Taking care of the little things - Helena gets a few tid bits squared away

  I made a swing by Parts European yesterday afternoon. Had a few things on my mind. As always Zack and Brad were friendly and helpful. Every time I'm in there its like sensory overload. Being surrounding by all the cool stuff.

  I needed some strut mount caps. Zach quickly helped me source some from an e30. They should fit. They were too small. I forgot that I used the Z4 mounts up front so, they would need to come off an e46. Zach popped me out some in a jiffy.

  I blew a fuse in the rear of the car while messing with the amp. When I opened up my fuse box I realized that I was missing some of the spare fuses and the puller. Brad was happy to accommodate. Now I have a full set.

  Two of the lights on my OBC have gone out also. They also had a few extra bulbs they were willing to separate with. I was thinking about ordering new ones but, I'm fine with used bulbs. There is no telling how long any bulb will last. Plus, I'm happy to give them a good home.

I also needed one snap cover for my valve cover, cover.

  I'm glad that there is a source for parts in Spartanburg owned and ran by good, helpful people. If you are in the Spartanburg SC area, or not, please give Brad a call. They accept PayPal and are willing to ship. Check out their website: PartsEuropean.com

Contemplations - The mind of a car guy

  I left for work earlier than usual this morning, to take the long way in to work. I miss taking the back roads in to work. I don’t have many quality roads on the way in to where I work but, I find the joy and anticipation of those few choice corners to be my exhilaration for the day. In retrospect it is pretty sad that my most enjoyable moments are the ones spent in my car driving, alone, with the music on. I need more bass down low though a, work in progress.

  Helena feels so much better. She is fun to drive. When I push it just a bit I can hear the tires start to loose traction. I can feel the back end start to shimmy ever so slightly. My mind is just begging to get a little more foot in it. Let’s see what this thing can do. However, the realization that I’m on a public road, with a low speed limit, makes me calm down.

   I really need to get her out on the track where I can push and see what happens. My biggest fear is just overcoming the initial newness of this car, the nervousness of trying something new, and the time spent away from the girls. It’s not exactly something my whole family can get in to. Deep inside the need grows to just go have fun with this thing. I can understand how folks get in to Motorsports so deep. There is this yearning to just push the machine as much as you possibly can then, fix what’s left if it goes wrong.

  Not that I’m some kind of expert in these things, however, there seems to be quite the difference in how cars are setup for different Motorsport genres. I mean a drift car can race on a track. Will it be faster than a track specific setup? I guess it all depends on the vehicles involved. In my mind a car made specifically for track racing, is not intended to be a drift machine. Same goes for cone courses, mountain climbs, or drag racing. I’m sure that there is bleed over; however, F1 cars don’t run in the WEC for a reason. Two separately designed vehicles entirely.

  This is not to say that you can’t build a car that does all of these things. I’m really just generalizing here. The real question on my mind is: Can a family car, driven daily on the street, perform well on the track? I’m not sure where I stand on that at this moment as I have no experience in the matter. Where is the line between a family vehicle and a hard, bouncy, rocket machine?

  I’ve never been able to keep up with two separate vehicle projects at once anyway so, I’ll just keep going with Helena and see what happens. The whole reason I bought this car was to get a vehicle with four doors to carry the Niño’s. Now my mind is contemplating how close to a smoky, drift machine I can get this thing; with flappy, smoke stack exhausts of course. Chyeah! 

The search for the great suspension - Part 3 - The final pieces

E36 Suspension Upgrade - Bilstein w/H&R

  Since the last posting I've finally been able to get the last of the pieces for Helena's tired suspension. I was hoping to not have to replace the strut mounts on the used front Bilstiens however, I have no idea how many miles are on them, they are missing screws, and the rubber is starting to separate from the mount. Even one of these would be justification to change that bad boy.

  Here is the roughly finished listing below. I wanted to get 96+ M3 front strut mounts but, I'd like to see how these feel on the daily. Next change out perhaps I'll go for the M3 mounts. I'd like to see if I personally, can feel or notice a difference in the handling during normally driven duties.

  This will be round one to take care of that sweet floating feeling and get this BMW handling like well, a BMW. Its always good to have a few friends that can hang out and assist as well.

  For the front end: I call this performance restoration level 1.5. There are several pieces from the master list that I'm missing to make it a full level 2 in my mind. I'm not changing the sway bar links or the tie rods this go around.

• 2 front control arms - check 
• 2 control arm bushings with brackets - check 
• 2 sway bar end links - nope! 
• 2 tie rod assemblies - nope! 
• 2 strut mounts - check 
• 2 strut mount reinforcement plates - check

  In the rear I'm not doing anything except the shock mounts, springs, and shocks. 

• 2 rear shock mounts - check
• 2 rear shock mount reinforcement plates - nope!
• 2 rear upper control arm bushings - nope! 
• 2 camber arm bushings - nope! 
• 4 rear upper and lower trailing arm ball joint upgrade - nope! 
• 1 differential bushing - nope! 
• 4 rear subframe bushings - nope! 
• 2 trailing arm bushings - nope! 
• 4 RTAB limiters - nope!

  Why not anymore on the rear? I ran out of cash flow. Plus, if I did it all at once what fun would that be? Gotta have some more projects to look forward to you know? We will investigate what else may be next on the list after we have given things a once over. This will be the second time I've been under the car since ownership.  

The Search for the Great Suspension - Bilsteins - Part 2

  With the lower control arms and the lollipops taken care of, it was time to find struts. The front passenger side was leaking when I took it for an alignment several months ago. Needless to say the front end has no dampening happening at this time.

  Since this is daily driven, I have no problem replacing the struts with factory pieces. Helena has the Sports Suspension package on it already. Several different sites have struts specifically for this. They range anywhere from $120-$200 per strut from the decent manufacturers (Bilstien, Myle, Sachs, KYB). Some of these feature a 4 year warranty and better than stock performance. Unfortunately I just wasn't familiar enough with them to know which to choose. The OEM BMW struts we $250 a piece. I definitely wasn't  going that route. 

  I just needed to get some struts that would do the job. As I'm a car guy, going stock isn't always the easiest option. The premier strut, spring package for these cars are either the Bilstein Sports Struts with the H&R Sport Springs or the Koni Sports with H&R Sport Springs. There seems to be a huge following for either strut choice. It depends on who you talk to.

  This leads to a whole different conversation. The front end of a stock 328i differs from the M3 just a bit. I'm strictly speaking of the 96-99 M3 here. Key differences:

• The sway bar end link attaches to the strut itself. This allows for more control as opposed to a control arm mounted link. The M3 also has a lighter, smaller sway bar because of this.
• The upper strut mount is different. It is offset allowing more camber and castor.

  I tend to follow the Bilstein crowd for the E36. I have nothing against Koni. I have a set of sports on my Honda and I love them.

• The Bilstein Sports(Left Part #: 35-044024, Right Part #: 35-044031) run on average at about $200 each. They are a direct bolt on to the 328i.
• Bilstein also offers Sports for the M3(Left Part #: 35-105855, Right Part #
   35-105862) 
  These have the mounting tab for the End Link on the strut housing.
   Going price is around $250. 

  These will bolt to your 328 just fine. You can choose to run the M3 end link or keep the stock 328 ones. In terms of how this effects the performance of the car, I'm not sure. It depends on your driving style. The M3 was designed differently for a reason. I don't have much more than that really. 

   I dug in and began to check the forums, group sites, and internet for nicely used Bilstein Sport struts for an M3 or 328i. I searched for quite a while. I found some decent deals on some but, nothing really worth pulling the trigger for. I had some other stuff to keep me busy as well (see my stereo related posts) but, the suspension as whole was over do for a replacement. 

  That's when I stumbled upon a craigslist post for a set of used 96-99 M3 front struts and a set of H&R Sport Springs. Nice! The price was right as well. One problem, they were located in Pennsylvania. Not to worry, I have some good friends that live there. I called up my buddy Mike and asked him if he would be kind enough to take a look for me. He kindly obliged. He being a man of knowledge in car related things, I trusted his judgement on these. After a bit of schedule maneuvering he was able to meet up with the seller and make the deal. I was the happy owner of the lot. 

  Next up was to get them down here. I talked to our shipping guru, and friend Barry, at my work place. I'm able to ship stuff through work but, I wasn't sure if/how this would work. After a quick conversation, an address, and a form, I had a printed shipping label ready to go. Barry, you da man! I emailed that up to Mike and away we went.

  They arrived 3 days later. Freshly wrapped and well packed. They were looking pretty for sure. I was holding off on looking at strut mounts to see how these looked. The M3 strut mounts still attached, looked pretty good. I'm going to get the expert opinion from my buddy Jeremy before we proceed with the install. 

  All they needed was a little clean up and some paint. Then, they would be ready for install. More to come on that. 

The Search for the Great Suspension - Control Arms, Lollipops - Part 1

  Many an evening has been spent pouring over the BMW related forums. Looking intently for that rightly priced front suspension components to replace poor Helena's tired front end.

What needs replacing:

-Both front struts

-Both strut mounts

-Ball joint on passenger side lower control arm.

-Both front lollipops.

  The front end on the E36 has lower control arms shaped like a "L" One end has the ball joint which connects to the spindle. The other slides in a round bushing. This is the lollipop. Named as such because it well, looks like a lollipop. In the middle of this control is another ball joint that is attached to the sub frame. 

For reference. The M3 has the longer blue end link for the sway. All other models use the shorter red one, that attaches to the lower control arm. Picture Reference Link.

  These particular areas wear quickly. BMW specifies a check of these areas in the inspection II process. Most sites/forums/people will tell you that E36 struts only last about 30-60k before needing to be replaced. Some of the ball joints are actually made of a plastic material. Over time they deform causing the tire to move during cornering and shimmy going straight. Tie rod ends have similar problems. Definitely not good things.

  My search for a quality replacement lower control arm lead me to Bimmerworld*. They had the best price, at that time, on the Meyle HD control arm. These have upgraded, hardened, full metal ball joints in them. Better able to handle the stresses of the front end. They also have lollipops and are willing, for a charge, to press the bushings in for you. Since I don't have a press at this time, that way was a no brainier. I don't want to go crazy with poly but, I wanted to give these a shot this time around.

  As a side note if you are running poly bushings in the lollipops, I hear you fall into a different class in the SCCA. I'm not an expert in the area so don't quote me. Since I will have a full spare set of lollipops I can get them ready for the next go around. It was a win win for me.

  Bimmerworld had a special going on as well. So I ended up scooping up a few other things. One of which included Z3/M3 front shock tower reinforcement plates. 

  The front towers can be a weak point for this chassis. The plates spread the forces exerted more evenly across the whole of the tower. I'm not really sure they are necessary for me, as I'm not planning on making the suspension super hard. This will be a daily driver, for at least now anyway. I figure the piece of mind up front was worth the pennies.

  -Front control arms with ball joints, check.

  -New lollipops with bushings, check.

  -Front strut reinforcement plates check.

* Here is the direct link for the suspension overhaul page: e36 Suspension Overhaul.
   Good info about all of this stuff here as well: e36m3blog. This blog post is very well put together, kuddos to the author.

E36 Cabin Annoyances - The 50 Mile Low Down

  So I took the 328i out for more of a long distance drive. My daughter was with me this time around and it was close to nap time. For any first time parents, the car seat is a magic tool for nap time. She fell asleep on the way to where I wanted to go so, a small detour was in order. My daughter of course needed a good nap, else she would be cranky. No one likes a cranky toddler. Here are my opinions in 50 miles.

  - Cup holders.

  The cup holders are tapered, large at top to smaller at the bottom. I decided to go through a drive-through. I picked the fast food joint of my choice this time being Wendy's. All the normal drive-thru stuff happens. The scratchy, cracky speaker that 's hard to hear, the roll up to the window, the cash exchange. All good so far, a typical drive-thru experience. Next, they hand me my food. Smells good! Yum. They asked if I needed a drink holder. A drink holder? Haha! This is a BMW mam, I've go two perfectly good cup holders right here.

Then, the drink comes my way. Now I'm not talking about a Large drink here, I'm talking about a medium. The cup size is a somewhat normal 16-20ish oz container. The cup fits into the second of the tapered rings. This is where my confidence in the German cup holder engineering started to diminish. The cup is physically being held by about an inch worth of plastic. It is sitting up high because of the tapper of the holder. It can not go any lower without smashing the cup. The situation was made worse but adding a second drink. I really wanted to test the cup holders with a two drink setup. Go big or go home, right? Same size as the first. It sat in the cup holder closest the arm rest.

  So now I've got two normal sized drinks, filled to the brim with sticky, delicious soda, and flimsy plastic lids holding it all in. As I drive forward the cups teeter back. Just laughing at me as they change positions precariously. This car is still feeling new to me. I've put a decent amount of time cleaning her out at this point as well. So I'd really like to not have soda spilled everywhere.

  To exit the drive through its a right hand turn downhill slightly. I'm was really trying to drive, watch traffic, and keep an eye on the drinks at the same time. This didn't work out so well unfortunately I didn't even make one turn without issue here guys! The second drink closest to the arm rest tipped in ward. I'm surprised at the strength of those flimsy lids. It stayed on but, that still didn't keep Sprite from erupting forth. Spilling all over the e-brake handle and down the crevasse between the carpet and driver's seat. I'm sure this won't be the first incident. Cars were meant to be driven, ect ect. :/

 - Turn Signal, Cruise Control, and Wiper Levers


  This one will not be as drawn out as the cup holder situation. I simply feel like they are too far back from the wheel. *Edit - Perhaps too far back is a bad explanation. They also seem too short length wise.* 

  It always feels as if I'm groping for them when I need them. It could simply be that I'm not used to things on this vehicle yet but, I've never sit in a car and said hey, these signal levers seem to be hard to get to.


- Volume Knob on the stock stereo

  When you spin the knob the volume doesn't go up or down. You have to apply slight pressure down for it actually change the volume.

- Power Lock on driver's door

  I hear this is a super common issue. When you have your arm out the window for any reason. For me it happens often when I'm trying to scan my badge to get in the gate at work. If you bump the lock then, all the doors lock. Not an unusual thing just, it scares you the first time it happens. It happened to me today getting into the same gate. The problem I ran into is trying to get out after. The drivers door handle seemed hard to pull. Then, I gave it a bit more gusto, all the locks, in all the doors moved to the unlocked position, and the drivers door opened as normal. I had that feeling for a moment that my door was stuck closed and I'd have to climb out the window, Bandit style. Because race car!

  I'd mention the headlights but, they are not stock. More to come on this subject.