The Modding Journey of my Silver-Grey ZHP

[nike001]

Alright, I have some time.. and I've always thought about how I need to make a dedicated thread for my ZHP to show all of my mods.

Alright
Date of Purchase: 07/03/2010
Her first picture:


My first thing I did to it was get a new ZHP knob, since mine came with some other knob that didn't fit.
Then while I was waiting for that to come, I did my first mod. I transferred over my old LED license plate lights that I kept from my e39.

A few days later I decided to take some pictures of her. *Completely Stock*







A few days after that.. my first mod specifically for her. In my last car, I always used my iPod through my stereo with my cassette player hook up. So I needed something that would do the same in this car


Then on 9/11/10, after much debate.. I installed Weisslicht Angel eyes. When I got my car, I didn't like the angel eye look on the e46 (coming from e39) But I bit the bullet and did it. Shortly after, I found a local twin on E46F and we took some shots.



Between my last post and Thanksgiving, I added a few more mods. They consisted of some winter rims/tires that I plasti-dipped black, front license plate delete strip, and HID 3k 35W from DDMtuning.



^Last two pictures are with Terra's old Imola ZHP with BBS CH

The winter of 2010-2011 I didn't do much to her. The main thing I did though, was bought myself a set of complete E46 M3 AL lights to swap out in favor of my old & burnt ZKW's. I ended up fitting the entire housings in my car and modding the projector shield & swapping my ZKW lenses over to the AL's.
--I still have yet to get decent pics of my cutoff.

Then on June 26, 2011 I went shopping at Khoalty. Got DEPO front corners & sides, Black front grille, and their interior LED kit.




The summer of 2011 was mainly taken up by maintenance.

• New brakes. The dealer I work at hooked me up with OEM rotors & pads for ~$500
• After 3-4,000 miles, my Pirelli PZero's were shot. Hankook V12's were ordered and mounted on the car with 110,900 miles (winter tires were on for the difference)
  Also needed new brakes.
• I knew winter was around the corner, so I took advantage of extra funds and got my CCV taken care of. Employee Labor Rates FTW! There was no way I was DIY'ing that.

After a while of being annoyed by VANOS rattle, I decided it was time to go ahead and fix that. With a little help from two friends..
This all took place on 9/25/11


Also, Spark plugs since I was there! They needed to be done BAD. 111,900 miles on my car at this point, and these were OE. Said BMW right on them (Info Credit: Dane)


Then after I acquired more funds, and the BMW Performance Intake was all the rage and seemed to be going for a good price.. so I went ahead and ordered one.
The NEXT day, DTMDan on E46Fanatics PMed me about his OEM clear lights that I asked him about months earlier. He PMed me remembering my asking.. He was local and and gave me a good price. I had to do it.
We met up and did our exchange and also took some pics.



An opportunity then came to get my car dyno'd. $30 for 3 pulls in Philadelphia on November 3rd.. about 2 hours away.


After christmas, I racked up some holiday dough and decided that it was time to get rid of my ugly alcantara wheel. I knew Cobywheel would treat me well.
I ended up getting grey alcantara w/ charcoal stitching & black time stripe. Got shift & e-brake boots to match.



I decided that my interior was more-or-less finished. So I decided to focus on bringing my exterior up to par. I took advantage of free shipping from lamin-x and got some yellow film for my fog lights.

I had my lamin-x sitting around for a while before I got what I needed for it. Went back to Khoalty for some chrome bulbs, headlight lenses, and fog lights. I was extremely happy with everything. The front end looks so much newer & my angel eyes aren't as blurry. Previous to my new lenses, I sanded and tried restoring them.. that took a lot of things out.. but I wasn't aware that this was the reason that my cutoff from my low beams looked so out of focus.


I also orded new license plate LED lights to replace my 2+ year old ones from Umnitza that I had with my e39. I'm still trying to figure out which one I like better.
Umnitza=Left -- Jlevi=right


Then after being put on the back burner for so long, I picked up some 10mm & 12mm spacers. It happened to be an impulse thing while (for some reason) browsing E46Fanatics classifieds, which I rarely do. Found a thread that was posted 5 minutes ago, and said I was interested. I ended up paypal-ing him the money the next morning.



Now, I left some (boring) maintenance things out like belts, fluids, etc because it's well.... boring.

I've settled down for now with modding, I'm currently trying to save some money for something big. I'm stuck between wheels, suspension, & exhaust. I have a love/hate relationship with my ZHP M135 wheels.. They're just heavy. I want to be lower, by my stock suspension seems to be holding up just fine. So why fix it if it's not broken? Also, I'd feel bad for doing rims before suspension. That goes against all car modding rules. I also want an exhaust.. but I'm hesitant to part with my ZHP muffer because of its low notes with cruising.

That's all for now. I just spent way too much time doing this, But I'll be able to update this thread from now on.
-Dalton

[danewilson77]

Looks great. Admire the effort. The plugs were OE if they said BMW on them.

[nike001]

Looks great. Admire the effort. The plugs were OE if they said BMW on them.

Good info. Thanks.. Here you are: BMW OE Plugs:

[Newjack]

Great writeup nike001, that was a fun read!

How does the Coby wheel alcantara compare to the OE alcantara?

[nike001]

Definitely a lot better. But my OE alcantara wasn't in that good of a condition. It was greasy.. and it got hot & sticky in the summer and made my hands sweat.

My only thought on my particular wheel are that I wish I went w/ Black stitching instead of the charcoal. Oh well :/

[kayger12]

Nice ride, and nice read. Enjoyed it.

[Pip]

Good read. What were the offsets on the rear wheels pictured in the thread and what spacers? Looks good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[nike001]

Thanks guys


Pip, The picture with the spacers are on my winter rims.
They're 17x7.5 ET 32. With 10mm front and 12mm rear.. so as it stands now, the rims are
ET22 Front
ET20 Rear

[Pip]

Thanks guys


Pip, The picture with the spacers are on my winter rims.
They're 17x7.5 ET 32. With 10mm front and 12mm rear.. so as it stands now, the rims are
ET22 Front
ET20 Rear

Thanks nike001. Quick calculation looks like what I'm planning will not only fit but look great. Based on the ET32 with 12mm spacer and 7.5" width it is similar to adding 17mm spacer. I'm looking into 17.5mm spacer in backs and 12-15mm up front.

Thanks again.

[nike001]

Thanks nike001. Quick calculation looks like what I'm planning will not only fit but look great. Based on the ET32 with 12mm spacer and 7.5" width it is similar to adding 17mm spacer. I'm looking into 17.5mm spacer in backs and 12-15mm up front.

Thanks again.

No problem. What rims are you adding spacers to? Also note that I'm on stock suspension and I rub in the front on rather large dips. I'm sure that I'll rub even more once I get a different suspension. I doubt I'll be able to run my spacers on those rims.. But the guy I got these off of had them on his lowered ZHP w/ stock M135's and said he had 0 rubbing.