Just havin' a good time.

[eurodream]

Welcome to the slow progress that is my e36.
Never thought I'd do one of these myself, but I've grown up on VWvortex & Bimmerforums and just think it's time I throw up my own "build."
It's a 1997 328is that was originally bought with 127,000 miles. It's now at 182,000 at just shy of 3 years of daily driving to and from College.
Lots of mistakes, lots of fun, lots of learning, lots of filters, etc. Hope you guys enjoy!
Onto the pics! (WARNING: Lots of stance pics. I need to get better at taking pics of actual working on the car, but I just get in my zone and go for it. Also it's not the easiest gathering 3 years worth of photos and getting them in perfect order so some stuff may be out of order)

Anyways:
Complimentary dog hair covered interior and terrible looking TSW's




Then after about 6 hours of cleaning



One of the first things I did was delete traction control since the intake boot that came with the car was cracked plastic and duct taped together



and then all reds (I'm sorry, but remember. College kid. No money)



The night that my friend helped me install my Raceland Ultimo's (for the price they've been great, but it's time for BC's this winter). Also plastidipped the TSW's to at least look like simple five spoke wheels for the time being.




Smoked corners, side blinkers, and taillights



Then came the stancy stuff. A VW friend of mine had a refinished set of Porsche Turbo Twists just hanging out in his garage for the longest time. One day he offered them to me for a price I couldn't refuse. Even though I didn't want 18's, I desperately wanted to get rid of the Beyern by TSW wheels the car came with. So adapters were bought and test fitting was done:




First day of driving on them and tire issues... Nankangs woo...





but then things looked okay for a while, especially at Leavenworth Drive 2015 (Many photos taken by @dusmanoff)

[eurodream]

Traded my cousin for his euro tails

[eurodream]

Finally ditched the 18's and got some 17x8/9 Style 32's with 205/40/17's all around.
















Leavenworth Drive 2016 (@dusmanoff & @brendantfallon)








Our town got a crazy sandstorm and this was the result




I have this road 2 miles away from college so I sometimes am able to go on a quick drive between classes



The only time the car has left me stranded was when the alternator died. I saw it coming too so it was my own fault anyways.

[eurodream]

Winter shenanigans / roads / parts collecting etc (Combining several winters into one post)

















Vibrant muffler because the muffler delete drone was getting to be too much, especially with the windows up in the cold months.



Got some 215/40/17 Falken Azenis RT615k's for the front. Extremely happy with them

[RandomHero27]

photos dont show. i think you have to remove the s from https

[awp235]

Looking forward for the photos to be fixed! This past weekend I put BC's on my e46 drifter, and they're freaking amazing.

[abest521]

in for pictures

[eurodream]

Onto the interior. Now I bought the car because I wanted a project that drove fine but just needed love. This car definitely did. Most of the interior wasn't screwed or clipped in. Not even the two rear bolts for the e46 sport seats the car came with (The seat rails weren't even modified to fit the seats into the car). Magically though all the trim held each other in place and never rattled. The carpet had seen better days, so I decided to pull it. The headliner was sagging with a non-working sunroof, so it all went. I've never liked sunroofs and I've always wanted to own a slick top, so I ordered an s2rtuning carbon sunroof delete panel (cannot say enough nice things about this piece, one of my favorite things I've done to the car. Took 34 pounds off the highest point, no leaks, and the carbon matches the Cosmos Schwarz Black perfectly in certain light). I had pretty much decided that I wanted a clean looking stripped car, that still had street car vibes, while slowly getting built more and more for the track. I decided to opt for heat gun, a plastic paint scraper, and a $25 bottle of 3m Adhesive Remover to wipe off the leftover tar. I did this because it was all being done in my apartment garage, but also because I didn't wanna scratch the interior too much since it wasn't being painted immediately after.
















I was in for a surprise when the carpet came out. Entire loom was poorly electrical taped. When I took the tape off, burnt wiring. Melted together. Tangles everywhere. Exposed wire. Dealer supplied extra airbag wiring. List goes on.

[eurodream]

[eurodream]

So I dealt with wiring for about 20 hours over the course of several days. I started at the trunk and worked my way forward knowing it was the worst at the firewall (didn't know JUST how bad it was yet though), but I did it this way because at least I would see progress. I thinned the harness WAY down. In terms of sound, I decided to keep only the headunit and two rear deck speakers. That's it. I like good quality music but I don't really care for it in my car since I'd rather have fun driving it. So the two rear speakers going straight to the headunit were sufficient enough for me. A friend of mine that I drift with recommended this pretty amazing wiring loom so I ordered a pack. Started wrapping my way upwards. Got to the firewall and NOPED right outta there. I noticed burnt wires going to and from both the black and white harness connectors so I figured it was time to give it to a professional. Handed the car over to (possibly bimmerforums user?) Alex who put together my friend's e36 racecar's harness. Alex did a phenomenal job patching up my wiring and making sure it's all safe. He pulled the wiring out from the fuse box location and fixed many more issues. Many are in the pictures above ^ . He also cleaned up the wiring behind the glove box because that was such a rat's nest that I couldn't even change my cabin air filter. Alex suspects the wires melting was caused by a passenger seat airbag sensor harness or the power wire to the electrical seats. Needless to say, All airbag equipment and wiring was removed. Anyways, got my car back from Alex and started putting it back together and cleaning it up. Also ordered a Vac Motorsports fire extinguisher mount and Purple K extinguisher JUST to be on the safe side.

[eurodream]

Installed the Hard Motorsport trunk filler panel with rivnuts






Buddy helped me redo my cooling system as well.
Went with a Mishimoto 62 degree thermostat
Aluminum thermostat cover (Car already had one but it was covered in silicone so I figured why not)
Low temp aux fan switch
Metal impeller water pump (Car already had one but it was faulty)
& new BMW coolant.
Will have to get a Koyorad radiator sometime but for now the stock one works perfect

[eurodream]

So this brings us to the beginning of 2017, my first season drifting on track.
Wrapped the Enkei RPF1's with my RT615k's.




Took the car to my neighbor's work so he could mill down my 20mm spacers to 18mm.



Car started misfiring, got check engine codes, and just felt like crap.

So I replaced the manifold gaskets, crankshaft and camshaft position sensors, and an o2 sensor. Also replaced the recalled crankshaft position sensor harness, deleted more emissions stuff, got my injectors looked at, replaced spark plugs, and fixed vaccuum leaks. Car runs great now, idle doesn't bounce around at red lights anymore, and I got my power back.

[eurodream]

Buddy welded up my 2.93 for me



Had to cut my diffuser a lot to fit the dual 3.5" tips and tuck them up in the bumper



Coolest workshop I've ever seen




My friends and I took our German 240's to Nissanfest in Seattle.


- - - Updated - - -

Time for my first drift day. Figure 8 track at the Stateline of Washington and Idaho







- - - Updated - - -

Then Leavenworth Drive 2017 came around. I had just picked up some Style 66's for drift spares.

[eurodream]

Independence Matsuri 2017 time! This was only my second event but man was it awesome. I'm bummed that I've seen no pictures come of it even though there were plenty of photographers on track. If you'd like in car footage of my mediocre driving, you can find it on my instagram @bigjetplane.jp
A hydro or even a working e brake would have been nice here but that's alright, still had a blast.
Car held up extremely well. Had the over 2 mile long track to myself for 7 laps at one point, which is around 15ish minutes so I just kept hot lapping with temps never budging.

[eurodream]

So that basically brings us to today. I'm done for the season, only did the two events. The car just needs a bit more so that i'd be more comfortable with drifting it. For example, I'll be ordering Nerp Tech adjustable lower control arms this week. I graduate college this December, so the build should pick way up. Lots of plans and goodies for this winter.

So here's the state the car is currently in...

[eurodream]

Things not pictured:
- New Meyle HD control arms
- New Lemfoerder inner & outer tie rods
- Powerflex purple street poly FCABs
- Powerflex black track poly RTABs
- X brace
- SAP delete
- Clutch fan delete
- Airbag delete
- Horn deleted
- TRM 6" shift knob
- Ebrake fully deleted
- Armrest delete
- Zimmerman rotors w/ ceramic brake pads
- Garagistic rear strut tower reinforcement plates
- Ichiba 15mm 5x114.3 adapters for the RPF1's
- Ground control / Eibach rear springs

Plans for this winter:
- Half cage at least
- Bucket seats
- Harnesses
- BC coilovers
- Hydro w/ dual calipers
- Complete the set of RPF1's or completely switch to some more Japanese wheels
- Felony Form
- Wrap or paint
- Reinforce rear end
- New axles
- etc......

Thanks for stickin' around! Enjoy a throwback burnout & stay tuned!

[DanUsmanoff]

aye that's my boy! keep the updates coming

[xMatthew]

Damn this is clean. Car looks great with all that sound deadening and carpet removed. Do you have a link for that wire loom? And because I'm a lazy pos and don't feel like googling it, how'd you hook up your speakers to your head unit?

[Mikestokman]

I wish independence matsuri wasn't the same weekend as our drift union invitational, I went to spectate year one down there and that track seems hella fun

[awp235]

This is great man! Keep up the hard work. This winter I want to reinforce my rear end too, I'm in an e46. About to run my 3rd event, so we'll see how it goes! Keep up the updates as things roll in, it's a gorgeous car.

[Hinrichs]

Cool build recap, car looked great on the twists. Ill be watching to see more.

[stealthbeam]

Awesome Work! Is that a Max Velocity Front Lip??

[eurodream]

Damn this is clean. Car looks great with all that sound deadening and carpet removed. Do you have a link for that wire loom? And because I'm a lazy pos and don't feel like googling it, how'd you hook up your speakers to your head unit?

Thank You!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SPLIT-LOOM-1...hRU21R&vxp=mtr

Everything audio related is deleted except for the 4 colorful and curly wires (2 per speaker) going to each speaker. They are pinned into the connector that plugs into the back of the headunit. Sorry I'm not too much help. Wiring was a mess, especially from the PO's leftover $uB wiring so I had a friend help me out with it. I'll have to snap a pic for you when I'm in the garage.

- - - Updated - - -

I wish independence matsuri wasn't the same weekend as our drift union invitational, I went to spectate year one down there and that track seems hella fun

Yeah so do I. I would have loved to go watch DUI but driving seemed a BIT more fun haha

This is great man! Keep up the hard work. This winter I want to reinforce my rear end too, I'm in an e46. About to run my 3rd event, so we'll see how it goes! Keep up the updates as things roll in, it's a gorgeous car.

Hey good stuff man! I appreciate the kind words! Good luck at the event

Cool build recap, car looked great on the twists. Ill be watching to see more.

Thank You! It wasn't easily driveable in that state though hah.

Awesome Work! Is that a Max Velocity Front Lip??

Thank You!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E36-M3-B...72.m2749.l2649

[eurodream]

Throwback pics from Independence Matsuri by Shinchoku



and then my car BARELY made it into this picture on the right edge but idc I'll take it I'm grasping at straws for pics from that event xD

[Mikestokman]

How did the stock power hold up for scr? I always felt that even with the s50 it might feel underpowered at that track.. the only time I was there I was with Logan Noel and his car makes like mid 300 range so hard to compare to a stock BMW haha