My 2001 740i M Sport

[bavin]

I used a GROM in the E39 540 and later transferred it to the 750. It is functional and works but 1) needed the additional hardware of microphone etc, 2) didn’t allow phone use regardless of mode, and 3) didn’t integrate with the system to show allow the extras (coolant temp, convenience blinkers, etc).

If you have the grom fully installed, unless you want the other aspects, I wouldn’t change it out. You are probably used to the grom and what you need to do. If you only have the music aspect of the grom (no microphone for calls) then worth it to change out.
If you are debating between the two because you don’t have either, go with the BlueBus.


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I’ve never used a GROM unit and haven’t seen any comparison videos of the two but from my understanding the ease of install and integration with the OE hardware is where the Bluebus shines. It uses the OE mic and power cables to integrate with the car and natively has Bluetooth whereas that appears to be extras on the GROM (for more money). If it’s already installed and works properly, may not be worth the effort to remove/install a Bluebus.

Cool, thanks. I might grab one. Looks like it's backordered until feb. 2023.

[Btkeenan]

Cool, thanks. I might grab one. Looks like it's backordered until feb. 2023.

Yep. Took a while to get here but worth it imo. I ordered one the same week I got the car back in May and just got mine. It was estimated to be delivered late September and got here late October. ECS Tuning also has it as a product. Not sure which would ship first but I placed an order direct and through ECS and ended up cancelling the ECS one because they kept pushing back the delivery window.

[Btkeenan]

Took my car for a cruise down to Newport Beach and this thing just doesn’t cease to impress me. It’s so smooth and capable on the road and stands up to the “Ultimate Driving Machine” motto they touted back in the day. I think I may modify the exhaust again in the near future. It sounds great on startup, when on it and when cruising at highway speeds but ~40-50mph drones pretty bad. I thought about originally going with an Eisenmann exhaust setup but do not like the look of the exhaust cutouts in the bumper. I heard about a shop that sells a valved muffler setup originally developed for BMWs, but they have a "universal" muffler that looks like it will fit in the cavity where the OE mufflers were. It uses a vacuum pump to open and close valves in the muffler to get the best of both worlds. TBD

During my trek, I was able to use the BlueBus for a few hours and found it to be lagging on Spotify sporadically. It would stop if I changed songs, but it was if the song size was too large for the Bluetooth bandwidth. I also had an issue with a ticking noise when no audio was being played from my phone. It sounded as if a record was spinning after playing the last song. I emailed Ted and he had me do the BM53 configuration update. Flashing was easy with his instructions on GitHub. Threw it back in the car and so far, it has been resolved. Will have to use it some more to verify that fixed the issue. I also was testing the calling capability of the BlueBus and noticed the 762 “upgraded mic” to be rather garbage. It would pick up an immense amount of feedback on the other end and the gain would have to be set to 15dB or more to be heard. I mentioned it to Ted, and he said that the BlueBus is optimized for the 338 mic (original one installed) and to swap it and test again. I did so and now calls come in clear on both ends and the mic gain seems to be happy between 11 and 15dB. Will have to test on the highway to see what the best setting is.

Huge shoutout to Ted for the customer support and cannot recommend the BlueBus enough to modernize our cars while using the OE head unit.

I also was able to finally complete the install of the StealthOne unit from Jaric Designs that @cdh sold me a while back. Took half an hour of cussing and contorting underneath the glovebox to find the ibus wire but eventually did get it hooked up. Luckily, it was already programmed for use in an E38 and the other settings were in line with what I would use it for anyway so didn’t have to go through the reset procedure. Unit works great and is super neat to have a concealed display for any alerts. It even has a little car animation go across the gauge cluster screen on startup. *Can confirm it only works on V1 Gen 1*

StealthOne Display
StealthOne.jpg
ibus Wire tap
ibus wire.jpg
That being said, I may send my gauge cluster out to be repaired for the row of dead pixels in the temp gauge and the main display. Maybe also swap out the needles for another color, maybe red to match my truck

[Staszek]

Took my car for a cruise down to Newport Beach and this thing just doesn’t cease to impress me. It’s so smooth and capable on the road and stands up to the “Ultimate Driving Machine” motto they touted back in the day. I think I may modify the exhaust again in the near future. It sounds great on startup, when on it and when cruising at highway speeds but ~40-50mph drones pretty bad. I thought about originally going with an Eisenmann exhaust setup but do not like the look of the exhaust cutouts in the bumper. I heard about a shop that sells a valved muffler setup originally developed for BMWs, but they have a "universal" muffler that looks like it will fit in the cavity where the OE mufflers were. It uses a vacuum pump to open and close valves in the muffler to get the best of both worlds. TBD

During my trek, I was able to use the BlueBus for a few hours and found it to be lagging on Spotify sporadically. It would stop if I changed songs, but it was if the song size was too large for the Bluetooth bandwidth. I also had an issue with a ticking noise when no audio was being played from my phone. It sounded as if a record was spinning after playing the last song. I emailed Ted and he had me do the BM53 configuration update. Flashing was easy with his instructions on GitHub. Threw it back in the car and so far, it has been resolved. Will have to use it some more to verify that fixed the issue. I also was testing the calling capability of the BlueBus and noticed the 762 “upgraded mic” to be rather garbage. It would pick up an immense amount of feedback on the other end and the gain would have to be set to 15dB or more to be heard. I mentioned it to Ted, and he said that the BlueBus is optimized for the 338 mic (original one installed) and to swap it and test again. I did so and now calls come in clear on both ends and the mic gain seems to be happy between 11 and 15dB. Will have to test on the highway to see what the best setting is.

Huge shoutout to Ted for the customer support and cannot recommend the BlueBus enough to modernize our cars while using the OE head unit.

I also was able to finally complete the install of the StealthOne unit from Jaric Designs that @cdh sold me a while back. Took half an hour of cussing and contorting underneath the glovebox to find the ibus wire but eventually did get it hooked up. Luckily, it was already programmed for use in an E38 and the other settings were in line with what I would use it for anyway so didn’t have to go through the reset procedure. Unit works great and is super neat to have a concealed display for any alerts. It even has a little car animation go across the gauge cluster screen on startup. *Can confirm it only works on V1 Gen 1*

StealthOne Display
StealthOne.jpg
ibus Wire tap
ibus wire.jpg
That being said, I may send my gauge cluster out to be repaired for the row of dead pixels in the temp gauge and the main display. Maybe also swap out the needles for another color, maybe red to match my truck

Needles are pretty easy to change color. You can paint them or what a lot of us had done in the E46 scene back and the day (and what I did with my E38) is use a red or orange sharpie. I used orange to closer match the M5 cluster. It literally takes two minutes and a steady hand to do it.



As for the exhaust I am still probably going eisenman, I know its expensive, but you can always buy them then get turned down tips to not have cutouts in your bumper

[Btkeenan]

Needles are pretty easy to change color. You can paint them or what a lot of us had done in the E46 scene back and the day (and what I did with my E38) is use a red or orange sharpie. I used orange to closer match the M5 cluster. It literally takes two minutes and a steady hand to do it.

As for the exhaust I am still probably going eisenman, I know its expensive, but you can always buy them then get turned down tips to not have cutouts in your bumper

Interesting. I may have to explore that with the paint/sharpies. And yes, it is still compelling as it sounds good but for now the muffler delete scratches the itch for more noise lol.

[Btkeenan]

On the advice of E39 Source when they did the initial inspection of my car, they noted that the fan clutch and fan appeared to be original and to replace them as a preventative measure. They had seen various cars with original parts fail and wreak havoc in the front of the cars. Finally got around to ordering a set from FCP Euro (link & link). I used this video for instructions but it’s fairly easy to do with the right tools. I checked the local auto stores for a proper fan clutch wrench and their “universal” wrenches did not have 32mm as an option so ordered this one from Amazon. Build quality is solid and it has some heft to it unlike a lot of the other fan clutch wrench reviews out there. Mount up the water pump bolts with the one wrench and the 32mm nut with the other and rotate the nut clockwise. Mine wasn’t budging after 5 minutes of persuasion so applied some penetrating lubricant with a qtip at the top of the nut and let it sit for 5 minutes. Tried again and it came apart without any drama. After some back and forth with delivery dates with UPS, new parts showed up and the assembly is reverse of the above. The one thing that I didn’t understand is who at BMW parts thought it was a good idea to throw a part number sticker on the opposite side of the fan blade where there is an imprinted part number in the casting… took some elbow grease and goo gone to get it off but other than that, the install is easy. The spinning of the rear nut is noticeably stiffer on the old vs new one so just a matter of time before it was to seize.

Old Clutch
Fan Clutch 1.jpg

Old vs new
Old vs New.jpg

Fan sticker ugh
Fan Sticker 1.jpg

That's better
Fan Sticker 2.jpg

Installed
Installed.jpg

I also decided to run a 20oz can of seafoam into the fuel tank to see if that will make any improvements to the system. Did a hot lap to and from Costco to top it off with fuel and didn’t notice any immediate difference but will have to continue monitoring.

[Staszek]

Good call, I was going to look into that when I redid my cooling system.

[Btkeenan]

A while back I setup a spare laptop I had around and for use with PA Soft. Decided to add onto this and get INPA and NavCoder setup on this PC as I will not be using it for anything else. I used this and this as references for the installation for INPA and purchased this for connection to the software from the car. Installation went smoothly and everything seemed to work (the E46Fanatics link has a helpful video). Plugged the INPA adapter into my PC and it was showing up as COM3 so had to modify that to show COM1 but other than that was plug and play. Pretty cool the amount of stuff you can do to these cars with some simple software. Next was NavCoder which was a simple installation. I read about a resler connector that taps into the ibus wire but my INPA cable worked for communicating to the car without issues so opted to not go this route. I was able to use this guide to program the MK4 unit I purchased off craigslist to show my vin and info in the telematics section in the hidden settings menu. The unit worked prior to coding but this just ties the unit now to my car instead of the X5 it was previously in.

Some additional notes:
-While fiddling around with INPA/NCSExpert/NavCoder, I noticed the NAV screen prompt me for the installation CD to activate the unit. I came across this issue when I had the MK3 when updating from the older firmware's to the new firmware but was unaware of an activation key for MK4 units so threw the firmware upgrade CD I made for V32. It went through the usual steps to install the update before completing and saying it was already up to date and now works like normal. Not sure what I did to prompt that originally but more for anyone else that comes across it.
-The interface on INPA is a bit annoying as you have to hit SHIFT + F9 to get to the menu to select E38 each time you want to access the items relevant to the E38. Not sure if there is a setting to shortcut this or not. Also, I noticed that the special tests were unavailable to run. It kept throwing errors such as 1303. Will have to do some more research to see what the deal is with that.
-The switch on the INPA adapter has 4 positions. I tried each of them while communicating in INPA and they all seem to work. The listing states that it has 1. Fast magistral D-CAN and PT-CAN (500 kbit/s) 2. Slow magistral K-CAN (100 kbit/s) 3. Standard BMW protocol (BMW OBD interface). but no fourth option. Not sure if each of these correlates to a switch location but you may be better off going with the one listed in the installation guide.

[bavin]

On the advice of E39 Source when they did the initial inspection of my car, they noted that the fan clutch and fan appeared to be original and to replace them as a preventative measure. They had seen various cars with original parts fail and wreak havoc in the front of the cars. Finally got around to ordering a set from FCP Euro (link & link). I used this video for instructions but it’s fairly easy to do with the right tools. I checked the local auto stores for a proper fan clutch wrench and their “universal” wrenches did not have 32mm as an option so ordered this one from Amazon. Build quality is solid and it has some heft to it unlike a lot of the other fan clutch wrench reviews out there. Mount up the water pump bolts with the one wrench and the 32mm nut with the other and rotate the nut clockwise. Mine wasn’t budging after 5 minutes of persuasion so applied some penetrating lubricant with a qtip at the top of the nut and let it sit for 5 minutes. Tried again and it came apart without any drama. After some back and forth with delivery dates with UPS, new parts showed up and the assembly is reverse of the above. The one thing that I didn’t understand is who at BMW parts thought it was a good idea to throw a part number sticker on the opposite side of the fan blade where there is an imprinted part number in the casting… took some elbow grease and goo gone to get it off but other than that, the install is easy. The spinning of the rear nut is noticeably stiffer on the old vs new one so just a matter of time before it was to seize.

Old Clutch
Fan Clutch 1.jpg

Old vs new
Old vs New.jpg

Fan sticker ugh
Fan Sticker 1.jpg

That's better
Fan Sticker 2.jpg

Installed
Installed.jpg

I also decided to run a 20oz can of seafoam into the fuel tank to see if that will make any improvements to the system. Did a hot lap to and from Costco to top it off with fuel and didn’t notice any immediate difference but will have to continue monitoring.

Did you go with MAHLE / BEHR fan clutch ? if so, don't expect it to last, lol.

[Btkeenan]

Did you go with MAHLE / BEHR fan clutch ? if so, don't expect it to last, lol.

Yea just went with it because it is OE. I did strategically get it from FCP euro so if there's any issue, it'll go back and get replaced.

[Btkeenan]

Ok so after a day of tinkering and making a dozen or so bootle usbs, I have relegated this diagnostic laptop to being a windows 7 32bit machine.

I tried to do a W10 64 bit and W7 64 bit dual boot and was successful (or so I thought). *A note when installing the older version of INPA, apparently there can’t be any non letter characters in the folder hierarchy. To fix, move the contents to another folder at the root level of windows and it will install* completed installation and thought I was in the clear until I saw this.

Grrrrr

Whelp so much for that. Tried force running 32bit apps in the environment as well as the usual admin and compatibility mode. Still no go. Fun fact, you can’t have w10 64 and w7 32 on the same drive because of different partition table structures (MBR vs GPT). Also tried a VM (usb driver wouldn’t initialize), converting GPT to MBR (corrupted drive) and using Microsoft usb media creation tool (they default to GPT) to no avail. Decided to wipe everything and start from scratch with w7 32bit image. Reinstalled all the relevant diagnostic software and it seems to work as normal. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to have the latest and greatest…

[a777fan]

Glad you got it working!!! But jeeze. What a pain!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Btkeenan]

Glad you got it working!!! But jeeze. What a pain!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yea quite the ordeal… I need to verify whatever @staszek was having issues with on the newer version actually works on this one and then it’ll all be worth it

[purplecty]

Yea quote the ordeal… I need to verify whatever @staszek was having issues with on the newer version actually works on this one and then it’ll all be worth it

It was all 64bit related and will work fine on 32bit windows...

[Btkeenan]

It was all 64bit related and will work fine on 32bit windows...

[Staszek]

Yea quite the ordeal… I need to verify whatever @staszek was having issues with on the newer version actually works on this one and then it’ll all be worth it

Mine would run all the codes, it will "clear them" and do all the right stuff on the screen, but it wasnt actually passing to the car.

[Btkeenan]

Mine would run all the codes, it will "clear them" and do all the right stuff on the screen, but it wasnt actually passing to the car.

Ah interesting. No codes right now but I should be able to sort them out if (when) they arise.

[Btkeenan]

A new year brings a renewed sense of wanting to tinker. Added some things to the list of stuff I want to do to the car starting with some things that have been bothering me since I got the car. One of the rear license plate plugs was all jacked up so replaced all 4. The hood latch hook plastic surround had cracked on both sides, so I replaced those and then reluctantly replaced the first aid box latch in the rear seat ($80 later). Also swapped the other piston in the glovebox after noticing it was leaking and now that functions properly again and swapped out the expansion tank plastic fastener for a brass one.

Had some alerts setup for a 2001 7-Series brochure that @a777fan had posted a while back and got pinged by someone selling one in France of all places. Ended up purchasing it and it just showed up. Super neat to have a piece of early 2000s marketing material. One thing I did find out from the seller was that these particular brochures suffer from the paint samples on the last 2 pages sticking together. Wasn’t an issue on mine but to prevent this from happening in the future, I cut out a piece of tissue paper to size and put it between the two offending pages.

Brochure 1.jpgBrochure 2.jpg

Post BlueBus installation, I had removed the dead weight that is the CD player and am not a fan of the hole that is now there. Modeled up a replacement plate in solidworks and 3d printed it out. Works great and encapsulates the space so nothing can accidentally fall in there. Once I have a final version I'll post it along with some other goodies such as A/B/C pillar repair kit and replacement HPS cover. Likely going to sell them through my company.

Also, because I'm a glutton for punishment, I decided to give dual booting this old pc another go. Grabbed a 1tb m.2 online and reinstalled W7 first and then W10 and go figure, it worked on the first try. Split the drive in two to give either OS ample room for any programs I want to run. Also stumbled upon this so installed ISTA+ and ISTA-P respectively on the corresponding OS's. Not sure if these can really be used as programming software but cool to use for diagnostic purposes. One funny thing I did find is an article for arguments pertaining to engine oil consumption and the types of responses you should give the customer if they complain about the oil consumption (their answer is it provides lubrication, cooling, and prevents corrosion and sedimentation).

ISTA 1.jpgISTA 2.jpg

Looking at some additional things including M5/X5 grey cluster, 3 spoke E39 wheel, automatic headlight control and Siemens CID nav radio retrofit for HD radio. Surprisingly the radio is very hard to find because only 4 of the skus have IBOC integrated but alerts are set so fingers crossed.

[Staszek]

Let me know how the auto headlight control goes thats on my list. I am also getting a 4.6is cluster shortly from Ayal, super excited about that. I will try to sell mine to recoup some funds.

[Btkeenan]

Some mild updates, went to the local pick your part and had some fun going through a 97 740il. Pulled out the A/B/C pillars and surprisingly all of the tabs were completely intact. Development is in process for a full retrofit tab kit to replace the existing design. Also was able to snag an M60 intake manifold which I will hold onto as I continue to acquire parts for a Dinan stage 5 tune setup. Need to still get the intake, MAF, and throttle body but cleaned it up with simple green HD and now it’s sitting in storage waiting for me to get the rest of the components. Also got a zionsville radiator, Bavarian autosport strut bar and some other goodies but TBD what I want to do with them.
PYP_Haul.jpg

Also was having a weird issue with the Walmart battery the previous owner installed. Sometimes when I would try to turn it over using the one touch start, it would click as if to turn over and then nothing. I would have to cycle the key to zero and back to start for it to start. Thought I had solved it with a battery tender, but it happened again last week, so I decided to return the 01/22 “platinum” battery to Walmart and pick up an AGM from BMW. Hooked up the vent tube and plugged the other vent hole with a tab I 3d printed out and no complaints. Battery swap didn’t trigger any warnings on the dash and works as advertised. I asked the parts guy if there were any other options as far as H9 AGM’s go but he said no (Costco interstate ones are H9 AGM for about the same cost as BMW H8).
Battery.jpg

After some back and forth with WorldUPH (who are very helpful btw) I think I am going to order an aerosol can of one of the greys they have. To me it looks like the silver grey is the closest match to the interior door sill color as factory so will have to pull a door sill, prep it and shoot it to see. Not sure how it compares to the dye I purchased from colourlock that is an exact match to the grey leather seat color but interested to see. I may just prep and dye them all to have them at least match.
WorldUPH.jpg

Also went for a nice cruise up into the mountains. Hard to beat winters in CA
Crest.jpg

[purplecty]

Nice find on the Zionsville!

[a777fan]

Which colurlock ‘code’ did you use for your order? I’ve visited their website and then lost interest when it seemed like there were about a billion BMW ‘gray’ options!

EDIT: damn! I did it again. You seem to have already provided the link to what you purchased in your post! Is that right?

[Btkeenan]

Nice find on the Zionsville!

Thanks! It was a total PITA to get it out of the car without taking the front end off.

Which colurlock ‘code’ did you use for your order? I’ve visited their website and then lost interest when it seemed like there were about a billion BMW ‘gray’ options!

EDIT: damn! I did it again. You seem to have already provided the link to what you purchased in your post! Is that right?

Haha yea the linked color (grau) is the one I searched for and purchased from amazon. The listing on amazon I purchased is dead now, but it showed up with a tag that says Grey for BMW. Before using it anywhere noticeable, I did a test patch underneath my rear seat where it curves under to verify the color was correct.

[a777fan]

Thanks! It was a total PITA to get it out of the car without taking the front end off.

Haha yea the linked color (grau) is the one I searched for and purchased from amazon. The listing on amazon I purchased is dead now, but it showed up with a tag that says Grey for BMW. Before using it anywhere noticeable, I did a test patch underneath my rear seat where it curves under to verify the color was correct.

TY!

Did the new battery solve your random one touch start issues? I occasionally run into the same thing, and am suspecting that my system battery is failing.

[Btkeenan]

TY!

Did the new battery solve your random one touch start issues? I occasionally run into the same thing, and am suspecting that my system battery is failing.

It did indeed. So far so good and maybe it’s placebo but I feel like the car starts quicker when I turn the key than before. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯