planning on adding camber, which to me says I'll probably need to step up to a 10mm spacer to accommodate for the fitment change.

So up next I plan to send the car off to get aligned to more aggressive specs, and then test fit again. If it fits, great, if not it'll need more fender rolling in the rear. Then I need to, and this is the shittiest part so far, order custom spacers. Not because 8mm spacers are hard to find, but rather hub centric BMW spacers in 5x114.3 are non existent. I don't want any wobble or vibration on the freeway, and the only way I can think to do this is order spacers that are 5x114.3 but with a 72.56mm hub bore. The Regas are miraculously a 73.1mm hub bore, which means I can add a centering shim (I ran them on the fifteen52s as well) and I'll be in good shape.

[C2_mad]

not boring at all.... keep the updates coming. looking great so far.

[hinrichs]

I think I ran -3 camber 0 toe front, -1.5 or 2 camber 1/8 toe in out back

[bwwaaaa]

Oh man are those going to look good. What are you thinking for the final alignment up front?

That’s an excellent question, and I’m not 100% sure yet. I’ve gotten a few suggestions, a lot of people recommend ~-3.5 of camber up front. Toe is kind of up in the air, because I’m trying to find the balance between the car feeling snappier, and not burning up my tires in 100 miles haha.

I’m still totally open to suggestions if you have any!

[hinrichs]

Oh man are those going to look good. What are you thinking for the final alignment up front?

[bwwaaaa]

Fitment is an Art Form

So IÂ’ll start with a photo dump. Took some days off work, went back road bombing with a friend of mine. I think IÂ’ve showed his car before, but itÂ’s a 500whp widow maker. Needless to say, alignment problems or not, the M3 does not keep up.

So a small problem on the Regas. I took them to get powder coated. The two black ones had just been “redone” by the previous owner, and when my guy stripped them all back it was clear they were blasted to hell. He was able to smooth them out and make them look pretty good, but some of the grain and roughness now shows through. You can’t see it unless you’re a foot away, but annoying. Very annoying.

Regardless, I think they turned out awesome.

This morning I went and got the tires put on. 245/40r17 Dunlop ZIIIs if anyone is digging this thread for fitment information haha.

I also went a little crazy on finding Rega center caps. Spot the two white ones that someone promise were silver?

But this gives me enough to make one passable clean set. IÂ’ll be polishing those tomorrow and putting them on the wheels.

Some more fitment goodness for you. So I had secretly hoped I could get away with a small spacer to clear the brakes and keep things tight to the hub. But IÂ’m an idiot, and never accounted for the bulk a 245 tire puts in the space. With a 3mm spacer, the tire hits the strut. At 5mm it maybe clears? I tried a 10mm as well, which pulls the tire away from the strut more than enough, but then we start running into fender problems. IÂ’m counting on camber solving that.

So thereÂ’s another test fit, I know itÂ’s getting boring but weÂ’re getting close. Hub swap next, then we get them on for good.

[hinrichs]

The test fit looks good, good choice in wheel and the 5x114 swap. Tires look like they are gonna be fun to test out.

[bwwaaaa]

Parts Collecting Pt. 21.5

Not a lot of substantial updates, but parts are trickling in. And I did a few things.

Prior to sending the wheels off to be refinished I did fit them on the M3. Just a mock up to see clearances.

Looks great, fits pretty well. My Brembos do add a bit of headache, since it just barely interferes. Looks like a 3mm spacer will fix that, so no huge deal.

My Core4 hubs have arrived. I neglected to also order all the rear bearing parts, so those are en route from FCP. Regardless, I now have the parts in hand that will make the whole 5x114.3 swap possible.

New tires arrived as well. I went with Dunlop Direzza ZIIIs. Substantially beefier than the Hankooks on my car now.

Alright, nothing substantial beyond that, but weÂ’re getting there.

[Steven_318ti]

Reason I suggested white, gotblkr's silver Evo from down under on whites rock, silver will work absolutely I just think silver over white is a bold combo ;-)