Simple M3

[bwwaaaa]

I think thats what I was commenting about, since the S54 is my end goal if I keep my car. For me its a lot easier tho since I dont need hardly anything extra on the engine to work other than it running haha. I feel like that will keep the costs down. I think I might join you and order the bushings I have pushed off for a while and maybe finish the rear end at least. I have a mean shimmy around 100 I need to solve and hopefully thats where my issues are.

I find a lot of the cost comes in the form of wiring harnesses for me. But then obviously maintenance items like rod bearings, etc. It’ll definitely be cheaper for your M3, but I think a bulk of the cost is wrapped up in the same items. I have a spreadsheet with all the parts I’ve identified as needed for this swap, I can share it with you if you want to give you a good idea haha.

This car is really shaping up nicely! What's the advantage of the ZHP steering rack, quicker ratio?

BTW nice daily, I've always liked those TSX wagons, you never really see them around

Thank you! ZHP steering rack has a 3.0 lock to lock ratio and is very linear. The stock M3 rack is progressive, and is a fair bit slower. The Z3 rack has been the go to swap for most people for years, but stock is getting scarce and I’ve heard that it is very twitchy on the highway. The ZHP rack is supposed to be the best compromise, quick for the canyons but stable at high speed.

And I had no idea how rare the wagons were until after I bought it. I was on the hunt for a first gen, manual TSX but couldn’t find any. A friend suggested looking at second gens instead, and I stumbled on this wagon that met all my criteria and then some. I pulled the trigger, and after getting it learned that they only brought ~10k wagons to the US from 09-14 haha. I’ve been loving it as a daily so far.

[bwwaaaa]

Quarantine Time

Well, since I’m not going anywhere, tons of free time to fuss with the M3. Today I started finishing up the M3.

I got the Garagistic X brace installed, along with the new CABs installed. I opted for Garagistic’s street poly, after ordering the wrong bushings the first time around. They slid on easy, and the brace... well that was kind of a pain to install. So it turns out one of the threads for the lollipops was ruined at some point. Definitely cross threaded, and when I tried using the Garagistic supplied hardware, it became pretty clear this wasn’t going to work. I, unfortunately, do not own a tap set, so I found the bad bolt in question and put that in. This will have to be addressed pretty quickly, I don’t trust having shorter threads there, but for now it’ll let me get the car done and tested.

For the first time in a while, the engine wasn’t dangling by a support brace. I got everything seated and happy, and started nutting and bolting the car. I’m still a ways from being done, but it’s coming along pretty nicely. Having tons of free time can be nice I guess.

Finally, I test fitted the front brakes for the first time. Things fit well, I’m happy with the look. I thought I was going to need spacers for the front for some reason, but there are zero clearance issues with my current wheels.

Not bad progress for a Saturday afternoon.

[Fruttolo]

Racekor
working this fast you'll finish it in a heartbeat!

Is the x-brace protruding under the body lines? Or does it still sit higher than the bumper/skirts? I should do something with mine too but it's still low-ish, don't want to add something that ends up banging the ground every 3 seconds

[bwwaaaa]

Racekor
working this fast you'll finish it in a heartbeat!

Is the x-brace protruding under the body lines? Or does it still sit higher than the bumper/skirts? I should do something with mine too but it's still low-ish, don't want to add something that ends up banging the ground every 3 seconds

It doesn’t hang lower than the frame rails, but is a slight bit lower than the subframe. If you’re extremely low, then it will probably cause some problems. Obviously I’ve yet to drive with it yet, but I’ll report how it goes.

[bwwaaaa]

So Close, Yet So Far

Well I had a number of set backs that delayed me, and just as I thought I had finished one final one cropped up.

Back tracking a little bit first, the first problem I ran into was one of the rear brake hard lines was stripped. This is the piece that connects to the trailing arm. Fortunately a friend of mine was parting out a couple of E36s and brought that by for me. I soaked it in ATF and freed it. Swapped the line and bracket on the trailing arm and we were good to go. That problem cost me a couple days.

Then, once I thought I was completely done, disaster struck as I was backing out of the garage. One of the pins in the caliper body was considerably indented inwards. I didn’t notice that it would interfere with the rotor face in the air with no wheel on, I guess because I didn’t have set screws in. Anyway, I backed up out of my garage and immediately knew the rotor was destroyed. I’m not sure how I missed this, but looking through all my old photos of the calipers it’s clear to see this pin has always been not flush. Fairly embarrassing, but no sense in hiding my mistakes. I rushed, and that’s what I get. I’m sure I could have this rotor turned pretty easily, the damage isn’t that deep. But with COVID running amuck, I really don’t want to go out to shops or anything like that right now. Take a look at the following comparison pictures:

Ruined side


Normal side

So everything was done on the car, bled and ready to go, but now I’m waiting for a new rotor in the mail. I’m going to attempt to Dremel the pin down slightly to clearance it. As much as I’d like to press the pin in, I don’t have a press or the means to do that. So If I can gain just enough clearance to fit, I’ll call it good enough for now. What a bummer, so close to getting to enjoy the car again.

At least this looks good. I can’t wait for a proper test drive. So my stupidity aside, the car is finally back together. For just plugging away during weekends, actually that wasn’t so bad.

[hinrichs]

Damn that sucks about the rotor and caliper issue. Can you use a large c-clamp on the pins possibly? Not sure if it would ruin the powder or not.

[Fruttolo]

Damn that sucks about the rotor and caliper issue. Can you use a large c-clamp on the pins possibly? Not sure if it would ruin the powder or not.

It would but that could probably be prevented by using a piece of plastic backed with some cloth between the caliper and the clamp

[bwwaaaa]

Damn that sucks about the rotor and caliper issue. Can you use a large c-clamp on the pins possibly? Not sure if it would ruin the powder or not.

It would but that could probably be prevented by using a piece of plastic backed with some cloth between the caliper and the clamp

Yup, I’m going to attempt to squeeze it back in. Not feeling confident I have the tools to do that safely, but fortunately it’s very easy to remove the caliper from the car and try.

[bwwaaaa]

Fixed-ish

So after attempting to press in the studs a number of ways, I gave up and just ground them down. Is this ideal? No. However after weighing my options I wasn’t sure how else to handle the situation. Because of the powder build up on the posts and the face of the caliper, I’d have to cut the powder and use substantially more force than my hand tools provided to move them. I consulted with a few people, and they said it should be fine to ground down the posts since I’ll have the same effective length.

So I took a dremel and very slowly removed material until it was the same length as the opposing side. I then hit it with some caliper paint to seal it. Hurt to cut into my freshly finished pieces, and I feel like I’ll likely replace this caliper in the future because I feel like it’s a bit compromised, but I guess this gets the job done for now. New rotor showed up, I put it on, rebled the system and took it out on the road.

So a few things from that test drive.

1. As questioned before on this thread, the Garagistic X brace does hang lower than anticipated. It definitely scraped going over a speed bump.
2. Something is up with my alignment or my steering rack. Currently it feels as if the caster is way off, as the rack is not self-centering anymore. If I turn left or right, the wheel will either stick at that angle, or continue to follow that path until it reaches full lock. I only did an eyeball alignment for the front, so I suspect I did something wrong, but it is a little concerning. Some suggested greasing the upper u-joint on the steering column, I don’t see how that could be it but I will try that. Otherwise I need to get an alignment and hope that helps. If not, I’m open to suggestions, anyone else have a similar issue?
3. Brakes need more bleeding. They’re still a little soft, so I’m not ready to speak to the 996 Brembos effectiveness.

So back to the garage we go. Nearly done, but still have a ways to go.

[gnmzl]

Hey, that doesn't sound right about the rack! Double check if you routed the hoses correctly.
I think the caliper will be just fine, even if you don't do anything more about it.
Cars looking great!

[bwwaaaa]

Hey, that doesn't sound right about the rack! Double check if you routed the hoses correctly.
I think the caliper will be just fine, even if you don't do anything more about it.
Cars looking great!

The lines seem to be all correct, I’m not getting violent feedback from the wheel like I would if I reversed a PS line. The more I read on the subject, the more it seems it’s either a bad rack, or my alignment is hilariously wrong.

On the caliper issue, it should work just fine but it bugs me that those pins are sunken in. Someday, when I have nothing else better to do, I’ll probably address that. Not a big deal, but something that will bug me haha.

[Fruttolo]

Self centering issue sounds like super toed-in alignment, never had a bad rack tho so can't be sure about that

[Matt2low]

Car is looking great man!

[rice4life]

Great read, silver looks soooo good on e36's.

[bwwaaaa]

Thanks all!

Self centering issue sounds like super toed-in alignment, never had a bad rack tho so can't be sure about that

That’s my bet too. I fussed with it a little, and it seemed to get marginally better but clearly the toe is waaaay out of line. The rack seems fine otherwise, no leaks or other indicators that would point to it being bad.

Small update with no photos, dropped the car off this morning with a local fabricator to get the rear trailing arm reinforcements done. I’m also having them do all the rear subframe/trailing arm bushings while they’re at it. It’s not that I can’t do it, but I’m getting really sick of working on the ground on jack stands. Pulling the rear end sounded like a nightmare, so I’m just going to let them do that.

After that, it’s time to finally get an alignment.