Current Mod List (August 1, 2021):
Exterior
- BMW Performance Grilles
- Smoked side markers & reflectors
- LED license plate lights
- Debadged
Interior
- MK4 Nav
- TCU
- TV Module
- Homelink
- Rearview mirror w/homelink and BMW Assist (so I have a total of six garage door openers, lolz)
- M dead pedal
- M door sills
- One-touch rear windows
- Napa leather steering wheel
- Cheap ebay aux cable to cheap ebay Bluetooth adapter (hey, it cost $5 total and works really well)
- Findway F518 3D floor mats
- A & C pillars in black alcantara, B pillars recovered with original fabric (I didn’t buy enough material, but the slight mismatch doesn’t bother me)
- Car-Solution eKombi Module (Numerical Oil & Water Temp, Battery Voltage, Vehicle Speed Gauges)
- Underseat First-Aid box
- Sparco Pro2000 w/ Brey Krause mounts on OE power slider (driver’s side)
Powertrain
- GAS DISA
- BMW Performance Intake
- BMW Performance Exhaust
- S54 Oil Fill Cap
- BavAuto Viton OFHG
- URO aluminium water pump pulley
- URO aluminium power steering pump pulley
- E30 expansion tank cap
- M3 engine mounts
- M3 transmission mounts
- ECS 88A poly diff bushings
- BMW Performance shift lever
- CDV delete
- M3 fuel pump baffle
- Flipped underhood positive battery jump post
Suspension
- Redish V2 RACP reinforcement plates
- Vincebar Epoxy & Rivet (original design)
- Powerflex Yellow subframe bushings
- Powerflex Black RTABs
- Ground Control Double Adjustable Koni dampers, Eibach springs (440/900 lbs. F/R)
- Ground Control Hybrid caster-camber plates
- Ground Control Street rear shock mounts
- Front strut reinforcement plates
- 17 x 8.5” ET40 TRMotorsport C2 (street)
- 245/40/17 Continental ExtremeContact Sport (street)
- 17” x 8.5” BMW Style 68 (track)
- 245/40/17 Hankook RS-4 (track)
- Motorsport Hardware 78 mm wheel studs, black acorn nuts
- Condor Speed Shop Street Brass Caliper Bushings (front)
- Zimmermann Rotors
- Hawk HPS Pads (street)
- Hawk DTC-60 Pads (track)
- Stoptech SS Braided Brake Lines
- ATE Type 200 Fluid
- ST Suspensions 30 mm M3 front sway bar
- Custom front ARB reinforcement plates (epoxied with 3M DP460)
- Custom power steering reservoir catch can
Thought I'd start a thread on my car, after just over 5 years of owning it.
A bit of back story: Like most here, I'm a car guy inside-out. I grew up collecting model cars, eventually working my way up to a $200 AutoArt Koenigsegg CCXR. I was always a fan of JDM cars, that is until I got to high school autoshop. Unlike most autoshops with a donated Cavalier, my autoshop teacher was building an E36 racecar. Like most projects, everytime he said it would be done by so and so date, it wasn't. So for two years I had my hands dirty with that car, swapping out the M50B25 for an S52B32, Moton dampers, Megasquirt ECU, the works. He also had an 328is for the street, and working on both those cars combined sparked my interest in older BMWs.
Fast-forward to March 2015. I needed a car for co-op, as my first job was in Windsor, and I lived 400 km away in Toronto. I was initially looking at WRXs and Foresters, but they were all beat up or out of my price range. But then a clean E36 323is popped up on Kijiji, so I decided to check it out. Unfortunately it had massive lifter tick, and although clean inside-out was priced too much for what it was worth.
Then, one night I was laying in bed browsing Kijiji, when a 2004 330ci popped up. It was high mileage at 303,000 km, but had the ZHP package (which I wasn't too familiar with at the time) and was Mystic Blue on Black. More importantly, at least through pics it looked like it had half the mileage it did. I lost a bit of sleep that night thinking about it, especially because I knew about the "subframe" (RACP) issue, and that it was more than double my budget. I stayed up doing a bit more reading to learn about the E46 platform, ZHP package, and the RACP issue. It seemed that the consensus with cracking RACPs were limited to pre-LCI cars (ha, ha........ words I will eat 2 years later). So the next morning I decided to pay a visit. This was the first picture I ever took of the car, and the first time I ever saw it when we parked next to it:
The seller and I got along really well, and you could tell he took good care of the car. He wasn't even planning on selling it, as he had brand-new Michelin PSS fitted to the rear, and a full paint correction + Opti-Coat a few weeks prior. Turns out he found a good deal on an E92 M3, and decided to upgrade - we even took a joyride in that car during the viewing!
After 3 hours looking over the car and talking, I made an offer he immediately accepted. Looking back on it I was young and naive, and could have easily bought it for >$1000 lower than what I paid. However I really needed a car, and to this day it still puts a smile on my face everytime I take it out, so I don't regret the purchase.
So as of April 5, 2015 I was the new owner of a 2004 BMW 330CI ZHP.
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