Materials to Maintain Your ZHP IIIII Hand Protection IIIII Tools to Maintain Your ZHP
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  1. #21
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (9/17/2014)

    So I got a really bad rock chip on my front bumper. It was so bad that it actually took a chunk out of my bumper, but luckily, with my clear bra on, the chunk is hanging by a little flap. I'm going to glue it back down to minimize how bad it looks. But the rest of the car seems good so far. Just bummed that it happened though :cry:

    Then I went to EAS for an alignment last Friday. My settings weren't as optimal as it were last time cause I guess the arms were seized. But I might go back to get it readjusted. If I do, i'll loosen the rear camber arms for them so that they could actually adjust it more.

    While I was there, I asked Anthony@EAS to take those really nice pictures of my car again. Pictures came out great (even though we had that weird orangey light from the fire), thanks again :bow:














    My skid plates seem to have done their job though. While my car was on the lift, I checked it out, and i must have scraped on something hard lol

    I also did attempt to apply the gloss vinyl before taking some pictures. But I did not like the look of the gloss vinyl at all. From like 4ft away, looks perfect. But from up close, the amount of orange peel bothers the **** out of me. Not to mention, I would have to do the upper trim in 2 pieces rather than one piece since it can't make the bend at the rear window. I may revisit this later once I find gloss black vinyl that looks better when seen up close.

    I'm pretty much done as far as exterior goes...for now.

    Next up is my custom Autosolutions SSK that is currently being made. I probably won't install it until like winter break probably since I don't have much time nowadays.

  2. #22
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (10/23/2014)

    Quote Originally Posted by Davconelectric View Post
    Roof looks good. Well done


    Sent from BimmerApp mobile app
    thanks

    Yesterday, I talked to a cool e46 m3 owner on the drive to school. Kind of hard to talk and drive at the same time side by side lol I guess he just brought his Apex to get tires, saw my car and zipped up (he was in his e39) to tell me how it looked. I didn't even notice him until he said hi lol

    So today one of my friends brought this link to my attention:
    http://www.bmwblog.com/2014/10/22/al...tuning-build/#

    Though the info about EAS building my car is wrong, but whatever, I don't mind helping them out.

    Then I searched and found out that EAS posted my car on their blog:
    http://europeanautosource.com/blog/s...e46-330ci.html

    which led to these tiny blogs picking it up:
    http://www.autoevolution.com/news/cl...ery-87075.html
    http://www.automnews.com/?p=59099
    http://www.autonews.name/bmw/bmw-330...n-auto-source/

  3. #23
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (11/7/2014)

    Ronald sent me some pictures of my custom Autosolutions SSK awhile back that I was too lazy to post. Posting it now since I'm up early for no reason. Currently it's just the shift lever, selector rod, and that little piece at the end (forgot what it's called). Ronald still has to make the shift arm (or shift carrier for those that don't know). He's been super busy, so that's like all he's done, and he's doing it as a side project so probably not going to finish by winter break for me to install it lol




  4. #24
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (11/30/2014)

    Quote Originally Posted by patdeezy View Post
    Legit Hieu! I need to swing by sometime and check it out! I need to order one of those shifters too damn. Those updated CSL rails look sweet! Might need to swap mine out too HAHA
    yeah, whenever i actually install it. it's probably going to come, then i don't install it for like 6 months lol


    anyhow, it rained today, so I just took the chance to wash my car. I haven't washed it since like sept when i went ot EAS for the alignment. the sun started coming out at the end so i quick dried it and snapped a couple of pictures in: didn't wash the wheels though, but whatever, looks fine




    still loving the cf roof. i keep trying to capture it, but it never comes out right lol


  5. #25
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (5/24/2015)

    not much of an update here, but seeing as how I haven't posted in like a few months here some update pictures that aren't really updates lol

    I just took some pre-Bfest pictures the other day. But I didn't take any pictures of my car at Bfest. Well I did but they all came out bad lol The only update is that I finally got around to sealing my CF roof and vents, so they are even more glossy now. But it's not much of a difference since they were already glossy to begin with. Here's some pictures I just snapped off my phone without editing. Hopefully I'll have a more meaningful update next time :









  6. #26
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (11/14/2015)

    Not much of an update here. Everything you guys have seen before. But here's some back story. In August, my car got damaged (not my fault). The damage was mainly the hood, front bumper, headlights, and some aero ducting. I was so sad/angry, I didn't bother taking pictures of how it looked damaged. I just took it to the shop straight that day.

    I was ready for the worst with the hood, but my body shop told me the clear bra held it together really well that they were able to fix the hood. The damage was around the kidney grills mainly. I got new BMW performance grills since both fell out somewhere on the way to the body shop. It was broken anyways so whatever. I got a new headlight as well since the tabs were broken and transferred my angels over. The front bumper was an easy fix, again clear bra helped.

    So like 3 months later, I drove it yesterday to get clear bra installed again on my hood/bumper. Looks good again. I only took two snaps while they were finishing up on the car so yeah.




    The only truly new "mod" is that I got some aluminum scrape plates made by a friend. I have been using some temporary plastic ones for awhile now and they are scraped up to hell, but held up. They are pretty thick. I just need to paint the top side black before I install them. The plastic ones are currently on the car in the mean time.



    Excuse the fingerprints lol They look too good already in their unfinished form to even put on the car tbh

    My current plans are to do all the preventative maintenance I was supposed to do in August in the first place. As for the shifter, I held off on it because of this. I plan to hit up Ronald to get it fully finished early next year when I have some more funds.

  7. #27
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (2/11/2016)

    Not much of an update. I did an oil change sometime ago. I then bought some Turner hub extenders and put them on. I had a lot of vibration in the front wheels ever since I put on my 5mm spacers. It really bothered me so I finally put on the extenders. It pretty much fixed like 80% of the vibration. I think the other 20% is honestly because I need to balance the wheels lol Since I now only get the vibration at around 65 MPH. It's perfectly smooth up until then unlike before. I also powder coated the scrape plates and installed them too. It's already chipped, but it saved my bumper. A car turned into me, so to avoid them I hit a dip/hole or something like that. Heard a loud scrape and I was like :ben: But when I went to check, bumper was perfect. The plate is scraped to hell on the bottom and the corner, and there's a chip/dent on the top side. Working as intended lol I'll probably replace them down the line, and make another version with holes in it to clear the screws I have under there for better contact. I'm still using 3M double sided tape and it works perfectly fine.

    I kept the stock cap in good condition in case I ever want to put it on. Most likely not lol:





    As for future plans:
    This year I'm supposed to do all my preventative maintenance. And possibly rear end reinforcement and LSD. But my rear bumper's clear coat has been coming off after the rain came (prior damage). It is really starting to bother me, so I think I'll probably take care of that. I might finish the rear fenders while I'm at it, but who knows. I need a good deal on some M3 rear fenders. But we'll see how it goes I guess.

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (8/10/2016)

    Here's a small update. It's actually not for my car lol But I just wanted to show you guys one of these projects that have been keeping me busy. Just finished this one up, and it's e46 related so yeah.

    I don't know what his username is on here. But maybe he'll post if he see this.

    Just a normal projector retrofit project. You just don't really see many of these done to a facelift coupe headlight.

    Headlight specs:
    - OE Halogens retrofitted with Mini-D2S projectors
    - Khoalty Helios angel eyes
    - Osram CBI bulbs
    - Morimoto XB35 HID kit w/D2S adapter (mounted in the factory ballast location, not shown in pictures)
    - White LED bulbs (dunno where he got them from)


    Headlights getting ready to be baked. (The zebra blanket makes it return to the stage once again




    How it looks opened with the original halogen projector:



    Test fit with the Mini-D2S projectors and angel eyes. I believe the projector wasn't fully mounted in this picture. See the heat gun? Well during the test fit, the lens got stuck together again :banghead: :ben:



    Finished products :clap::



    This was a teaser picture that I sent to the client. The angels were powered by a 9v battery so they weren't as bright:



    I attempted to take some pictures of it lit up at night. Didn't turn out good with my camera skills lol But here's the best of them I guess:



    The LED corners were blinking so that's why they look dim here:




    Cutoff picture. We were like iono 20ft from the wall or something. Taken from the moonroof cause I was too lazy to get out :P



    While doing it it made me really want to give it another shot with my car. But eh, I know I'm too lazy to do it for my own car. If I'm getting paid sure lol

    But now I'm freed up for a bit, so I'll probably start knocking out those preventative maintenance items soon.

    edit:
    Jon wanted me to throw these up. His friend took them. Looks better I guess, but it's just his car with angels on lol Then again, it's not like you could tell that I did anything. Which to me is how it should be.




  9. #29
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (10/31/2016)

    Very small update:

    The BMW rental is gone and I can drive the car again. I just got back from a Vietnam trip. Still haven't done any of those preventative maintenance that I was planning on doing. I forgot to buy some things so those are on the way. I almost bought a used TS1 lol

    Today, I dressed up my car for Halloween. Well I just gave it some teeth :



    Pretty much all I got so far.

  10. #30
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Socal
    Posts
    1,739
    (12/3/2016)

    I finally have a large enough update worth reading about lol.

    I finally got around to starting to install all the preventative maintenance stuff that I've been telling you guys that I planned to do.

    Picture of the box of stuff. I was too lazy to take everything out to show you what I actually bought. It's missing some stuff in the picture because I only remembered to take a picture of the box after I already started :



    I started like last week. First up, I finally got my custom Autosolutions SSK from Ronald finally. The thing has some heft to it, and looks well made. I like the fact that he etched my name into the side of it lol




    My buddy, John, came over to help. So up it went. Taking the exhaust off and stuff is so much easier with the lift. I also have a transmission jack, so no one has to like hold the exhaust. But I mean the Magnaflow catback I have is pretty light for two people anyways. We had to lower the transmission to get to the shifter coupling. Man that **** is such a :censor: to get off. I never want to take it off again lol I only remembered to take pictures after the exhaust and everything was off and we already started putting everything in :

    The picture shows the new custom carrier, selector rod, and lever.




    We did run into a little problem though So when I got everything in, and I went up into the car to test it out, I noticed that the shifter was no longer centered. It's like .5" off to the passenger side. It's like basically shifted a whole gate over so neutral is like where 5/6 would be. But since the SSK throws are shorter than what I had before, I could still shift through all the gears fine lol I phoned Ronald, and after some troubleshooting, we think it's the selector rod. From my preliminary findings, it looks like the offset is slightly off.

    So there goes that, I just sent him both my factory and his custom selector rod and am now awaiting the new one to be made and sent back. He confirmed that the offset is off like 2mm and that would cause it to be off by up to 10mm at the top.




    So when I pull it all the way to the left, it looks like it's centered



    Let go, and it's off



    So since I couldn't do anything, I left the car up on the lift for like 3 days to wait for the part since I didn't want to put the car down and lift it back up again. But that was all pointless because over the weekend, it was going to rain :ben: So that meant I had to clean up everything and put the car down so that I could cover my lift and stuff from the rain (since my lift is mounted outside). it rained until like Monday? I think?

    On Tuesday, since the car was down I decided that I would just go ahead and start tackling the VCG, DISA and all that stuff. The things that I planned to do that day were:

    • Clean ICV
    • Clean TB
    • Replace intake hoses with Mishimoto silicone intake hoses
    • Upgrade the DISA with the German Auto Solutions DISA upgrade kit


    I didn't take much pictures of what I did then lol All I have are a couple pictures of the G.A.S. DISA stuff.



    Scraping off the molded silicone o-ring part is super time consuming. Here's a picture with the unit fully assembled without the new o-ring installed yet.



    The Mishimoto silicone hoses have their branding on it everywhere. But as most people who know me, I don't like to have too much of that stuff. I just ended up taking some black electrical tape and putting it on where the logos were to keep it more low key.



    Then decided to end the day here and cleaned up :P



    Then Wednesday, John came over again to help me tackle the rest of the stuff. Since we were short on time this was what we got done:

    • Replace VCG
    • Replace spark plugs
    • Remove washer bottle
    • Cleaned the valve covers and surrounding areas a little.


    My engine was pretty clean. In fact, the VCG was still somewhat malleable. It actually made it more difficult to take off the valve cover than when it's all old and brittle. The seals around the spark plugs though were old and basically broke off like chips.








    I forgot to take pictures of the plugs, but they did not look good :

    Put everything back and basically cleaned up with time to spare. I don't think you could tell a difference between how it looked dirty and sort of clean here lol




    So we actually started to do the next part of my long to do list. Took the electric fan off, and the belts to get ready to do the cooling system refresh tomorrow. And that's pretty much where we're at. It's so much easier to take off the fan on my car lol There's like a ton of room in front of the pulleys now, I'm not used to that.




    Snapped a picture of the way the serpentine belt goes for reference later. Look at how cracked the belts were :yikes:



    Thursday, I planned to tackle the rest of the cooling system refresh. Things to do:

    • Replace belts
    • Replace expansion tank
    • Replace water pump with Stewart water pump.
    • Replace thermostat
    • Replace coolant hoses with Mishimoto silicone coolant hoses.
    • Coolant flush


    I decided against doing the radiator because it was still in very good condition. I'll probably replace that on the next refresh. I also didn't do the pulleys yet because I haven't figured out whether I want to do a power pulley set, or just go with OEM again. Or maybe put on a supercharger : which would replace the pulleys too.

    Taking off the belts was easy. But man, taking off the expansion tank was ridiculously hard for some reason. I spent like a good 2 hours pulling on that POS to finally get it out. And then the coolant hoses. God dammit, also very hard and also took me 2 hours to take those off. That's pretty much all I was able to do that day lol

    Reused my transmission jack to drain the coolant



    Expansion tank removed



    When I took off the expansion tank, I saw this metal cylindrical thing come out. I was like WTF is this?! I've never seen it before. Then I check the new one, I guess it's meant to stay inside the tank. Good to know, I wasn't driving around with random metal parts in my system :lmao:




    My radiator hoses are in super good condition. I could totally sell this. Same thing with my expansion tank lol But I probably won't, iono.

    Hoses removed, picture taken from the bottom.



    Comparison of the OEM vs. Mishimoto ones (with the black electrical tape mod)



    I need to go buy distilled water for the coolant too. That's pretty much where I'm at. I was busy yesterday, and it's windy as hell so I haven't touched the car. Ronald@autosolutions sent me a text that he shipped out the selector rod, so I'm looking forward to that. Hopefully, it won't be too windy later today and I could try get some more of the stuff out of the way.

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