My Green Shoe Project

[adonnan]

Well, after about eleven years of ownership and nearly 100k miles that I've put on the car, it's finally time to spend the time and money doing the differential reinforcement project, plus a whole lot more. I chose to put this project off for a long time. The green shoe has made it through grad school, four different city relocations, getting married, first house purchase, first child, second child being born and then some. The driveshaft center support bearing went out on me the other week at a BMW CCA autocross event and felt pretty awful in the handling dept. Can't blame it, the car has 176k miles on it. It was tempting just sell as is and let someone else fix it up, but the family CFO gave me the green light to save it. Also found a local shop willing to take on the project (Barber Race Works in Greenville, SC). I think being my first BMW, it's just too much of a story at this point to ever let go of it - barring any emergency.

Goal really is just to be a great driving car again, whether it's a mountain road or a track day. Cooling system, brakes, and shocks/springs are all decent and have been replaced.



Originally bought from a gentleman in Ohio that was afraid that his kids were going to drop something on it in the garage. His day job was playing with Ford GT / race division, so he really didn't see much use in holding onto it. It had around 70k miles and picked up for 16k in 2009. No, I don't have the mudflaps anymore. Sold to someone else around here that thought they were cool.


It's pretty much always had a Dinan stage 1 chip, m50 manifold and eurosport intake on it. I'm curious to add more power after I recover from the current big project.




At one point I had CCW LM wheels on it, that were gorgeous, but too heavy overall to really enjoy. Sold them. Wish I had this photo still in high-resolution, but lost the original copy years ago before I knew the value of backing up my photos.


Well, in hindsight I should've bought a small trailer or a truck for this, but it was fun nonetheless carrying these on top.


A few weeks back I took it to BMW Performance Center for a CCA autocross. Super uncomfortable and slow, but still had fun - and was where I really noticed things needed to be fixed. One of the employees could remember when they had a fleet of M Coupes to play with and take out for fun. The golden days of Greer's BMW plant.




I don't know if I could feel this diff mount while driving, but once we dropped the subframe to tackle bushings and more, the writing was on the wall. Thankfully Randy had a kit ready to ship out.

Boring shortlist of planned upgrades and fixes:
- Randy's Dual-ear differential mount
- beef up rear swaybar mounting points
- Dorman reinforced dual ear e36 diff cover with Rogue engineering poly bushings.
- all the miscellaneous pieces needed to fit the cover, just need the impeller wheel
- Condor subframe bushings, rubber trailing arm bushings
- new oem front lower control arms
- tie rod end end kit
- stromung exhaust
- engine mounts, transmission mounts
- center support bearing
- rubber endlinks
- probably a lot more i'm forgetting

Possible wants:
- 3.73 final drive and new LSD clutch pack, but may wait on this
- custom cat delete center pipe
- new wheel bearings
- powdercoat everything, but will settle for a rust-prevention rattle can

Feel free to chime in with things I should also address "while we're in it this far"

I joked about passing this down to the kids one day, but at this rate that may end up being a true statement.


p.s. if anyone has a replacement seat for this interior, let me know. i'm on the hunt for one or will go with a entirely different seat.

[kolosy]

nice! just went through a scaled-down version of that. Giubo?

[spfd72]

Are there pictures in your post?

[solimans]

Sounds like a great project


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[adonnan]

Are there pictures in your post?

Weird. They’re on Imgur and were there earlier today.

[mindEASE]

Always loved that color. I work around the Chesnee area do you may see me around sometime running my 99 Imola red coupe. Don’t hesitate to chase me down if I am out and about. Just hit 150K on the clock myself. Have fun with the upcoming work.

[adonnan]

I think I fixed the photos. Hopefully we'll begin the reinforcement work this week. The shop is probably doing the bushings, tie rod ends, control arms, etc now.

Any idea if the power steering rack needs attention, aside from fixing any leak and flushing the fluid?

[solimans]

The rack will eventually start to leak from the seals and need to be replaced or rebuilt, but that can be done pretty easily wo removing the subframe...so waiting is not really an issue


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[adonnan]

Gutted the rear interior today. Took about 1.5 hours. I guess we'll need to rip out that dynamat before it comes time to repaint at the final step.

Amazing how much room is underneath this subwoofer panel




The original subwoofer probably will be replaced, since it makes an awful noise anytime there's bass in a song. Or just leave it all out and enjoy the additional cargo space.

[adonnan]

I noticed the other side of the mount was really starting to tear. Glad we took the car off the road when we did, before it could really cause a bigger failure.

Who wants to buy my z3m finned diff cover?

[TexaZ3]

Yup, that's a tear alright.

[moupe54]

Thanks for sharing your process! this is up next for my m coupe unfortunately. I have no signs of failure thankfully but I really want to get in there and replace all of the rubbers and eliminate the possibility of failure in the future. Good luck with it!

[magnetchief]

I noticed the other side of the mount was really starting to tear. Glad we took the car off the road when we did, before it could really cause a bigger failure.

Who wants to buy my z3m finned diff cover?

That’s the exact same place mine went.
Drilled it out and welded it up before welding a new difmount onto the existing one.


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[MartyBtoo]

Thanks for sharing your process! this is up next for my m coupe unfortunately. I have no signs of failure thankfully but I really want to get in there and replace all of the rubbers and eliminate the possibility of failure in the future. Good luck with it!

You can't eliminate the possibility, all you can do is slightly reduce the likelihood.

Marty, S54 M Coupe, 113K miles on OEM rear suspension (except for Koni's), no problem so far.

[adonnan]

Can't rush this one, but exhaust arrived and the old diff mount was removed. I'm told it was quite the process. It's supposedly the hardest part of the install.



I guess it's only been about 5 weeks, but feels like forever.

[adonnan]

One month later...

I may get the car back today, but was recommended to look for a new driveshaft. Wonderful.

[KBH22102]

What diff cover is that? All I can make out is ‘Made in China’