Simple M3

[honeybadger]

[hinrichs]

[bwwaaaa]

And we're back!

I thought we lost the forums there for a minute. I know there's not a lot of us on here, but I do enjoy this community. So here are some updates on the M3. Progress has been slow, I've been working on the car as I have time after work. Some of you know, I scheduled the car for a paint job late next month, but I've since postponed it for a few reasons. One, I realize that there is a lot that needs to be taken care of on the car mechanically. The other thing is, I have wanted to swap the car since I got it, and it would suck to paint the car, only to have something damaged during the swap process. It's a low risk, but it seems like all the heavy wrenching should be taken care of while the car is an ugly duckling anyway.

I did get a new license plate. "STW" for Super Tourenwagen. Though with my plate frame, I anticipate most people will assume it stands for Stanceworks. That's fine, either way I'm happy with it.

I bought this wing from Stanceworks commander and chief, Mike. Back when Riley owned this M3, he had wanted to put this same wing on the car. I saw some photos, and bought it without thinking twice. Turns out it's a wing off a Lancer, and it needs a lot of work to fit. I like it, but I'm leaning towards sourcing a Rieger Infinity wing instead. It's amazing that thing wing fits as close as it does though, for being off an old crappy Mitsubishi.

I also finally started on my front end refresh. This has been fairly miserable as I have 30 minutes here and there to plug away at this. I've managed to drop everything, clean it up, swap the pan gasket and get the subframe back in. New control arms, CABs, engine mounts, E46 ZHP steering rack, etc. All new everything, because the steering was pretty sloppy on this car. I also got all new power steering hoses, just to hopefully stop the leak for some time. Photos above just show how disgusting everything was. The oil pan gasket was clearly the original one from 1998, the pan fell off the car when I undid the last bolt.

I also finally have my 996 calipers ready. All new seals, fresh powdercoat with the Brembo logo powder coated in as well (no stickers here). I had the crossover tubes done in black while I was at it, because they were disgusting to start. I was going to hold off installing these so I could make a few events in the upcoming weeks, but thanks to Corona Virus, we are now grounded.

Not strictly M3 related, but I'm not going to create a new thread for this car, but I finally bought a new daily driver. 2011 Acura TSX Sport Wagon. I got it from Carvana at all places, but it's low miles, very well kept and exactly what I was looking for. Frankly, I won't lie and say I won't do anything to it, but considering it's pretty boring I can't imagine it going beyond wheels and coils. I just wanted a daily driver that was comfortable, practical and reliable. That TSX checks all the boxes with flying colors.

Finally, with paint out for a while, I had settled on focusing on perfecting the car mechanically. That is, all of the big jobs will be handled before I make it look pretty. I didn't plan on buying an S54 (and actually at the time of posting this, the deal hasn't been finalized but I'm excited and wanted to share). This S54 came up for a good deal, a friend of mine purchased it for his E30 but opted instead to keep his M30 swap and buy a different project. It has 95k miles, confirmed via a Carfax showing that this engine came out of a wrecked 2002 M3. It has been sitting for a while, but otherwise all appears above board. It came with the harness, ECU, headers, throttle pedal, and a bunch of extra pieces.

My plan, and I guess I don't believe even myself sometimes, is to shove this engine in the corner and collect parts for the swap slowly over time. I refuse to pull my perfectly healthy S52 from the M3 until I'm absolutely sure that I have everything ready to go together. That includes items like rod bearings, VANOS, gaskets etc. I also have half a mind to pay a shop to do the swap itself. If you haven't gathered from any of my threads, I don't particularly love wrenching, it's more a necessary evil for me.

But the dream has always been S54 E36. So even if that takes a few years to get there, this is a step in the right direction. Well I hope, I still haven't actually taken delivery of the engine yet.

[TS1997]

Nice & clean M3!

[bwwaaaa]

So sad for the 2002 but this E36 looks so good, loving this vibe.

And so it has begun, the few regulars left on SW getting rid of some weight. Seeing hinrichs selling his M3 and you selling the 2002 reminds me of the recent discussion about how this kind of builds weigh us down.
Happy for you, your simple m3 looks very very good and with your aproach it'll become even better. Excited to see where you take it.

Thank you both! Believe me, it was a very difficult decision to sell the 2002 and I miss it every day. But without being able to dedicate proper time to it, it was just the logical choice.

Is this the end of an era? Where are those new times gonna bring us? The future is uncertain

Hopefully not the end of an era haha. Just a small break from the chaos of a ground up build!

[Fruttolo]

And so it has begun, the few regulars left on SW getting rid of some weight. Seeing hinrichs selling his M3 and you selling the 2002 reminds me of the recent discussion about how this kind of builds weigh us down.
Happy for you, your simple m3 looks very very good and with your aproach it'll become even better. Excited to see where you take it.

Is this the end of an era? Where are those new times gonna bring us? The future is uncertain

[gnmzl]

And so it has begun, the few regulars left on SW getting rid of some weight. Seeing hinrichs selling his M3 and you selling the 2002 reminds me of the recent discussion about how this kind of builds weigh us down.
Happy for you, your simple m3 looks very very good and with your aproach it'll become even better. Excited to see where you take it.

[DawsonLiri]

So sad for the 2002 but this E36 looks so good, loving this vibe.

[bwwaaaa]

Wish I would have know the 2002 was going to be for sale, thats on my long term list and would have love to scoop it up. Brakes shouldnt be hard, those are deff a big size jump.

I'll be honest, you probably wouldn't have wanted mine specifically. What I didn't get into too much in the other thread was just how beat up that shell really was. The deeper I dug into it, the more it turns out it would have been infinitely more economical to reshell the entire car for the get go. I want another one some day, but just that one required far too much time that I didn't have.

As someone that always has multiple cars at once, I know the cleansing feeling of liquidating to one. Such a good feeling. Doesn't last for long cause we restart the cycle, but for that little bit.... life is so simple.

Car looks very sophisticated in the parking garage. Like its awaiting Jason Statham in a Transporter mission. Very sharp.

Thanks! And yes, definitely. Purging everything has been a huge load off. Inevitably, being a car guy, I know I'll buy something else I don't need. But for now I'm going to enjoy the simplicity of my Simple M3 haha.

[Miroteknik]

As someone that always has multiple cars at once, I know the cleansing feeling of liquidating to one. Such a good feeling. Doesn't last for long cause we restart the cycle, but for that little bit.... life is so simple.

Car looks very sophisticated in the parking garage. Like its awaiting Jason Statham in a Transporter mission. Very sharp.

[hinrichs]

Wish I would have know the 2002 was going to be for sale, thats on my long term list and would have love to scoop it up. Brakes shouldnt be hard, those are deff a big size jump.

[bwwaaaa]

And Then There Was One...

So if anyone follows my Instagram, you'll know a couple weeks back I sold my 2002. That's a long story in itself that I don't particularly want to go into, but I also had my other car for sale. Earlier this week I also sold my Fiesta ST. For the first time in about 10 years, I only own one car. I have always had a number of projects, daily drivers or other cars kicking around. But I decided to slim the fleet down to one singular car. And my M3 is it. The FiST was my daily driver, so now the M3 also has to fulfill those roles.

I don't anticipate this being my only car for very long. Certainly I'll buy another one later this year, as I don't really want to put the M3 through daily driver abuse. But that's how it is for now, and I'm perfectly happy with that. Here's a few shots from my work parking garage this morning.

I also immediately traded away those calipers I just got, for... the exact same calipers. I had stock 996 calipers pulled straight off a salvage car. However to fit standard E46 M3 rotors vs. the CSL rotors (as mentioned in my last update) you need to shave 12mm off the mounting surface. It just so happens a friend of mine had shaved calipers on his car and wanted to upgrade to CSL rotors. So we swapped calipers straight across. Saved me a few dollars and hassle getting that done. I sent the calipers straight to powder coat because they were pretty nasty looking, and I don't want them to say Porsche.

Meanwhile my rotors and control arms arrived. As always, I use hand size for reference. I have huge hands, these rotors are huge. I'm a fan.

Somehow I'm going to have to figure out a strategy to get all this work done without interfering with daily driver duties. I may not have thought this out well enough. But I'll manage.

[bwwaaaa]

Cant wait to hear what you think about those brakes, they are on my long list of things I want to do.

I’ll keep you posted. I can send you a full parts list of what I did, there are some odd tricks like running front 2.7 Boxster pads on the rear calipers for a full coverage of the rotor surface, etc.

I’m hoping it gives a stronger pedal feel and fights fade a little better. I’ve heard a few people note some knock back with this setup, but it seems inconsistent.

I really like the overall setup, you nailed the dtm feel, would just go down to the wheels' lips in the rear for additional racekor points LOL

Didn't m3s already come with x-braces?

Haha I thought about going lower but at this stage I was as low as I could be without rubbing under real driving conditions. Plus, unlikely my last E36, I can still get a jack under the car at this height.

And only the LTW and Convertibles came with an X brace in the US. I don’t know about Euro spec M3s, but here we got cheated.

[Fruttolo]

I really like the overall setup, you nailed the dtm feel, would just go down to the wheels' lips in the rear for additional racekor points LOL

Didn't m3s already come with x-braces?

[hinrichs]

Cant wait to hear what you think about those brakes, they are on my long list of things I want to do.