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#1. Re: Allignemnt Sugguestions - from James Clay
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 16:33:03 -0400 From: "James Clay" <james@bimmerworld.com> Subject: Re: Allignemnt Sugguestions Our track alignment settings are roughly: =20 Front -=20 1/8-1/16 toe out 4.5 neg camber full pos castor =20 Rear- 1/16-1/32 toe in 2.5 neg camber =20 =20 The only parts I would change for a street car is the camber to help with tire wear. No reason to change toe, no reason for toe-out ever on an driver's E36. =20 James =20 =20 ----------------------------------------------------------- James Clay http://www.bimmerworld.com <http://www.bimmerworld.com>=20 Engineered BMW Performance BMWCCA/SCCA Racecar Rental Genuine OEM and Used BMW Parts (540) 639-9648 ----------------------------------------------------------- "Stop Lights Timed For 35mph Are Also Timed For 70mph." =20 =20
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#2. waxtest - from kitwetzler@mindspring.com
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 17:27:27 -0400 From: "kitwetzler@mindspring.com" <kitwetzler@mindspring.com> Subject: waxtest > www.thewaxtest.com They gave Zaino a pretty bad mark. Zaino is the only thing that has killed the swirl marks on my black car, I've tried P21S, Blitz, etc... nothing worked as well as Zaino for me. :) ymmv. BTW, MXX3s hate being autoX'd at 31 psi. :( -kit, been so long since he autoX'd he forgot to check tire pressures -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .
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#3. Re: Shock tower repair parts prices from June '99 price book - from RonStygar@aol.com
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 17:33:13 EDT From: RonStygar@aol.com Subject: Re: Shock tower repair parts prices from June '99 price book 41 14 8 169 027 and 8 $10.10 retail each. 41 14 5 151 005 and 6 $363.00 retail each. Ron@unofficialbmw.com FLY BMW Marlborough, CT www.unofficialbmw.com/ronstygar.html
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#4. Re: Sticker thanks and M color order - from Neil Maller
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 17:01:28 -0500 From: Neil Maller <neil.maller@gte.net> Subject: Re: Sticker thanks and M color order on 10/23/01 3:19 PM, Marc.S.Edwards@QuestDiagnostics.com wrote: > Whichever is decide we just need to make sure that the M color order is > correct. I believe that it is blue, purple, red. Correct M colours for printing are: Blue: Pantone Process Blue Purple: Pantone 268 Red: Pantone Warm Red Neil - never throws away useful data 96 M3
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#5. Re: Repairing my Cracked Rear Shock Tower - from Ron Katona
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 18:24:47 -0400 From: "Ron Katona" <rkatona@bellatlantic.net> Subject: Re: Repairing my Cracked Rear Shock Tower S Lafredo wrote: > I would have this done by a body shop either independently or through > your dealer. So that they can put the car on the rack and align the > towers. If you just 'slap' on the new towers and weld into place 'out > of spec' you will probably NEVER get the rear into proper alignment > again. Not to mention destroying your resale value. Important to note here that the location of the upper shock mount has no effect on the rear end alignment at all - none. At some point, having the shock tilted several degrees may alter the relative damping effect of the shock, but there would be no way to get the upper mount so far out of place to even start to worry about this. Alignment is a non-issue. The resale value is already hit. Even a dealer performed repair is going to be visable since the factory "goop" that they lather on at the joint will be disturbed/missing. Now that I've seen this repair performed, I could spot any repaired E36 rear shock tower in a heartbeat. In other words, the dealer or body shop isn't going to make the car any more whole than a good welder. And in fact, the dealer will make an entry on the car's maintenance record... although if I ever sold my car I would disclose the repair anyway. > You get what you pay for. I think it's throwing good money after bad. The dealer repair will fail again after another 50-100 k miles of hard driving. I know the $185 job I got is stronger than the dealer's fix because of the nice job my welder did. I could have made it even stronger for just a few more bucks, but I refused to let my welder add any reinforcement (what it really needs) to the area that would be illegal in SCCA SP classes - he called me an idiot for that, BTW. ;-) The secret here is to talk to race car owners in your area and get *references* on a good, honest, automotive welder. -- Ron Katona
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#6. suspension project - from Gary A. Preece
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 17:28:44 -0500 From: "Gary A. Preece" <gapreece@entreky.net> Subject: suspension project Dave, I did the same thing with the OE H&R springs and Koni SA's. What a huge difference, huh? I have a '95 M3 with 75K on it at the time. One thing that I felt made just as big of a difference was replacing the sway bar bushings with the urethane ones a few months later. I kept the stock sway bars. Have had zero problems in the past 7K miles with this setup and I don't have to worry about scraping every day. Enjoy it! Gary Preece Dave said: Hi everyone, This past weekend, with enormous amounts of help from Chester and Wayne Miller (thanks again guys!), I installed my new TCKline Streetline suspension. My car is a '98 sedan with a little over 50k miles on it, pretty much bone stock, with the original RSMs. For those unfamiliar with TC Kline's kit, it comes with Koni SA shocks and H&R OE Sport springs. My M3 is my daily driver, so I wanted minimal drop and just slightly stiffer springs even though I autocross regularly. I was much more interested in new shocks, since I started to notice that the car felt floaty at highway speeds and just didn't handle the way it used to. I've seen posts about stock shocks going bad with as few as 30k miles on them, so I was prepared for mine to be somewhat tired. They were far worse than I had imagined. When we drilled the first hole in the left front strut, we were prepared for a torrent of oil and gas to shoot out - instead, nothing came out at all. The right front strut was barely better, and the rear shocks were leaking underneath the top cap. We also replaced the RSMs (which had torn almost completely through) with E46M3 RSMs. The results are nothing short of amazing. On TC Kline's recommendation, we set the rears at 1 ½ turns and the fronts at 1 full turn from soft. The car feels transformed - I've fallen in love with the car's handling all over again. If anyone with original shocks with significant miles is thinking about replacing them, do it right away. You won't regret it. The only thing I regret is forgetting to take initial height measurements to compare them with post-suspension install height. I can't wait to autocross the car this Saturday. Regards, Dave reborn 98 M3/4 **************************************************************
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#7. [E36M3] - FS MechTech Turbo, more information. - from Anthony Pun
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 18:44:48 -0400 From: "Anthony Pun" <turbom3@home.com> Subject: [E36M3] - FS MechTech Turbo, more information. Hello Everyone, The response for the kit has been overwhelming. Here's some additional information for those who are interested. What kind of software is required? - My car was OBD2 and I had the MechTech Software for the kit. This software was written by Jim Conforti, and was originally written for Suzy. IIRC, MechTech sells this software for $350. This software is not used to enrich the fuel delivery, instead the MechTech kit uses a additional Fuel Pressure Regulator to increase fuel dependent upon boost. Another alternative is to contact Active Autowerks, who has developed software specifically for the MechTech kit. This software allows you to get rid of the additional Fuel Pressure Regulator. A member of the BigBoostGruppe has the MechTech kit w/ AA software. This is definitely a better solution. How many miles are on it? - There is approximately 17k miles on the kit. It had 5k on it when I bought it from Suzy, and I've put about 12k on it. I owned my 1996 M3 for 3 years and only put 18k miles on it, just to give you and idea. Is there anything wrong with the kit? - The Air Filter, along with the flex tubing attached to it, should be replaced. The wrinkle finish coating on one of the intercooler pipes is coming off, and should be repainted, or powder coated. The down pipe was welded to my stock exhaust, so you will probably have to take it to a muffler shop to have it fitted to yours. The turbo itself does not have any problems that I'm aware of. Boost was solid. What stage is the kit? - I was only running 6psi, so you could say stage 1. According to MechTech the Turbo is capable of running 13psi. If you plan on running higher boost then 6 - 7 psi, you will need to get bigger injectors, the kit I have does not include them. I was considering doing this and getting Karl Hugh @ AA to tune my car with some custom software. Karl had indicated that we should be able to get 9psi from an OBD2 car, with proper software, tuning and bigger injectors. Will it work on an 1995 OBD1 car? - According to the MechTech site, it does. I'd contact them to make sure. What kind of HP does it make? - I never got to dyno my car. At 6psi, I'm estimating 280 rwhp. Why am I selling it? - I don't have the E36 anymore. Got a E46 now. :-) Some links... The BigBoostGruppe, these guys know a LOT about BMW's and forced induction. Definitely sign up and read the messages. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BigBoostGruppe <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BigBoostGruppe> Pic of kit. http://www.anthonypun.com/images/MechTech/tn-50-135-3552_IMG.JPG <http://www.anthonypun.com/images/MechTech/tn-50-135-3552_IMG.JPG> MechTech http://www.mechtech-ms.com <http://www.mechtech-ms.com/> Active Autowerkes http://www.activeautowerke.com/ <http://www.activeautowerke.com/> Thanks for the bandwidth. I'm trying to respond to everyone's emails, so please be patient with me, if you are waiting for a response. Tony
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#8. RE: [E36M3] So, who wants to vote on a sticker? - from Hank Wallace
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 19:21:33 -0400 From: "Hank Wallace" <hwallace@ebimmer.com> Subject: RE: [E36M3] So, who wants to vote on a sticker? I don't understand why people are voting for the #3 - #8. The front end of that, without the splitter, looks like my E46. Argh! Hank -----Original Message----- From: Wayne Miller [mailto:m3@waynemiller.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 9:30 AM To: E36M3 Subject: [E36M3] So, who wants to vote on a sticker? Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 09:14:44 -0400 From: "Wayne Miller" <m3@waynemiller.com> Subject: So, who wants to vote on a sticker? It's up and it isn't as easy a decision as some think it will be. The simple instructions for those that live in the state of Florida are: You can click on any image to see a larger version without voting. The dot to the RIGHT of the image is the one for that image. When you click on submit, you will see a confirmation page with the larger size image. If you are still having difficulty at this point, you don't deserve to vote anyway. Now this is supposed to be a fair vote and I could have had a sophisticated system built in that will only allow you to vote once but I didn't so all of you are on the honor system here. The link is: http://216.35.67.130/stickers/ If you would like to just see the results, click here: http://216.35.67.130/stickers/results.asp I propose an arbitrary ending date of next Monday, October 29th at 5pm EST. This should be enough time for everyone to make their decision. I will look into printing options next. If you already did, please send me the details that you found. -Wayne '99 M3/2 with just about everything ************************************************************* List Commands UNSUBSCRIBE - (in subject line) unsubscribes you from the mailing list. DIR - sends a listing of files available in the list's GET directory. GET filename1.ext,filename2.ext - sends the requested file(s). To issue a command/request to the server: Send a message with the command you wish executed as the subject of the message to the email address e36m3@bmw-m.net. *************************************************************
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#9. Fwd: CE light. diagnostic tools - from RogRacer@aol.com
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 19:53:38 EDT From: RogRacer@aol.com Subject: Fwd: CE light. diagnostic tools In a message dated 10/23/01 9:45:27 AM, marc@plante.com writes: << Sorry this is only a partial answer, that wanders into another topic (diagnostic tools) Could you please forward this to the digest as I am subscribed through an address that can not post to the list? (long story)...thanks Having just lost my crank sensor, I can attest that the sensors don't usually go in a linear fashion. Very often you get an electrical connection that starts to corrode, etc that will start to product intermittent failures. that's why the light will flash on then go off. Your question points out another issue I had while trying to diagnose my problem. I don't know how the Peake tool works, but when I started to have problems, I tried to rely on the dash display to pull codes in my E36 (325i). It turns out that the dash display only pulls the MOST RECENT code, and I triggered a series of them in my "incident" (cascade effect of errors when the crank sensor loses track of where the crank is). I got a code for throttle position sensor, which I've been told by many people "does not go bad." Still, I replaced it, and I probably wasted the $90, since it had no effect. I then stopped by my very friendly neighborhood mechanic, who hooked up my car to motronic diagnostic machine...He got 4 errors...all related to one another around my problem. Problem as I see it is, the cheaper fault tools don't tell you that a component is BAD, they only tell you it triggered an ERROR. So you might get a fuel flow sensor "fault." that says it's seeing WAY to much fuel in the mix. That doesn't necessarily mean the sensor itself is bad. When I looked at the full diagnostic with all of the explanations, the symptoms pointed to the crank sensor. I for one would love to hear an explanation of how the more skilled wrenches use the Peake tools to do diagnostics. I was tempted to get one, but am concerned by the red herring affect I've seen. It seems to me that they give you a slight clue of what's going on, but often you can end up wasting a lot of time since you only get a partial picture. Also if anyone has seen a REASONABLY priced tool (<$750) that does more complete diagnostics, it'd be great to hear about. Price points seem to run $150...$2500. Marc Plante E36 325i(1993) 190k Alexandria, VA >>
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#10. Multiple stickers? - from Chris
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 18:20:05 -0700 From: "Chris" <ccurry@curry.org> Subject: Multiple stickers? Would we consider printing multiple stickers? Some look like they might look good in various spots while others would look good in different areas... print 2 maybe? Chris
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#11. Not BMW related but... - from Chris
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 18:23:39 -0700 From: "Chris" <ccurry@curry.org> Subject: Not BMW related but... Yes... http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent?ESRC=dod.nl&file=FL_photos_10220 1
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#12. Need Some Wheel Advice - from David Hogg
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Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 21:11:47 -0700 From: "David Hogg" <springwood@blazenet.net> Subject: Need Some Wheel Advice Vern's right. Rotation of M3 wheels will be invaluable over the life of the car, given the price of M3 tires. Somehow my rears just wear out fast, then I put the fronts in back and THEY wear out fast. Just don't understand it. I've got the 8.5", 37.7 mm offset all around and they work great, with rotation possibilities. Maybe the 9" would fit too, but get the same size all the way around. My 2 cents. Dave Hogg